185 
Ordinary Meeting, February 23rd, 1886. 
Professor W. C. Williamson, LL.D., F.R.S., President, 
in the Chair. 
‘'Preliminary Note on a New Method of rapidly deter- 
mining the total organic Carbon in Waters,” by Charles 
A. Burghardt, Ph.D. 
Hitherto all the methods recommended for water analysis, 
and particularly those which are most generally adopted by 
chemists, have failed to give the total organic carbon present 
in a polluted water. The method known as Frankland’s is 
the principal one which has hitherto claimed to actually 
ascertain the amount of organic carbon and nitrogen in a 
water. This process of Frankland’s necessitates a prelimi- 
nary evaporation of the water to dryness, and I have no 
hesitation in saying that on this account it cannot any longer 
be relied on to give, even approximately, the amount of 
organic carbon present in a polluted water, because I have 
found in the course of numerous analyses of the water of the 
River Irwell and its Tributaries, that a very large quantity 
of the organic matter in such polluted water, exists in such 
a condition, that a rise in the temperature to 100°C. caused 
it to decompose and be evolved in the form of carbon dioxide 
gas, consequently, during the evaporation to dryness as in 
most methods of water analysis, this organic matter is lost 
and not taken into account at all. There is no doubt that 
in highly polluted streams the amount of carbon dioxide gas 
Peoceedings— Lit, &Phil. Soc,— Yol. XXY. — No. 9.— Session 1885-6. 
