What Does Natural Gas and Spider Webs Have In Common?

 

Natural Gas. So many people rely on this invisible commodity for cooking, warmth, heating water, and so many more things. Our everyday lives rely on it for things we don't even realize. The food we purchase from the grocery store as well as prescription drugs and merchandise we buy have most likely used natural gas somewhere along the way of getting to our homes.

Picture by Whoisjohngalt 

You might think that natural gas has been in use since the early 1900's or even perhaps the 1800's. And that would be true here in the United States. However, in Europe it was 1792 when the Scottish inventor, William Murdoch harnessed natural gas through metal pipes to light his own home. When that worked, he then ran pipes to his neighbor's to light his home as well. Proving the concept worked Murdoch then brought his invention to London in 1802, selling the idea for safer lighting than candles. 

The United States business magnates were always looking for ways to improve their lives, businesses and pocketbooks. The idea of running gas through metal pipe didn't go by unnoticed. In 1802 a proposal was sent to President Thomas Jefferson, explaining how natural gas would be invaluable for lighthouses and streetlamps. By 1817 the first United States gas company was established in Baltimore. 

Picture by Jebulon

That seems amazing when you think that twenty-six years after we became a country, when we were still moving and exploring and settling the west, the east coast was looking at having gas streetlights!

The use of natural gas was well in swing by the time the industrial revolution came around, allowing Carnegie, Morgan, Rockerfeller, and Vanderbilt to take advantage of the new-found power that helped the industrial revolution explode. 

Though, William Murdoch was the first inventor to harness natural gas through metal pipes in 1792, he was not the first to pipe natural gas. It might surprise you to know that using natural gas been around for thousands of years. The Chinese used bamboo to pipe natural gas over miles into homes around 2500 years ago!

Picture by Mbrickn

It wasn't until the 1930's that the concept of drilling down to capture natural gas became a reality. When accessing the gas became easier, the use of it exploded. Today we have over three million miles of pipelines across the United States. So what do natural gas lines and spider webs have in common? Nothing really other than a visual picture of the lines run across the continent.  

In some ways we've come a long way, but it isn't all our new-found knowledge. We can thank people from 2500 years ago for our ability to turn a button to cook and heat our homes.

He couldn’t very well hear God if he wasn’t listening. He needed to lay his life before God and let him direct it instead of trying to manipulate things to his liking.

Kirsten Macleod is in a bind. Her father’s last will and testament stipulates that she must either marry, lead the plantation into a first-year profit, or forfeit it to her uncle. But marriage is proving no easy option. Every suitor seems more enamored with the land than with her. Until her handsome neighbor sweeps into her stable to the rescue… of her beloved horse.

Silas Westbrook’s last year at veterinary school ends abruptly when he is called home to care for his young orphaned sisters. Troubles compound when he finds an insurmountable lien on the only home they’ve ever known, and the unscrupulous banker is calling in the loan. The neighbor’s kind-hearted and beautiful stable girl, Krissy, provides the feminine influence the girls desperately need. If only he had a future to offer her. But to save his sisters from poverty, he should set his sights on Krissy’s wealthy relative Kirsten Macleod, the elusive new heiress. Surely this hard-working and unassuming young lady and the landowner could not be one and the same?

Debbie Lynne Costello is the author of Sword of Forgiveness, Amazon's #1 seller for Historical Christian Romance. She has enjoyed writing stories since she was eight years old. She raised her family and then embarked on her own career of writing the stories that had been begging to be told. She writes in the medieval/renaissance period as well as 19th century. She and her husband have four children and live in upstate South Carolina with their 4 dogs, 4 horses, miniature donkey, and 12 ducks. Life is good!