Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/97

Rh  1em 1em  GARTER,. See.  GARTH, (1670?–1719), a physician and poet of the age of Anne, was born of a good Yorkshire family, in 1670, it is said, but more probably at an earlier date. He was a student of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he resided until he was received into the College of Physicians in 1691. In 1696 he became a prominent supporter of the new scheme of providing dispensaries for the relief of the sick poor, as a protection against the greed of the apothe- caries. This labour having exposed him to the animosity of many of his own profession, and especially of the last— named body, he published in 1699 a mock—heroic poem, The Dispensary, in six cautos, which had an instant success, passing through three editions within the year. Garth became the leading physician of the Whigs, as Radcliffe was of the Tories. In 1714 he was knighted by George I., and he died on the 18th of January 1718—19. Garth was a wealthy man, leaving estates in Warwickshire, Oxford— shire, and Buckinghamshire. He wrote little besides his best—known work The Dispensmv, and Claremont, a moral epistle in verse. In 1717 he edited a translation of Ovid’s illelamorphoses, himself supplying the fourteenth and part of the fifteenth book. The subject of his mock- heroic epic is treated in a cumbrous style; and even in his own day Garth was accused of ﬂatness and poverty of thought.    

   LL artiﬁcial light is obtained as a result-either of com- bustion or of incandescence; or it might be more accurate to classify illuminating agents as those which emit light as a result of chemical action, and those which glow, from the presence of a large amount of heat, without thereby giving rise to any chemical change. The materials whence artificial light of the nature of ﬂame has been derived are principally bodies rich in carbon and hydrogen. Wax, fats, and oils, on exposure to a certain amount of heat, undergo destructive distillation, evolving inﬂammable gases; and it is really such gases that are consumed in the burning of lamps and candles, the wicks bringing small proportions of the substances into a sufﬁcient heat. I Wood and coal also, when distilled, give oﬂ" combustible gases ; and ordinary gas—lighting only differs from illmnina— tion by candles and lamps in the gas being stored up and consumed at a distance from the point where it is generated. Inﬂammable gas is formed in great abundance within the earth in connexion with carbonaceous deposits, such as coal and petroleum; and similar accumulations not unfre- quently occur in connexion with deposits of rock-salt; the gases from any of these sources, escaping by means of ﬁs- sures or seams to the open air, may be collected and burned in suitable arrangements. Thus the “ eternal ﬁres” of Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which have been
 * nown as burning from remote ages, are due to gaseous