Griffiths, Ezer
Methods of Measuring Temperature

First Edition, 1918
Charles Griffin and Company Ltd, Exeter Street, Strand, W.C.2

A volume published in the series: Griffin’s Standard Scientific Text-Books.

The title page of the book, which has 176 pages.

This dedication, which is written on the inside front cover, is almost certainly to Ezer’s teacher at U.C. Cardiff, Principal E.H. Griffiths who was also Professor of Physics.

In the days of O level, there was a section on heat that began with thermometry, and in particular how a mercury-in-glass thermometer with no markings on it could be calibrated. You may remember the apparatus on the left which enabled the mark to be set for the steam point, i.e. 100°C. The apparatus is called a hypsometer. The thermometer is suspended from the top of the apparatus and is heated by steam from the boiling water below. When the mercury reaches a stable height, a mark is made on the glass body of the thermometer in line with the mercury meniscus. After any corrections for atmospheric pressure variation, the 100°C mark can be engraved into the glass.

The apparatus on the right serves a similar purpose. In this case the thermometer is suspended above boiling sulphur. Consequently the sulphur fixed point can be marked on the stem of the thermometer, 444.6 °C.

This was almost the only piece of school physics that I could find in the book!

Many thanks to Malcolm B. Lloyd for sending a copy of the book to the ‘library’.
The author, Ezer Griffiths, was a pupil at the school from 1901 to 1906.