eudiometer
Date: 1780-1800
Inventory Number: 0029
Classification: Eudiometer
Subject:
Maker: English ?
Cultural Region:
Dimensions:
32 x 8 cm (12 5/8 x 3 1/8 in.)
Bibliography:
The Apparatus of Science at Harvard, 1765-1800
Description:
Glass vessel hermetically sealed at one end and opened at the other. The open end is expanded to help supporting the instrument upright. Near the top of the instrument two brass connectors are inserted in the glass to allow electrical sparks to pass through and ignite the gas inside the vessel. In the picture the eudiometer is the one on the left.
Signedunsigned
FunctionDepending on the kinds of gases needed in an experiment, the tube of this eudiometer was filled with either water or mercury and inverted in a pneumatic trough containing the same liquid. After a mixture of gases had been admitted into the tube, a spark from a Leyden jar was passed through the gas between the electrodes. Harvard Professor of chemistry John Gorham described the result: "In some cases the combination is so rapid as to produce explosion, as in the case of oxygen and hydrogen; in others it requires repeated applications of electricity, as in the production of nitric acid from a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen gases."
Published ReferencesDavid P. Wheatland, The Apparatus of Science at Harvard, 1765-1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), 166.
