Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the mid--seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries. We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non--commercial purposes. Read more about Early Journal

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... ntent at http://about.jstor.org/participate--jstor/individuals/early-journal--content. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not--for--profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. If the estimate were made upon three hours instead of two per day, it is evident that the comparison would be still more in favour of the gas lights, since the interest of capital would be the same, and the wear and tear not much greater; so that the annual cost might be about 6501. instead of 30001. The introduction of the gas lights into this manufactory has been gradual: at first some inconvenience was experienced from the smell; but this objection has been wholly removed by improved methods of purifying the gas, and it is now much approved by the work-people for the perfect steadiness of the light; and it is wholly free from the inconvenience of snuffing, and from the danger occasioned by sparks that fall from candles. In addition to the foregoing statement of comparative economy, the author conceives it may be interesting to the Society to be informed of the original application of this gas, as a substitute for oil and tallow, which he states to have put in practice nearly sixteen years, in consequence of experiments which he was at that time conducting at Redruth, in Cornwall, upon the distillation of various mineral and vegetable substances. It was not, however, till the year 1798, that he removed from Cornwall to the manufactory of Messrs. Boulton and Watt, at the Soho foundery, and there constructed an apparatus on a large scale, for the purpose of lighting their principal building. Since that period it has been extended to the greatest part of their manufactory, to the exclusion of other artificial light; but Mr. Murdoch has preferred collecting his estimate from the apparatus of Messrs. Philips and Lee, on account of the greater extent and greater uniformity of the lights. Although the author did not derive his information concerning the inflammability of this gas from any source but his own experiments, he has since learned that " the inflammable spirit of coals' is mentioned by Dr. Clayton in the forty-first volume of the Philosophical Transactions, so long since as the year 1739; and he is informed that the current of gas escaping from Lord Dundonald's tar-ovens had been frequently set on fire previous to the date of his experiments: but he thinks himself entitled to claim the original idea of applying it as an economical substitute for oils and tallow for the purpose of illumination.