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terests; but while they were continually consulting and extensively promoting the public benefit, the prospect of profit to themselves was distant and uncertain. Nevertheless, regardless of the large expenditure heretofore incurred, they engaged in costly experiments, with a view to the improvement of their processes and apparatus. And, in order to extend the means and facilitate the more general adoption of Gas-lighting, they persevered in laying down the principal mains, and in making such other preparations as seemed to be essential to the successful accomplishment of their purposes.

By improving the methods of managing and purifying the gas, some of the most formidable obstacles to its farther introduction and use were removed. Its utility had become more obvious; the prejudices against it, which arose from the want of adequate information, were gradually dissipated; and, as the subject was better understood, those objections which had originated from the dictates of private interests were rendered powerless and ineffectual. But circumstances occasionally occurred which tended to shade their views of prosperity, and to retard the arrival of that happy period when some pecuniary benefit should be the reward of their assiduous, enterprising, and anxious endeavours.

Great difficulties, anxieties, and vexations, must

necessarily have attended the exertions of many of those who had the direction and management of the Chartered Company's affairs about this period.* Where every thing connected with their apparatus and processes was comparatively new, and from the changes which the various attempts at improvement rendered necessary, it was naturally to be expected that some, perhaps many, of them would fail, whatever caution might be exercised or ability employed. However, their unsuccessful efforts were "lessons of wisdom;" and they had recourse to the most eligible means for obviating their recurrence. Early in 1813, they had an opportunity of securing the able assistance of that effective and ingenious engineer Mr. Samuel Clegg, and under his direction and superintendence their principal works, at all their different stations, were erected. From this period various improvements were gradually introduced into almost every part of the apparatus and machinery, as they were suggested by his ingenuity, and executed by the direction of his great me

* Though some pecuniary, and perhaps other advantages, may attach to the situation of directors of a public company, they have frequently an uncomfortable and a thankless office, however arduous may be their duties, or great as may be the portion of activity and diligence which their due performance requires.

chanical skill. This occupation gave rise to several of his inventions, which have proved so essentially subservient to the interests of such establishments, by their tendency to simplify and facilitate their operations, and also the detail of their management.* Moreover, by his instruction and contrivances the persons engaged in the inferior occupations were soon enabled to acquire such a portion of knowledge and dexterity as qualified them to fulfil the duties of those situations in which they were employed.

It must be observed that, although the aspect of their affairs was in some degree more cheering, still their shares were so low in value, that those which had cost the proprietors ten pounds each would scarcely sell for two. But it could hardly be expected that profit should be the immediate consequence of Mr. Clegg's early exertions, for he had to contend with many difficulties, and those of no ordinary kind. Some of his plans proved to be defective, and some of his trials too expensive. He commenced by attempting to decompose the coal in single cylindrical retorts, but this mode of

* Before Mr. Clegg became engineer to the Chartered Company, Mr. Accum sought his acquaintance, and was greatly indebted to him for much of the useful practical information which he gave in the first edition of his work on Gas-Lighting.

carbonization was found too costly. The first mains also which were laid down under his direction, experience evinced to be too small, and therefore they were obliged to be changed for some that were much larger. These were indeed mortifying circumstances; but it is not improbable that these instances of failure in Mr. Clegg led to some of those great improvements in the art of Gas-lighting, which afterwards distinguished his meritorious career.

At the latter end of 1813, an accidental explosion occurred at the works in Westminster, in which Mr. Clegg was seriously injured; and the following is his own account of the circumstance:-"There was a vault near the gasometer, in which the lime machine belonging to the apparatus was contained; the workmen on letting the lime-water out of the vessel removed too great a quantity of it, and allowed the gas to escape at the valve, where the lime-water was drawn off into the vault. Where the light originated, I am not prepared to state; whether from some person coming in with a candle, or by a communication, from the flue of the retorts there was a connexion of that kind, I cannot say ; the effect of it was, that it blew my hat off my head, and destroyed it, and blew it all to pieces, and knocked down two nine-inch walls, and injured me very much at the time, and burnt all the

skin of my face, and the hair off my head, and I was laid up a fortnight or three weeks by it. I was the only one hurt on the premises."* In consequence of this accident, a committee of the Royal Society was appointed to inquire into the cause of it. Their investigation and report were probably conducive to the advantage of both Gaslight establishments and the public, by leading to some useful alterations and new modifications in

its apparatus and machinery. About this time the City of London Gas-light Company was estabished, and two others were projected for the metropolis, one of them in Southwark, the other in its eastern district,

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHARTERED COMPANY AUGMENT THEIR CAPITAL TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS. THE INVENTIONS OF MR. CLEGG, FOR WHICH HE OBTAINED HIS FIRST PATENT IN 1816.

We are now arrived at an era when the current of public opinion was strongly turning in favour

* Evidence to the committee of the House of Commons,

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