372 Salem Manufacture of Alum, ^c. 



Perhaps it is not generally known, that in one of our vil- 

 lages, excellent thermometers, of every variety of construc- 

 tion, may be obtained. They are the work of a self taught 

 artist, Mr. Thomas KendallJr. of New Lebanon, whose in- 

 genious device for graduating tubes of unequal bore, is men- 

 tioned at pa. 398, Vol. 4, of this Journal.* We have sev- 

 eral of Mr. Kendall's thermometers, constructed for partic- 

 ular purposes, and with which, as regards both the neatness 

 and accuracy of their execution, we have every reason to be 

 well satified. Some of them are particularly convenient, as they 

 are constructed with naked balls, and with the contiguous part 

 of the tube descending below the scale, which fits them for im- 

 mersion in liquids, at the same time that they are conven- 

 iently packed in travelling cases, and will answer well for 

 chemical, medical, and meteorological observations. 



We are assured that upon Mr. Kendall's plan of gradua- 

 tion, if the bore of a tube is of a regular taper, there is no 

 more difficulty in making a correct thermometer of it (even 

 if it varies so much, that the space necessary for three de- 

 grees at one end makes but two at the other,) than olLone 

 that is uniform throughout. 



The substance of Mr. Kendall's improvement, we under- 

 stand to be, a method of dividing right lines into any number 

 of parallel divisions, with equal ease and accuracy, whether 

 equal or unequal : applicable to the manufacture of mathe- 

 matical instruments, but more particularly to the graduation 

 of thermometer scales, which almost universally require un- 

 equal divisions. This method may also be applied to the 

 division of circles, and would be of great use to the artist 

 in manufacturing machinery which required a great number 

 and variety of cogs, as with an engine constructed on this 

 principle, one number would be as easily obtained as 

 another.- — Ed. 



9. Salem Manufacture of Alum, ^c. 



We contemplate with particular satisfaction, every ad- 

 vance made in our domestic arts and manufactures, and re- 



* It will not diminish the value of that notice, if we mention, that it was 

 written by the late Professor Fisher, after mature consideration of the sub- 

 'ect. 



