Describe the technology of a society with gaslights.
June 21, 2007 6:47 PM Subscribe
NovelFilter: What other inventions would a society advanced enough to have gaslights also necessarily have?
I'm thinking that, in order to have gaslighting, a society must already have the ability to make glass and shape metal, and to harvest and/or mine the substance from which the gas is made (nut oil, whale oil, coal, beeswax... whatever is the fuel), and some infrastructure to get the gas into the lights (like pipes) or else people would have to manually light each one. Am I missing anything?
What other technologies/inventions would you expect of a society with gaslighting as the common form of public illumination? What technologies/inventions would you find jarring - either because they would seem archaic, or because you'd expect a society that had them to be using electric (or some other form of) light?
This is an Earth-standard planet populated by humans (or close enough), but the ruling classes can fly, so motivation to invent transportation might be somewhat less.
I'm thinking that, in order to have gaslighting, a society must already have the ability to make glass and shape metal, and to harvest and/or mine the substance from which the gas is made (nut oil, whale oil, coal, beeswax... whatever is the fuel), and some infrastructure to get the gas into the lights (like pipes) or else people would have to manually light each one. Am I missing anything?
What other technologies/inventions would you expect of a society with gaslighting as the common form of public illumination? What technologies/inventions would you find jarring - either because they would seem archaic, or because you'd expect a society that had them to be using electric (or some other form of) light?
This is an Earth-standard planet populated by humans (or close enough), but the ruling classes can fly, so motivation to invent transportation might be somewhat less.
You could try watching 1900 house to get an idea of the technology available about the time they started using gas lighting in England.
posted by Packy_1962 at 7:01 PM on June 21, 2007
posted by Packy_1962 at 7:01 PM on June 21, 2007
Best answer: In our world, the use of gas lighting overlapped with electricity and the internal combustion engine, but wasn't dependent on either, I don't think, and is compatible with both older and newer technologies. Both horse carriages and automobiles, for example, can navigate using gas lighting.
But what a society with public gas lighting does need is organizational sophistication -- you need a system of public infrastructure (as compared to demanding that each resident light the street in front of their residence however they wish), you probably need some sort of fire fighting capacity (in case of a major gas leak and subsequent fire), and you need some variant on taxation to pay for the whole mess. Gas lighting is a centralized technology, in that it is hierarchically controlled from a central administrative apparatus; oil lanterns or electric lights powered by generators are a more dispersed or decentralized technology.
Gas lighting also implies that there is a high degree of sophistication in the education of engineers -- you need people to plan, build, and operate the system. Those are similar skills that you would need to build a sewer system or good bridges or complicated factories. It also implies that the population is clustered, rather than dispersed -- running gas lines (like sewer lines) only makes sense at high population densities).
(It should also be noted that gas can be distributed in cannisters, rather than in pipes -- this is how people in most of world do their cooking, for example; in the US we use gas cannisters mostly for our bbq's and patio heaters. But street lighting via gas cannisters would take an enormous logistical endeavor, with needing lots of trucks and workers to keep each street lamp provided with gas, and really probably wouldn't make any sense.)
posted by Forktine at 7:07 PM on June 21, 2007
But what a society with public gas lighting does need is organizational sophistication -- you need a system of public infrastructure (as compared to demanding that each resident light the street in front of their residence however they wish), you probably need some sort of fire fighting capacity (in case of a major gas leak and subsequent fire), and you need some variant on taxation to pay for the whole mess. Gas lighting is a centralized technology, in that it is hierarchically controlled from a central administrative apparatus; oil lanterns or electric lights powered by generators are a more dispersed or decentralized technology.
Gas lighting also implies that there is a high degree of sophistication in the education of engineers -- you need people to plan, build, and operate the system. Those are similar skills that you would need to build a sewer system or good bridges or complicated factories. It also implies that the population is clustered, rather than dispersed -- running gas lines (like sewer lines) only makes sense at high population densities).
