The hydrometer constructed by Dicas of Liverpool is provided with a sliding scale which can be adjusted for different temperatures, and which also indicates the contraction in volume incident on bringing the spirit to proof strength. It is provided with thirty-six different weights which, with the ten divisions on the stem, form a scale from 0 to 370. The employment of so many weights renders the instrument ill-adapted for practical work where speed is an object. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--Atkins's Hydrometer.] This instrument was adopted by the United States in 1790, but was subsequently discarded by the Internal Revenue Service for another type. In this latter form the observations have to be made at the standard temperature of 60° F., at which the graduation 100 corresponds to proof spirit and 200 to absolute alcohol. The need of adjustable weights is avoided by employing a set of five instruments, graduated respectively 0°-100°, 80°-120°, 100°-140°, 130°-170°, 160°-200°. The reading gives the volume of proof spirit equivalent to the volume of liquor; thus the readings 80° and 120° mean that 100 volumes of the test liquors contain the same amount of absolute alcohol as 80 and 120 volumes of proof spirit respectively. Proof spirit is defined in the United States as a mixture of alcohol and water which contains equal volumes of alcohol and water at 60° F., the alcohol having a specific gravity of 0.7939 at 60° as compared with water at its maximum density. The specific gravity of proof spirit is 0.93353 at 60°; and 100 volumes of the mixture is made from 50 volumes of absolute alcohol and 53.71 volumes of water. Quin's universal hydrometer is described in the _Transactions of the Society of Arts_, viii. 98. It is provided with a sliding rule to adapt it to different temperatures, and has four scales, one of which is graduated for spirits and the other three serve to show the strengths of worts. The peculiarity of the instrument consists in the pyramidal form given to the stem, which renders the scale-divisions more nearly equal in length than they would be on a prismatic stem.