Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/398

382  The best barometers are usually fitted with an air-trap, originally proposed by Gay-Lussac for the purpose of arresting the ascent to the Torricellian vacuum of any air that may have found its way into the column by the cistern. The air-trap is fitted into the tube somewhere between the scale and the cistern. Barometers furnished with an air-trap can be conveyed from place to place with more safety, and they remain longer in good working order.

There are two classes of barometers—Siphon Barometers and Cistern Barometers. The Siphon Barometer (fig. 1) consists of a tube bent in the form of a siphon, and is of the same diameter throughout. A graduated scale passes along the whole length of the tube, and the height of the barometer is ascertained by taking the difference of the readings of the upper and lower limbs respectively. This instrument may aL o be read by bringing the zero-point of the graduated scale to the level of the surface of the lower limb by means of a screw, and reading off the height at once from the surface of the upper limb. This barometer requires no correction for errors of capillarity or capa city. Since, however, impurities are contracted by the mercury in the lower limb, which is usually in open contact with the air, the satisfactory working of the instru ment comes soon to be seriously interfered with.

Fig. 2. shows the Cistern Barometer in its essential and its simplest form. This barometer is subject to two kinds of error, the one arising from capillarity, and the other from changes in the level of the surface of the cistern as the mercury rises and falls in the tube, the latter being technically called the error of capacity. If a glass tube of small bore be plunged into a vessel containing mercury, it will be observed that the level of the mercury in the tube is not in the line of that of the mercury in the vessel, but somewhat below it, and that the surface is convex. The capillary depression is inversely proportional to the diameter of the tube. If the diameter of the tube be O l inch, the capillary depression of mercury in boiled tubes, or error of capillarity, is, O OTO inch; if 2 inch, the error is 029 inch ; if 3 inch, it is O OU inch ; and if 0-5 inch, it is only O OOS inch. Since capillarity depresses the height of the column, cistern barometers require an addition to be made to the observed height, in order to give the true pressure, the amount depending, of course, on the diameter of the tube. The error of capacity arises in this way. The height of the barometer is the perpendicular distance between the surface of the mercury in the cistern and the upper surface of the mercurial column. Now, when the barometer falls from 30 to 29 inches, an inch of mercury must flow out of the tube and pass into the cistern, thus raising the cistern level, and, on the other hand, when the barometer rises, mercury must flow out of the cistern into the tube, thus lowering the level of the mercury in the cistern. Since the scales of barometers are usually engraved on their brass cases, which are fixed (and, consequently, the zero-point from which the scale is graduated is also fixed), it fol lows that, from the incessant changes in the level of the cistern, the readings -would be sometimes too high and sometimes too low, if no provision were made against this source of error. A simple way of correcting the error of capacity is—to ascertain (1) the neutral point of the instrument, or that height at which the zero of the scale is exactly at the height of the surface of the cistern, and (2) the rate ot error as the barometer rises or falls above this point, and then apply a correction proportional to this rate. In many of the barometers used on the Continent the surface area of the cistern is 100 times greater than that of the tube, in which case the error is small, and can, besides, be easily cal culated. This is a good barometer for ordinary observers, inasmuch as no error arises in bringing the surface of the mercury of the cistern to the zero-point of the scale, which one requires to have some skill as a manipulator and good light to do correctly. Another way of getting rid of this error is effected by the Board of Trade Barometer, con structed originally by Adie of London. In this barometer the error of capillarity is allowed for in fixing the zero- point of the scale, and the error of capacity is obviated by making the scale-inches not true inches, but just so much less as exactly to counterbalance the error of capacity.

But the instrument in which the error of capacity is satisfactorily (indeed, entirely) got rid of is Fortin's Barometer. Fig. 3 shows how this is effected. The cistern is formed of a glass cylinder, through which the level of the mercury may be seen. The bottom is made like a bag, of flexible leather, against which a screw works. At the top of the interior of the cistern is a small piece of ivory, the point of which coin cides with the zero of the scale. By means of the screw, which acts on the flexible cistern bottom, the level of the mercury can be raised or depressed so as to bring the ivory point exactly to the sur face of the mercury in the cistern. In some barometers the cistern is fixed, and the ivory point ia brought to the level of the mercury in the cistern by raising or depressing the scale.

What is called the Fitzroy Barometer is only a modified form of the siphon barometer, with the lower limb blown into a moderately-sized bulb, resembling a cistern in some respects, and thus giv ing a larger range to the readings of the upper limb. It is only suited for popular, not for scientific purposes. The common Wheel Barometer, the popular form of the weather glass, is also a modification of the siphon barometer. A small weight, glass or iron, floats on the mercury in the lower limb; to this weight a thread is attached, which is led round a horizontal axis, a small weight being suspended at its free extremity to keep it tight. The float rises and falls with the fluctua tions of the barometer, and a pointer fixed to a horizontal axis being turned by this means indicates the height of the barometer by figures on a dial. Since the mercury only rises or falls in the open end of the siphon to the extent of half the oscillation, a cistern is added to the top of the upper limb to increase the amount of the oscillation in the lower limb. This form of the barometer is only suited for very rough purposes, since large and uncertain errors arise from the shortening and lengthening of the thread with the varying dampness or dryness of the air, and from the friction of the different parts of the mechanism of the instrument. Since in working out the great atmospheric problem of the force of the wind in its relation to the barometric gradient (i.e., the differences of the pressures at different places, reduced to the same level) readings from about the 