Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.

The far-reaching pale red beams of the morning sun had just touched and kindled as with a flame the summit of the Rock, and the windows of the Castle caught and flashed back the greeting in a dozen ruddy reflections. The gardens below lay partly veiled in a clear transparent mist, faintly blue, that hovered above the trees and crept up the banks, and over which the grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its head majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond.

Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as Baubie darted along. Fixing her eye on that portion of the High School which is visible from Princes street, she pushed along at a pace that was almost a run, and a brief space saw her draw up and fall exhausted on the steps that lead up to the Calton Hill.

Right before her was the jail-gate.

The child's feet, unused now for some time to such hardships, were hot and bruised, for she had not stopped to pick her footing in her hasty course, and she was so out of breath and heated that it seemed to her as if she would never get cool or her heart cease fluttering as if it would choke her. She shrank discreetly against the stone wall at her side, and there for three long hours she remained crouched, watching and waiting for the hour to chime when the grim black gate opposite would open.

The last tinge of crimson and purple had faded before the golden glories of the day as the sun climbed higher and higher in the serene blue sky. The red cliffs of Salisbury Crags glared with a hot lustre above the green slopes of the hill, and in the white dust of the high-road a million tiny stars seemed to sparkle and twinkle most invitingly to Baubie's eyes. The birds had long been awake and busy in the bushes above her head, and from where she sat she could see, in the distant glitter of Princes street, all the stir of the newly-raised day.

It was a long vigil, and her fear and impatience made it seem doubly longer. At last the clock began to chime eight, and before it was half done the wicket in the great door opened with a noisy clang after a preliminary rattle.

First came a boy, who cast an anxious look round him, then set off at a run; next a young woman, for whom another was waiting just out of sight down the road; last of all (there were only three released), Baubie, whose heart was beginning to beat fast again with anxiety, saw the familiar, well-known figure shamble forth and look up and down the road in a helpless, undecided way. The next moment the wicket had clapped to again. Wishart glanced back at it, sighed once or twice, and blinked his eyes as though the sunlight were too strong for them.

Baubie, scarce breathing, watched him as a cat watches just before she springs.

After a second of hesitation he began to move cityward, obeying some sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow those who had gone on before. Baubie saw this, and, just waiting to let him get well under way and settle into his gait, she gathered herself up and sprang across the road upon him with the suddenness and rapidity of a flash.

He fairly staggered with surprise. There she was, exactly as he had left her, dusty, barefooted and bareheaded. The wind had tossed up her hair, which indeed was only too obedient to its will, and it clustered all the more wildly about her face because of having been cropped to the regulation length of the refuge.

"Lassie, is't you?" he ejaculated, lost in astonishment. Then, realizing the fact, he gave expression to his feeling by grinning in a convulsive kind of way and clapping her once or twice on the shoulder next him. "Od! I niver! Didna the leddy—"

Baubie cut him short. "Sed I widna bide," she observed curtly and significantly.

Gestures and looks convey, among people like the Wisharts, far more meaning than words, and Baubie's father perfectly understood from the manner and tone of her pregnant remark that she had run away from school, and had severed the connection between herself and the "kind leddy," and that in consequence the situation was highly risky for both. They remained standing still for a moment, looking at each other. The boy and the woman were already out of sight, and the white, dusty high-road seemed all their own domain.

Wishart shuffled with his feet once more, and looked in the direction of Princes street, and then at Baubie inquiringly. It was for her, as usual, to decide. Baubie had been his Providence for as long as he had memory for—no great length of time. He was conjecturing in his own mind vaguely whether his Providence had, by any chance, got the desiderated three shillings necessary for the redemption of the banjo hidden away in the Rob Roy tartan. He would not have been surprised had it been so, and he would have asked no questions.

Seeing that her eyes followed the direction of his with a forbidding frown, he said tentatively, "Ye didn'—didna—"

"What?" snapped Baubie crossly: she divined his meaning exactly. "Come awa' wi' ye!" she ordered, facing right round countryward.

