Chapter XXXVIII (5)

The consequence of her being well fed was simply that her mind was freed from what is, after all, the besetting occupation of creatures like her, and was therefore at liberty to bestow its undivided attention upon the restraints and irksomeness of this new order of things. Her gypsy blood began to stir in her: the charm of her old vagabond habits asserted itself under the wincey frock and clean apron. To be commended for knitting and sewing was no distinction worth talking about. What was it compared with standing where the full glare of the blazing windows of some public-house fell upon the Rob Roy tartan, with an admiring audience gathered round and bawbees and commendations flying thick? She never thought then, any more than now, of the cold wind or the day-long hunger. It was no wonder that under the influence of these cherished recollections "white seam" did not progress and the knitting never attained to the finished evenness of the lassie Grant's performance.

None the less, although she made no honest effort to equal this model proposed for her example, did Baubie feel jealous and aggrieved. Her nature recognized other possibilities of expression and other fields of excellence beyond those afforded by the above-mentioned useful arts, and she brooded over her arbitrary and forcedly inferior position with all the intensity of a naturally masterful and passionate nature. It was all the more unbearable because she had no real cause of complaint: had she been oppressed or ill-treated in the slightest degree, or had anybody else been unduly favored, there would have been a pretext for an outbreak or a shadow of a reason for her discontent. But it was not so. The matron dispensed even-handed justice and motherly kindness impartially all round. And if the lassie Grant's excellences were somewhat obtrusively contrasted with Baubie's shortcomings, it was because, the two children being of the same age, Mrs. Duncan hoped to rouse thereby a spark of emulation in Baubie. Neither was there any pharisaical self-exaltation on the part of the rival. She was a sandy-haired little girl, an orphan who had been three years in the refuge, and who in her own mind rather deprecated as unfair any comparison drawn between herself and the newly-caught Baubie.

Day followed day quietly, and Baubie had been just a week in the refuge, when Miss Mackenzie, faithful to her promise, called to inquire how her _protégée_ was getting on.

The matron gave her rather a good character of Baubie. "She's just no trouble--a quiet-like child. She knows just nothing, but I've set her beside the lassie Grant, and I don't doubt but she'll do well yet; but she is some dull," she added.

"Are you happy, Baubie?" asked Miss Mackenzie. "Will you try and learn everything like 'Lisbeth Grant? See how well she sews, and she is no older than you."

"Ay, mem," responded Baubie, meekly and without looking up. She was still wearing 'Lisbeth Grant's frock and apron, and the garments gave her that odd look of their real owner which clothes so often have the power of conveying. Baubie's slim figure had caught the flat-backed, square-shoulder form of her little neighbor, and her face, between the smooth-laid bands of her hair, seemed to have assumed the same gravely-respectable air. The disingenuous roving eye was there all the time, could they but have noted it, and gave the lie to her compressed lips and studied pose.

That same day the Rob Roy tartan frock made its appearance from the wash, brighter as to hue, but somewhat smaller and shrunken in size, as was the nature of its material for one reason, and for another because it had parted, in common with its owner when subjected to the same process, with a great deal of extraneous matter. Baubie saw her familiar garb again with joy, and put it on with keen satisfaction.

That same night, when the girls were going to bed--whether the inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock, and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her of late--Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of consequences, struck up one of the two which formed her stock in trade.

The unfamiliar sounds had not long disturbed the quiet of the house when the matron and Kate, open-eyed with wonder, hastened up to know what was the meaning of this departure from the regular order of things. Baubie heard their approach, and only sang the louder. She had a good and by no means unmusical voice, which the rest had rather improved; and by the time the authorities arrived on the scene there was an audience gathered round the daring Baubie, who, with shoes and stockings off and the Rob Roy tartan half unfastened, was standing by her bed, singing at the pitch of her voice. The words could be heard down the stairs:

Hark! I hear the bugles sounding: 'tis the signal for the fight. Now, may God protect us, mother, as He ever does the right.

"Baubie Wishart," cried the astonished mistress, "what do you mean?"

