DESCRIPTION 



OF 



A NEW AIR-PUMP. 



BY GEORGE KIERNAN, ESQ. M. R. I. A. 



Read Feb. 23, 1818, 



There is scarcely any instrument to which science has been 

 more extensively indebted than the air-pump. From its invention 

 to the present day, few important chemical discoveries have been 

 made without its assistance, and it has in fact created the art of ex- 

 perimenting on invisible fluids. To the chemist therefore it is indis- 

 pensable, it assists our operations on gasses, by it we are enabled 

 to free in the most perfect manner the objects of analysis from 

 moisture, and Leslie's beautiflil experiments have given us a fri- 

 gorific process practicalile at all seasons, and susceptible of results 

 which may be applied to various important purposes, even to those 

 of domestic economy : by the help of this process the nicer and 

 more delicate anatomical preparations are conveniently and expe- 

 ditiously dried without being liable to the injury inseparable from- 

 their exposure to the united action of heat, air, and moisture^ 



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