We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Stephen Gower
saying something like:

A friend wonders what this device is, found in an alcove in a corridor of his
workplace: http://www.michaelhowe.org/images/IMAG0003.jpg

He's pretty sure that pipework isn't actually connected to the gas, and he's
not in the maintenance department, so this is pure curiosity!

Could be for anything.
Perhaps there was a need at one time for a large heated container of
water /soup /tar /who knows.