The singer was just at the close of a verse:

Hear the battle-cry of Freedom! how it swells upon the air! Yes, we'll rally round the standard or we'll perish nobly there.

She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes and flushed face toward the speaker.

"Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart," went on the angry matron, "to make yon noise? You ought to think shame of such conduct, singing your good-for-nothing street-songs like a tinkler. One would think ye would feel glad never to hear of such things again. Let me have no more of this, do ye hear? I just wonder what Miss Mackenzie would say to ye!--Kate, stop here till they are all bedded and turn off yon gas."

Long before the gas was extinguished Baubie had retired into darkness beneath the bed-clothes, rage and mortification swelling her small heart. Good-for-nothing street-songs! Tinkler! Mrs. Duncan's scornful epithets rang in her ears and cut her to the quick. She lay awake, trembling with anger and indignation, until long after Kate had followed the younger fry to rest, and their regular breathing, which her ears listened for till they caught it from every bed, warned her that the weary occupants were safely asleep: then she sat up in bed. The moonlight was streaming into the room through the uncurtained window, and lit up her tumbled head and hot face. After a cautious pause she stepped out on the floor and went round the foot of her bed to the window. She knelt down on the floor, as if she were in search of something, and began feeling with her hand on the lower part of the shutter. Then, close to the floor, and in a place where they were likely to escape detection, she marked clearly and distinctly eight deep, short scratches in an even line on the yellow-painted woodwork. She ran her fingers over them until she could feel each scratch distinctly. Eight! She counted them thrice to make sure, then jumped back into bed, and in a few minutes was as fast asleep as her neighbors.

The days wore into weeks, and the weeks had soon made a month, and time, as it went, left Baubie more demure, quieter and more diligent--diligent apparently at least, for the knitting, though it advanced, showed no sign of corresponding improvement, and the rest of her work was simply scamped. March had given way to April, and the late Edinburgh spring at last began to give signs of its approach. The chestnuts showed brown glistening tips to their branch-ends, and their black trunks became covered with an emerald-colored mildew; the rod-like branches of the poplars turned a pale whitish-green and began to knot and swell; the Water of Leith overflowed, and ran bubbling and mud-colored under the bridge; and the grass by its banks, and even that in the front green of the refuge, showed here and there a red-eyed daisy. The days grew longer and longer, and of a mild evening the thrush's note was to be heard above the brawling of the stream from the thickets of Dean Terrace Gardens.

Baubie Wishart waited passively. Every day saw her more docile and demure, and every day saw a new scratch added to her tally on the window-shutter behind her bed.

May came, and the days climbed with longer strides to their goal, now close; on reaching which they return slowly and unwillingly, but just as surely; and to her joy, about, the third week in May, Baubie Wishart counted one warm, clear night fifty-nine scratches on the shutter. Fifty-nine! She knew the number well without counting them.

Whether she slept or watched that night is not known, but the next morning at four saw Baubie make a hasty and rather more simple toilette than usual, insomuch as she forgot to wash herself, brush her hair or put on her shoes and stockings. Barefooted and bareheaded, much as she had come, she went. She stole noiselessly as a shadow through the outer dormitory, passing the rows of sleepers with bated breath, and not without a parting glance of triumph at the bed where her rival, Elizabeth Grant, was curled up. Down the wooden stair, her bare feet waking no echoes, glided Baubie, and into the school-room, which looked out on the front green. She opened the window easily, hoisted herself on the sill, crept through and let herself drop on the grass below. To scramble up the trunk of one of the chestnuts and swing herself over the wall was quickly done, and then she was once more on the flagged path of the street, and the world lay before her.

As she stood for one moment, breathless with her haste and excitement, she was startled by the sudden apparition of the house cat, who was on his way home as surreptitiously as she was on hers abroad. He had one bloody ear and a scratched nose, and stared at her as he passed: then, probably in the hope of finding an open door after her, he jumped over the wall hurriedly. Baubie was seized with a sudden panic lest the cat should waken some one in the house, and she took to her heels and ran until she reached the bridge. The morning sun was just beginning to touch the tall tops of the houses, and the little valley through which the Water of Leith ran lay still in a kind of clear grayish light, in which the pale tender hues of the young leaves and the flowering trees were all the more vividly beautiful. The stream was low, and it hurried along over its stony bed, as if it too were running away, and in as great a hurry to be free of all restraints as truant Baubie Wishart, whose red frock was now climbing the hilly gray street beyond.

