Produced by Jon Richfield ON LABORATORY ARTS BY RICHARD THRELFALL, M.A. PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS; ASSOCIATE-MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF CIVIL ENGINEERS; MEMBER OF THE PHYSICAL SOCIETY London MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1898 All rights reserved PREFACE 5 CHAPTER I 8 HINTS ON THE MANIPULATION OF GLASS AND ON GLASS-BLOWING FOR LABORATORY PURPOSES 8 Sec. 4. Soft Soda Glass. Sec. 6. Flint Glass. Sec. 9. Hard or Bohemian, Glass. Sec. 10. On the Choice of Sizes of Glass Tube. Sec. 11. Testing Glass. Sec. 13. Cleaning Glass Tubes. Sec. 14. The Blow-pipe. Sec. 18. The Table. Sec. 19. Special Operations. Sec. 20. Closing and blowing out the End of a Tube. Sec. 21. To make a Weld. Sec. 22. To weld two Tubes of different Sizes. Sec. 24. To weld Tubes of very small Bore. Sec. 30. To cut very thick Tubes. Sec. 31. To blow a Bulb at the End of a Tube. Sec. 32. To blow a bulb in the middle of a tube. Sec. 33. To make a side Weld. Sec. 34. Inserted Joints. Sec. 35. Bending Tubes. Sec. 36. Spiral Tubes. Sec. 37. On Auxiliary Operations on Glass. Sec. 38. Boring small Holes. Sec. 39. For boring large holes through thick glass sheets. Sec. 41. Operations depending on Grinding: Ground-in Joints. Sec. 42. Use of the Lathe in Glass-working. Sec. 46. Making Ground Glass. Sec. 47. Glass-cutting. Sec. 48. Cementing. Sec. 49. Fusing Electrodes into Glass. Sec. 51. The Art of making Air-light Joints. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I. ON THE PREPARATION OF VACUUM TUBES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF PROFESSOR ROENTGEN'S RADIATION. CHAPTER II. GLASS-GRINDING AND OPTICIANS' WORK. Sec. 61. Details of the Process of Fine Grinding. Sec. 62. Polishing. Sec. 63. Centering. Sec. 65. Preparing Small Mirrors for Galvanometers. Sec. 66. Preparation of Large Mirrors or Lenses for Telescopes. Sec. 69. The Preparation of Flat Surfaces of Rock Salt. Sec. 70. Casting Specula for Mirrors. Sec. 71. Grinding and polishing Specula. Sec. 72. Preparation of Flat Surfaces. Sec. 73. Polishing Flat Surfaces on Glass or on Speculum Metal. CHAPTER III. MISCELLANEOUS PROCESSES. Sec. 74. Coating Glass with Aluminium and Soldering Aluminium. Sec. 75. The Use of the Diamond-cutting Wheel. Sec. 76. Arming a Wheel. Sec. 77. Cutting a Section. Sec. 78. Grinding Rock Sections, or Thin Slips of any Hard Material. Sec. 79. Cutting Sections of Soft Substances. Sec. 80. On the Production of Quartz Threads. Sec. 84. Drawing Quartz Threads. Sec. 86. Drawing Threads by the Catapult. Sec. 87. Drawing Threads by the Flame alone. Sec. 88. Properties of Threads. Sec. 90. On the Attachment of Quartz Fibres. Sec. 91. Other Modes of soldering Quartz. Sec. 92. Soldering. Sec. 94. Preparing a Soldering Bit. Sec. 95. Soft Soldering. Sec. 97. Soldering Zinc.