City Of Bath Research Articles

XVIII. Notes upon the Sculptures of a Temple discovered at Bath

During the fall of last year I visited the ancient city of Bath, and was astonished at the quality and extent of the sculptures and inscriptions now preserved in the Literary Institution. They are collected in a vestibule attached to that building, which has a portico of very pure Greek Doric architecture, and the sculptures are effectively arranged, with the advantage of a central light from above. All the sculptures in this vestibule have a particular local interest, as they were discovered within the precincts of the city, most of them about the year 1790, upon what appears to have been the site of an ancient temple, or, more probably, a group of buildings.

Appendix to a memoir, lately read to the Society, on the quality and quantity of the gases disengaged from the hot spring of the King’s Bath, in the city of Bath

The author has lately examined two tepid springs, which, since the setting in of the wet weather, have broken out at the foot of St. Vincent’s rocks, Clifton, immediately below the Cliff, against which the suspension bridge over the Avon is designed to abut. The temperatures of the springs were 72° and 66° respectively; and the gas consisted of 92 parts of nitrogen, eight of oxygen, and three of carbonic acid. The author deduces from these facts arguments in confirmation of the views he has stated in the paper to which this is an appendix. Mr. Faraday’s Sixth Series of Experimental Researches in Electricity were resumed and concluded; and the reading of the Seventh Series commenced.

On the quantity and quality of the gases disengaged from the thermal spring which supplies the King’s Bath, in the city of Bath

The author, pursuant to an intention expressed in a former paper read to the Society, undertook a series of experiments, for the purpose of measuring the gas evolved from the thermal springs at Bath during a period of time sufficiently long to enable him to determine with tolerable precision its average amount, and to ascertain whether any great diurnal variations in its quantity can be detected. He also kept during the same period a corresponding register of the conditions of the atmosphere, as to temperature, humidity and pressure, in order to learn whether any connexion could be traced between these conditions and the quantities of gas evolved. The supplies, both of water and of gas, from the Hot Bath and the Cross Bath being insignificant compared with those from the King’s Bath, the author confined his inquiries to the last of these, and chiefly to the gas arising from the apertures within its central area, which is about twenty feet in diameter; the other apertures without this circle from which gas issued being carefully stopped up. The gas was collected by a funnel-shaped apparatus, constructed of several sheets of iron riveted together, and the seams rendered airtight by white lead, supported on a frame, with contrivances for raising and lowering it as occasion might require. The observations were made during periods of from five to fifteen minutes, and continued daily from the 17th of September to the 18th of October inclusive. The average quantity of gas evolved per minute, as deduced from the mean of all the observations, is 267 cubic inches, giving a total daily volume of 223 cubic feet. The author, by referring to the accounts on record of other thermal waters, concludes that the evolution of gas is a phenomenon as intimately connected with the constitution of these waters, as the presence of a definite quantity of certain saline ingredients, or the possession of a particular temperature; both of which probably continue unaltered for periods of indefinite duration, compared with the records of any human history. He considers this phenomenon to be explicable, by supposing that a large volume of these gases is pent up in some cavern of rock, at a great depth below the surface of the earth, which, at some former period, had been heated by volcanic action, and which, by the gradual cooling and consequent contraction of its external portions, exerts a continued pressure on the gaseous contents of its cavity, and determines the uniform flow of a stream of gas through crevices towards the surface.

I. On the quantity and quality of the gases disengaged from the thermal spring which supplies the King's Bath in the City of Bath

In some remarks on a paper of Dr. John Davy’s, entitled “Notice on the Remains of the recent Volcano in the Mediterranean,” which were inserted in the last Part of our Transactions, I expressed my regret, that no accurate statement of the quantity of gas evolved in a given time from any thermal waters had been published, and intimated my intention to make this the subject of special examination, whenever suitable opportunities should occur. Accordingly, having in my former visits to Bath been struck with the copious evolution of gas from the centre of the principal of the hot springs of that city, I solicited from the gentlemen composing the Committee appointed to manage and regulate them, leave to institute such experiments as appeared to me desirable on the spot; and having obtained from them the requisite facilities for so doing, I determined to collect and measure the gas evolved, repeatedly, during a period sufficiently extended to enable me to fix with tolerable precision its average amount, and to ascertain, whether any greater diurnal variation in its quantity could be detected, than what might be fairly set down to errors of manipulation, or to oscillations in the quantities discharged extending over a wider range of time, than that during which it might be found convenient to protract the period of each observation.