Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14272

    Glass instrument with a bolt head

    Date
    1 July 1663
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p161
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 356mm
    width (page): 227mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    Drawing of a glass instrument with a bolt head, placed in a small glass vessel. Robert Hooke used this instrument with an air pump for a series of experiments in July 1663, including a variation of the Torricellian experiment using water and an experiment on the 'uniting and mixing of air and water' in July 1663.

    The original drawing by Hooke is at Cl.P/20/20/001.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 1 July 1663, ‘Mons. Huygens’s experiment of purging water from air, to see whether it would subside, according to the Torricellian experiment, was made, but did not succeed; and was therefore ordered to be repeated at the next meeting. Mr Hooke’s experiment for finding, whether the bubbles, that rise out of the water upon the emptying a receiver of the air, are real air, or only rarefied parts of water, was ordered to be repeated at the next meeting’ (Birch 1:268).

    8 July 1663, ‘[Mr. Hooke] was ordered to give, in writing, the two experiments lately made concerning the bubbles remaining on the top of the water in glass balls, upon the emptying of the receiver; and the not subsiding of the water freed from air. The operator was ordered to get the long glass tubes raised against the next meeting’ (Birch 1:273).

    16 July 1663, ‘Mr. Hooke brought in an account in writing of two experiments tried by the society, one concerning the uniting and mixing of air and water; the other concerning the suspension of defecated water in a bolt head after the receiver had been well exhausted. This account was ordered to be registered’ (Birch 1:274-75). Figure and text printed in Birch 1:275.
    Related fellows
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Associated place
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