This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...motion, we question much whether they greatly exceed the different forms of apparatus invented to utilize coal tar. A glance at the records of the Patent Office during the last twenty-five years would astonish many; for, though not one single patent or project of this kind has succeeded, yet the sealing-wax upon the ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 Excerpt: ...motion, we question much whether they greatly exceed the different forms of apparatus invented to utilize coal tar. A glance at the records of the Patent Office during the last twenty-five years would astonish many; for, though not one single patent or project of this kind has succeeded, yet the sealing-wax upon the specifications alone would furnish gas enough to burn out " a Norwegian winter." Yet so confident of success have the great bulk of these patentees been, that few have limited the amount of their anticipated profits within a sum sufficient to discharge the national debt. We will not attempt to mention even the names of these inventors, and still less to give a recapitulation of their specifications--it is enough that their name is " Legion." One of the earliest labourers at this " stone of Sisyphus," and also one of the latest, was Mr. George Lowe, of whom it is superfluous for us to say that he has few equals in respect to talent, science, practical knowledge, and inventive power. Uniting a thorough acquaintance with gas engineering to an innate perception of.the whole chemistry of die subject, Mr. Lowe could scarcely have failed had success been attainable in this his favourite project. It is, therefore, a striking commentary upon the whole scheme when we find a person of Mr. Lowe's vast experience, after nearly thirty-five years of persevering Llabour, at length definitively convinced of the utter hopelessness of his longcherished idea. Mr. Lowe's first experiments, on a tolerably large scale, appear to have been made in the early part of the year 1818, or about the month of March; for we find in " Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine " for the month of November in that year, a paper by Mr. G. Lowe, " ...
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