"Gasometer" Quotes from Famous Books
... Parliament, when William Murdock, toward the close of the eighteenth century, said that coal gas would give a good light, and could be conveyed into buildings in pipes. "Do you intend taking the dome of St. Paul's for a gasometer?" was the sneering question of even the great scientist, Humphry Davy. Walter Scott ridiculed the idea of lighting London by "smoke," but he soon used it at Abbotsford, and Davy achieved one of his greatest ... — Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... was some time before it was proposed to light the streets by the new method. The idea was ridiculed by Sir Humphry Davy, who asked one of the projectors if he intended to take the dome of St. Paul's for a gasometer! Sir Waiter Scott made many clever jokes about those who proposed to "send light through the streets in pipes;" and even Wollaston, a well known man of science, declared that they "might as well attempt to light London with a slice from the moon." It has been ... — Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles |