Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.16623

    Glass tube

    Date
    1662-1664
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p86
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 353mm
    width (page): 236mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    William Brouncker, Robert Moray and Alexander Bruce conducted a series of experiments in the channel north of Queenborough in March 1663. This figure shows a glass tube used in one of their experiments. The tube was about 23 inches, sealed at the bottom end, A, and bent at the top with a small hole at C. The tube was sunk perpendicularly into the channel. The difference of the weight of salt-water at the surface and at the bottom of the water was measured in relation to the depth of the water. The report was read at the meeting of the Royal Society on 18 March 1663, and was ordered to be registered.

    This manuscript is a copy of Register Book no. 2 (RBO/2i) and some letters to the Royal Society, all from between 1662 and 1664.

    This image can be found in the Register Book at RBO/2i/208. Another copy can be found at MS/766/401.
    Transcription
    There was a glasse Tube taken A, B, C, about 23 inches long and was 3/4 of an inch over, this was close sealed up at the one end A and the other end B, was drawn into a very small pipe C. and bended according to the shape in the figure. This pipe weighed 874 grains, and being filled iwth salt water and the outsides wiped dry, (which was constantly done in all the subsequent tryalls) it weighed 2140 graines, whenes deducting the weight of the pipe 874 we have 1266 graines the weight of the water that filled the pipe.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 18 March 1663, ‘The lord viscount Brouncker, Sir Robert Moray, and Mr. Bruce brought in an account of the observations and experiments, which they had lately made upon the river of Chatham; and his lordship promised to add to them some notes of this own. The paper was ordered to be registered’ (Birch 1:208). The figures and text are printed in Birch 1:208-12.

    The figure is also printed in R. Hooke, Philosophical experiments and observations (London, 1726), p. 100.
    Related fellows
    William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker of Lyons (1620 - 1684, British) , Mathematician
    Robert Moray (1608 - 1673, British) , Natural philosopher
    2nd Earl of Kincardine Alexander Bruce (1624 - 1680, British) , Inventor
    Associated place
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