In an automatic apparatus, the
fundamental idea is that the generating chamber, or one at least of
several generating chambers, shall always contain a considerable quantity
of undecomposed carbide, and some receptacle always contain a store of
water ready to attack that carbide, so that whenever a demand for gas
shall arise everything may be ready to meet it. Inasmuch as acetylene is
an inflammable gas, it possesses all the properties characteristic of
inflammable gases in general; one of which is that it is always liable to
take fire in presence of a spark or naked light, and another of which is
that it is always liable to become highly explosive in presence of a
naked light or spark if, accidentally or otherwise, it becomes mixed with
more than a certain proportion of air. On the contrary, in the complete
absence of liquid or vaporised water, calcium carbide is almost as inert
a body as it is possible to imagine: for it will not take fire, and
cannot in any circumstances be made to explode. Hence it may be urged
that a non-automatic generator, with its holder always containing a large
volume of the actually inflammable and potentially explosive acetylene,
must invariably be more dangerous than an automatic apparatus which has
less or practically no ready-made gas in it, and which simply contains
water in one chamber and unaltered calcium carbide in another.
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