Description | An account of some experiments made in order to test Gilpin's tables and descriptions of four different hydrometers, which he has made for the Excise Committee.
"The Excise Committee [of the Royal Society] worked in response to a request from the Treasury: its task was to devise a simple and practicable form of hydrometer to be used by excisemen in assesing the duty on spirits, wine and beer, and thus it duly did, to the complete satisfaction of the Treasury", M Boas-Hall, 'All Scientists Now: The Royal Society in the Nineteenth Century', Cambridge: CUP, 1984, pp168. |