such great superiority is due to the force of carefully obtained
experimental figures, corroborated by an experienced and widely known
gas chemist, and by the chief gas examiner of the city.

In adopting any new method, the mind of the gas manager must to a
great extent be influenced by the circumstances of the times, and the
enormous importance of the labor question is a main factor at the
present moment; with masters and men living in a strained condition
which may at any moment break into open warfare, the adoption of such
water gas processes would relieve the manager of a burden which is
growing almost too heavy to be borne.

Combining, as such processes do, the maximum rate of production with
the minimum amount of labor, they practically solve the labor
question. Requiring only one-tenth the number of retort house hands
that are at present employed, the carbureted water gas can be used for
enrichment until troubles arise, and then the gas can be used pure and
simple, with a hardly perceptible increase in expense, while the
rapidity of make will also give the gas manager an important ally in
the hour of fog, or in case of any other unexpected strain on his
resources.

One of the first questions asked by the practical gas maker will be:
"What guarantee can you give that as soon as we have erected plant,
and got used to the new process of manufacture, a sudden rise in the
price of oil will not take place, and leave us in worse plight than we
were before?" and the only answer to this is that, as far as it is
possible to judge anything, this event is not likely to take place in
our time. A year ago the prospects of the oil trade looked black, as
the output of American oil was in the hands of a powerful ring, who