In February, 1898, a British royal warrant was issued appointing a committee to inquire into the manufacture and use of water-gas and other gases containing a large proportion of carbonic oxid. The professional members of this committee were Dr. H. F. Parsons, assistant medical officer of the Local Government Board, and Prof. William Ramsay, of University College, London. In the course of its inquiry, the committee examined many expert witnesses and made careful and elaborate experiments, the details of which appear as appendices to its report recently submitted to the Houses of Parliament.
The committee found that carburetted water-gas was first used in the United States in the year 1878, and that in 1896 it constituted 70 per cent. of all the illuminating gases manufactured in this country. In Great Britain its use was begun in 1891, and, in 1897-98 the plants established, if worked to their full capacity, would