Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1.djvu/433

341.] On the Forms of Resistance Coils.

341.] A Resistance Coil is a conductor capable of being easily placed in the voltaic circuit, so as to introduce into the circuit a known resistance.

The electrodes or ends of the coil must be such that no appreciable error may arise from the mode of making the connexions. For resistances of considerable magnitude it is sufficient that the electrodes should be made of stout copper wire or rod well amalgamated with mercury at the ends, and that the ends should be made to press on flat amalgamated copper surfaces placed in mercury cups.

For very great resistances it is sufficient that the electrodes should be thick pieces of brass, and that the connexions should be made by inserting a wedge of brass or copper into the interval between them. This method is found very convenient.

The resistance coil itself consists of a wire well covered with silk, the ends of which are soldered permanently to the electrodes.

The coil must be so arranged that its temperature may be easily observed. For this purpose the wire is coiled on a tube and covered with another tube, so that it may be placed in a vessel of water, and that the water may have access to the inside and the outside of the coil.

To avoid the electromagnetic effects of the current in the coil the wire is first doubled back on itself and then coiled on the tube, so that at every part of the coil there are equal and opposite currents in the adjacent parts of the wire.

When it is desired to keep two coils at the same temperature the wires are sometimes placed side by side and coiled up together. This method is especially useful when it is more important to secure equality of resistance than to know the absolute value of the resistance, as in the case of the equal arms of Wheatstone's Bridge, (Art. 347).

When measurements of resistance were first attempted, a resistance coil, consisting of an uncovered wire coiled in a spiral groove round a cylinder of insulating material, was much used. It was called a Rheostat. The accuracy with which it was found possible to compare resistances was soon found to be inconsistent with the use of any instrument in which the contacts are not more perfect than can be obtained in the rheostat. The rheostat, however, is