(It should also be noted that gas can be distributed in cannisters, rather than in pipes -- this is how people in most of world do their cooking, for example; in the US we use gas cannisters mostly for our bbq's and patio heaters. But street lighting via gas cannisters would take an enormous logistical endeavor, with needing lots of trucks and workers to keep each street lamp provided with gas, and really probably wouldn't make any sense.)
posted by Forktine at 7:07 PM on June 21, 2007
I think they start out with the most important stuff, like weapons and food production. If they are at gaslight stage, then guns, poisons, fertilizers, perhaps even weed killers, planting and harvesting tools, etc.
posted by caddis at 7:16 PM on June 21, 2007
posted by caddis at 7:16 PM on June 21, 2007
Gaslighting was still in use in the US until at least the 1920s and persists today in some areas.
posted by Miko at 7:22 PM on June 21, 2007
posted by Miko at 7:22 PM on June 21, 2007
You could try watching 1900 house to get an idea of the technology available about the time they started using gas lighting in England.
Try a century earlier. By 1900, electricity was widely replacing gas. For most American cities, a key marker of development was the first gas plant.
I'd expect basic metallurgy for shaping and connecting pipes. You wouldn't need the most complex machinery such as an internal combustion engine, but you would need some sort of pressurized delivery system, and that strongly implies steam power (the two are closely related, technologically and historically). I could see a delay in developing the ICE, but not a whole lot, since all the basics are already in place with steam and gas lighting technology. The motivation for developing steam power was pumping and milling as much as transportation. You would need a growing population that needs to turn to manufacturing in order to meet its material needs. An agrarian society alone would have little need.
posted by dhartung at 7:51 PM on June 21, 2007
Try a century earlier. By 1900, electricity was widely replacing gas. For most American cities, a key marker of development was the first gas plant.
I'd expect basic metallurgy for shaping and connecting pipes. You wouldn't need the most complex machinery such as an internal combustion engine, but you would need some sort of pressurized delivery system, and that strongly implies steam power (the two are closely related, technologically and historically). I could see a delay in developing the ICE, but not a whole lot, since all the basics are already in place with steam and gas lighting technology. The motivation for developing steam power was pumping and milling as much as transportation. You would need a growing population that needs to turn to manufacturing in order to meet its material needs. An agrarian society alone would have little need.
posted by dhartung at 7:51 PM on June 21, 2007
If they have efficient gaslights, they might also have enough chemistry/physics to make gas mantles. Also the associated mining for rare earths, etc.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:07 PM on June 21, 2007
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:07 PM on June 21, 2007
The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman (and particularly The Golden Compass, the first book in the series) explores a somewhat technologically retrograde version of our own world that features naptha lamps, intricate clockwork devices and hydrogen-filled airships that ply the skies between London and the hinterlands, propelled by giant"gas engines" of some unspecified sort. , Pullman's description of the technology to be found in "Lyra's world" -- Lyra is the protagonist -- contributes substantially to a sense of the place as at once both familiarly antique and distinctly, almost desperately alien to our own experience.
The feel is very similar to what you describle, so the series might be worth a read on the off chance you're not already familiar with it.
posted by killdevil at 8:26 PM on June 21, 2007
The feel is very similar to what you describle, so the series might be worth a read on the off chance you're not already familiar with it.
posted by killdevil at 8:26 PM on June 21, 2007
Yeah, metallurgy is the big technology that I think gas lighting would rely on, for the pipes, valves, fittings, and so on. Wikipedia has a few mentions of historial gas light systems using wooden pipes, though.
Gas lighting was used extensively before the invention of gas mantles, so mantle technology isn't a necessary precursor.
You'll also need the "social technology" (government and legal framwork, I guess?) to allow the gas distribution system to be built: long rights-of-way for the pipes, dense cities, and so on.
Actually, as an alternate scenario, it's not necessary for gas to be centrally produced and piped around; it'd be reasonable for every building to have a town-gas generator in the basement, running off a coal supply or similar.
posted by hattifattener at 8:27 PM on June 21, 2007
Gas lighting was used extensively before the invention of gas mantles, so mantle technology isn't a necessary precursor.
You'll also need the "social technology" (government and legal framwork, I guess?) to allow the gas distribution system to be built: long rights-of-way for the pipes, dense cities, and so on.
