Page:EB1911 - Volume 03.djvu/437

 scale must be free to expand in one direction. Again, if only the upper part of the scale, say from 27 to 31 in., be screwed to a wooden frame, it is evident that not the corrections for brass scales, but those for wooden scales must be used. No account need be taken of the expansion of the glass tube containing the mercury, it being evident that no correction for this expansion is required in the case of any barometer the height of which is measured from the surface of the mercury in the cistern.

In fixing a barometer for observation, it is indispensable that it be hung in a perpendicular position, seeing that it is the perpendicular distance between the surface of the mercury in the cistern and the top of the column which is the true height of the barometer. The surface of the mercury column is convex, and in noting the height of the barometer, it is not the chord of the curve, but its tangent which is taken. This is done by setting the straight lower edge of the vernier, an appendage with which the barometer is furnished, as a tangent to the curve. The vernier is made to slide up and down the scale, and by it the height of the barometer may be read true to 0·002 or even to 0·001 in.

It is essential that the barometer is at the temperature shown by the attached thermometer. No observation can be regarded as good if the thermometer indicates a temperature differing from that of the whole instrument by more than a degree. For every degree of temperature the attached thermometer differs from the barometer, the observation will be faulty to the extent of about 0·003 in., which in discussions of diurnal range, &c., is a serious amount.

Before being used, barometers should be thoroughly examined as to the state of the mercury, the size of cistern (so as to admit of low readings), and their agreement with some known standard instrument at different points of the scale. The pressure of the atmosphere is not expressed by the weight of the mercury sustained in the tube by it, but by the perpendicular height of the column. Thus, when the height of the column is 30 in., it is not said that the atmospheric pressure is 14·7 ℔ on the square inch, or the weight of the mercury filling a tube at that height whose transverse section equals a square inch, but that it is 30 in., meaning that the pressure will sustain a column of mercury of that height.

It is essential in gasometry to fix upon some standard pressure to which all measurements can be reduced. The height of the standard mercury column commonly used is 76 cms. (29·922 in.) of pure mercury at 0°; this is near the average height of the barometer. Since the actual force exerted by the atmosphere varies with the intensity of gravity, and therefore with the position on the earth’s surface, a place must be specified in defining the standard pressure. This may be avoided by expressing the force as the pressure in dynes due to a column of mercury, one square centimetre in section, which is supported by the atmosphere. If H cms. be the height at 0°, and g the value of gravity, the pressure is 13·596 Hg dynes (13·596 being the density of mercury). At Greenwich, where g = 981·17, the standard pressure at 0° is 1,013,800 dynes. At Paris the pressure is 1,013,600 dynes. The closeness of this unit to a mega-dyne (a million dynes) has led to the suggestion that a mega-dyne per square centimetre should be adopted as the standard pressure, and it has been adopted by some modern writers on account of its convenience of calculation and independence of locality.

The height of the barometer is expressed in English inches in England and America, but the metric system is used in all scientific work excepting in meteorology. In France and most European countries, the height is given in millimetres, a millimetre being the thousandth part of a metre, which equals 39·37079 English inches. Up to 1869 the barometer was given in half-lines in Russia, which, equalling the twentieth of an English inch, were readily reduced to English inches by dividing by 20. The metric barometric scale is now used in Russia. In a few European countries the French or Paris line, equalling 0·088814 in., is sometimes used. The English measure of length being a standard at 62° Fahr., the old French measure at 61·2°, and the metric scale at 32°, it is necessary, before comparing observations made with the three barometers, to reduce them to the same temperature, so as to neutralize the inequalities arising from the expansion of the scales by heat.

The sympiezometer was invented in 1818 by Adie of Edinburgh. It is a revived form of Hooke’s marine barometer. It consists of a glass tube, with a small chamber at the top and an open cistern below. The upper part of the tube is filled with air, and the lower part and cistern with glycerin. When atmospheric pressure is increased, the air is compressed by the rising of the fluid; but when it is diminished the fluid falls, and the contained air expands. To correct for the error arising from the increased pressure of the contained air when its temperature varies, a thermometer and sliding-scale are added, so that the instrument may be adjusted to the temperature at each observation. It is a sensitive instrument, and well suited for rough purposes at sea and for travelling, but not for exact observation. It has long been superseded by the Aneroid, which far exceeds it in handiness. Aneroid Barometer.—Much obscurity surrounds the invention of barometers in which variations in pressure are rendered apparent by the alteration in the volume of an elastic chamber. The credit of the invention is usually given to Lucien Vidie, who patented his instrument in 1845, but similar instruments were in use much earlier. Thus in 1799 Nicolas Jacques Conté (1755–1805), director of the aerostatical school at Meudon, and a man of many parts—a chemist, mechanician and painter,—devised an instrument in which the lid of the metal chamber was supported by internal springs; this instrument was employed during the Egyptian campaign for measuring the altitudes of the war-balloons. Although Vidie patented his device in 1845, the commercial manufacture of aneroids only followed after E. Bourdon’s patent of the metallic manometer in 1849, when Bourdon and Richard placed about 10,000 aneroids on the market. The production was stopped by an action taken by Vidie against Bourdon for infringing the former’s patent, and in 1858 Vidie obtained 25,000 francs (£1000) damages.

Fig. 4 represents the internal construction, as seen when the face is removed, but with the hand still attached, of an aneroid which differs only slightly from Vidie’s form. a is a flat circular metallic box, having its upper and under surfaces corrugated in concentric circles. This box or chamber being partially exhausted of air, through the short tube b, which is subsequently made air-tight by soldering, constitutes a spring, which is affected by every variation of pressure in the external atmosphere, the corrugations on its surface increasing its elasticity. At the centre of the upper surface of the exhausted chamber there is a solid cylindrical projection x, to the top of which the principal lever cde is attached. This lever rests partly on a spiral spring at d; it is also supported by two vertical pins, with perfect freedom of motion. The end e of the lever is attached to a second or small lever f, from which a chain g extends to h, where it works on a drum attached to the axis of the hand, connected with a hair spring at h, changing the motion from vertical to horizontal, and regulating the hand, the attachments of which are made to the metallic plate i. The motion originates in the corrugated elastic box a, the surface of which is depressed or elevated as the weight of the atmosphere is increased or diminished, and this motion is communicated through the levers to the axis of