Endless Amusement / A Collection of Nearly 400 Entertaining Experiments in Various Branches of Science; Including Acoustics, Electricity, Magnetism, Arithmetic, Hydraulics, Mechanics, Chemistry, Hydrostatics, Optics; Wonders of the Air-Pump; All the Popular Tricks and Changes of the Cards, &c., &c. to Which is Added, a Complete System of Pyrotechny; Or, the Art of Making Fire-works.

by Unknown

Procure a tin vessel, shaped like Fig. 5, about five inches high and four in diameter, with a cover, C, closed at top. To the bottom of this vessel, let the pipe D E be soldered. This pipe is to be ten inches long, and half an inch in diameter, open at each end, and the upper end must be above the water in the vessel. To the bottom also fix five or six small tubes, F, about one-eighth of an inch in diameter. By these pipes, the water in the vessel is to run slowly out.

Place this machine in a tin basin, G H, with a hole in the middle, about a quarter of an inch in diameter. Fix to the tube D E, any sort of ornament that will keep the machine firm on the basin, observing, that these supports are sufficiently long to leave about a quarter of an inch between the end of the tube and the orifice in the basin; and let there be a vessel under the basin to catch the water that runs out.

As the small pipes discharge more water into the basin than can run out of the central orifice, the water will rise in the basin above the lower end of the pipe, and prevent the air from getting into the vessel, by which the water will cease to flow from the small pipes. But as the water continues to flow from the basin, the air will have liberty again to enter the vessel by the tube, and the water will again flow from the small pipes, and alternately stop and flow, while any water remains in the vessel.

As you can guess when the pipes will flow, and when they will stop, you may so manage it, that they will appear to act by word of command.

The illuminated Fountain, that plays when the Candles are lighted, and stops when they are extinguished.

Fig. 6.

Provide two cylindrical vessels, A B and C D, as in Fig. 6. Connect them by four tubes open at each end, as H I, &c., so that the air may descend out of the higher into the lower vessel. To these tubes fix candlesticks, and to the hollow cover, E F, of the lower vessel, fit a tube, K, reaching almost to the bottom of the vessel. At G let there be an aperture with a screw, whereby water may be poured into C D, which, when filled, must be closed by the screw.

When the candles are lighted, the air in the upper cover and contiguous pipes will be thereby rarefied, and the jet from the small tube, K, will begin to play: as the air becomes more rarefied, the force of the jet will increase, and it will continue to play till the water in the lower vessel is exhausted. As the motion of the jet is caused by the heat of the candles, when they are extinguished the fountain will stop.