A boiling tube is a small cylindrical vessel used to strongly heat substances in the flame of a Bunsen burner. A boiling tube is essentially a scaled-up test tube, being about 50% larger.
They are designed to be wide enough to allow substances to boil violently as opposed to a test tube, which is too narrow; a boiling liquid can explode out of the end of test tubes when they are heated, as there is no room for bubbles of gas to escape independently of the surrounding liquid.
Boiling tubes are made from borosilicate glass that can withstand high temperatures.
Famous quotes containing the words boiling and/or tube:
“‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,
That nearer, every Day,
Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)