492 The Gas Light Apparatus. made round its inferior edges, where the gas is suffered to escape, and rises in bub. bles through the water of the well into the receptacle or gasometer M, M, M, M. This gasometer is made of wrought-iron plates, and is capable of rising as in the figure, or of sinking down nearly to a level with the top of the well, which contains the water, when it will consequently be nearly filled with water; but it rises gradually as the elastic gas enters sit from the pipe N, and displaces the water; the weights p, suspended over pullies nn, by the chain M, m, n, n, W, keep it steady and balance it. There are two sets of iron stays, or arms, shewn at V, V, to strengthen the gasometer within side. 4 The seams of the gasometer are luted to make them air tight, and the whole is well painted inside and outside to preserve it from rust. The pure gas from the gasometer enters the tube Y at the small holes made in its top, and, passing on through the tubes Y,Y, and Y, it is conveyed by other pipes from this to the burners, or lamps, where. it is to be consumed. The burners are formed in various ways, either by a tube ending with a simple orifice, at which the gas issues in stream; and, if once lighted, will continue to burn with a steady and regular light, as long as any gas is supplied. At other times a number of very minute holes are made in the end of a pipe, which form as many jets de feu, and have a very brilliant appearance. The use of the gasometer, is to equalize the emission of the gas, which comes from the retort more quickly at some times than at others. When this happens the vessel rises up to receive it, and, when the stream from the retort diminishes, the weight of the gasometer expels its contents, for the balance-weight ff, should not be quite so heavy as the gasometer, in order that a suitable pressure may be exerted to force the gas out at the burners with a proper jet. The gasometer of the original Company, in Westminster, has a capacity of 15,000 feet the Blackfriars Company have two of 8000 feet. The remains which are found in the retort after the process is finished, consist of most excellent coke, which in value, for culinary fires, or manufactories, returns a considerable portion of the whole expences. [Jan. 1, The erection of an apparatus, such as is represented above, will cost from 1001, to 150l.; and if its gasometer is 5 feet diameter, by 7 feet high, it will contain a sufficient quantity of gas, at 4 cubie feet per light, per hour, to give 40 hours light to a brilliant Argand lamp, or 5 hours to 8 lamps, equal in intensity to 160 common street oil lamps. Such a gasometer will be filled by the distillation in the retort of about half a bushel, or a quarter of a hundred weight, of coals. It is usual, and for in-door lights it is necessary, to pass the gas after it leaves the deposit vessel, before it reaches the gasometer, through a vessel of lime water, so as to deprive it of all bitumi nous and sulphureous smell. This is not represented, but it may be easily conceived to form part of the commu nication. It would be unnecessary to remark on the safety and innoxiousness of this apparatus and mode of lighting, if the bigoted enemies of all improvement were not conjuring up every conceivable objection, and exaggerating every error of ignorance in the first introduction of æ great discovery. For example, it is said that a workman recently took a lighted candle into the gasometer and blew it up. But every person will feel that such an accident was a necessary consequence of so inconsiderate an act. No use of the apparatus requires a candle in the gasometer, and the lighting of a fire on a wooden staircase, and the applying a candle to the curtains of a drawing-room, are as valid objections to our culinary fires, and to the use of candles, as any such act as that of carrying a lighted candle into a gasometer is to the use of pure gas in lighting our streets and houses. Most of that enlightened class of manufacturers called machinists will under take to construct this species of appara tus; but a reference to Messrs. GRANT, HARGRAVES, and KNIGHT, of Blackfriars, London, will afford the most certain resources to public bodies, and others, who are disposed to introduce this mode of illumination, To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, AM led, through the medium of your valuable miscellany, to make a fe wou servations on the present degenerated state of the gold and silver coin in circulation in this country, and to endeavour to point out the benefits that might result to the public by effecting a new coinage UNIVERSITY a measure 1815.J On the State of the Gold and Silver Coins. ♣ measure that could not be adopted at a more propitious period than the present; and, unless this, or some other salutary measure, is adopted by government, there is no prospect of guineas coming into circulation again. To effect a new coinage upon the principle of the table subjoined, would be attended with many important advantages to the public-such as causing the hidden treasures to leave their dark and obscure