If the steam-gauge be used as a measure of the strength of the steam which presses on the piston, it ought to be on the same side of the throttle-valve (which is regulated by the governor) as the cylinder; for if it were on the same side of the throttle-valve with the boiler, it would not be affected by the changes which the steam may undergo in passing through the throttle-valve, when partially closed by the agency of the governor. For boilers in which steam of very high pressure is used, as in those of locomotive engines, a steam-gauge, constructed on the above principle, would have inconvenient or impracticable length. In such boilers the pressure of the steam is equal to four or five times that of the atmosphere, to indicate which the column of mercury in the steam-gauge would be four or five feet in height. In such cases a thermometer-gauge may be used with advantage. The principle of this gauge is founded on the fact, that between the pressure and temperature of steam produced in contact with water there is a fixed relation, the same temperature always corresponding to the same pressure. If, therefore, a thermometer be immersed in the boiler which shall show the temperature of the steam, a scale may be attached to it, on which shall be engraved the corresponding pressures. Such gauges are now very generally used on locomotive engines. [Illustration: _Fig._ 80.] (160.) The force with which the piston is pressed depends on two things, 1st, the actual strength of the steam which presses on it; and, 2dly, on the actual strength of the vapour which resists it. For although the vacuum produced by the method of separate condensation be much more perfect than [Pg272] what had been produced in the atmospheric engines, yet still some vapour of a small degree of elasticity is found to be raised from the hot water in the bottom of the condenser before it can be extracted by the air-pump. One of these pressures is indicated by the steam-gauge already described; but still, before we can estimate the force with which the piston descends, it is necessary to ascertain the force of the vapour which remains uncondensed, and resists the motion of the piston. Another gauge, called the barometer-gauge, is provided for this purpose. A glass tube A B (_fig._ 80.), more than thirty inches long and open at both ends, is placed in an upright or vertical position, having the lower end B immersed in a cistern of mercury C. To the upper end is attached a metal tube, which communicates with the condenser, in which a constant vacuum, or rather high degree of rarefaction, is sustained. The same vacuum must therefore exist in the tube A B, above the level of the mercury, and the atmospheric pressure on the surface of the mercury in the cistern C will force the mercury up in the tube A B, until the column which is suspended in it is equal to the difference between the atmospheric pressure and the pressure of the uncondensed steam. The difference between the