Actually, as an alternate scenario, it's not necessary for gas to be centrally produced and piped around; it'd be reasonable for every building to have a town-gas generator in the basement, running off a coal supply or similar.
posted by hattifattener at 8:27 PM on June 21, 2007
Most common fuel would be whale oil, so rather large ships and a good infrastructure to transport the stuff (unless you're right on the ocean) would be pretty necessary.
What would be jarring ... cars, airplanes, petroleum.
posted by dagnyscott at 8:30 PM on June 21, 2007
What would be jarring ... cars, airplanes, petroleum.
posted by dagnyscott at 8:30 PM on June 21, 2007
Best answer: Gas lighting was a replacement for whale oil lighting. That was precisely the point: whale oil was too scarce and too expensive.
Gas was produced by baking coal in sealed ovens. To do that you need to be able to build those ovens, which must be made of metal. And you have to be able to ship in coal in large quantities -- which means you need some sort of ability to move bulk cargo. Early gas systems in Europe probably relied on wagons to move coal, but it didn't become a big deal in the cities until the development of the canals.
Of course, eventually railroads replaced canals as the preferred means of shipping bulk cargo.
In the 19th century there really wasn't anything except coal that could be used for gas lighting. Natural Gas wasn't available in most of the areas where they wanted to use it, and they didn't have the drilling technology or pipeline technology or, in fact, any of the other basic technologies which were needed to utilize it. Coal was compact, easily mined, easily shipped (once you have solved the basic problem of bulk cargo shipment), easily stored, and pretty easy to convert into gas just as it was needed at a central gas works. Coal deposits were available all over Europe.
You probably could have done it with charcoal, too, but that would have been much too expensive.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:45 PM on June 21, 2007
Gas was produced by baking coal in sealed ovens. To do that you need to be able to build those ovens, which must be made of metal. And you have to be able to ship in coal in large quantities -- which means you need some sort of ability to move bulk cargo. Early gas systems in Europe probably relied on wagons to move coal, but it didn't become a big deal in the cities until the development of the canals.
Of course, eventually railroads replaced canals as the preferred means of shipping bulk cargo.
In the 19th century there really wasn't anything except coal that could be used for gas lighting. Natural Gas wasn't available in most of the areas where they wanted to use it, and they didn't have the drilling technology or pipeline technology or, in fact, any of the other basic technologies which were needed to utilize it. Coal was compact, easily mined, easily shipped (once you have solved the basic problem of bulk cargo shipment), easily stored, and pretty easy to convert into gas just as it was needed at a central gas works. Coal deposits were available all over Europe.
You probably could have done it with charcoal, too, but that would have been much too expensive.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:45 PM on June 21, 2007
By the way, if you presume the canals as a technological precursor for gas lighting (which I think is reasonable), then gunpowder is too. The canals couldn't have been built without some sort of explosives -- it would have been prohibitively expensive.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:49 PM on June 21, 2007
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:49 PM on June 21, 2007
Best answer: Gaslights, the kind that are installed in walls and have pressurized gas coming out of them (and burn a mantle, like a modern Coleman lantern) were usually fueled with coal gas. Also called "manufactured gas." It's not whale oil or even a heavy petroleum product like kerosene.
You can use whale oil for lighting but you use it in a conventional wicked lantern, which is not what I think of when I hear "gaslight." Whale oil, and other liquid-at-room-temperature oils, aren't useful for gas lighting. They're what gas lights replaced.
The 'gas' for gaslights was generally produced in a gasworks -- most major cities of consequence had them -- where they would take coal and load it into coking ovens. When coal is heated in the absence of oxygen, lots of flammable gases are produced. This is the stuff that gets stored (usually in huge tanks with floating lids that went up and down, there are still some of them around) and pushed out to customers. I think you can do the same thing with wood instead of coal, although the gas produced would be somewhat different.
So anyway, a society that had gas lights would have (in addition to the obvious stuff) a gasworks, coking ovens (and coke, which is good for steelmaking), coal and coal mines, and a distribution infrastructure for getting the coal to the gasworks. It would also need to have something to make the mantles out of. I think they were usually made of fine silk.
