The vessel, A B, which must be always full of water, is designed to keep the bottle at a constant temperature during the course of the experiment. This is an essential condition, since the bottle thus filled with water constitutes a genuine thermometer, of which _a b_ is the graduated tube. It is therefore necessary to avoid attributing a variation in level due to an expansion of the water produced by a change in temperature, to a deformation of the bottle. The test, then, that can be made with bottles by means of the elasticimeter consists in compressing them to a pressure of ten atmospheres when filled with water at a temperature of 25 deg., and in finding out whether, under such a stress, they change their volume permanently. In order that the elasticimeter may not be complicated by a special heating apparatus, it suffices to determine once for all what the pressure is that, at a mean temperature of 15 deg., acts upon bottles with the same energy as that of ten atmospheres at 25 deg.. Experiment has demonstrated that such stress corresponds to twelve atmospheres in a space in which the temperature remains about 15 deg.. In addition, the elasticimeter is capable of giving other and no less useful data. It permits of comparing the resistance of bottles and of classifying them according to the degree of such resistance. After numerous experiments, it has been found that first class bottles easily support a pressure of twelve atmospheres without distortion, while in those of an inferior quality the resistance is very variable. The champagne wine industry should therefore use the former exclusively. Various precautions must be taken in the use of corks. The bottles that lose their wine in consequence of the bad quality of their corks are many in number, and it is not long since that they were the cause of genuine disaster to the champagne trade. Mr. Salleron has largely contributed to the improving of the quality of corks found in the market. The physical and chemical composition of cork bark is peculiarly favorable to the special use to which it is applied; but the champagne wine industry requires of it an exaggerated degree of resistance, inalterability, and elasticity. A 11/4 inch cork must, under the action of a powerful machine, enter a 3/4 inch neck, support the dissolving action of a liquid containing 12 per cent. of alcohol compressed to at least five atmospheres, and, in a few years, shoot out of the bottle and assume its pristine form and color. Out of a hundred corks of good quality, not more than ten support such a test.