retreat, and boldly come forward in the aid of the public service -establishing a general, useful, and extensive circulation of specie-reducing the number of country bank notes, the extensive circulation of which, and the numerous failures in that branch, are become a most notorious and alarming public evil-increasing public credit placing the coins on a comparative equa. lity of currency-a saving to the public over and above the expence attendant on a new coinage being effected-besides many other advantages, which may be unnecessary here to enumerate. However, what has been already hint ed, it is presumed, will be sufficient to prove the importance and advantages in such a measure. The disproportion and inequality of gold and silver coins-the vast quantities that are now in a state of concealment, under the impression of its increased value-and the scarcity and inconvenience that have been felt in consequence, calls aloud for some alteration therein. The circulation of Bank tokens has had a very beneficial effect, by partially remedying the want of change, although many insinuations have been levelled against them; they can, Circulating Value.. L. 8. d. 493 however, have no connection with the legal currency of the realm, or with a new coinage; but, as soon as people are tired of them, they may send them to their lawful home, which, however, their general use will preclude under all cir cuinstances. The necessary means, it should seem, to be used to effect a new coinage, fraught with the advantages before-mentioned, would be for government to purchase and call in the existing gold and silver coins, (except Bank-tokens) within a limited time, after which they should be no longer legal, and impose a penalty on all such as should thereafter retain, negociate, or dispose of any such gold or silver. This measure might, perhaps, be considered too rigid by hoarders, but the exigency of the case fully warrants it. That gold and silver, like all other commodities, are arrived at a standard of increased value, is beyond a doubt: independant of this, it would be highly beneficial to the public, that the circu lating value of coin should be materially less than the intrinsic value, which would effectually remedy those mischiefs that have happened, by converting them to various illegal purposes: hence it follows, that it is the redundance of specie, and not the intrinsic value. If government effects a new coinage upon the principle of a reduction of one-third of the intrinsic value, and a free and extensive circulation follows, every possible end will be answered; but, in order to shew that a new coinage may be effected upon a more moderate scale, I beg to submit the following table: New Coinage. 0 0 .0 3 0 ........0.6 8 0006 .......1 5 0 By the above simple and easy table, I have endeavoured to elucidate the point, from which it will appear that a much more efficacious measure may be resorted to in calling in the present coins, than that of compelling the respective holders to bear the loss according to the deficiency. From which it will also appear that the profit or inerease will be nearly equal to 141. per cent, which will be more than adequate to the expence of a new coinage; and, 2 15 6 Proposed Coins L. s. d. Silver 0 0 9 0 1 0 0 1 6 0 3 0 6 Gold 0 12 6 been produced by imbibing the effluvia from fresh earth, to oxygen. That the effects might be produced by the absorption of oxygen, I am by no means prepared to disprove; but how oxygen can be useful in consumptions, is wholly out of my power to conceive. Any person who has been in the habit of watching minutely the progress of that flattering, but almost always fatal, disorder, must bave discovered that the exhibition of stimulants of any kind can with difficulty be borne. The pulse is commonly from 90 to 120 in a minute; and, unless our physiologists have made a great mistake, that which accelerates the motion of the blood must be a mischievous thing indeed: oxygen will, in all probability, do so-ergo, oxygen is inadmissible. This is, I believe, the theory of the disease; but it must be admitted, that a contrary practice has not succeeded; nor have the numerous experiments made by the late Dr. Beddoes, as far as I have learnt, pointed out a more effectual mode of treatment; so that even now phthisis is one of the opprobia medicorum. Dr. Beddoes was led to his experiments from a variety of considerations, most of which seemed to flash upon his ingenious mind with the impulse of complete conviction, in consequence of the recent discoveries which had been made in the beautiful science of chemistry. But alas! the light seems again vanished, and we are left once more to wander in the dark, However, we must not despair: if an abstraction of oxygen from the air, inhaled by consumptive patients, or if other modified gases have not had any permanently good effect, there remain yet to us many powerful agents, which it is assuredly worth our while to try. The observations of Dr. Buxton are valuable, and teem with hope; and we may look forward, I think, with well. grounded expectation, that some relief