bulk.

The pressure of the atmosphere assists very considerably in keeping
fixed air confined in water; for in an exhausted receiver, Pyrmont water
will absolutely boil, by the copious discharge of its air. This is also
the reason why beer and ale froth so much _in vacuo_. I do not doubt,
therefore, but that, by the help of a condensing engine, water might be
much more highly impregnated with the virtues of the Pyrmont spring; and
it would not be difficult to contrive a method of doing it.

The manner in which I made several experiments to ascertain the
absorption of fixed air by different fluid substances, was to put the
liquid into a dish, and holding it within the body of the fixed air at
the brewery, to set a glass vessel into it, with its mouth inverted.
This glass being necessarily filled with the fixed air, the liquor would
rise into it when they were both taken into the common air, if the fixed
air was absorbed at all.

Making use of _ether_ in this manner, there was a constant bubbling from
under the glass, occasioned by this fluid easily rising in vapour, so
that I could not, in this method, determine whether it imbibed the air
or not. I concluded however, that they did incorporate, from a very
disagreeable circumstance, which made me desist from making any more
experiments of the kind. For all the beer, over which this experiment
was made, contracted a peculiar taste; the fixed air impregnated with
the ether being, I suppose, again absorbed by the beer. I have also
observed, that water which remained a long time within this air has
sometimes acquired a very disagreeable taste. At one time it was like
tar-water. How this was acquired, I was very desirous of making some
experiments to ascertain, but I was discouraged by the fear of injuring
the fermenting liquor. It could not come from the fixed air only.

Insects and animals which breathe very little are stifled in fixed air,
but are not soon quite killed in it. Butterflies and flies of other
kinds will generally become torpid, and seemingly dead, after being held
a few minutes over the fermenting liquor; but they revive again after
being brought into the fresh air. But there are very great varieties
with respect to the time in which different kinds of flies will either
become torpid in the fixed air, or die in it. A large strong frog was
much swelled, and seemed to be nearly dead, after being held about six
minutes over the fermenting liquor; but it recove