Transcription

5

The mind, once forcibly impressed with this conviction, will easily comprehend the origin of the difficulties which have hitherto prevented the construction of a Saccharometer at once convenient and truly accurate, the single Scale, which was capable of accuracy, was found inconvenient on account of its great length; and the introduction of a more convenient Scale, adapted to a part only of the necessary range of Specific Gravity, with Weights to sink the Scale in Worts the Specific Gravities of which exceeded the limits of its first range, also introduced this inaccuracy, which increased with every repetition of the Scale. 

The convenience, however, of this diminished length of Scale was found to be too great to be relinquished, and attempts were made to elude the error which it introduced by giving the Stem a variety of faces, each containing a set of Divisions shorter than its proceeding: this construction, while each set of Divisions was only once employed, was like the first, capable of accuracy; but as the increasing number of faces necessarily increased the bulk of the Stem, the sensibility of the Instrument was thereby diminished; and when, on this account, two or three faces only were employed, the trifling diminution of length thus afforded was no longer an equivalent for the inconvenience attending a variety of Scales which were found always liable to be mistaken one for the other, in reading off.

In despair of combining accuracy with convenience in the Saccharometer, it was thought advisable to make some sacrifice of each, by adopting a Stem with two or three different sets of Divisions, each repeated a certain number of times, and by carefully selecting a due mean for the length of each of these Scales, or sets of Divisions, with corresponding compensations in the Weights employed through the repetitions of this Scale on each side of the chosen mean, to disperse the error, and thus obtain a near approximation of the truth.  This was all that had been effected previously to the construction of the Saccharometer now submitted.
                                                                                                     
liquor of 1090 Specific Gravity, and loading its top until the original point for Water be brought again to the surface (when the Instrument will correctly represent the Specific Gravity 1090); if it be transferred, thus loaded, into liquor of 1120 Specific Gravity, the last new point which rests in the surface will be found somewhat above the point at which it before rested in 1030; and the bulk contained between these two points will be the difference in the bulks of the same weight of the two liquids; which weight is that of a portion of the liquor of 1030 Specific Gravity, equal to the bulk of the stem contained between the upper point, and the point first marked below it.
 

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