Scientific Instrument Society Bulletin June No. 77 2003 Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society ISSN 0956-8271 For Table of Contents, see back cover President Gerard Turner Vice-President Howard Dawes Honary Committee Gloria Clifton, Chairman Alexander Crum Ewing, Secretary Simon Cheifetz,Treasurer Willem Hackmann, Editor Peter de Clercq, Meetings Secretary Ron Bristow Tom Lamb Tom Newth Alan Stimpson Sylvia Sumira Trevor Waterman Membership and Administrative matters The Executive Officer (Wg Cdr Geoffrey Bennett) 31 High Street Stanford in the Vale Tel: 01367 710223 Faringdon Fax: 01367 718963 Oxon SN7 8LH e-mail: [email protected] See outside back cover for information on membership Editorial Matters Dr.Willem Hackmann Sycamore House The PLaying Close Tel: 01608 811110 Charlbury Fax: 01608 811971 Oxon OX7 3QP e-mail: [email protected] Society’s Website www.sis.org.uk Advertising See “summary of Advertising Services’ panel elsewhere in this Bulletin. Further enquiries to the Executive Officer, Design and printing Jane Bigos Graphic Design 95 Newland Mill Tel: 01993 209224 Witney Fax: 01993 209255 Oxon OX28 3SZ e-mail: [email protected] Printed by The Flying Press Ltd,Witney The Scientific Instrument Society is Registered Charity No. 326733 © The Scientific Instrument Society 2003 Editorial Spring Time September issue.I am still interested to hear which this time will be published elec- I am off to the States in early June for three from other readers whether they think this tronically on our website.He has been very weeks so had to make sure that this issue project a good idea. industrious on our behalf. His ‘List of was ready in plenty of time.There is again a We are at present revamping our website Members’compilation for 2003 is added to varied menu of papers and as usual, there with a new team,and were just about ready this issue, while the single page of is much food for thought for those of us when our host website went down thanks ‘Members’ Interests’ will be in the instrumentally inclined.There is a snippet to a nasty piece of hacking.We are also con- September Bulletin.There has been a drop in David Bryden’s paper on an advertising sidering interesting links to our website,so in membership since the compilation of the war between London opticians in 1707 that any ideas you have on that score will be last membership list in 2001. I urge mem- especially took my notice – that of the fif- much appreciated. One of the links could bers to renew their membership and to teen apprentices booked by the instrument be to ongoing bibliography on the SIC web- encourage friends and colleagues with maker George Willdey during his career site,which this year has reached no.20 (see instrumental interests to join in order to from 1708 until his death in 1737, eight Peter de Clercq,‘The Scientific Instrument keep the Society and its Bulletin in a good were girls.This must be the opening for one Commission and its Bibliographies’, state of health. Members should also be of our readers of an interesting research Bulletin, No. 71 (2001), p. 39). encouraged to participate in the Society’s project on women in eighteenth-century I look forward to receiving material for activities as much as possible and to attend instrument making. nd future ‘Amateur Pages’, and also for anoth- the AGM this year on Wednesday, 2 July. More than thirty readers have responded to er series of ‘Market Places’. There is still the opportunity for members the flyer in the March Bulletin concerning to come forward and describe an unusual the digitizing of back numbers on CD-roms. Our Executive Officer, Geoffrey Bennett, or mystery object from their collection. This project is slowly unfolding and I hope has almost completed the second part of Please contact our Meetings Secretary, Dr to have more positive news by the our Bulletin Index for issues 51 to 75, Peter de Clercq on [email protected] choice.co.uk,as soon as possible.There will be a further opportunity for members to come forward with stories and objects at Bulletin’s Cover the two-day conference (including the Scientific models became an important AGM) to be held in Cambridge on 25th and teaching aid in the 18th century,both at uni- 26th June 2004. versity courses and in the private cabinet. Their use was wide-ranging, from teaching Corrections the laws of mechanics to demonstrating Several errors crept into the previous issue: important technological devices that 1. David Baynes-Cope died on 27th December became increasingly important in the indus- th trialization of Europe’s natural resources. 