View report page

249
that, in the interval, a long series of careful and complete
experiments had been made by the officers of the Board,
under the Board's authority, with the result that the Pentane
air-gas standard, as devised by Mr. A. Vernon Harcourt, one
of the gas referees, appeared to possess, in a higher degree
than any other, the merits of simplicity, accuracy, and
reliability. The County Council, through its Sanitary and
Special Purposes Committee, took up the subject, having
addressed a communication to the Board of Trade (in July,
1889), with a view to steps being taken for (1) providing a
trustworthy standard of light; (2) prescribing a standard
photometer with which all official photometers should be
compared, and (3), giving legal force to tests made with a
portable photometer ; the reasons for which are fully set out in
the Committee's communication. During 1891 the subject
continued to receive the attention of the Committee, and
formed the subject of several reports. The Board of Trade,
moreover, undertook to appoint a scientific Committee to
consider what the standard of light should be ; but having no
fund out of which to defray the costs of the contemplated
enquiry, they asked if the Council would defray the expense?
a course the Committee were not prepared to recommend, as
the Council have no power to make any payment for such
a purpose. The Committee, therefore, recommended that
steps should be taken to promote a Bill " for substituting a
more exact standard of light for that now prescribed," and
this course, doubtless, would have been adopted, but for the
liberality of the South Metropolitan Gas Company, who
undertook to bear the whole of the expenses of a Committee,
which the Board of Trade thereupon agreed to appoint. The
Committee was to be composed of two members nominated
by the Council, one by the Corporation, three by the London
Gas Companies, together with the three Gas Referees, and
two independent scientific men. What result has followed
the investigations made by the Committee, if any, I am
unable to state, not having seen any reference to their proceedings.