will yet be found for those patients who have the deplorable misfortune to labour under one of the most heart-rending complaints to which the human frame can possibly be subjected. Living, as I do here, in a flat and marshy country, where agues have been, some years past, exceedingly rife; although now, I am happy to say, by no means so common as they were, owing probably to our being so much better drained we ought, according to the received theory of an atmosphere deficient in oxygen, to have none, or but few, consumptive cases amongst us;* but, alas! they are certainly as common here as in more elevated and dry districts, which would lead us to conclude that the air has very little influence on the disease. Before I close these observations I would say, that of three consumptive patients whom I have known intimately, and who all ultimately fell victims to the disease, two had swellings upon the back of the hand as big as a pigeon's egg; and the other, my own daughter, had a considerable tumor on the muscular part of the arm, between the wrist and the elbow, which, after many months of occasional friction by the hand, was nearly dispersed; but, in a few months afterwards, a vessel became ruptured in the lungs, she discharged nearly, at once, a pint of blood, and a fatal hectic su pervened, which destroyed her in about eight weeks: that these cases were all scrophulous I can scarcely have any doubt. JAS. JENNINGS. Huntspill, Nov. 7, 1814. P.S. Your readers will oblige me by correcting the following errata in my Somerset Vocabulary, page 332, for moxe read more, a root; for want read wont, a mole. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, THE late Rev. Samuel Palmer, of Hackney, on my presenting him, a few years ago, with a copy of the tenth edition of my Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World, observed, that, as all parties seemed now utility of the work, one thing only is to acknowledge the impartiality and wanting to complete its popularity with the religious public, and that is, to get some wicked unprincipled scribbler to pour forth a torrent of abuse on the work and its author! This, Mr. Editor, has been at length done, much to my satisfaction, in the last number of the Eclectic Review, and I cannot suppress my acknowledgment of gratitude. These honest Calvinists, however, have thought it necessary, for the ease of their consciences, to preface their article them by the omnipotent energy of Truthwith this general confession-wrung from thirteenth edition, and of which about "Perhaps a work which has reached its See "Beddoes on Calculus, SeaScurvy, Consumption, &c. 8vo. 1793," passim; and a Letter in the same work from the Rev. C. Leslie, beginning "Cum a me, vir eruditissime,” ad finem. one 1815.] Mr. Lofft on a New Telescopic Comet. one hundred thousand copies have been I Islington, Nov. 10, 1814. For the Monthly Magazine. TROUBLE you with a short account of a celestial object which I venture to set down as a Comet. I saw it as underneath, 495 Near the stars 10 and 179 of Taurus, the latter of which she passes on the 18th, 44' S. Malta. As to Malta, I apprehend the fact is that the peace was broken because France would not consent to regard an article as inserted, which we said we ought to have inserted, as to the different nations in that island, with reference to their vote and ascendancy respecting the Order of Malta. CAPEL LOFFt. I observe but two Errata in my last pub )lished paper.-P. 415, 15 and 40 should have been marked as minutes of a degree -15-40'.-" Nearly" should have been usually." To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, G RAIN being the most essential article of human food, every thing Much disrespecting it is important. cussion has lately taken place respecting the propriety of admitting a free importation of this most important article from other countries who have a considerable surplus of it: and the reason assigned against it is, that it would reduce the price of grain in this country so low, that the farmers cannot afford to sell it at the same prices, while they pay the present advanced rents and expences. Although it has been found, by sad experience, and that within a very few years, that the variations of climate in this country render the crops of grain precarious, whereby we were very near a famine: yet this is not a sufficient reason, with certain persons, to allow of grain being brought from other countries to be consumed here, unless the article bears so great a price as to be very oppressive to the greater part of the nation, and especially the labouring poor, while it benefits only a small part of the commu nity. If it be urged, that the mechanic, the manufacturer, and the labourer, who, by their industry, can earn little more than bread, therefore ought to have it as cheap as possible, a cry is immediately raised, "What will become of the landed interest?" To hear some persons speak of this landed interest, it might be supposed, that, were not their interest to be sought in preference to that of the greater part of the community, there might be some