468 M E M O I R S ?/^ /;5(? 
I'd fird the exaul ^lantity of Volatile Acid Salts contained 
in Acid Spirits by Mr» Homberg. Phil. Tranf. N°. zG% 
p. 530. 
MHomherg, chemiH: to the Royal, Academy in a difcourfe 
• of his obferved, that tho' we have a very fure way ot mea- 
furing the quantity of Iblids by balances and ordinary weights, 
yet we cannot come to the fame precifion in liquors ^ and much 
!efs can we know the precife quantity of the dififerent ingre- 
dients in thofe liquors, as what is the quantity of acid volatile 
fait contained in acid fpirits 5 and for that purpofe he contrived 
a new aricometer, or a meafure of liquors, of which the de- 
fcription follows, 
A Fig. 22. Plate XIII. is a glafs-bottle like a fmall matrafs, 
whofe neck B C is lo fmall, that a drop of water therein takes 
up the fpace of five or fix lines; near that neck is a fmall ca- 
pillary tube D about fix lines long, and parallel to the neck 
BC3 in the opening, B is a little dilated in fafhion of a fun- 
nel, for pouring the liquors the more eafily into the bottle, 
and the fmall tube D is in order to give egrefs to the air con- 
tained in that veffel when the liquor is poured in at B5 
the point C is a little mark at the fame height with the 
extremity of the fmall tube Dj when the veflel is filled with 
fome liquor for the experiments, it is poured in by'theopening 
B, untill it comes out by the fmall tube D, and if the height 
of the liquor is even with the mark G, it is well 5 if lower, 
you muft fill more to that point 5 and if the liquor is higher, 
you muft flrike foftly upon the opening B, till the overplus be 
even with the point C in the neck of the bottle; by that means 
we have always exacl:ly the fame volume of liquor, and we 
may know how much the fame volume of the feveral liquors 
precifely weighs, the one more than the other; but as the vo- 
lume of liquors is not always the fame, and changes according 
to the alteration of the weather, we mull confider this varia- 
tion in the experiments made at feveral times, when we com- 
pare the weight of a liquor weighed in the fummer time, 
with the weight of another weighed in winter; for the lame 
liquor being more rarefied in a hot, and more condenfed in a 
cold fcafon, the fame volume of it will be more weighty in 
cold than in warm weather ; for this purpofe M. Homberg has 
given a table of the various weights of the moA ufual liquors 
in the coldcft and hottell fcafon, as follows. 
The 