She could hear, as she strained herself to listen for pursuing voices, the rustle and murmur of the water with an odd distinctness as it rose upon the still air of the summer morning.

Not a creature was to be seen as she made her way eastward, shaping her course for Princes street, and peering, with a gruesome fear of the school-board officer, round every corner. That early bird, however, was not so keenly on the alert as she gave him the credit of being, and she reached her goal unchallenged after coasting along in parallel lines with it for some time.

The long beautiful line of Princes street was untenanted as the Rob Roy tartan tacked cautiously round the corner of St. David street and took a hasty look up and down before venturing forth.

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.

"With these lamps the pressure of the gas-current is of great importance; and I now turn to that subject. It is a general complaint in buildings whose rooms are high that the flow of gas on the lower floor is deficient, while on the upper floors there is a greater supply than is necessary. This inconvenience arises from the upper stories being subjected to less atmospheric pressure than the lower, every rise of ten feet making a difference in the pressure of about one-tenth of an inch of water; and, consequently, a column of gas acquires that amount of pressure additional. The following table, recording an experiment of Mr. Richards, will show the result in respect to light:

Gas issuing from the burner at a pressure of--
1/10 inch of water gave the light of 12 candles,
5/10 " " " " " " " 6 "
10/10 " " " " " " " 2 "
40/10 " " " " no appreciable light.

Suppose a building of six floors is supplied from the gas-mains at a pressure of six-tenths, and that the difference of altitude between the highest and lowest light is equal to fifty feet: the gas in the highest or sixth floor will issue from the burners at a pressure of eleven-tenths; the fifth floor, at ten-tenths; and so on. In order to secure an entirely equable flow and economical light a regulator is necessary on each floor above the first. The gas companies are frequently obliged to supply mills at a much greater pressure than is stated above as necessary, in order that the ground floors may have sufficient light."

"How about incorrect meters?" asked the traveller.

"Little need be said of them, as they fall within the domain of the companies and the public inspector of gas. Under favorable conditions gas-meters will remain in order for ten years or more; and when they become defective they as often favor the consumer, probably, as they do the gas company. Their defects do not often occasion inconvenience; and when they once get out of order they run so wild that their condition is soon detected, when the errors in previous bills should be corrected by estimate of other seasons."

"You haven't mentioned the apparatus (carburetters) for increasing the richness of the gas, which can be applied by the consumer upon his own premises," said the old gentleman.

"There is little need. The burners should be adjusted to the quality of gas furnished. If there were any real gain in this method of enrichment, the gas companies are the parties who could make the most of it: indeed, many of them do to such an extent as can be made profitable. But whenever the temperature of the atmosphere falls, the matter added to the gas is deposited in the pipes, sometimes choking them entirely at the angles. No: arrange your burners and regulators to suit the gas that is furnished, demand of the company that it fulfil the law and the contract in regard to the quality of the gas, and give all gas-improving machines the go-by.[3]

"Light having, perhaps, been sufficiently considered for the present needs, we have now to note the effects of the combustion of gas upon the atmosphere, and through this upon the furnishing of rooms and the health of the persons living therein," said the chemist, again taking up his manuscript. "The usual products from the combustion of common illuminating gas are carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, ammonia and water-vapor. Every burner consuming five cubic feet of gas per hour spoils as much air as two full-grown men: it is therefore evident that the air of a room thus lighted would soon become vitiated if an ample supply of fresh air were not frequently admitted.

"Remember," said he, looking up from the paper, "that nearly the same effects proceed from the combustion of candles and lamps of every kind when a sufficient number of these are burned to give an equal amount of light. Carbonic acid is easily got rid of, for the rooms where gas is burned usually have sufficient ventilation near the floor by means of a register, or even the slight apertures under the doors--together with their frequent opening--to carry off the small quantity emitted by one or two burners. But there are other gases which must have vent at the upper part of the room, while fresh air should be admitted to supply the place of that which is chemically changed."

