United States or Micronesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Upon examining the barometers to-day, I was much concerned to find that they were both out of order and useless; the damp had softened the glue fastening the bags of leather which hold the quicksilver, and the leathers that were glued over the joints of the cisterns, and so much of the mercury had escaped, before I was aware of it, that I found all the previous observations valueless.
Coxwell's assistant, seated on the ring above the car, began to take in light cargo in the shape of aneroids, barometers, bottles of brandy and water, and other useful articles. M. Duruof scrambled into the car, one of the men who had been weighing it down getting out to make room for him.
Our losses, by the wrecking of the "No Name," and by various mishaps since, together with the amount thrown away to-day, leave us little more than two months' supplies, and to make them last thus long we must be fortunate enough to lose no more. We drag our boats on shore and turn them over to recalk and pitch them, and Sumner is engaged in repairing barometers.
They had an abundance of warm clothing for winter, plenty of ammunition, two or three dozen traps, tools of various kinds, nails, screws; etc. In the line of scientific instruments there were two sextants, four chronometers, a number of barometers, thermometers, compasses, etc.
Barometers, hygrometers, and similar instruments of great delicacy can be constructed on the principle of the odoroscope; and it may also be used in determining the character or pressure of gases and vapors in which it has been placed.
This, from its superior simplicity, being, in fact, no more than the original Tonicillean experiment, with a well-divided scale and adjustment of its 0° to the surface of the mercury in the cistern, was found to be most certain in its results. All the barometers used by the parties in the field were therefore reduced to this by their mean differences.
The number of points at which observations have been made by barometers for the purpose of determining their altitudes is 407, of which 267 are upon the boundary claimed by the United States. The number of separate sets of barometric readings made at these points amounts to 1,153, while those made at the fixed stations amount to 837.
I have determined to get the barometers from the wreck, if they are there. After breakfast, while the men make the portage, I go down again for another examination, There the cabin lies, only carried 50 or 60 feet farther on. Carefully looking over the ground, I am satisfied that it can be reached with safety, and return to tell the men my conclusion.
This they refuse to do, saying they have no fear but that they can get something to eat; but Billy, the cook, has a pan of biscuits prepared for dinner, and these he leaves on a rock. Before starting, we take from the boat our barometers, fossils, the minerals, and some ammunition and leave them on the rocks. We are going over this place as light as possible.
Our hopes are that the worst places are passed, but our barometers are all so much injured as to be useless, so we have lost our reckoning in altitude, and know not how much descent the river has yet to make. The stream is still wild and rapid, and rolls through a narrow channel.
Word Of The Day