Note 353 — Chapter XX · Prosperity of Soho—Young Boulton and Watt—The Riots—William Murdock.

Burning springs, though by no means common in Europe, were not unknown. They were kept burning by natural and spontaneous supplies of carburetted hydrogen gas issuing from fissures in the earth overlying beds of asphalte or coal. The inflammable character of fire-damp and the explosions which it occasioned in coal mines were also familiar to most persons living in the coal-mining districts. In 1658 Mr. Thomas Shirley first communicated to the Royal Society the result of some experiments which he had made on the inflammable gas issuing from a well near Wigan in Lancashire. Some time before 1691 the Rev. Dr. Clayton, Dean of Kildare, made some experiments on what he called the spirit of coal: he distilled some coal in a retort, and, confining the gas produced thereby in a bladder, he amused his friends by burning it as it issued from a pin-hole. In 1721 Dr. Stephen Hales found it was practicable to produce elastic inflammable air from coal and other substances, and that nearly one-third of Newcastle coal was drawn off in vapour, gas, &c., by the action of heat. In 1733 Sir James Lowther communicated to the Royal Society a paper on the subject of the fire-damp issuing from the shaft of a coal mine near Whitehaven, which had been accidentally set fire to and continued to burn for two years. Dr. Watson, Bishop of Landaff, and Dr. Priestley of Birmingham, examined the properties of coal-gas, and made experiments on its inflammable qualities, but pursued the subject no further. Lord Dundonald also had been accustomed, for the amusement of his friends, to set fire to the gas disengaged by the burning of coal in the process of coke-making. The same phenomena must have been observed on a large scale wherever coke was made. Each chamber in which coal was distilled was in point of fact a gas retort. Oil and gas were the products of the distillation; but strange to say, although the oil was collected and used, no heed was taken of the gas. Nor was it until Mr. Murdock’s attention was called to the subject that lighting by gas was proved to be practicable.