Returning to his manuscript, he continued: "The burners which give the least light, burning instead with a low, blue flame, form the most carbonic acid and free the most nitrogen. Such are all the burners for heat rather than light. But the formation of sulphuric acid gas may be the same in each. In the yellow flame the carbon particles escape to darken the light colors of the room, not being heated sufficiently to combine with the oxygen. This product of the combustion of gas (free carbon) might be regarded as rather wholesome than otherwise (as its nature is that of an absorbent) were it not the worst kind of dust to breathe--in fact, clogging the lungs to suffocation. In vapor gas--made at low heat--the carbon is in a large degree only mechanically mixed with the hydrogen, and is liable, especially in cold weather, to be deposited in the pipes. This leaves only a very poor, thin gas, mainly hydrogen, which burns with a pale blue flame, as seen in cold spells in winter. High heats and short charges in the retorts of the manufactory give a purer gas and a larger production. Gas made at high heat will reach the consumer in any weather very nearly as rich as when it leaves the gas-holder; for, thus made, the hydrogen and carbon are chemically combined, instead of the hydrogen merely bearing a quantity of carbon-vapor mechanically mixed and liable to deposit with every reduction of temperature. To relieve the atmosphere of the gases and vapors proceeding from combustion is, of course, the purpose of ventilation. The sulphuric acid gas and ammonia will be largely in combination with the water-vapor, which also proceeds from combustion, so that all will be got rid of together. The vaporization of libraries to counteract the excessive dryness (or drying, rather) which causes leather bindings to shrink and to break at the joints, would be of doubtful utility, since it might only serve to carry into the porous leather still more of the gases just mentioned. The action of both sulphuric acid and ammonia is, undoubtedly, to destroy the fibre of leather, so that it crumbles to meal or falls apart in flakes.

"In a very interesting paper read by Professor William R. Nichols of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before the American Association of Science at its Saratoga meeting in 1879, the results of many analyses of leather bindings were given, showing the presence of the above-named substances in old bindings in many times greater quantity than in new. Still, their presence did not prove them to be the cause of the decay; and Professor Nichols proposes to ascertain the fact by experiments requiring some years for demonstration.

"In the hope of deciding the question with reasonable certainty at once, I have made careful examinations of the books in the three largest libraries of Boston and Cambridge, each differing from the others in age and atmosphere. The bindings of the volumes examined bore their own record in dates and ownership, by which the conditions of their atmosphere in respect to gas and (approximately) to heat were made known for periods varying from current time to over two hundred years. In the Public Library the combined influences of gas, heat and effluvium have wrought upon the leather until many covers were ready to drop to pieces at a touch. The binding showed no more shrinkage than in the other libraries, but in proportion to the time the books had been upon the shelves the decay of the leather was about the same as in the Athenæum. I am informed that many of the most decayed have from time to time been rebound, so that a full comparison cannot be made between this and the others. In the Athenæum less gas has been used, and there is very little effluvium, but the mealy texture of the leather is general among the older tenants of the shelves. Numbers of volumes in the galleries were losing their backs, which were more or less broken off at the joints from the shrinkage and brittleness of the leather. The plan has been proposed of introducing the vapor of water to counteract the effects of dryness upon the bindings. In this library the atmosphere has the usual humidity of that out of doors, being warmed by bringing the outer air in over pipes conveying hot water, while the other libraries have the higher heat of steam-pipes. If, therefore, its atmosphere differs from that of the other libraries in respect to moisture, the variation is in the direction of greater humidity, without any corresponding effect on the preservation of bindings. In fact, proper ventilation and low shelves seem to be the true remedies for these evils, or, rather, the best means of amelioration, since there is no complete antidote to the decay common to all material things. The last condition involves the disuse of galleries and of rooms upon more than one flat, unless the atmosphere in the upper portions of the lower rooms be shut off from the higher, as it should be. Another precaution which might be taken with advantage is to use the higher shelves for cloth bindings.

