A New Discovery through the use of This Apparatus Which Indicates the Weight of the Atmosphere

Abstract

When I had set up the apparatus, which has already been described, on a table in my study for the sake of mental recreation and per­formed the experiments mentioned in the preceding chapter for my friends and others who were investigating these discoveries, several thoughtful onlookers, seeing the water rise with such force and quantity from the floor of my room into the evacuated glass through the pipe, pp, asked to what height water could actually be raised in this manner. Since I was as yet ignorant of this information, but nonetheless did not suppose that water rose in the glass to an infinite height, I could not neglect to perform an experiment that pertained to this question. Therefore I had the pipe, pp, lengthened (so that it extended from the window of the middle floor of my house to the ground outside) and placed a container full of water under it in the my same way as was described in the preceding Chapter, section 2. Again I saw the same phenomenon occur, namely that the water, contrary to its own nature, rose into the evacuated glass.