Page:Evolution of the thermometer.djvu/38

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THERMOSCOPES OF THE ITALIANS.
37

bore of the cane, or the quality of the liquor, till at length it hits it right."

IV. The fourth thermometer had a very long tube bent in the form of a spiral, made "rather for fancy and curiosity to see the liquor run the decimals of degrees by the only impulse of a warm breath than for any accurate deduction." This instrument is styled a "very ticklish thermometer."

V. The fifth instrument was a wide tube of glass nearly filled with spirit of wine in which floated several little glass bulbs adjusted so as to sink to different points in the tube, as the temperature of the liquid rose. This instrument is evidently the same as that of Ferdinand previously noticed.

Although the "Saggi" of the academy were not published until 1667, there is abundant proof that many of the experiments and instruments therein described were devised many years earlier, some of them even before the birth of the academy. It is certain that the principles on which the thermometers were constructed were known in Florence as early as 1641, sixteen years before the academy was founded, and it is highly probable that thermometers Nos. 1 and 2 were made from the