Barometer Pumps

Abstract

COMMUNICATIONS from Mr. Sprengel have been published, in which he has defended his claim to be the inventor of the mercury barometer-pump. As long as he confined himself to this claim I had no right to interfere, but by his letter in your previous number (vol. xxiv. p. 53) he claims to be the inventor or father of all kinds of barometer-pumps. His right to this claim I dispute; for in May, 1847, I obtained a patent for improvements in sugar-refining, one of which is the conversion of a vacuum-pan into a large barometer by placing under a common vacuum-pan a long pipe in a perpendicular position, which acts as a pump whereby the sugar is taken out of the pan by its own weight in the long pipe, and thereby the vacuum in the pan is not destroyed, and the process of sugar-boiling is carried on continuously. The syrup to be boiled is added in the pan above, while the boiled sugar is taken out below through the barometer-pump. The specification of my patent was published in patent journals in London in 1847, and it is possible that Mr. Sprengel took the idea of his mercury barometer-pump from my sugar barometer-pump. But at all events Mr. Sprengel was not the first inventor of a barometer-pump. I claim that honour.