Paper, 'On an apparatus for connecting and disconnecting a receiver under exhaustion by a mercurial pump' by J T [James Thomson] Bottomley

Description

Bottomley writes: 'In experimental work with vacua, and especially with the high vacua given by the Sprengel pump, a connecting tap has often been much wished for which would enable the experimenter to remove a piece of apparatus from the pump for examination or preliminary experiment, and afterwards to reapply it to the pump without discharging the vacuum. So far as I am aware nothing satisfactory has hitherto been suggested. The ground glass stopcocks now made by some of the German and English glass workers are undoubtedly very highly finished; but sooner or later, even with the best of them, the air begins to work its way round the grinding marks, in spite of lubricants, and, worse than this, when the apparatus under exhaustion has been removed from the pump and gauges, there is no way of knowing whether or not the air is leaking in round the interstices of the ground glass stopcock.'

Annotations in pencil and ink. Includes one figure of the apparatus.

Subject: Scientific apparatus and equipment

Received 1 March 1886. Read 18 March 1886.

A version of this paper was published in volume 40 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On an apparatus for connecting and disconnecting a receiver under exhaustion by a mercurial pump'.

Reference number

PP/8/15

Earliest possible date

1886

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

8 pages

Format

Manuscript
Drawing