The history of gaseous fuel, important for lighting, heating, and cooking purposes throughout most of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, began with the development of analytical
Alessandro Volta
William Murdock
A Peep at the Gas-lights in Pall Mall: A contemporary caricature of Winsor's lighting of Pall Mall, by George Rowlandson (1809)
A coloured plate of a gas plant from Frederick Accum's A Practical Treatise on Gas-light (1815)
Coal gas
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Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system originating from a gasworks. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of
Gas Works Park, Seattle, preserves most of the equipment for making coal gas. This is the only such plant surviving in the United States.
An illustration of typical polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Source: NASA
Mantles in their unused flat-packed form
Coke oven at smokeless fuel plant, South Wales