234 
Thompson’s air-tight bottle-stopper. 
spirit than it is by ordinary illicit distillation ; and I may be allowed to say further, that 
although fully sensible of the dangers which may arise from over-confidence, I am no 
less impressed with the necessity for steadily maintaining the principles upon which me¬ 
thylated spirit is allowed to be used, until it can be conclusively proved that such princi¬ 
ples are fallacious and injurious to the interests of the revenue ; to act otherwise would 
be to abandon, upon insufficient grounds, a system which on all hands is admitted to be 
beneficial to the community. 
Before concluding this report I maybe allowed to say:—First, that supposing methy¬ 
lated and wood spirits could be rendered potable,—which I deny has yet been done,—they 
would still be much inferior to the spirit produced by ordinary illicit distillation. Second, 
granting that methylated and wood spirits can be made equal to illicit spirit, the advan¬ 
tage must be greatly in favour of the latter, for whilst the purification of the first two 
would require costly apparatus, and involve cumbersome operations difficult to conceal, 
upon expensive materials, the production of common illicit spirit can be carried on with 
much secrecy, the apparatus required being comparatively rude and inexpensive, and the 
materials used of little value. Hence the purification of methylated spirit, for these 
reasons, can be at least as easily suppressed as ordinary illicit distillation. 
Within the period to which this report relates, eighty-three samples of wood naphtha 
were examined, in order to test their suitability for the purpose of methylating spirits 
of wine. 
THOMPSON’S AIR-TIGHT BOTTLE-STOPPER* 
The prevailing notion in reference to the stopping of bottles, jars, etc., is an assump¬ 
tion of its being necessary to insert the cork or other material into the neck of the 
vessel, whereas it is obvious that so long as the orifice is perfectly covered, and a degree 
of pressure, according to the nature of the contents, be exerted thereon, it will be more 
effectively secured than by the imperfect method of driving a cork into the mouth, with 
the further advantage of obviating entirely the considerable breakage which always ac¬ 
companies this method, whilst the additional and troublesome operations of wiring, wax¬ 
ing, and capsuling, are altogether dispensed with. 
JL 
It appears that from the 14th of March, 1814 (the date of the first patent), 150 
patents have been taken out for various new modes of stoppering bottles. Evidence was 
* This air-tight bottle-stopper was placed on the table by Mr. Reynolds, of Leeds, at the 
last meeting, but in consequence of press of other matter the subject was not referred to. 
