Hence it happened that on one
occasion this gentleman, then a boy of seven or eight, was
standing outside Murdock's door with some other boys, trying to
catch sight of some special mystery inside, for Dr. Boaze, the
chief doctor of the place, and Murdock had been busy all the
afternoon. Murdock came out, and asked my informant to run down
to a shop near by for a thimble. On returning with the thimble,
the boy pretended to have lost it, and, whilst searching in every
pocket, he managed to slip inside the door of the workshop, and
then produced the thimble. He found Dr. Boaze and Murdock with a
kettle filled with coal. The gas issuing from it had been burnt
in a large metal case, such as was used for blasting purposes.
Now, however, they had applied a much smaller tube, and at the
end of it fastened the thimble, through the small perforations
made in which they burned a continuous jet for some time."[7]
After numerous experiments, Murdock had his house in Cross Street
fitted up in 1792 for being lit by gas. The coal was subjected
to heat in an iron retort, and the gas was conveyed in pipes to
the offices and the different rooms of the house, where it was
burned at proper apertures or burners.[8] Portions of the gas
were also confined in portable vessels of tinned iron, from which
it was burned when required, thus forming a moveable gas-light.
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