For the purposes of a novel, you could replace the coal gasworks with something else ... some way of containing the methane produced by decaying organic matter would also work, I'd think (Mad Max style!), or maybe just by "drilling" bogs for swamp gas or something. Still, distributing it without good metallurgy would be a big problem, so it's a difficult technology to isolate from the rest of the late-1700s infrastructure that allowed it to take shape.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:51 PM on June 21, 2007
You can use whale oil for lighting but you use it in a conventional wicked lantern, which is not what I think of when I hear "gaslight." Whale oil, and other liquid-at-room-temperature oils, aren't useful for gas lighting. They're what gas lights replaced.
The 'gas' for gaslights was generally produced in a gasworks -- most major cities of consequence had them -- where they would take coal and load it into coking ovens. When coal is heated in the absence of oxygen, lots of flammable gases are produced. This is the stuff that gets stored (usually in huge tanks with floating lids that went up and down, there are still some of them around) and pushed out to customers. I think you can do the same thing with wood instead of coal, although the gas produced would be somewhat different.
So anyway, a society that had gas lights would have (in addition to the obvious stuff) a gasworks, coking ovens (and coke, which is good for steelmaking), coal and coal mines, and a distribution infrastructure for getting the coal to the gasworks. It would also need to have something to make the mantles out of. I think they were usually made of fine silk.
For the purposes of a novel, you could replace the coal gasworks with something else ... some way of containing the methane produced by decaying organic matter would also work, I'd think (Mad Max style!), or maybe just by "drilling" bogs for swamp gas or something. Still, distributing it without good metallurgy would be a big problem, so it's a difficult technology to isolate from the rest of the late-1700s infrastructure that allowed it to take shape.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:51 PM on June 21, 2007
Far left field here:
A primitive form of HPLC (although I always thought it was high pressure, rather than performance). Someone notices that different fractions of whatever their burning travels at different speeds through glass tubing to the burning chamber.
Maybe some fraction of an exotic fuel has beneficial/harmful properties?
Or perhaps a fraction of soot which only deposits on one section of a particularly shaped glass shroud around the flame has harmful/beneficial properties.
Or perhaps blowing recycled gas-lamp glass creates glass with different properties (impurities from the soot blends with the silica to impart different qualities to the final product).
posted by porpoise at 11:12 PM on June 21, 2007
A primitive form of HPLC (although I always thought it was high pressure, rather than performance). Someone notices that different fractions of whatever their burning travels at different speeds through glass tubing to the burning chamber.
Maybe some fraction of an exotic fuel has beneficial/harmful properties?
Or perhaps a fraction of soot which only deposits on one section of a particularly shaped glass shroud around the flame has harmful/beneficial properties.
Or perhaps blowing recycled gas-lamp glass creates glass with different properties (impurities from the soot blends with the silica to impart different qualities to the final product).
posted by porpoise at 11:12 PM on June 21, 2007
Best answer: The question for me would be what social pressures make the extensive infrastructure requirements of a gas lighting system more efficient than candles and oil lamps? I think it implies a certain population density that would best be explained by industrial revolution, and implies the development of: interchangeable parts; improved farming, commercial fishing or aquaculture; the rise of epidemiology; public roads; heavy freight transit by canal barge, train, or cargo airship; and 19th century drilling and mining techniques.
The ability to handle pressurized gas and valves to control the flow of gas would possibly give you the technology or inspiration for gasogene engines, and/or steam travel, hot and cold running water, balloon travel, pneumatic message delivery, snuba, bathyspheres, pneumatic elevators, and sprinkler systems.
Kadin2048, according to Wikipedia the "thermolampe" (1799) used wood gas.
You might be able to produce a gas lamp without glassblowing or metallurgy if the gas production and consumption were close together and you had relatively advanced ceramics?
The methane idea is interesting and reminds me of medieval sappers using rotting pig bladders or intestines to produce explosions.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:28 AM on June 22, 2007
The ability to handle pressurized gas and valves to control the flow of gas would possibly give you the technology or inspiration for gasogene engines, and/or steam travel, hot and cold running water, balloon travel, pneumatic message delivery, snuba, bathyspheres, pneumatic elevators, and sprinkler systems.
