Gas lamps

We pulled into a driveway. A gas lamp a block behind us lit the parking lot, casting only enough dull yellow light on the building ahead to turn it into a Gargantuan shadow. This, she explained, was the Palace of Justice. 

Ethylene is a colorless gas with a slightly sweet odor. It turns from liquid to gas at -155°F. It burns readily in the presence of oxygen with a luminous flame. In fact, it was the ethylene component that made coal gas so useful as a gas light fuel at the turn of the 19th century. The other components in the coal gas don t give off near the light when burned by themselves. Natural gas lamps or propane/butane lanterns must be fitted with mantels to reduce the... 

Be(N03)2 3H2O is used to produce beryllium oxide and as a mantle hardener in incandescent acetylene or other gas lamps. 

The ga idea so neatly explained by Pemety is physically displayed in Etant donnas. .. by the flaming gas lamp—in French, a feu de lampe—held aloft by the supine nude woman, and its obvious component parts, as terminology (in French), include Air, Chaleur, Feu, Feu de Lampe, Flamme, Lampe, Lumiere, Vapeur, etc., all of which are exhaustively treated by Pernety. Since these terms are all alchemical in their employment, as a matter of natural course they contextually repeat themselves. Given this, we need only note that it is Pemety s definition of one particular term, Lamp-Fire, which is the one that best fits Duchamp s particular picturing of his Illuminating Gas. The Feu de Lampe represents, once again, The Mercury of the Philosophers. Accordingly, Pemety explains that... 

Figure 2. The laboratory of von Welsbach in which he invented the incandescent gas lamp, see insert in upper left ( )...

The apparatus may he variously modified. Thus, when it is required that the whole of the alcoholic vapor should be transformed into the olefiant gas, the ebullition of the acid must be continued by means of a spirit or gas lamp placed under the receiver. When the acid is merely heated in the first place, decomposition proceeds only till the acid is cold. Still, for prcpaiing a small quantity of gas, this condition Is quite sufficient. 

When illuminated by an incandescent gas lamp, tellurium vapour exhibits an intense bluish-green fluorescence. Under the light of a mercury vapour lamp the fluorescence is much less intense. The fluorescence spectrum consists of regularly spaced bands in the visible region.12... 

In the 19th-century days of gas lamps, water gas was frequently used for domestic purposes, a practice fraught with danger because of the extreme toxicity of carbon monoxide (see Chapter 19). The ratio of hydrogen to carbon monoxide in water gas... 

Haber already knew Leopold Koppel he d worked as a technical consultant for one of the companies that Koppel controlled, the Auergesellschaft, which manufactured gas lamps and electric fights. That company, in fact, had been Haber s secret source of osmium, the crucial catalyst in Haber s first successful attempt to make ammonia. Koppel had once offered Haber an extravagant salary to take over the company s in-house research, but Haber had turned down the offer, preferring the freedom and prestige of university life. 

In addition to its potential use in nuclear power systems, thorium has had minor industrial use in Welsbach mantles for incandescent gas lamps, in magnesium alloys to increase strength and creep resistance at high temperatures, and in refractories. 

Pure thorium is a silvery-white metal (melting point 1,750°C) that tarnishes upon exposure to air. Its density is 11.724 g/cm at 25°C (77°F), similar to that of lead. The best-known application of thorium is its use in incandescent mantles for gas lamps. These mantles consist of a metal oxide skeleton (99% Th02 and 1 % Ce02). Thorium(TV) oxide is used by chemists... 

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