apply to coal gas only. As to producer or furnace gases, I know
practically nothing, except that sometimes it pays better to burn your
candle as a candle than make it into gas, and burn it as a gas afterward.
The use of producer gas no doubt pays on a large scale; and things on a
large scale, so far as gas is concerned, are not matters with which I have
time to concern myself. The commercial use of coal gas has yet to be
developed. It is in its infancy; and there are very few, if any, who have
any conception of its endless uses, both for domestic and manufacturing
purposes. The more general the information which can be given about its
uses, the sooner it will find its own level, and the sooner the gas
companies will appreciate the fact that their best customers are to be
found among those who can use coal gas as a fuel for special work in
manufacturing industries because it is profitable to use, and saves
expensive labor. My own experiments with alloys of the rarer metals, which
have not been concluded without profit to myself, would certainly never
have been undertaken except with the use of gas furnaces, which were both
practically unlimited in power and admitted of the most absolute precision
in use; and I may safely say, without violating any confidence, that many
of the precious stories and so-called "natural" products make their
appearance in the world first in a crucible in a gas furnace.

At the conclusion of my lecture before the Institute at Leeds, on
"Combustion and the Utilization of Waste Heat," Mr. Kitson, the Chairman,
remarked that if he were a dreamer of dreams, he might look forward to the
time when he would be growing cucumbers with the waste heat of his iron
furnaces. Many wilder dreams than this have come true in the science of
engineering; and the realization has brought honor and fortune to the
dreamers, as you must all know. The history of engineering is full of the
realization of "dreams," which have been denounced as absurdities by some
of the best living authorities.