A is a stone-ware jar with the mouth sufficiently large to admit an ordinary champagne bottle.

B is a bottle cut off at the bottom (so that it can be suspended within the stone jar to within an inch and a half of the bottom), having a perforated bottom of either lead or wood.

C is a bent glass tube fitted to a cork, which tightly fits the neck of the bottle.

D are two half circles of wood dowelled together so as to enclose the neck of the bottle and hold it suspended within the stone jar A.

C, a bent glass tube that comes through the cork of the bottle B.

F F, an india-rubber gum tube that fits on the glass tube C.

F, a screw clamp that is attached to the gum tube that regulates the flow of gas to the barrel.

G, the bung of the barrel having a glass tube in its centre, to connect with gum tube F F.

Being ready to make the gas fill the bottle B with pieces of broken marble the size of hazel-nuts, and press in the perforated bottom. Fill the bottom of the jar A with pebble stones to a point that the bottle B does not touch it. Fill the jar A about one-half full of diluted muriatic acid, and suspend the bottle B in it by means of the wooden top D D. The carbonic acid gas will arise in the bottle B, and flow down the tube F F into the cask - all these must be air-tight. When the passage of the gas is stopped the gas collects in the bottle B and drives the acid into the outer jar A. When the gas again enters the barrel H the acid passes the outer jar A into the bell jar B, and produces a fresh supply. Any instrument constructed on this principle can evidently be used to keep a constant pressure of carbonic acid gas in a partly empty barrel of wine, and so prevent the access of air and oxygen and the mischief they occasion. This is also applicable to cider, ale, or beer on draught.

Wine does not improve in bottles; besides, for home use, it is a great deal more convenient to draw as wanted from the cask, and to know that what remains in the partly empty cask will go on improving in bulk so long as the air is excluded from it.