Gas Generator Fuel "Fuel Facts and Fancies" Engineering Service Experiments at Davenport in the Use of Coal and Coke Mixtures as Water DeHart, Jr., J. S. "Proposed Standard Specifications for Bench of Sixes" Fulweiler, W. H. "Report of the Technical Committee on Gas Oil, 1921" 105 FOR STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS CONTAINED IN PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS APPEARING HEREIN, THE ASSOCIATION DOES NOT HOLD ITSELF RESPONSIBLE Application for entry as Second Class Matter December 28th, 1921, at the Post American Gas Association Monthly Vol. IV FEBRUARY, 1922 No. 2 Gas Cooking-In the Beginning In 1851, Samuel Clegg, jr., in a letter to the editor of the Journal of Gas Lighting wrote: Sir, In the Expositor of last week I saw a portrait of Mr. Sharp, the manager of the Southampton Gas Works, and an article claiming for him the invention of cooking by gas. Now, I do not believe any man living can claim it as his invention. In 1739 Dr. Clayton boiled eggs by a gas flame; in 1792 Mr. Murdock frequently cooked chops and steaks over gas jets; and, in 1824, I perfectly well remember the men at the Ætna Iron Works, near Liverpool, making a gas cooking apparatus, which consisted of a gun-barrel turned backwards and forwards, and pierced with numerous small holes. When anything had to be fried the gridiron was kept in a horizontal position; when anything had to be roasted it was turned in a vertical position, and a plate of tin was placed behind the meat, as a reflector, or hastener, as I think the cooks call it. Mr. Sharp may have contrived a stove for cooking by gas; that is, pieces of iron so placed as to hold different things-some perhaps, requiring to be boiled, others to be fried or roasted; but I believe that Mr. Alfred King, of Liverpool, arranged (I won't call it invented, for it is not worth the name, and I am sure Mr. King will not quarrel with the word) the first convenient apparatus for cooking by gas. Gas cooking stoves are not yet perfect; but they are already economical, and I hope will very soon be universal. Putney, March 2, 1851. Six years later an extract from the original minutes of the Middlesborough, England Corporation (Gas Dep't), ran as follows: July 16, 1857. "Mr. Avery has applied for a supply pipe from the works to his hotel to enable him to use gas in the day for cooking. The Committee agree to laying a pipe so soon as the apparatus is ready provided Mr. Avery will guarantee a reasonable additional consumption to warrant the outlay." Note that the gas was evidently shut off the town during the day and that this is a request for a continuous supply for cooking. |