433 
on Spirituous Liquors. 
which circumstance, and the trouble attending it, was a fur- 
ther objection to their use: but in the pamphlet abovemen- 
tioned are proposed two instruments of this nature, to be filled 
without heat ; one being provided with two equal tubes, the 
other with a short tube, closed by a stopper. Though both 
these instruments, and especially the latter, seemed liable to 
several causes of error, } et, to remove doubts, and bring the 
method by weight to a proper test, Mr. Gilpin was desired to 
make some trials with them ; Mr. Ramsden, the author of the 
pamphlet, having been previously requested to go through the 
whole series of experiments on his own plan, which he declined 
to do. With no small difficulty Mr. Gilpin got the instru- 
ments executed ; and an account of the experiments to which 
he subjected them shall be given, in his own words, at the end 
of this Report. From the perusal of that account, it will be 
perceived, that the disagreement of the experiments among 
themselves, is nearly equal to the quantity by which any of 
them differ from the expansions as obtained by weight. Oil 
the whole, however, they give the expansion somewhat less, 
the cause of which I do not see ; possibly it may depend on 
the fluid in the ball not being quite heated and cooled to the 
degree shown by the accompanying thermometer ; possibly 
there may be a difference in the expansion of the glass with 
which the instruments were made, and that of the weighing- 
bottle, for these numbers are in both cases the excess of the 
expansion of the fluid over glass ; or it may turn on some 
other circumstance, which has eluded our attention. What- 
ever may have occasioned the deficiency, I think the experi- 
ments will satisfy any one, that most dependence is to be placed 
on the weights ; and at all events the difference is not such 
