Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/345

 BARODA BAROMETER 325 of a native prince called the Guicowar, and lying between lat. 21 and 23 N. and Ion. 73 and 74 E. ; area, 4,400 sq. m. ; pop. about 350,000. For the physical characteristics of the district, see GDZEEAT. Baroda has been under the rule of the family of the Guicowars since the early part of the 18th century, before which period its history is not recorded. In 1780 the East India company made a treaty of amity with the prince then reigning, Futteh Sing Guicowar, but kept up a merely formal intercourse with him and his successors till 1802, when, a rebellion taking place in the dis- trict, the ruling Guicowar applied to the gov- ernor of Bombay for aid. From this time till 1820 a series of similar appeals and of treaties brought Baroda gradually under the protection of the British, who also became answerable for certain debts of the Guicowar. In 1828, on his failure to discharge these, the East India company sequestrated a portion of his territory ; but after some years the matter was arranged, and the district nominally restored to the native rule. A strong British force is however kept in the Guicowar's dominions, and Baroda is in fact, like the other native dependencies in India, a tributary state. II. The capital of the pre- ceding district, in lat. 22 16' N., Ion. 73 15' E., on the Biswamintri river, which is crossed near the city by the only bridge in the province, 231 m. N. of Bombay; pop. 140,000. The for- tifications of the town, though ancient, are un- important in a military point of view. The houses are generally of wood, and have several stories. The two principal streets run at right angles to one another, crossing at the market place in the centre of the city. The palace of the Guicowar, the house of the British resident, A State Procession at Baroda. and the market house are the principal buildings. Baroda was formerly a very important seat of trade, and of various industries ; but since 1830 its prosperity has declined, and although it still carries on a considerable commerce with the country immediately about it, it has no note- worthy manufactures. BAROMETER (Gr. /3dpof, weight, and /tfrpov, a measure), an instrument used for determin- ing the pressure of the atmosphere. The doc- trine of a plenum in natural philosophy, and the abhorrence of nature for a vacuum, had long been too fully established in the old sys- tems to admit the possibility of a vacuum, when Galileo, toward the close of his life, was requested to explain why water could not be raised in a suction pump more than about 32 feet. He was led to admit that nature's abhoirence of a vacuum did not exceed the pressure of a column of water 32 feet high ; but subsequently, as mentioned in the last of his dialogues, he devised an experiment to ascertain the power of a vacuum. This con- sisted in applying weights to a piston closely fitting in a smooth tube, placed in an inverted position, to see what weight would draw it down; and previous to his death he recom- mended to his pupil Torricelli to continue these investigations. The decisive experiment, made by Torricelli, and called after him the Torri- cellian experiment, was in ascertaining the length of a column of mercury sustained by the same cause, whatever it might be, which supported the column of water. The weight of the mercury being about 14 times greater than that of the water, the height of the two columns, he reasoned, should be proportional to their weights. Filling a glass tube three