igo POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



When one remembers that these one hundred and eighty-seven 

 meters are presumably the worst of their kind, having been put in 

 evidence by a naturally suspicious public, it is but fair to assume that 

 the figures overrate rather than underestimate the errors of the average 

 gas meter. Quoting from The Progressive Age, a journal devoted 

 largely to the interests of the gas industry: "The meters made to-day 

 will remain a long while in service before they begin to register incor- 

 rectly, and when we consider the dampness, extremes of temperature 

 and hard usage they receive as they are transferred from cellar to attic, 

 from among the dust, cobwebs and litter of a basement closet to the 

 corner shelf of some coal cellar, to be the playground of rats, spiders 

 and cockroaches, to be drenched in summer by sweating or leaky water 

 pipes and wear a venerable beard of icicles in winter — to be, in fact, 

 the worst-used machine about a gas plant — we can not fail but express 

 surprise that it registers at all correctly.' 7 