Kadin2048, according to Wikipedia the "thermolampe" (1799) used wood gas.
You might be able to produce a gas lamp without glassblowing or metallurgy if the gas production and consumption were close together and you had relatively advanced ceramics?
The methane idea is interesting and reminds me of medieval sappers using rotting pig bladders or intestines to produce explosions.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:28 AM on June 22, 2007
Response by poster: unixrat, I am actually trying to avoid steampunk, somewhat. I loved Perdido Street Station (and The Scar) but what I'm doing is more of a traditional fantasy novel, in a lot of ways - it doesn't have the same sorts of themes as steampunk - but it also features some larger cities (think London ca 1600) and I am trying to establish in my mind at what level of sophistication their technology would be. I'm only halfway through the first draft and have a lot of room to move.
I think perhaps what might work better for my purposes is some variation on the whale oil lamp but I am really up in the air on this, as I'm sure you can all guess. These answers are all great fodder for thought. I kind of want to favorite everybody...
posted by joannemerriam at 3:28 AM on June 22, 2007
I think perhaps what might work better for my purposes is some variation on the whale oil lamp but I am really up in the air on this, as I'm sure you can all guess. These answers are all great fodder for thought. I kind of want to favorite everybody...
posted by joannemerriam at 3:28 AM on June 22, 2007
Best answer: Are you aware of how ship's bottoms led to gas lamps?
If not, then luckily someone recently posted some classic television to youtube, doubly so because it includes a fascinating section on many of the inventions and technology (and social factors) that were necessary for, and lead up to, gas lighting. And in turn, what gas lighting lead to. (It was made in the 70's, so you'll have to forgive the wardrobe :)
Connections episode 7
(The show has been split into five 10-minute segments for youtube, and it starts bearing directly on your question in the second segment, but I suspect the whole thing will be such an addictive wealth of information about this stuff that you'll watch the whole thing then get started on the other episodes here :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:46 AM on June 22, 2007 [1 favorite]
If not, then luckily someone recently posted some classic television to youtube, doubly so because it includes a fascinating section on many of the inventions and technology (and social factors) that were necessary for, and lead up to, gas lighting. And in turn, what gas lighting lead to. (It was made in the 70's, so you'll have to forgive the wardrobe :)
Connections episode 7
(The show has been split into five 10-minute segments for youtube, and it starts bearing directly on your question in the second segment, but I suspect the whole thing will be such an addictive wealth of information about this stuff that you'll watch the whole thing then get started on the other episodes here :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 3:46 AM on June 22, 2007 [1 favorite]
In the book Salt:A World History, the author describes salt works in ancient China that used a source of natural gas. They used it mostly for boiling off water to make the salt, but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to imagine lighting as a secondary use. They used bamboo sealed with mud to pipe the gas from the source to the salt works nearby.
That would get you gas lighting with no need for advanced metallurgy or glass working.
posted by Eddie Mars at 7:01 AM on June 22, 2007
That would get you gas lighting with no need for advanced metallurgy or glass working.
posted by Eddie Mars at 7:01 AM on June 22, 2007
Oh, and for a fantasy novel take a look at Gardens of the Moon. The city in that book used a source of natural gas to light the city. The rest of the technology was definitely pre-industrial.
posted by Eddie Mars at 7:04 AM on June 22, 2007
posted by Eddie Mars at 7:04 AM on June 22, 2007
I can help you on whale oil; do you have specific questions?
posted by Miko at 7:14 AM on June 22, 2007
posted by Miko at 7:14 AM on June 22, 2007
Also, it wasn't that gaslighting directly replaced whale oil. Across most of the developed world, kerosene (petroleum derivative) replaced it, after about 1860. Kerosene is portable, cheap, (was) abundant, could be used in the same lantern and lamp designs as whale oil, and was much easier to harvest. Gaslighting was still inefficient except in densely populated urban areas that were in phases of growth, with abundant investment capital. It was propagandized as a modern, futuristic convenience that would replace those older technologies, but like the Beta format for video, it lost the competition to more successful technologies that were being developed at the same time.