"We'll gae awa' til Glasgae, Baubie, eh? I'm thinkin' to yer auntie's. She"—with a gesture of his head backward at the prison—"will no' be oot this month; sae she'll niver need to ken, eh?"

Baubie nodded. He only spoke her own thoughts, and he knew it.

The first turn to the right past the High School brought them out on the road before Holyrood, which lay grim and black under the sun-bathed steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange and all round the south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of the horizon received into itself the two quaint figures, and Baubie Wishart and the Rob Roy tartan faded together out of sight.

The Author of "Flitters, Tatters and the Counsellor."

GAS-BURNING, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

"It is remarkable what attention has been attracted all over the country by the recent experiments with Edison's inventions," observed my friend the traveller as our host turned a fuller flow of gas in the chandelier. "Even in the little villages out West, of only one bank and not one good hotel, the topics which last spring generally excited most interest in all circles were Edison's electric light and Bell's telephone."

"Very likely," replied our host, an elderly gentleman of fortune. "If we had such impure gas as is found in many of the villages and small cities not so very far West, I'd never light a burner in my library again. As it is, I do so very rarely. The products of gas combustion act on the bindings until firm calf drops in pieces, and even law-sheep loses its coherency, as the argument of the opposing counsel does when your own lawyer begins to talk."

"The effect on the upholstery and metallic ornaments is as bad as upon the books," added our hostess. "This room will have to be refurnished in the spring—all on account of the changes in color both of the paper and the silk and cotton fabrics; and the bronze dressing on those statuettes is softening, so that there are lines and spots of rust all over them."

"Perhaps, my dear, they would have suffered equally from the atmosphere without gas," replied the old gentleman, looking at his wife over his glasses.

"Our friend here has a hundred thousand more in gas stock than he had a year ago, and I suspect that he is still a bear in the market," said his neighbor a chemist, who had just dropped in.

"If I lose I shall lay it to your advice."

"You did well to buy—if you sell at once," said the traveller, who was interested in the electric light to some unknown extent: "gas stock will finally have to go down."

"When the sun shines in the night, not before," asserted a young accountant from the gas-works who had been holding a private talk with the daughter of the house at the other corner of the room.

"Gas companies can manufacture at less cost than formerly," said the chemist.

"But yet gas has gone up again lately. You may thank the electric-light boom for the temporary respite you have had from poor gas at high prices."

"Yes; some of the companies put gas down lower than they could manufacture it, in order to hold their customers at a time when people almost believed that Edison's light would prove a success."

"But it was a success. It proved an excellent light, displayed a neat lamp, and gave no ill effects upon either the atmosphere or the eyes; and the perfect carbons showed a surprising endurance. The only difficulty is that the invention is not yet perfected so as to go immediately into use."

"But the lower part of the glasses becomes dark with deposited carbon," returned the chemist. "If carbons could be made to last long enough to render the lamps cheap, this smoking of the globes would set a limit at which the lamps would cease to be presentable; and the cleaning, and the exhausting of air again, are difficult and expensive."

"That remains to be proved. But coal is sure to grow dearer."

"That isn't likely within a century. Besides, by the fault of the consumer gas-light costs now one-third more than it should for the same light. The best English authorities state this to be the case in Great Britain, and I have no question that such is the fact here."

"How would you remedy the evil of waste?"

"By the use of economical burners and of governors to regulate the flow of gas."

"That is very easily said. What is the name of your economical burner?"

"I am not an advocate of any special burner, but of all that are constructed on right principles."

"There are many kinds of burners. Do you not have some classification for them?" inquired the young lady, who was fresh from Wellesley.

