Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/153

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resources for fuel. A very fine vein of gas has been found by sinking a well within the limits of the city, and several manufacturers have begun boring for it on their premises. Twenty-six wells are now furnishing gas to manufacturers in the Pittsburg district, and new ones are added from time to time. They are estimated to be furnishing a supply of fuel equivalent to from 5,000 to 7,000 tons of coal daily, or from 1,800,000 to 2,500,000 tons a year. The gas makes a nice and even fire in grates and stoves, but objection is made to its use in private houses on account of its freedom from odor, by which the detection of leaks is prevented, and the danger is incurred of the air of the house being fatally poisoned before any, one becomes aware that anything is wrong. Its light is too weak to make it suitable for illuminating purposes. Its advantages over coal lie in the possibility of supplying it at much less expense, and in its entire freedom from soot and smoke—a matter of extreme importance in such a city as Pittsburg.









The temperatures of the boiling-points of the liquid forms of certain gases, as determined by Mr. Wroblewski, were given in our September number with the minus-signs undesignedly omitted. Most readers would understand, as of course, that temperatures below zero were intended. For the benefit of those to whom this may not have occurred, we repeat the temperatures: oxygen -299° Fahr.; atmospheric air -314·4°; nitrogen -315·5°; carbonic oxide -314·4°; and we may now add, hydrogen -351°.
