II.--DIGESTIVE APPARATUS.
It is very desirable that those who do not prepare their emulsion by boiling, but by prolonged digestion, should possess a regulator which will keep the temperature at a given point. Such an apparatus would also be very useful for warming the emulsion for the preparation of plates, as then one would have no further occasion to pay attention to the thermometer and gas stove. In the accompanying diagram a simple contrivance is shown. The gas which feeds the stove passes through a narrow glass tube, a b, into the wider tube, c d e, which is made air-tight at e. This latter tube has an exit tube at f, by which the gas is supplied to the gas stove. At e it is hermetically closed, and at its deepest part it contains mercury, upon which a little sulphuric ether floats in the hermetically-closed limb, e.g. Lastly, there is a minute opening in the narrowest tube at i. The whole apparatus, or, at least, the under part of it, is dipped into the water bath warmed by the gas boiler. It acts thus: As the temperature rises the ethereal vapor in the shorter limb expands and drives the mercury up the longer tube until it closes the opening of the narrow tube, a b, and thereby impedes the power of the stream of gas. Still, the Bunsen burner does not go out, being always fed by the small opening, i, with sufficient gas to support a small flame until the water bath has so far cooled as to leave the opening at b free, when the burner again burns with a strong flame. By removing the cork, c, from the tube the temperature of the water bath is raised, while by pushing it in it is lowered. The apparatus never goes wrong, and is very cheap. It was first made by Herr C. Braun, of Berlin.
FIG. 1.