Still, at the prices for coal,
paraffin oil, and calcium carbide which exist in Great Britain, acetylene
is not an economical means of providing artificial heat. If a 0.7 cubic
foot luminous acetylene burner gives a light of 27 candles, and if
ordinary country coal-gas gives light of 12 to 13 candles in a 5-foot
burner, one volume of acetylene is equally valuable with 15 or 16 volumes
of coal-gas when both are consumed in self-luminous jets; and if, with
the mantle, acetylene develops 99 candles per cubic foot, while coal-gas
gives in common practice 15 to 20 candles, one volume of acetylene is
equally valuable with 5 to 6-1/2 volumes of coal-gas when both are
consumed on the incandescent system; whereas, if the acetylene is burnt
in a flat flame, and the coal-gas under the mantle, 1 volume of the
former is equally efficient with 2 volumes of coal-gas as an artificial
illuminant. This last method of comparison being manifestly unfair,
acetylene may be said to be at least five times as efficient per unit of
volume as coal-gas for the production of light. But from the table given
on a later page it appears that as a source of artificial heat, acetylene
is only equal to about 2-3 times its volume of ordinary coal-gas.
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