A Treatise on Meteorological Instruments: Explanatory of Their Scientific Principles, Method of Construction, and Practical UtilityNegretti, Enrico Angelo Lodovico
Science
A Treatise on Meteorological Instruments: Explanatory of Their Scientific Principles, Method of Construction, and Practical Utility
Negretti, Enrico Angelo Lodovico
Meteorological instruments; Meteorology; Scientific apparatus and instruments
In the first place, it must be observed that the bulb of the Thermometer
is protected so as to resist the pressure of the ocean, which varies
according to depth that of three thousand fathoms being something like
three tons pressure on the square inch. The manner of protecting the bulb
was invented by Messrs. Negretti and Zambra in 1857, and has been latterly
copied by other persons and brought out as a new invention. The manner of
protecting the bulb has been described by the late Admiral R. FitzRoy, in
the first number of Meteorological Papers, page 55, published July 5th,
1857, as follows:
"Referring to the erroneous readings of all thermometers, consequent
on their delicate bulbs being compressed by the great pressure of the
ocean, he says:--'With a view to obviate this failing, Messrs.
Negretti and Zambra undertook to make a case for the weak bulbs, which
should transmit temperature, but resist pressure. Accordingly a tube
of thick glass is sealed outside the delicate bulb, between which and
the casing is a space all round, which is nearly filled with mercury.
The small space not so filled is a vacuum, into which the mercury can
be expanded, or forced by heat or mechanical compression, without
doing injury to or even compressing the inner or much more delicate
bulb.'"
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
The construction of this instrument for deep-sea temperatures is as
follows:--
In shape it is like a syphon with parallel legs, all in one piece and
having a continuous communication, as in the annexed figure. The scale
of the Thermometer is pivoted on a centre and being attached in a
perpendicular position to a simple apparatus (which will be presently
described), is lowered to any depth that may be desired. In its
descent the Thermometer acts as an ordinary instrument, the mercury
rising or falling according to the temperature of the stratum through
which it passes; but so soon as the descent ceases, and a reverse
motion is given to the line, so as to pull the Thermometer towards the
surface, the instrument turns once on its centre, first bulb
uppermost, and afterwards bulb downwards. This causes the mercury,
which was in the left-hand column, first to pass into the dilated
syphon bend at the top, and thence into the right-hand tube, where it
remains, indicating on a graduated scale the exact temperature at the
time it was turned over. The woodcut, Fig. 1, shows the position of
the mercury _after_ the instrument has been thus turned on its centre.
A is the bulb; B the outer coating or protecting cylinder; C is the
space of rarefied air, which is reduced if the outer casing be
compressed; D is a small glass plug on the principle of Negretti and
Zambra's Patent Maximum Thermometer, which cuts off, in the moment of
turning, the mercury in the tube from that of the bulb, thereby
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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