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Observations on the Accuracy of the Graduations of Babcock Milk Test Bottles

Department of Dairy Industry, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

ABSTRACT

According to the laws of New York State, the maximum error in the total graduation, or in any part of the graduation of a Babcock test bottle, must not exceed the volume of the smallest graduation. All bottles used for commercial and official testing in the state are checked to insure that they meet this requirement.

For use in research, we wished to select bottles having errors much less than the legal tolerance. In order to select such bottles, we constructed a calibrating syringe. Mercury was forced into the necks of the inverted bottles by a plunger whose movement was measured by means of a micrometer graduated to read directly in hundredths of a millimeter. Micrometer readings were recorded at 2% intervals on the graduations. Great care was observed to control reflections in the meniscus, and to avoid errors of parallax. The true values of the graduations were calculated from the movement and diameter of the plunger.

The reproducibility of measurements with this instrument was tested by asking 11 different people to make measurements on the same test bottle.