.Mzc2.NzQ4OA

[ 47 ] sirable circumstance, that the ivory pipe of the hy- grometer should be the thin ness possible; in order that it might be more readily affected. This I had fore- seen, before I had learnt it from experience ; but I was afraid of its being attended with still greater in- conveniences than that it was intended to remedy ; from the action of the mercury against pipes whose sides would be thinner. However, this might be tried. In the mean time, I fancy that, for observations in which it is absolutely necessary that the instrument should easily be affected, lesser hygrometers might be made, whose tubes containing a less quantity of mercury, would resist the action of it, though with a less degree of thickness (Perhaps it would not be impossible to use tubes made of some very thin quills.) I cannot yet ascertain whether these little hy- grometers could be graduated by themselves, or whe- ther they must be compared with those of which I have given the dimensions; this we shall learn from experience.

94. The difference there is between the heat and the discrete humor in the power of diffusing itself, oc- casions in another respect a considerable difference in the goings of the thermometer and hygrometer. The heat is brought into a state of equilibrium much sooner and with much greater certainty than the humor. Two thermometers accurately constructed and fixed near each other, in a place where the heat does not change very suddenly, always agree to- gether This is not the cafe with two hygrometers: they seldom agree, that is, they seldom preserve the same conformity to each other, when there is the least variation in the humor: at some times their difference increases, it others it diminishes; this can only