"The usual forms of the burner," replied the chemist "—or, more properly, the forms of the tip—are the fishtail, the batwing and the argand. In the first the gas issues through two holes which come together at the top, so that the two jets of gas impinge and form a flat flame; in the batwing the gas issues in a thin sheet through a slit in a hollow knob; while in the argand the gas enters a short cylinder or broad ring, escaping thence through numerous holes at the upper edge. There are many varieties of each of these, differing in the construction of the part below the tip. The argand has long been the favorite burner for the table and desk. Its advantages are a strong, steady light, but, as you know, it is apt to smoke at every slight increase in the pressure of the gas, though there are recent improved forms in which this fault is in a measure corrected. A properly-made argand burner will give a light equal to three whole candles (spermaceti, of the standard size and quality) for every foot of gas burned. Of the argand burners, Guise's shadowless argand has been considered the best, but of late years Sugg's Letheby burner has carried off the palm. Wood's burner has been a favorite, as, being a fishtail, it could be used with a short chimney, which gives the flame steadiness. By the arms on the chimney-frame the flame is broadened at the bottom, with a smaller dark space at the base than in any other flat-flame burner. It is so constructed that the quantity of gas passing is regulated by turning a tap in the lower part of the burner, which changes the size of the orifice in the tube. Ten years ago this burner, with a regulator at the meter, was generally thought to be the most economical contrivance possible. It is now little used. Yet either the batwing or the fishtail tip can be used in any common burner except the argand. The old brass and iron tips are mostly superseded by those of "lava," being liable to an early change of the orifice from incrustation and rust. In the flat-flame burners there are differences in the internal arrangement. Perhaps our young gas-manufacturer here can tell us what is now the most approved burner."

The young man confessed that he had specimens of the best kinds of flat-flame burners in his pocket. He quickly brought from his overcoat in the hall a small paper parcel from which he produced several bright little brass tubes, explaining that he carried them because somebody was always inquiring about the best kind of burner. "These save talk," said he.

With a small wrench he removed one of the old burners, and the several kinds were successively tested in its place. Some gave a better light, but it was objected that they might consume more gas. Whereupon the chemist tore a strip from his well-worn handkerchief, and, having damped it, wound the ribbon several times around the top of the old burner (which had been replaced), leaving the orifice uncovered. The new burner was screwed down over this, making a gas-tight connection. "There," said he, "we have a gauge. The new burner will receive the same amount of gas that the old one consumed—no more, no less—but the current is slightly checked."

The burner gave the same amount of light as before, so far as the eye could perceive.

"In the combustion of gas for heating purposes," continued the chemist, "seek the burner with free, rapid delivery through small holes. For light you want something different. Suppose you send a current of gas up into this sewing-thimble: it can find an exit only by turning backward. Then suppose it escapes from the thimble only to enter a larger cavity above it, whence it must issue through a burner-tip with an orifice of the usual size. The current, you perceive, is twice completely broken. It will be seen that only the expansive force of the gas, together with its buoyancy, acts upon the jets, instead of a direct current. Now, it will always be found that the burner which best carries out the principles just illustrated—other points being equal—will give more light with a less quantity of gas than any other. This also exhibits the chief principle of most of the governors or regulators.

"You will observe that this checking of the current is attained in various ways in different burners," continued the chemist as he unscrewed and dissected the samples before him. "In some it is done by a perforated metal disk in the orifice; in others, by a bit of wool, which checks slightly a slow current, and by the pressure of a strong one becomes compacted and forms a more effective obstacle. In most cases, however, it soon becomes solid with condensed matters from the gas. Another form of check is a small cap having perpendicular slits at the sides. The cylinder of the cap, being smaller than the orifice of the burner, screws down into it; the openings being shortened or lengthened according as the cylinder is screwed up or down. One objection to this is the trouble required in regulating. Here is another burner, in which the orifice ends in a cap whose sides, near the bottom, are pierced with four pin-holes directed downward. This reverses the direction of the current of gas, which then escapes through the pin-holes downward into a chamber, then turns upward along its sides to the tip, on entering which it again turns. Each burner is able to consume economically a flow of gas peculiar to itself, which can be ascertained by a minute's experiment, and then regulated by the tap in the pipe. But this requires much care, and is apt to be neglected. A very small tap in the burner (as in the Wood and Ellis burners), which can be adjusted so as to require no further attention, seems the best method of effecting this graduation."

