Unpublished paper, 'On the moist bulb problem' by Captain Shortrede

Description

Shortrede adopts the notation of Professor [James] Apjohn, and by a similar method deduces the fundamental equation, which is then translated into numbers, taking 1175 degrees Fahrenheit as the sum of the latent and sensible heats, 0.267 as the specific heat of dry air, the weight of aqueous vapour as five-eighths of that of air, and its specific heat = 0.867, that of water being unity. The coefficient for barometric pressure is resolved into a simple change on the temperature of the air, and consequently also on the depression of the moist bulb; and the equation is put into a shape convenient for use, and shown to be free from objection. Shortrede uses the table of the force of vapour, given in the accompanying preceding paper, and then gives a table of maximum depressions for every degree of the moist bulb from —40 degrees to 212 degrees, and another table interpolated from it for every degree of temperature of the air from 0 degrees to 212 degrees.

Subject: Meteorology

Received 28 January 1848 / 3 February 1848. Communicated by Lt Col [William Henry] Sykes.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 5 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the moist-bulb problem'.

Reference number

AP/30/17

Earliest possible date

January 1848

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

18 pages

Format

Manuscript