The history of gas engines may be said to date from a time when coal gas and petroleum were unknown. This statement appears at first somewhat paradoxical, but it arises from the fact that the first gas engine, invented by the Abbé de Hautefeuille in 1678, used the explosive force of gunpowder as a motive power. The principle of this early gas engine, however, is exactly the same as that of its more modern brothers; that is, the work is done by the expansion and cooling of a volume of heated gas, the only difference being that gunpowder contains within its grains the oxygen necessary for its combustion, while coal gas or petroleum require admixture with the oxygen of the air before they can b…
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