In ‘A Scandal inBohemia,’ Watson writes of Sherlock Holmes: “His manner was not effusive.  It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me.  With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an arm-chair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.”  Then again, in ‘The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,’ Holmes says, “The gasogene and cigars are in the old place.”  In ‘The Adventure of Black Peter,’ Peter Carey had a tantalus in his cabin.  You might ask: What are the gasogene, spirit case, and tantalus mentioned in the Sherlock Holmes stories?

In Victorian England, there were no carbonated beverages sold in stores.  A container for sustaining carbonation was not a commonality at the time if it even existed at all.  The gasogene (sometime referred to as a seltzogene) was a, usually glass, container designed to hold the carbonated liquid created by adding sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) and tartaric acid to the fluid inside.  The spirit case is simply a cabinet to store liquor while a tantalus is nothing more than a locked spirit case.

NEXT WEEK: The philosophy and practicality of deduction and induction.