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EXPERIMENTS ON THE COMPRESSION OF AIR BY
THE I)IRECT ACTION ()~ TM WATER.
By J. P. FR~ZELL~ C.E.
Some ten years ago, the writer's attention was called to the compressing of air for mechanical purposes by causing it', in the form of minute bubbles, to be carried downward ill a current of water and lodged in a receiver by changing the direction of the current from vertical to horizontal.
Such a method appeared to promise important advanmge~ over existing methods of utilizing water power, putting it in a form to be transmitted to distant points and allowing the location of mills and ihetories to be chosen without reference to the requirement, s of water wheels.
The application of this method on a scale corresponding to a high degree of efficiency would involve a large expense and its entirely novel z~nd experimental character seemed to render hopeless any attempt to bring it to the J!otice of' capitalists. Nothing was therefore done in the way of its dewlopment beyond theoretical researches and some crude and simple experiments till within a couple of years.
Public attention was first called to the subject in a paper published in the JOU~XAL OF TrIE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE for September, 1877, in which the theory of the method was set fbrth aml its probable