20 
THe DETERMINATION OF SOME PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL 
CHARACTERS OF SOME SAMPLES OF WATER FROM THE 
IrIsH SEA. 
By Aurrep Hout, Jun., B.A. (CAnvas.) 
Having been requested by Prof. Herdman to examine for 
him some of the physical and chemical characters of the 
water of the Irish Sea, with a view to selecting the most 
practical and effective methods for their rapid determina- 
tion, I obtained a number of samples from different places, 
and estimated, as far as time allowed, the specific 
gravity, colour, chlorine, total salinity, alkalinity, carbonic 
acid gas in solution, and the lime. 
The ratios between these were then determined, in order 
to see if they were sufficiently constant to enable one to 
calculate from an accurate determination of one character 
the values of the others. 
At the same time it was hoped that some knowledge of 
the movements of the water of the Irish Sea area might be 
obtained from examination of the values obtained. This 
will be discussed at the end of this paper. Though every 
eare has been taken to obtain accuracy, the fact that I had 
not always at my disposal a sufficiently accurate balance 
forced me to use in the titrations known volumes of solu- 
tions instead of known weights of them, which undoubtedly 
may cause error. Further, for the same reason, some pro- 
cesses had to be done volumetrically instead of gravimetric- 
ally, which though easier to perform do not produce quite 
such good results. 
