It is more difficult, therefore, by mechanical
agency to add a supply of carbide to a mass of water than to introduce a
supply of water to a stationary mass of carbide; and far more difficult
still to bring the supply of carbide under perfect control with the
certainty that the movement shall begin and stop immediately the proper
time arrives.
But assuming the mechanical difficulties to be satisfactorily overcome,
the plan of adding carbide to a stationary mass of water has several
chemical advantages, first, because, however the generator be
constructed, water will be in excess throughout the whole time of gas
production; and secondly, because the evolution of acetylene will
actually cease completely at the moment when the supply of carbide is
interrupted. There is, however, one particular type of generator in which
as a matter of fact the carbide is the moving constituent, viz., the
"dipping" apparatus (cf. _infra_), to which these remarks do not
apply; but this machine, as will be seen directly, is, illogically
perhaps, but for certain good reasons, classed among the water-to-carbide
apparatus. All the mechanical advantages are in favour, as just
indicated, of making water the moving substance; and accordingly, when
classified in the present manner, a great majority of the generators now
on the markets are termed water-to-carbide apparatus.
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