A HYDROMETER ON A NEW PRINCIPLE FOR THE PURPOSE OF ASCERTAINING THE STRENGTH OF SPIRITS, AND DETERMINING THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF FLUIDS IN GENERAL
Year: 1803

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHESTER
GOULD, of Red Lyon Street, Clerkenwell, in the County of Middlesex, Gentle-
man, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at West-
minster, the Third day of September, in the forty-third year of His reign, did
give and grant unto me, the said Chester Gould, my executors, administrators,
and assigns, His special licence that I, the said Chester Gould, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, during the term of fourteen years therein cx-
pressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within
England and Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A
HYDROMETER ON A NEW PRINCIPLE FOR THE PURPOSE OF ASCERTAINING THE STRENGTH
OF SPIRITS, AND DETERMINING THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF FLUIDS IN GENERAL;"
in which Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said
Chester Gould, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of
the nature of my said Invention, and what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be inrolled in His High Court of Chancery within one calendar
month next and immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent, as
in and by the same, relation being thereunto had, may more fully and at
large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Chester Gould, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described as
follows (that is to say):-
I procure two glass tubes or cylinders, with a bore or calibre about the size
of a goose quill, and thirty inches long, these two tubes I inclose in a brass
tube of such diameter as will receive them with convenience; in order that
they may be secure from injury or accidents, on one end of these tubes 1 fit a
small cyringe or pump, in such manner as to exhaust the air from both of the
glass tubes at the same time with the same cyringe or punip, then the instru-
ment becomes a double pump, or a pump with two parallel tubes, which are
both exhausted by one piston. If water is drawn into both tubes, it will rise
to an equal height by the weight of the atmosphere, but if a column of water
is drawn into one tube and a column of the bighest rectified spirit into the
other, the two columns will rise to different heights; the different length of
these columns will determine the length of a scale which I graduate by actual
experiment, by diluting the spirit one per cent. at a time, and repeating the
experiment till the scale is finished; when it is finished it is fitted to the glass
tubes near the cyringe, so as to apply like the scale of a thermometer; on the
other end of the instrument a small vessel is fitted to receive the liquors, this
vessel is separated into two equal parts by a partition, so that one part may be
filled with water, and the other with spirits, and both remain separate; this
partition passes between the two glass tubes. When a sample of spirits is to be
tried, one side of this vessel must be filled with water, and the other with the
sample to be tried, then it is drawn into the instrument till the water rises
exactly to the bottom of the scale, and the spirits will rise higher to the proof
mark, or above or below, according to its strength; if a sample of spirits is
tried in this instrument by another sample of known proof, the difference will
appear on the scale without the assistance of the thermometer, because the
state of the atmosphere affects both samples alike, or very nearly so. The size
and proportions of this instrument may be varied at pleasure, some of them
are provided with a stop-cock for the purpose of more conveniently. retaining
the fluids in the instrument till the observation is made; this cock is fitted
between the cyringe and the end of the glass tubes, and others are made with
a cock instead of a cyringe, and then the instrument. is exhausted by the
mouth, and the cock is turned to retain the liquor in- the instrument till the
observation is made.
In witness whereof, I, the said Chester Gould, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, the Third day of October, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight lundred and three
CHESTER GOULD. (r.s.)
-
40

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Third day of October, in the
forty-third year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third, the said
Chester Gould came before our said Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the instrument aforesaid, and all and every thing therein con-
tained and specified, in form above written. And also the instrument aforesaid
was stamped according to the tenor of the several statutes made in the sixth
year of the reign of the late King and Queen William and Mary of England,
and so forth, and in the seventeenth, twenty-third, and thirty-seventh years of
the reign of His Majesty King George the Third.
Inrolled the Third day of October, in the year of our Lord One thousand
eight hundred and three.