2002 and not on 27 February as previously The model of a combustion pump on this stated. issue’s cover fits into the latter category.It is 2. Francis Manasek lets it be known that in his one of the items from the collection of the letter on ‘The True Shape of California’, the Stewart Museum in Montreal, Canada, paragraph:‘It is noteworthy that many promi- which features in the delightful book and nent post-deHerrera 17th century cartographers, catalogue The Art of Teaching Physics:The such the Blaeus, and Hondius, never deviated Eighteenth-Century Demonstration from showing California as a peninsula, either Apparatus of Jean Antoine Nollet, edited on their World maps or on their American by Lewis Pyenson and Jean-François maps’,should read:‘It is noteworthy that many Gauvin,the subject of a review in this issue prominent post-deHerrera 17th century cartog- by David Bryden.The collection came from raphers, such the Blaeus, and Hondius, contin- two sources.One group originated from the ued to show California as a peninsula in the 17th Ecole centrale in Dijon,established in 1795; century, although they did produce a number the central repository in that region for combustion pump was Denis Papin, who of maps employing the island concept.A thor- instruments transferred from private insti- published it in 1681. It was developed for ough examination of this cartographic phe- tutions and confiscated from private col- commercial use by Thomas Savery. It is, in nomenon can be examined in McLaughlin,The lections during the French Revolution.The fact, a water pump in which the action of Mapping of California as an Island (California second group, including the combustion the piston has been replaced by sprays of Map Society,1995). pump featured on this cover, came from alternating expanding and then condensing 3. In Dave Hirsch’s ‘Zig-Zag’ microscope, the another source. steam.The water,fed from a rectangular tray illustrations for Figs 1 and 2 were reversed. in the base, is heated by a spirit lamp.The 4.Finally,Paul Zoller communicates that he has French instruments of that period with steam is fed into the cylindrical glass vessel made an error in his paper on the planimeter their delightful ornamentation showed joie where it expands thereby pushing out the (Bulletin, No. 75.The hinge in one of the arms de vivre, while contemporary London water through a tube that flows into a high- of the Lippincott Planimeter (Fig. 12) cannot instruments were often better made, but er basin. Next the steam in the tube is con- serve to adjust the planimeter to different scales seemed rather dull and worthy by compar- densed by a brief controlled flow of cold as was claimed, since the hinge is in the pole ison.The compression pump and the other water,creating a vacuum in the glass vessel, arm, and the length of the pole arm has no instruments described in The Art of Physics which causes fresh water to enter.The cycle effect on the reading as long as the pole is out- come straight from the pages of Jean is repeated until the reservoir is empty.Such side the figure to be measured. Professor J. Antoine Nollet’s popular physics textbooks, compression pumps were used in mines Fischer has also noticed this error. It is likely such as his Leçons de physique expéri- and in circulating water from the Thames that the hinge is present simply to fold the mentale (1754-66) which graced the draw- in cities like London. Savery described his instrument to a much smaller footprint for stor- ing room of many a savant and physics cab- machine for raising water in deep mines in age. inet.According to Nollet the inventor of this The Miner’s Friend (1702). Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society No. 77 (2003) 1 Report on SIS Visit to the Royal Institution of Great Britain Friday 24th January 2003 Charles Mollan It has been on the same site since its foun- (1791–1867), the book-binder’s assistant dation in 1799, on Albemarle Street, in who was recruited to the RI by Davy in Mayfair in central London.1 The Royal 1813, and who became superintendent of Institution of Great Britain (RI) is still a busy the house in 1821,director of the laborato- centre, with a throughput of 30,000 chil- ry in 1833,and professor of chemistry from dren each year, and an extensive pro- 1833–1867; the marble relief by Thomas gramme of lectures and discussions for all Woolner of John Tyndall (1820–1893), pro- ages – its spring programme lists 11 events fessor of natural philosophy from in February and 14 in March,including one 1853–1887, and superintendent of the on the 25th February on ‘Robert William Paul house from 1867–1887; and the bronze and Scientific Instrument Making’ by our relief by Bertram Mackennal of James esteemed SIS member from the Science Dewar (1842–1923),professor of chemistry Museum – Neil Brown.