Instrument to create an accurate barometer
Date
12 November 1684
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p196
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 365mm
width (page): 230mm
width (page): 230mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Around 1684 and 1685, the Royal Society sought to recreate the experiments conducted at the Academy of Experiment (Accademia del Cimento) in Florence and published in Saggi di naturali esperienze (1667), which was translated into English by Richard Waller in 1684. Denis Papin pointed out that to conduct a Torricellian experiment it was necessary to use a glass tube with no air above the mercury, and he suggested making such an instrument, whose design is registered here, using the airpump.
AA is a receiver fitted with a lid, BB, with a pipe, CC, soldered on. The pipe CC is connected through plate EE to a pneumatic engine, and evacuates air from AA. DD is a glass pipe for a baroscope, open at the top and cemented in a hole at the bottom of receiver AA. BB has small hole for a wire, GG, to be passed through without letting in any air, and GG is fastened inside the vessel AA onto a hook attached to the vessel FF, which contains mercury. The wire can incline the vessel to one side and spill the mercury into the baroscope once the air has been evacuated from the vessel. Papin suggested that the tube then had to be stopped with fingers ‘carefully’, so as not to include any bubble of air.
AA is a receiver fitted with a lid, BB, with a pipe, CC, soldered on. The pipe CC is connected through plate EE to a pneumatic engine, and evacuates air from AA. DD is a glass pipe for a baroscope, open at the top and cemented in a hole at the bottom of receiver AA. BB has small hole for a wire, GG, to be passed through without letting in any air, and GG is fastened inside the vessel AA onto a hook attached to the vessel FF, which contains mercury. The wire can incline the vessel to one side and spill the mercury into the baroscope once the air has been evacuated from the vessel. Papin suggested that the tube then had to be stopped with fingers ‘carefully’, so as not to include any bubble of air.
Object history
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 12 November 1684, ‘Dr. Papin […] made likewise the following report concerning the experiments of the academy Del cimento referred to him’ (Birch 4:330). The account and figure are reprinted in Birch 4:330-31.
Related fellows
Denis Papin (1647, French) , Natural philosopher
Associated place