This is a large bulbous glass vessel with a mirrored inner surface across most of its body. Two spherical glass bulbs are connected by a cylindrical section. The lower bulb is larger than the upper. Both bulbs have obvious joins at or just above their midsection on the horizontal. The lower bulb features a black stamp, indicating PYREX.
Above the upper bulb is another cylindrical section of glass. Two pairs of tubes merge horizontally on either side of this cylindrical section. Above this there is a jagged edge showing where additional tubes have been broken off, leaving the vessel with an open end. Three of the emerging tubes are closed to a point; one of the upper tubes has also been sheered off. The uppermost section of the top cylinder is not silvered and is made of clear glass.
The open end of the vessel reveals that the vessel actually consists of more than one interior layer of container.
A quantity of tissue-like brown paper has been inserted into the broken open end of the vessel.
Accession Number: 2020.ph.856
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Glass (Pyrex)
Stamped on the glass of the lower bulb: “1200 . ML
[??] REG
PYREX
US[??] OFF.
MADE IN U.S.A.”
Dimensions (cm):
Function: The storage of liquid helium.
Fair. Comparison with original images of the object shows that the narrow opening end of the vessel has been broken, sheering off some of the top cylindrical section of the vessel.
Associated Instruments:
Manufacturer: R. Harold Chappell
Date of Manufacture: c.1923
Department of Physics, University of Toronto
This glass vessel was made by Reuben Harold Chappell, the glassblower at the University of Toronto’s Department of Physics, in 1921. It was designed and manufactured to transfer liquid helium, and consists of multiple concentric vessels inside each other intended to be insulated with two layers of vacuum and one of liquid air, with helium contained in the innermost vessel. However, it never worked as intended. Presumably describing this vessel in a speech given in 1972, Chappell wrote:
“I made the first complete liquid air liquid helium unit container; we used it once to try out its practical ability to store liquid helium gas but when we found out the glass was porous to the [evaporating helium] gas, it became a museum piece to a glassblower’s skill and patience.”[1]
Chappell was hired as the physics department’s glassblower in 1920, and remained there until 1966, when he transferred to work as the glassblower at the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering. He retired in 1986, aged 90. Along with some other items featuring concentric glass components, the vessel was donated to the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at that time, at which point a photograph was taken of Chappell holding the vessel and published in the University of Toronto’s internal employee newspaper, the Bulletin.[2] The caption describing it is incorrect; this is not a cryophorus. Chappell contacted the Institute to correct this error after the photograph was published.
Chappell’s contributions to the University of Toronto were significant. Describing his work, Professor Elizabeth Allin of the Department of Physics wrote:
“In many cases, the apparatus to be constructed existed only in the mind of the researcher and consultation with the glassblower [Chappell] was a necessary step in its design. He always took a keen interest in the way in which the device under discussion was to be used and in ways it could be adapted better to that use. Always eager to learn new techniques and to try new types of glass, he in many ways including his attitude to hours of work, fitted naturally into the environment of a research laboratory.”[3]
“He would attempt to make almost anything requested of him and the graduate students came to think that it was impossible to conceive of glass apparatus which he could not make. The graduate student might acquire a limited skill in the operation of the workshop lathes or in the use of a blow torch but without expert assistance his apparatus would often have failed. The men in the workshop and the glassblower were friends in need.”[4]
Chappell himself reported he was involved in making glasswork for Frederick Banting, produced the first ‘Toronto’ design mercury lamp, and designed many other more successful vessels for transferring liquid helium.[1]
[1] Chappell, R. “Sixty Years in Retrospect”(speech) (1972) University of Toronto Archives B1993-0036 Box 9 File 16: 6
[2] “End of an Era” University of Toronto Bulletin, July 21, 1986.
[3] Allin, E.J. “More than sixty years of glassblowing and still enjoying it…” (draft, n.d.) University of Toronto Archives B1993-0036 Box 009 File 15
[4] Allin, E.J., Physics at the University of Toronto, 1843-1980. (Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 1981)
Historical Notes:
Models