ORIGIN AND USE OF NATURAL GAS AT MANITOU. 31 



mouth downward under the water of the spring as deeply as 

 possible. The mouth of the funnel was bent after several 

 trials to conform to the irregularities of the spring, and the 

 funnel when thus fitted was held in place by wooden supports, 

 because pressed upward with much force by the rising gas. 

 A large bell-glass of a capacity of 7 or 8 litres was used to 

 make the measurement. This bell-glass when filled with 

 water by immersion in the spring was held mouth downward 

 over the small opening of the funnel whence the gas now 

 escaped, and as the gas entered it the water was displaced. 

 The bell-glass was gradually raised out of the water as the 

 gas accumulated, until when it was full of gas the mouth just 

 dipped beneath the surface of the water. In this way the gas 

 was measured at the then prevailing atmospheric pressure. 

 Owing to the very rapid fiow of the gas, the time required to 

 fill the bell-glass could not be very accurately determined, 

 though by repeating the experiment many times and taking 

 an average of the time records, the number of seconds re- 

 quired to fill it was ascertained with sufficient accuracy for 

 practical purposes. The quantity of gas evolved daily was 

 now easily computed, provided the flow w'as constant as 

 observation had seemed to indicate. With these figures it 

 was possible to calculate the number of bottles of water that 

 could be recharged with this natural gas jier diem. Roughly 

 speaking, water will absorb its own volume of carbon dioxide 

 whatever be the i^ressure to which the water and gas are 

 subjected. Assuming a pressure at which the company would 

 bottle the waters, the reduction in volume of the gas was 



obtained by the use of the formula v'=^- The rise of tem- 



j p 



perature, due to compression, could practically be neglected 

 since the water sufficiently cooled the gas. The number of 

 bottles which could be filled from this supply of gassed water 



was -T- if A represented the capacity of each bottle. Thus 



the Company was assured that the supply would be much 

 more than sufficient for the then daily output of the works. 



The second problem involving the construction of appa- 

 ratus for catching and storing the gas was somewhat more 