Gas lighting never really replaced anything. It was a bit of a historical aberration, redundant even its own time, and was not widely adopted. It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Project that a new and standard source of lighting power could accurately be said to have replaced all previous sources.
posted by Miko at 7:22 AM on June 22, 2007
Gas lighting never really replaced anything. It was a bit of a historical aberration, redundant even its own time, and was not widely adopted. It wasn't until the Rural Electrification Project that a new and standard source of lighting power could accurately be said to have replaced all previous sources.
posted by Miko at 7:22 AM on June 22, 2007
And do keep in mind that initially, the outdoor lamps did have lighters, and wick trimmers. They didn't just pour on the gas and start automatically. Gas companies hired people to do the lighting and maintaining.
posted by headspace at 7:50 AM on June 22, 2007
posted by headspace at 7:50 AM on June 22, 2007
I sort of neat, if somewhat skimpy, for questions of this sort is Writers Dreamtools - Decades. It was just up, but now it seems, on preview it's down. If it doesn't work, try again later.
posted by miniape at 8:08 AM on June 22, 2007
posted by miniape at 8:08 AM on June 22, 2007
Without electricity, anything that required small motors, such as hand tools and clothes washers, could be powered by compressed air distributed in pressure lines from a central gas-turbine compressor; rapid communication could be achieved with paper and a system of pneumatic tubes, like some old department stores used.
Artificial lighting for large buildings with rooms which had no external windows could be accomplished by having large mirror arrays on the roofs which would feed light into solatube-like systems in each interior room, supplemented by bioluminescence and chemical luminescence.
I can't think why you wouldn't be able to use some thing like fiber optics and photosensitive paper for fax-like telegraphs and even picture transmission over moderately long distances. Even some forms of lasers are not out of the question.
Radioactive materials could even be used for lighting, like the radium night light Marie Curie kept by her bed, or the perpetually glowing watch displays that used tritium.
Steam powered locomotion would be perfectly possible at all levels, of course, and you could even have internal combustion with compression-heated ignition if you wanted.
I was sure someone above mentioned dirigibles but I can't find it now. With dirigibles you could have airports in the sky that only the ruling class could get to and from because they can fly.
Are you planning to use the old SF trope of explaining the lack of electricity by making the 'divine spark' a religious sacrament prohibited from profane use?
posted by jamjam at 8:53 AM on June 22, 2007
Artificial lighting for large buildings with rooms which had no external windows could be accomplished by having large mirror arrays on the roofs which would feed light into solatube-like systems in each interior room, supplemented by bioluminescence and chemical luminescence.
I can't think why you wouldn't be able to use some thing like fiber optics and photosensitive paper for fax-like telegraphs and even picture transmission over moderately long distances. Even some forms of lasers are not out of the question.
Radioactive materials could even be used for lighting, like the radium night light Marie Curie kept by her bed, or the perpetually glowing watch displays that used tritium.
Steam powered locomotion would be perfectly possible at all levels, of course, and you could even have internal combustion with compression-heated ignition if you wanted.
I was sure someone above mentioned dirigibles but I can't find it now. With dirigibles you could have airports in the sky that only the ruling class could get to and from because they can fly.
Are you planning to use the old SF trope of explaining the lack of electricity by making the 'divine spark' a religious sacrament prohibited from profane use?
posted by jamjam at 8:53 AM on June 22, 2007
Response by poster: Wow, this is great information. Particularly the Connections video - I am now going to have to watch the whole series.
posted by joannemerriam at 5:21 PM on June 22, 2007
posted by joannemerriam at 5:21 PM on June 22, 2007
If it is piped gas in a city area then the technology would probably depend upon the precursors of piped fresh water and sewer pipes.
However if the society has access to plastic or maybe giant animal bladders then other ways of transporting gas, particularly natural gas, are available. See this thread: Giant sausages full of what?.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 7:03 PM on June 22, 2007
However if the society has access to plastic or maybe giant animal bladders then other ways of transporting gas, particularly natural gas, are available. See this thread: Giant sausages full of what?.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 7:03 PM on June 22, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
Have you read Perdido Street Station?
posted by unixrat at 6:54 PM on June 21, 2007