"In the Harvard College Library no gas has ever been used, nor any other artificial illuminator to much extent. Neither had any large number of the volumes been exposed to the products of gas-combustion, except for a brief time before they were placed here. The bindings in this library showed very little crumbling, but many covers were breaking at the joints from the shrinking which arises from excessive dryness. In common with many other substances, leather yields moisture to the air much more readily than it receives it from that medium. Cloth bindings showed no decay at all here--very little in any of the libraries, except in the loss of color. It should be stated that the volumes which I examined at Harvard College were generally older than those inspected in the other libraries. There are parchment bindings in each of the libraries hundreds of years old, apparently just as perfect in texture as when first placed upon the shelves of the original owner. The parchment was often worn through at the angles, but there was no breakage from shrinking, the material having been shrunken as much as possible when prepared from the skin. At Harvard College I examined an embossed calf binding stretched on wooden sides which was above a hundred years old. It was in almost perfect preservation, and not much shrunken. This volume, being very large, was on a shelf next the ground floor--a position which it had probably held ever since the erection of the building.

"Professor Nichols does not mention morocco in his tables of analyses. Indeed, morocco was so little used for bookbindings until within about thirty years that it affords a less ample field for investigation than any other of the leathers now in common use. My attention was therefore directed specially to this material, of which I found some specimens having a record of nearly fifty years. My observation was, that in all the libraries these were less affected by decay, in proportion to their age, than other leathers. In Harvard College Library the best Turkey morocco, with forty years of exposure, showed no injury except from chafing. The outer integument was often worn away, exposing the texture of the skin, which was still of strong fibre. In the Athenæum, on the contrary, many of the moroccos showed the same decay as the calf, russia and sheep. There was, however, a wide difference in the condition of moroccos of the same age--some showing as much decay as the calf, while others had scarcely any of the disintegration common to the older calf bindings. The same might, indeed, be said of all leathers, those tanned by the quick modern methods, with much more acid than is used in old processes, in which time is a large factor, showing always a more rapid deterioration. But, the methods being the same, morocco, the oiliest of the common leathers and the one having the firmest cuticle, endures the best.

"The order of endurance of leather (as observed by librarians) against atmospheric effects is as follows, descending from the first to the last in order: Parchment, light-colored morocco, sheep, russia, calf. Cloth wears out quickly by use, but appears--the linen especially--to be affected by the atmosphere only in loss of color. These observations all refer to the ordinary humidity of the air in frequented rooms.

"This, then, is the result of my inquiries: I found the shrinking and breaking resulting from heat much the same in all the libraries, but most in that where the heating is from the outer air brought in over hot-water pipes, the two other libraries examined being warmed by steam-pipes having a higher temperature. I found the mealy structure--or instead thereof flakiness--to prevail most in the Athenæum, next in the Public Library: in the latter, however, many volumes have been rebound, thus raising the average of condition. In the Harvard College Library no gas--in fact, little if any artificial light--is used, and here, too, the mealy structure and disintegration are mostly absent. I conclude, therefore, from these limited observations, that heat is responsible for a large part of the damage to leather bindings, its effects being evidently supplemented and hastened by gas-combustion.

"The ventilating lamps before described, though rather cumbrous to eyes accustomed to the small and simple apparatus commonly used, might prove valuable in rooms containing fabrics liable; to be injured by the gases from open burners."

As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked to the somewhat weary listeners, "You now see the vast amount of study and care required to use gas with economy and safety. I could not have argued the cause of a new, clean, gasless and vaporless light like electricity any better myself."

"It will be found," responded the chemist, "that there are more troubles and dangers connected with the electric light--besides the larger expense--than are thought of now."

"That is so!" ejaculated the young fellow.

"At any rate," said the old gentleman, "gas stock won't go lower for twenty years than it has been this winter."

"You are all wedded to your idols," was the final protest of the traveller.

"I wish I was," murmured the young fellow, with a side-glance at his fair neighbor, who immediately removed to another part of the room.

GEORGE J. VARNEY.

THE "_???? ??G?????_ IN SHAKESPEARE.