Chemical flask

This flask is one of several pieces of glassware which came from the Department of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh. However, this piece - along with a few others - appears to be later than that associated with the famous teacher, Joseph Black (1728-99).

The round-bottomed flask in thin pale-green glass, with a carefully-made rim, is sometimes used as the lower part of an alembic - used for distillation purposes - called a cucurbit.

Joseph Black had apparently acquired his chemical glassware from the Leith Glassworks, and there is no reason to suppose that T.C. Hope could not have acquired later material from there too. However, there were a number of other glasshouses locally from which this sort of item, which appears to be made of bottle glass, could have been obtained.

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