The chemist now pulled a manuscript from his pocket and read from it as follows: "The quantity of light decreases with disproportionate rapidity by reduced consumption; for, as experiments have shown, when consuming only two feet per hour, eighty-five per cent. of the gas is lost; with two and a half feet the loss is sixty per cent.; and with three and a half feet it is thirty-four per cent. of that derived from the gas when burning the full quantity for which the burner is constructed. In some experiments made upon this matter under the direction of referees appointed by the London Board of Trade the loss at the other extreme is given. They report: 'Instead of the gas giving increased light as the rate of consumption is increased, it will be seen that in every case there is a point beyond which the light decreases relatively to the proportion of gas consumed. In every case, too, this point lies far below the maximum of gas-consumption, observing the turning-points in the case of the different burners.' Again, every burner has a certain amount of gas which it will consume to the greatest advantage as to both light and economy; which in a completely-regulated burner is quickly found, and the delivery fixed by the small tap. When the gas is issuing from the burner at so low a pressure that the flame is just on the point of smoking, the maximum effect for the quantity of gas consumed in that particular burner is attained, because in that case the quantity and intensity of the light are most advantageously balanced. For the same reason, the burner best suited for light is one in which the jet-openings are proportionately large, so as to prevent as much as possible too great contact with the air in the lower part of the flame. In case the air-currents disturb the light, it is necessary to turn on a stronger flow, which secures steadiness, but sets economy at naught."

"It would be a good thing," said the young fellow, interrupting him, "if some person would invent a burner that should heat the gas before its discharge. We could then get a perfect combustion of the carbon, and so greater brilliancy and economy."

"That is a very common error. Mr. Leslie's burner was designed on that very theory: the result was contrary to expectation."

"What was the form of the burner?" inquired our host.

"Leslie's burner is a form of the argand. The gas, instead of issuing from holes pierced in a solid ring, is conducted to the flame in separate small tubes upward of an inch long. Twenty-eight of these tubes are inserted in a ring two inches in diameter, and converge to one inch at the ends, where the gas escapes. These tubes become hot very quickly when the gas is lighted, and it issues at a high temperature. Here is the result of a test made by Mr. Clegg, and given on page 344 of his valuable work on coal gas:

COMMON ARGAND, FIFTEEN HOLES.

Consumption per hour in cubic feet:

6 feet, light = 17.4 standard candles.

5 feet, light = 13.64 standard candles

LESLIE'S BURNER, TWENTY-EIGHT HOLES.

6 feet, light = 14.73 standard candles.

5 feet, light = 11.28 standard candles.

"In experimenting with common burners, argand and others, it is found that, if the aperture in the tip is too small for the orifice in the body of the burner, the escaping gas is too highly heated and is consumed too quickly. So with Leslie's burner in an increased degree. Theories brought to the test of experiment are often disappointing."

The chemist now proceeded to illustrate his harangue with the argand upon the table, which he lighted and turned on full, without replacing the chimney. The dull-red flame streamed up to a height of eight inches or more, waving and smoking slightly. He now turned down the gas and replaced the chimney, then set the tap at the same angle as before. "Here," said he, "we have a flame barely four inches high—of brilliant white—which gives more light than the taller flame did. The cause of the shortening of the flame is the more rapid combustion of the gas, owing to the increased draught or air-supply in the chimney. From the greater intensity of this flame a much larger quantity of light is produced than by the longer flame. If too tall a chimney is used, the flame is shortened still more and its brilliancy increased, but not to a degree sufficient to compensate for the diminished surface. The light, you are doubtless aware, comes from the incandescence of the carbon, heated by the union of the hydrogen of the gas with a portion of the oxygen of the air."

