Another class of pyrometers having great promise in the future is based on what may be called the “water-current” principle.  Here the temperature is determined by noting the amount of heat communicated to a known current of water circulating in the medium to be observed.  The idea, which was due to M. De Saintignon, has been carried out in its most improved form by M. Boulier.  Here the pyrometer itself consists of a set of tubes one inside the other, and all inclosed for safety in a large tube of fireclay.  The central tube or pipe brings in the water from a tank above, where it is maintained at a constant level.  The water descends to the bottom of the instrument, and opens into the end of another small tube called the explorer (explorateur).  This tube projects from the fireclay casing into the medium to be examined, and can be pushed in or out as required.  After circulating through this tube the water rises again in the annular space between the central pipe and the second pipe.  The similar space between the second pipe and the third pipe is always filled by another and much larger current of water, which keeps the interior cool.  The result is that no loss of heat is possible in the instrument, and the water in the central tube merely takes up just so much heat as is conducted into it through the metal of the explorer.  This heat it brings back through a short India-rubber pipe to a casing containing a thermometer.  This thermometer is immersed in the returning current of water, and records its temperature.  It is graduated by immersing the instrument in known and constant temperatures, and thus the graduations on the thermometer give at once the temperature, not of the current of water, but of the medium from which it has received its heat.  In order to render the instrument perfectly reliable, all that is necessary is that the current of water should be always perfectly uniform, and this is easily attained by fixing the size of the outlet once for all, and also the level of water in the tank.  So arranged, the pyrometer works with great regularity, indicating the least variations of temperature, requiring no sort of attention, and never suffering injury under the most intense heat; in fact the tube, when withdrawn from the furnace, is found to be merely warm.  If there is any risk of the instrument getting broken from fall of materials or other causes, it may be fitted with an ingenious self-acting apparatus shutting off the supply.  For this purpose the water which has passed the thermometer is made to fall into a funnel hung on the longer arm of a balanced lever.  With an ordinary flow the water stands at a certain height in the funnel, and, while this is so, the lever remains balanced; but if from any accident the flow is diminished, the level of the water in the funnel descends, the other arm of the lever falls, and in doing so releases two springs, one of which in flying up rings a bell, and the other by detaching a counterweight closes a cock and stops the supply of water altogether.