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A thermometer by merely inverting which the temperature may be registered. The column of mercury is broken and, as it remains until the instrument is reset, the reading may be made at leisure.

eam engine, which is nearly exhausted of air or steam, etc.; as, a vacuum of 26 inches of mercury, or 13 pounds per square inch. Vacuum brake, a kind of continuous brake operated by exhausting the air from some appliance under each car, and so causing the pressure of the atmosphere to apply the brakes. -- Vacuum pan (…

all quantity of the substance into a barometer and noting the depression of the column of mercury.

One of the planets, the second in order from the sun, its orbit lying between that of Mercury and that of the Earth, at a mean distance from the sun of about 67,000,000 miles. Its diameter is 7,700 miles, and its sidereal period 224.7 days. As the morning star, it was called by the ancients Lucifer; as the evening star…

The process of treating silver ores by grinding in pans or tubs with the addition of mercury, and sometimes of chemicals such as blue vitriol and salt.

anges of atmospheric pressure are indicated by the motion of a column of water instead of mercury. It requires a column of water about thirty-three feet in height.

rfaces by covering them with a thin coating of amalgam of gold, and then volatilizing the mercury by heat; -- called also wash gilding.

A thermometer filled with water instead of mercury, for ascertaining the precise temperature at which water attains its maximum density. This is about 39º Fahr., or 4º Centigrade; and from that point down to 32º Fahr., or 0º Centigrade, or the freezing point, it expands.

Having wings attached to the feet; as, wing-footed Mercury; hence, swift; moving with rapidity; fleet. Drayton.

ellow plover (Zoöl.), the golden plover. -- Yellow precipitate (Med. Chem.), an oxide of mercury which is thrown down as an amorphous yellow powder on adding corrosive sublimate to limewater. -- Yellow puccoon. (Bot.) Same as Orangeroot. -- Yellow rail (Zoöl.), a small American rail (Porzana Noveboracensis) in which…