The chemist now read from his manuscript again: "Carburetted hydrogen of a passably good quality requires two volumes of pure oxygen for its complete combustion and conversion into carbonic acid and water. Atmospheric air contains, in its pure state, about twenty per cent. of oxygen; therefore, one cubic foot of gas requires for its perfect combustion ten cubic feet of air. If less be admitted to the flame, a quantity of free carbon will escape, and be deposited in the form of black smoke. If an excess of air be admitted, we shall find that the quantity of nitrogen accompanying this excess has a tendency to extinguish the flame, while it takes no part in the elective affinity constantly going on between the other elements—namely, hydrogen, oxygen and the vapor of carbon.

"Again," said he, turning down the gas, "if the flame be reduced to a consumption of two feet per hour, its light will be equal to that of one candle only; but on raising the chimney, thus, about half an inch from the gallery or support the light is greatly increased, or by simply placing a disk on top of the chimney the light is increased ninefold; both of which effects seem to result from a diminished current of air, while at the same time there is an ample supply. Lastly, with the ordinary glass moon-globe so generally used in dwellings with the fishtail burner little difference can be perceived between the light given from the flame by four feet and that from six feet of gas per hour, in consequence of the strong current of air passing up through the globe; but if the top of the glass be enclosed by a talc cover having an orifice in the centre about an inch in diameter, then the conditions of the burner are completely changed. The light is greatly increased, because the highest economical advantage is then approached."2

"Smoke from the aperture and lamp-black on the cover must result from such an arrangement," objected the old gentleman.

"There need be very little of either," responded the chemist. "From some burners there is little light without smoke. A smoky flame may arise from too much carbon, but the gas companies in this part of the country are not apt to make their product too rich; and such a condition is not likely to occur except with vapor-gas when warm weather quickly succeeds to a cold spell in the winter season. The consumer's immediate remedy in any case is to use a smaller tip with the fishtail and batwing burners, and a taller chimney with the argand; which devices will give a quicker movement to the gas in one case and to the air in the other. The smoking, however, may be caused by carbonic acid, which checks combustion. There is always more or less of this in gas, arising from a partial combustion in the retorts when charging them with coal or while withdrawing the exhausted charge. But it is only by excessively slow and careless work that this can happen to a serious extent. Only an expert can tell when this condition exists, though if the symptoms do not yield to manipulations of the chimney and tap, it may be suspected. There is no effective remedy for this adulteration which can be applied by the consumer except a vigorous complaint against the company which supplies the stuff.

"There remains one burner or lamp to be mentioned, contrived with special reference to health," he continued—"the ventilating standard lamp of Doctor Faraday, used in the House of Lords. In this there is an outer glass by which the vitiated air passes away through the pipe communicating with the external air. The lamp is interesting, but there is a question whether there is any practical advantage in its use. Rutter's ventilating lamp is of different form, having a globe instead of an outer cylinder, the gas and air coming in from above. Some of the best dwellings now being erected in the vicinity of New York are provided with tin pipes leading from the burners to the open air. In some the pipe receives the foul air from an open metallic or mineral shade over the burner; others have a larger pipe enclosing the gas-pipe for ventilation, the tops of the two pipes (including the burner) being enclosed by a globe pierced with holes for fresh air. There is said to result a good ventilation, with economy of gas, an increased steadiness of the flame and power of light. A better arrangement is a third pipe enclosing the gas-pipe and enclosed in the ventilating-pipe, opening to the air, instead of the holes in the globe, which in this case should be air-tight. This plan is said to have reached its perfection when the three pipes are filled with wire gauze to some extent. This, being heated by the escape of hot gases in the ventilating-pipe, sends both the air and the gas to the flame already highly heated. The result is said to be admirable as regards ventilation, steadiness and power of the light and economy of gas.