68.  It is often of great importance, both for regulations of excise as well as for the interest of the proprietor, to know the quantity of spirits or of other liquors which have been drawn off by those persons who are allowed to have access to the vessels during the absence of the inspectors or principals.  This may be accomplished by a peculiar kind of stop-cock—­which will, at each opening, discharge only a certain measure of fluid the number of times the cock has been turned being registered by a counting apparatus accessible only to the master.

69.  The time and labour consumed in gauging the contents of casks partly filled, has led to an improvement which, by the simplest means, obviates a considerable inconvenience, and enables any person to read off, on a scale, the number of gallons contained in any vessel, as readily as he does the degree of heat indicated by his thermometer.  A small stop-cock connects the bottom of the cask with a glass tube of narrow bore fixed to a scale on the side of the cask, and rising a little above its top.  The plug of the cock may be turned into three positions:  in the first, it cuts off all communication with the cask:  in the second, it opens a communication between the cask and the glass tube:  and, in the third.  It cuts off the connection between the cask and the tube, and opens a communication between the tube and any vessel held beneath the cock to receive its contents.  The scale of the tube is graduated by pouring into the cask successive quantities of water, while the communication between the cask and the tube is open.  Lines are then drawn on the scale opposite the places in the tube to which the water rises at each addition, and the scale being thus formed by actual measurement,(2*) the contents of each cask are known by inspection, and the tedious process of gauging is altogether dispensed with.  Other advantages accrue from this simple contrivance, in the great economy of time which it introduces in making mixtures of different spirits, in taking stock, and in receiving spirit from the distiller.

70.  The gas-meter, by which the quantity of gas used by each consumer is ascertained, is another instrument of this kind.  They are of various forms, but all of them intended to register the number of cubic feet of gas which has been delivered.  It is very desirable that these meters should be obtainable at a moderate price, and that every consumer should employ them; because, by making each purchaser pay only for what he consumes, and by preventing that extravagant waste of gas which we frequently observe, the manufacturer of gas will be enabled to make an equal profit at a diminished price to the consumer.

71.  The sale of water by the different companies in London, might also, with advantage, be regulated by a meter.  If such a system were adopted, much water which is now allowed to run to waste would be saved, and an unjust inequality between the rates charged on different houses by the same company be avoided.