other, having one common screw thread, so as to be combined in any necessary manner. There were also screw plugs, some solid, with a male screw to close the openings or ends of caps, &c., others with a female screw to cover and close the ends of stopcocks. All these screw joints were made tight by leaden wa hers; and by having these of different thickness, equal to from 48 ths to 128 ths of the distance between one turn of the screw thread and the next, it was easy at once to select the washer which should allow a sufficient compression in screwing up to make all air-tight, and also bring every part of the apparatus into its right position.
I have often put a pressure of fifty atmospheres into these tubes, and have had no accident or failure (except the one mentioned). With the assistance of Mr. Addams I have tried their strength by a hydrostatic pre's, and obtained the following results:-A tube having an external diameter of 0.24 of an inch and a thickness of 0.0175 of an inch, burst with a pressure of sixty-seven atmospheres, reckoning one atmosphere as 15 lbs. on the square inch. A tube which had been used, of the shape of fig. 1, its external diameter being 0.225 of an inch, and its thickness about 0.03 of an inch, sustained a pressure of 118 atmospheres without breaking, or any Failure of the caps or cement, and was then removed for further use.
A tube such a I have employed for generating gases under pressure, having an external diameter of 0.6 of an inch, and a thickness of 0.035 of an inch, burst at twenty-five atmospheres.
Having these data, it was easy to select tubes abundantly sufficient in strength to sustain any force which was likely to be exerted within them in any given experiment.
The gauge used to estimate the degree of pressure to which the ga within the condensing tube was subjected was of the same kind as those formerly described[1], being a small tube of glass closed at one end with a cylinder of mercury moving in it. So the expression of ten or twenty atmospheres, means a force which is able to compress a given portion of air into 110 th or 120th of its bulk at the pressure of one atmosphere of 30 inches of mercury. These gauges had their graduation marked on them with a black varnish, and also with Indian ink:—there are several of the gases which, when condensed, cause the var-
- ↑ Philosophical Transactions, 1823, p. 192: see also p. 91.
