Spare Tube with Trolley Bobbin, by H.G.J. Moseley, Manchester/Oxford, c.1913

Glass tube with three ends. The funnel shaped end is bent and raised above the others, one of the ends is opened and ringed with white wax and the final end is fitted with the metal stopper and sealed with wax. Inside the tubing is a bobbin tube mounted on a metal post with the string extending into the funnel.

These pieces This piece of apparatus were was constructed and used by Henry Moseley, first at Manchester in 1913 and then at Oxford from November 1913 to the summer of 1914. He studied chemical samples using X-ray spectroscopy and hence determine their atomic number. The results were published in the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ in 1913 and 1914.

The trolley bobbin tube used a small trolley to move the target chemical element samples along a 'track', pulled by a cord wound around a copper alloy bobbin. This meant the trolley could be moved without breaking the vacuum and hence the experimental apparatus did not need to be pumped out every time the sample was changed. This was a system of Moseley's own construction and design and meant his scientific experiments could be conducted quicker.

See attached narrative 'Henry 'Harry' Moseley and his experiments' for further details.