Analytical devices have been designed for a wide range of applications. Analyzing solutions and fluids by color comparison is one of the oldest, but qualitative. In the 1860s more sophisticated colorimeters were invented to compare colors more quantitatively. The blowpipe has been called the ‘stethoscope’ of the nineteenth century chemist. It was the most prominent laboratory apparatus from 1760 to 1860 and was still offered by manufacturers in the early to mid-1900s. With a laboratory spectroscope the elements in the flame of a burned sample cast a spectrum indicative of composition. Photometers and spectrophotometers measure light intensity within narrow wavebands to determine. A pocket-sized refractometer developed in the 1870s allows observation of refracted light to determine refractive index. Interferometers separate wave bands of light and other energy bands for a variety of laboratory applications. Chemists invented the actinometer or dosiometer to emit ultra-violet light around 1790 to measure the reaction rate of photochemically sensitive substances. Polarimeters came into use around 1800 to observe the interaction of an optically active substance with polarized light. A specialized polarimeter called the saccharimeter was widely used to determine the amount of sugar in solution. In the 1920s, due to the availability of photoelectric cells sensitive to the visible light spectrum, color comparison gave way to more quantitative instrumentation like the absorptiometer invented in 1936; the polarograph, one of the first automatic analytical devices, invented in 1922; and scintillometers to measure radiation.

Hydrometers are buoyancy devices used to determine the specific gravity of a fluid. The Sykes hydrometer received legislative approval in England in 1816 and remained the legal standard until 1907 but was made and used in the wine and spirits industries to the mid-twentieth century. Typically, hollow bulbs made of brass with an attached rod for holding weights, hydrometers often come in wood boxes with brass or ivory backed thermometers, glass flasks, scales and magnifiers. Some hydrometers are simply glass tubes with a weighted bulb of mercury or lead shot and a graduated stem that sinks up to a mark that indicates the fluid’s density.

There are numerous glass devises used in wet chemical study and analysis, including burettes, pipettes, test tubes, flasks, glass tubing, and distillation vessels to name a few. Many containers are graduated for volume. The pestle and mortar, the pre-eminent laboratory symbol, has been around since the Stone Age for grinding grain. The more recent collectable sets are made of bronze, brass, pewter, agate, serpentine, jade, porcelain or iron. To separate compounds of one type from another electrophoresis cells were developed as early as 1807, using glass tubes and a voltaic pile (battery). The thermometer is one of the most widely applied laboratory devises. Those that measures temperatures above 500 degrees Celsius are called a pyrometers. Other measuring and testing devises among many include the air pump, invented by Robert Boyle in 1647 to conduct studies in a vacuum; eudiometers, invented in the late-1700s to measure the ‘purity’ of air; the viscometer, first used in the mid-1800s to measure fluid viscosity; the Bunsen absoptiometer, invented in 1855 to measure absorption coefficients of gases; the auxanometer, spherometer, osometer, pressure bomb, photometer, psychrometer, clinostat and porometer, all invented in the mid to late 1800s to measure various properties of plants; the hydrostatic balance to measure the specific gravity of rocks, minerals and other solids; the goniometer, invented in 1898, to measure angles between crystal faces; hardness and impact testers and the melting point apparatus, the latter invented in 1810; magnetometers to measure magnetic properties of rocks and the substrate, based on a simple dip needle, originally devised in 1723; gravimeters that use torsion balances, first used in 1888; the ‘pocket’ penetrometer to test ground hardness; and numerous other inventions to measure and test a wide range of subjects