ABSTRACT
Gasworks by-products such as tar, coke, ammoniacal liquor, and so on are virtually a field of study in their own right. More precisely, they are virtually two fields of study—the first being the historic cornucopia of chemical products that the gas industry produced, and the second being the less pleasant specialty of assessing and reconstructing the sources of environmental contamination at a former gasworks or dump site. It is no coincidence that when Sherlock Holmes reappeared after his feigned death in 1903's “The Adventure of the Empty House,” the great detective alluded to having “spent some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives” in the south of France—for what else was a Victorian scientific hero to do but go to work on one of the hottest scientific subjects of the day?
