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Nooth's apparatus

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Nooth’s apparatus was a three-vessel glass device for impregnating water with carbon dioxide. Its surviving late-eighteenth-century form documents an early route from laboratory gas experiments to manufactured aerated water.

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Watercolor-and-ink illustration of Nooth's three-vessel glass apparatus for carbonating water, showing marble chips in the lower vessel, water and tap in the middle vessel, and the upper chamber; based on an 1824 engraving.

A glass instrument for medicinal water

John Mervin Nooth's apparatus belongs to the late-eighteenth-century effort to make water hold what was then called “fixed air,” now known as carbon dioxide. The Royal Society records Nooth's manuscript as read on 15 December 1774; the account appeared in print the following year. A surviving apparatus in the Science Museum Group is dated to about 1775, within a made range of 1772–1780. The museum describes its purpose as preparing medicinal waters. That describes the period's intended use, not evidence that the water treated illness.

The apparatus was a portable object assembled from glass vessels, not a fermenter and not a modern pressurised cylinder. Its historical importance lies in making carbonation through a controlled chemical gas source and a water vessel that could be drawn from by a tap. The museum's specimen measures 66 cm high and 27 cm across, with a recorded mass of 5.59 kg; those figures belong to that surviving object rather than to every Nooth apparatus.

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How the apparatus aerated water

The recorded arrangement stacks three vessels. In the lower chamber, chips of marble reacted with dilute sulphuric acid and released carbon dioxide. The gas travelled upward through a one-way valve into the middle vessel, where water absorbed some of it. The valve was arranged to admit gas while stopping water from running back down into the reaction chamber. A tap in the middle vessel let the prepared water be drawn off. The upper vessel completed the apparatus's gas and water path; its precise function is shown in the period illustration and described in the historical account.

This was manufactured carbonation, not fermentation-derived fizz. Nooth's apparatus made its carbon dioxide in a chemical reaction and transferred it into water; it did not depend on yeast or a fermenting beverage. The distinction matters because bubbles alone do not identify how a drink was carbonated. The device is presented here as a historical instrument, not as a set of instructions for reproducing an eighteenth-century acid reaction.

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Use, circulation and the surviving record

The apparatus was designed in the context of medicinal-water experiments. Historical evidence shows it remained in use for decades; a biographical account says thousands were exported from Britain, but does not identify where they went. Nooth's design later gave way to another process associated with Schweppe. A 2021 study says Nooth apparatus was already long out of manufacture by 1913, so the evidence supports a historical date range rather than a present-day purchase route.

The Science Museum Group's surviving example is recorded as glass and unidentified material. No inspected source establishes a general capacity, a standard set of dimensions, a modern care routine or the place where this specimen was made. An 1824 engraving in the Science History Institute collection provides another record of the apparatus's form; its figure 8 is a diagram within a larger plate, not a photograph of the museum specimen. Nooth's apparatus is the device; carbonated water is the prepared drink, with its own history and methods.

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History

John Mervin Nooth's paper on impregnating water with fixed air was read to the Royal Society on 15 December 1774 and published in 1775. A surviving example is dated c. 1775. A later historical study reports that the apparatus was long out of manufacture by 1913; that is not a date for the last use of surviving examples.

Equipment details

Size66 cm tall, 27 cm across Measurements of the Science Museum Group's surviving specimen, not a universal specification; its record also gives a mass of 5.59 kg.
PowerNo power No external power source is recorded. Carbon dioxide was produced by a chemical reaction between marble and dilute sulphuric acid.
How you get oneNot obtainable today A historical apparatus, no longer manufactured by 1913. The sources do not establish present-day availability or a reproduction route.
CareNo care or cleaning regime for the apparatus is established in the inspected sources; the surviving example is a museum object.

Made of

  • Glass — Vessels
    The Science Museum Group identifies glass and an additional unidentified material; the 1824 engraving shows the glass vessel arrangement.

Places

United Kingdom

Historical attestation · Country evidence

The Royal Society manuscript was read in London in 1774 and the design was published in 1775; this attests the record in Britain, not the apparatus's place of manufacture or exclusive use.

More equipment from United KingdomLocation source 1 → · Location source 2 →

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