Changes in Utility Rates 466 Charles A. Munroe Elected Vice-President of the Peoples Gas Light & Coke Company, Chicago, Illinois 461 Clothing Industry, The 497 Commissions and the Federal Courts 472 Connecting Gas Appliances to Coal Burning Appliance Flue 455 Department of Health of New York City Investigates Effects of Gas 451 Distribution of Sales-Gas Chemists' Handbook 503 Dyeing Industry, The Exhibit of the Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C., at Natural Gas 498 457 Lemmon, H. A. "What a New Customer Thinks the First Day" 485 479 455 FOR STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS CONTAINED IN PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS APPEARING HEREIN, THE ASSOCIATION DOES NOT HOLD ITSELF RESPONSIBLE AMERICAN GAS ASSOCIATION MONTHLY OFFICE OF PUBLICATION, Entered as Second Class Mail Matter at the Post Office at Brattleboro, Vermont, American Gas Association Monthly Vol. IV AUGUST, 1922 Uninterrupted Service No. 8 The end of the second week of the railroad shopmen's strike finds a steadily growing list of train delays and cancellations-freight and passenger. A fuel shortage, probably accompanied by inflated prices, seems almost inevitable this fall and winter. Anthracite production has virtually ceased and the nonunion bituminous mines are supplying only about half the country's solid fuel requirements. The nation's stock of coal above ground has been reduced to what experts generally regard as the danger point. Cause-the coal strike. Interrupted service! And the cost? It has been estimated that 10,000,000 working hours are wasted every day because of strikes and interrupted service. At a moderate appraisal this means a money loss of $5,000,000 a day, or of $30,000,000 a week. Thirty million a week is a billion and a half a year. The actual loss of working hours and wages, however, is but a small part of this cost of interrupted service. Curtailment of production is another. Merchants are suffering from delayed shipments, tardy arrival of employees, both due to the partial interruption or partial suspension of railroad service. If the movement of mail should be interrupted, many financial disasters and tragedies might easily occur. The cost if it could all be calculated would mount into the billions. And besides the cost, if an attempt were made to list all the inconveniences, all the increases of hazard, all the menaces to health and happiness, these few words would rapidly overflow the space allotted to them. Interrupted service, whatever the causes, strikes, disasters, business depressions, panics, might truthfully be said to be one of the greatest known menaces to the civilized world, industrially, financially and humanely. But in the very realization of this fact have not we, the gas industry, one of the nation's greatest industries, something to be proud about? Yes, something to be proud about and, moreover, something to shout aloud about to the whole world. And isn't this the time to do our shouting-the time to do our shouting and impress our public anew with our record UNINTERRUPTED SERVICE SINCE THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF GAS! It is the time, since these interruptions have come at the end of an era of depression, just when everything was set for the big come-back with everyone's shoulder at the wheel, to gain the greatest effect. Yes, we believe that this is the time, and we believe that this is, moreover, the very best opportunity presented in years to increase the confidence of the public in our industry and improve those public relations which are so vital to the healthy growth of our industry. UNINTERRUPTED SERVICE! Department of Health of New York City Investigates Effects of Gas Combustion The following is a report made by Dr. Joseph A. Shears, M. D., sanitary expert of the Department of Health, New York City, published in the Weekly Bulletin of the Department, and once more clearly refutes the old time fallacies about the burning of gas. (EDITOR'S NOTE.) Tha Second: The amount of carbon-dioxide is increased. O the Deputy Commissioner :-I have the honor to submit for your information the following report on combustion of illuminating gas. I have taken this matter up in detail so that the subject can be viewed from each and every angle. Perfect combustion of illuminating gas has a highly beneficial effect on the quality of air. It has been assumed that because of the burning of gas, and the discharge of products of combustion into a room a vitiation of the atmosphere must result. The combustion of illuminating gas produces, from a chemical standpoint, four different effects upon the air taken from a room, mixed with the gas in the burner and discharged back into the room. First: The amount of oxygen is reduced. Third: A very small amount of sulphur-dioxide is added. Fourth: Dust and bacteria are removed by incineration. The first, second and third effects are caused by oxygen combining with the carbon and sulphur maintained in the gas and this oxidizing process generates heat which is sufficient to produce the fourth effect. The physical effects produced upon the air are increased temperature, circulation of the air in the room is accelerated and ventilation from the outside is increased. As the quality of the air in the room at any time depends upon the interaction of the incoming air upon the products of combustion discharged from the burners and the organic matter exhaled from the lungs and skin of the occupants of the room, it is necessary to investigate the intereffects of all three. On account of the tendency of heated air to expand, become lighter and rise, the presence of any source of heat in a room produces a certain circulation of the air, which serves a double purpose. In the first place, the heated air is cooled by contact with successive portions of the relatively cool walls, and in the second place the temperature in the upper portions of the room tends to increase, while that in the lower portion tends to decrease below that which would prevail without circulation. This produces an unbalanced pressure from the outside, tending to draw fresh air in at the bottom of the room through crevices, joints and other openings, and also to a greater extent than is ordinarily realized through the walls themselves. The same action tends to expel the air in the upper portion of the room in the same manner, and this tendency is, of course, greatly augmented by increased facilities for ventilation. In considering the concurrent effects of heat sources and the incoming air upon the average quality of the interior air at any moment, it is necessary to inquire into the nature and effects of the vitiating substances. Generally speaking, these are divided into two classes: Those emitted by the respiration, both from the lungs and the skin of the people in the room; second, those emitted by the illuminants. The first class includes bacteria of those diseases which are transmitted by bacteria which, when taken from the air into the system through the mouth or skin, will produce their characacteristic diseases. As a matter of fact, the supposedly fresh air from the ex terior is often heavily laden with bacteria of this character. More commonly than any other are felt the effects of the vitiation produced by the organic matter, in a greater or less advanced stage of decay, exhaled by the lungs. This produces the stuffiness in a poorly ventilated room which is sometimes ignorantly attributed to carbonic acid gas. Carbonic acid gas is present in the purest of outdoor air in the proportion of about four parts in 10,000 and produces no discomfort or ill effects if less than 225 parts in 10,000 of air are present. On account of the ability of gases to diffuse through even the tightest walls used in building construction, the proportion of carbonic acid gas in interiors rarely rises above 20 parts in 10,000 though for experimental purposes this proportion has been made as high as 50 parts in 10,000. This was accomplished only by resorting to exceptional means to secure a high percentage of this gas. Thus, practically speaking, it may be said that it is impossible in practice to obtain enough carbonic acid gas in an ordinary room to produce the slightest effect upon the bodily functions, even when the most sensitive tests are employed to detect such effects. Sulphurous acid gas when present is in such almost infinitesimal quantities that it is disregarded as far as the effects. on health are concerned. While it is, in the quantities found, harmless to the human organism, it has a decided sterilizing effect as regards disease germs. While it is true that carbonic acid gas artificially produced—that is, by gas combustion-is entirely inocuous in any quantity met with in human habitations, it must not be assumed that such quantities of this gas exhaled from the lungs, |