Instrument to create an accurate barrometer
Date
12 November 1684
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Archive reference number
Manuscript page number
p153
Material
Dimensions
height (page): 377mm
width (page): 238mm
width (page): 238mm
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 (Florence: 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, the design of which 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 the 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 suggests that the tube then has to be stopped with fingers ‘carefully’ so as not to include any bubble of air.
This is copied from the image at RBO/6/196.
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 the 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 suggests that the tube then has to be stopped with fingers ‘carefully’ so as not to include any bubble of air.
This is copied from the image at RBO/6/196.
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 printed in Birch 4:330-31.
Related fellows
Denis Papin (1647, French) , Natural philosopher
Associated place