air pump
Date1850-1870
Inventory Number1998-1-0070
ClassificationAir Pump
Subject
Maker
Liebrich
fl. 1850 - 1910
Cultural Region
Place of Origin
Dimensions17.2 x 46 x 19.5 cm (6 3/4 x 18 1/8 x 7 11/16 in.)
Material
DescriptionA brass hand-operated vacuum pump is set at an angle on a rectangular beveled wooden base. The pump is connected to a brass housing on top of which is a stopcock. A tube and a nozzle are fixed on either side of the housing. This part of the instrument is connected via an underneath tube to the circular vacuum plate, on top of which would have been put a glass vessel. There is also a tube and a stopcock connected to the plate. The brass tubing is corroded and the pump handle rod is rusted.
Signedon stopcock: LIEBRICH / in Giessen
FunctionAn air-pump is an instrument used to produce a vacuum in order to study nature under controlled environmental conditions. It became one of the most important scientific instruments of natural philosophy as early as the late seventeenth century. With the electrostatic machine, the air-pump became in time not only a genuine research tool but an important pedagogical apparatus in the lecturer-demonstrator's arsenal.