danger of their packing up their lands and carrying them away upon their backs, so as not to leave the rest of the community any land to grow corn for their support; or that they were a kind of sylvau deities, or demi-gods, who have what it was to labour hard to find bread for a large family. have such a powerful influence over the fields and elements, that, without their benign influence, we should not have a blade of grass, or an ear of corn; and we must dread offending them, lest they should slight all the fruits of the earth. Now, Sir, I am one of those infidels who believe, that, if they one and all took their departure, the land would not bear a stalk the less: why then they are to be enriched at the expence of all the rest of the nation, is a problem I have never yet heard solved. Suppose one thousand people went to some newly discovered island; and of this number twenty claimed a right to the land, which they let out to one hundred farmers at a certain rent, and it should appear that the farmer could not pay his rent unless provisions were at a certain price, and that these settlers could purchase them at half the price from some neighbouring island or Country, and these twenty land-owners should prevent the rest of the settlers "from purchasing provisions, except from their tenants, and at such prices as they chose to fix: would this be just? Great pains have been taken lately to estimate what price wheat and other grain ought to bear, to enable the farmer to pay his present rent: the sweat of his brow has been weighed to a nicety in the scales of calculation, to find out how much he can bear; and, when he can bear no more, the manufacturer, the labourer, the mechanic, and the tradesman, must bear the rest. The farmer must be supported, that he may pay his rent: but hear nothing of the landed interest lowering their rents, that they may bear some share of the public burthen; although, in many cases, they have increased their rent fourfold, from fifteen shillings to three pounds per acre: to talk of such a thing seems, by some persons, to be no less than sacrilege. I confess I cannot help feeling indig nant at the language that has been used by certain persons. Because certain poor men were obliged, during the very high price of corn, to make extraordinary exertions, and work extraordinary hours, to get bread for their families: but since, through the kindness of Providence, in sending a most abundant harvest, the price of bread has been somewhat reduced, these poor creatures have been enabled to obtain it, though they, in some measure, relax from their excessive labour; they are now taxed with idleness because they earn their bread somewhat easier. It is a pity but such Egyptian task-masters knew A highly-respected friend of mine has endeavoured to prove, that lowering the rent of land would very little affect the price of grain: he says, if land were lowered 10s. per acre, calculating the average produce of wheat at 25 bushels per acre, it would not be more than 5d. per bushel-Granted. But, if the landowner enables the tenant to grow wheat 5d. per bushel lower, and the labourer, the wheelwright, the blacksmith, and every other artificer and tradesman, works for the farmer so much lower than he now can do, (by paying so high for provisions) as equals 5d. per bushel for each of them, how many five pences per bushel may the farmer afford to sell his grain lower? I do not contend that the landed interest ought to bear all the burthen; but, as they have been enriched by the high price of provisions more than any other class of the community, they surely ought to bear as great a share in lowering the price of provisions as others bear. Let us now consider how this great increase in the price of provisions first happened:-That the crop of grain fell short in the year 1800, is too well known to say any thing to prove it; but that it fell so short as to have occasioned wheat to rise from 8s. to 24s. per bushel, and other grain in proportion, there could be no reason whatever. The writer of this was informed by a considerable Lancashire farmer, that from what he knew of the crops of that year, wherever he had been, the farmer would have had a very fair profit if oatmeal was sold at 21. per load of 240lbs. while, at that very time, it was selling at 61. per load. It could not be said, at that time, that the farmer could not afford it lower, owing to the high price of labour it cost him in tillage, for the advance in wages had not taken place, nor until some time after: and, on the same calculation wheat, if sold at 8s. or 9s. per bushel, would have paid the farmer a fair profit; when, shame to tell, it was raised to 24s. per bushel. And what occasion, ed this? The narrow-minded policy of the landed interest, who are ever jealous of the poor having bread too cheap; they do all they can by prohibitory duties to keep grain from being imported until the moment famine stares us in the face. Suppose, in the present year, the grain had been damaged in the field, so that not half a crop had been fit for use, and we had no store of old corn what |