he held firm, and his vanity and cupidity iron-
plated him against all ridicule. He projected a
National Heat and Light Company, and flung out
pamphlets to flutter through the streets and
spread abroad his sanguine hopes. He spoke
of royal, noble, and scientific patrons in his old
voluble and inflated way, talked of philanthropy
(your projector always does), and promised
that, for five pounds deposit, any person
could be secured a handsome annual income
in a concern whose profits would at once
equal those of the New River Company. He was
about, he said, to open a mine of wealth in
Britain, and add to the despair of the foes who
were devising her ruin. He assured the gull-
world that he had now raised gas to its most
clarified and perfect brilliance. The great
discovery, like Aladdin's lamp, had got into bad
hands.

Here is a part of one of Mr. Winsor' s
advertisements, dated 1807: " Official experiments
proved one chaldron of coal to contain twenty-
three pounds two shillings in value, which
gives above two hundred and forty-two millions
for the yearly consumption of the realm. The
estimated savings are only rated at one
hundred and fourteen millions eight hundred and
forty-five thousand two hundred and ninety-
four pounds, all costs of carbonising, &c.,
deducted; and if the company only realise one-
tenth of this reduced sum, each five pound
deposit will secure to the subscribers five
hundred and seventy pounds per annum. Wonderful
as this may appear, the estimates and
experiments will stand the test of the best
calculators and chemists." Another part of
his scheme was to impose a tax upon coals,
in order to promote the use of his gas and
coke; this he calculated would produce a
revenue of ten million seven hundred and
fifty-one thousand pounds per annum to the
government.

In 1808, Mr. Murdoch, the real genius of
the discovery, read a paper to the Royal
Society, clear, truthful, and simple, to show
how largely gas had been used in a certain
extensive factory (Messrs. Phillips and Lee)
at Manchester. Por this useful paper, Mr.
Murdoch received Count Rumford's gold
medal. The first great practical success of gas
was here related, and soon became popularly
known.

Mr. Murdoch said: "The whole of the
rooms of the cotton-mill of Mr. Lee, at
Manchester, which is, I believe, the most
extensive in the United Kingdom, as well as
its counting-houses and store-rooms and the
adjacent dwelling-house of Mr. Lee, are lighted
with gas from coal. The total quantity of light
used during the hours of burning has been
ascertained, by a comparison of shadows, to be
about equal to the light which two thousand
five hundred mould caudles, of six to the pound,
would give; each of the candles with which the
comparison was made consuming four-tenths of
an ounce (one hundred and seventy-five grains)
of tallow per hour. The burners were of the
Argand and cockspur kind. The number used
was nine hundred and twenty-four, requiring
an hourly supply of one thousand two hundred
and fifty cubic feet of cannel-coal gas. The
annual consumption was calculated to be two
thousand five hundred cubic feet per day,
requiring each day seven hundred-weights of best
Wigan coal. The annual consumption of
coal would be one hundred and ten tons,
and cost one hundred and twenty-five pounds,
less the sale of coke at one shilling and
fourpence the hundred-weight. This does not
include the sale of one thousand two hundred
and fifty gallons of tar annually produced from
the coal. Allowing for interest of capital sunk,
wear and tear, Mr. Lee calculated his annual
payment for gas at about six hundred pounds.
The cost of candles would have been about
two thousand pounds annually. If lights were
burnt three hours a day throughout the year
instead of two, Mr. Murdoch calculated the cost
of gas at six hundred and fifty pounds, and
tallow candles at five thousand pounds. Mr. Lee
stated before a committee of the House of
Commons in May, 1809, that half a cubic foot
of gas produced in one hour more light than
one hundred and seventy-five grains of a six to
the pound candle.

In 1809, Mr. Samuel Clegg received a silver
medal from the Society of Arts for improvements
in gas apparatus for factories. In this same
year Winsor and his Pall-Mall patrons applied
to parliament for an act to incorporate a
company. This was the origin of the London and
Westminster Chartered Gas Company. The
capital proposed to be raised was two hundred
thousand pounds. Mr. Murdoch opposed them
warmly, and claimed priority of invention. Sir
Humphry Davy and James Watt were examined.
Both the applications failed, owing chiefly to the
prejudice against Winsor and the horrible scalping
given to Mr. Accum, one of the directors,
by Mr. Brougham, who ridiculed his
mathematics, exposed his science, and disproved
his arithmetic. Brougham, like Sir Walter
Scott, laughed gas-lighting to scorn. Whether
he ever proved his conversion by helping to start
a new gas company, as Sir Walter did, we do
not know.

But nothing could tire out Winsor. In
1810, another application was made to parliament;
and, though his friends encountered some
opposition and incurred considerable expense,
he succeeded in obtaining an act to authorise
a royal charter, within three years from the
time of the passing of the act. But the bill, as
originally introduced, was materially altered,
and certain conditions were imposed, which
limited the company's powers to London,
Westminster, Southwark, and the suburbs adjacent.
Besides, it was stipulated that, if required, they
should contract with the parishes of London,
Westminster, and Southwark, to furnish a
stronger and better light, and at a cheaper and
lower price, all expenses included, than such
parishes could be supplied with oil, if lighted in
the usual manner. Their capital was limited to