Machine for exhausting the air by the descent of quicksilver
Date
8 May 1712
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p306
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 366mm
width (page): 231mm
width (page): 231mm
Subject
Content object
Description
At the meeting of the Royal Society on 8 May 1712, Francis Hauksbee the Younger offered a ‘description and draught’ of a new form of airpump, which was a modified version used at the Florentine Academy of Experiments. But the minutes of the meeting indicate that the description was ‘difficult to understand without a design’ and was omitted. The design of the instrument was subsequently supplied, as it is entered here in the Register Book for the same date. It appears that the clerk did not leave enough room to complete the transcription before he had begun the next entry, as the last part of the text is crammed into the lower half of the page.
Object history
8 May 1712, 'Mr Fra: Hauksbee Jun. offer'd the Description and Draught of a New Engine to evacuate a Receiver of Air, somewhat after the manner that the Florentine Experiments were made, by the Descent of Mercury from a Glass Vessell. The Description being difficult to understand without a Design it is here omitted. He had the Thanks of the Society for this communication' (JBO/11/ 292).
Associated place