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Sunday 24 July 2011

Letter in the Guardian

In 1805, John Southern, an engineer for the Boulton and Watt Company, was arguably the first person to demonstrate the vital part gasholders would play in the economics of gas manufacture and also the first to complain about the misnomer "gasometer", writing: "I do not like the name, for it is not a meter. You may as well call a pool a hydrometer." Two hundred years on, the error persists, as your editorial demonstrates (In praise of… gasometers, 20 July).

letter from Dr Ian West