Abstract
The development of the instruments discussed in the preceding chapters was necessary to overcome the impediment which had developed in the fifteenth century to the evolution of scientific meteorology. The advent of the thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, etc., as scientific instruments, opened the way for a more comprehensive study of the atmosphere.
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References
Sir William Napier Shaw, Manual of Meteorology (Cambridge: The University Press, 1926), 1:11.
There is no evidence that the Greek Tower of the Winds, mentioned in Chapter Three, was used as an observation station. Rather this temple was probably a place where the devout could offer prayers and gifts in view of obtaining the wind and weather most desired for agricultural and nautical purposes. See Richard Inwards, “Meteorological Observations,” Quart. Jour. of the Roy. Meteor. Soc. 22, No. 98 (1896): 81–84.
Gustav Hellmann, “The Dawn of Meteorology,” Quart. Jour. of the Roy. Meteor. Soc. 34 (1908): 230.
Ibid., p. 231.
Lynn Thorndike, “A Weather Record for 1399–1406 A.D.,” Isis 32 (1940): 304–323.
Ibid., p. 306.
Gustav Hellmann, Die Anfänge der Meteorologischen Beobachtungen und Instrumente (Berlin: 1890), p. 5.
Harvey A. Zinszer, “Meteorological Mileposts,” Scientific Monthly 17 (1944): 262.
Gustav Hellmann, Die Anfängechrw(133), pp. 6–7.
Ibid., p. 16.
For example, Descartes in 1647 proposed to take meteorological observations in concert with Mersenne. See René Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Chas. Adam et Paul Tonnery (Paris: 1903), 5: 99.
A. Wolf, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries (London: Allen & Unwin, 1935), p. 312.
Blaise Pascal, The Physical Treatise of Pascal, trans. I.H.B. and A.G.H. Spiers (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), p. 116.
Wolf, op. cit., p. 312.
Hellmann, in his article “The Dawn of Meteorology,” states that he found 123 different series of meteorological observations belonging to the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. This number undoubtedly represents a small proportion of the total number of such observations throughout Europe.
For a detailed account of the meteorological activity of the Accademia del Cimento, see G. Hellmann, Evangelista Torricelli, Esperienza dell’argento vivo. Accademia del Cimento,chrw(133) (Berlin: A. Asher & Co., 1897), pp. 11–22.
Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society (London: 1667), pp. 173–179.
Willis L. Webb, “Missile Range Meteorology,” Weatherwise 16 (1963): 101.
Philippe De La Hire, “Observations of the quantity of water which fell at the observatory during the year 1709, with the state of the thermometer and barometer,” Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Science (Paris: 1710) pp. 356–358.
Ibid., pp. 356–357.
A. Wolf, A History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the 18th Century (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1939), p. 284.
James Jurin, “Invitatio ad Observationes Meteorologicas communi consilio instituendas,” Phil. Trans. 32 (1723): 422–427.
H. Howard Frisinger, “Isaac Greenwood: Pioneer American Meteorologist,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 48, No. 4 (1967): 265–267.
Isaac Greenwood, “A New Method for Composing the Natural History of Meteors,” Phil. Trans. 35 (1728): 390–402.
Greenwood was not the first to take regular meteorological observations on the American Continent. This honor apparently goes to Rev. John Campanius, who from 1644–1645 maintained a weather record at Swedes’ Fort, near Wilmington, Del. See “A Chronological Outline of the History of Meteorology in the United States of North America,” Monthly Weather Review (March 1909): 87.
Roger Pickering, “Scheme of a Diary of the Weather, together with draughts and descriptions of Machines subservient thereunto,” Phil. Trans. 43 (1744): 6–7.
The Royal Society did not begin its own meteorological register until 1774, and then it only lasted seven years.
G.J. Symons, “The History of English Meteorological Societies, 1823 to 1880,” Quart. Jour. of the Roy. Meteor. Soc. 7 (1881): 66–68.
In the back of his work Physicae experimentales et geometricaechrw(133) (Lugduni Batavorum: 1729), Musschenbroek has included the printed record of the meteorological observations which he made at Utrecht in 1728, and in which he employed these symbols to represent meteorological phenomena.
Wolf, 18th Century, p. 287.
J.H. Lambert, “Esposé de quelques Observations qu’on pourroit faire pour répandre du jour sur la Météorologie,” Nouveaux Memoires de l’Academie Royale des Science (Berlin: 1771): 60–65.
Blaise Pascal, The Physical Treatises of Pascal, trans. I.H.B. and A.G.H. Spiers (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937), p. xvi.
Ibid., pp. xvi-xvii.
Napier Shaw, The Drama of Weather, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: The University Press, 1939), p. 46.
R. Wootton, “The Physical Work of Descartes,” Science Progress 21 (1927): 477.
See also C. Adam, “Pascal et Descartes,” Revue Philosophique 24 (1887), pp. 612–624; 25 (1888): 65–90
R. Duhem, “Le Pere Marin Mersenne et la pesanteur de l’air,” Revue Generale des Sciences 17 (1906): 809–817.
Pascal, op. cit., p. 164.
Here Torricelli is apparently referring to the experiments of Galileo.
Florian Cajori, “History of determinations of the heights of mountains,” Isis 12 (1929): 499–500.
For an English translation of the letters between Pascal and Perier concerning this experiment, see Forest R. Moulton and Justus J. Schifferes (eds.), The Autobiography of Science (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1953), pp. 148–152.
Florian Cajori, “History of determinations of the heights of mountains,” Isis 12 (1929): p. 500.
Pascal, op. cit., pp. 63–66.
Robert Boyle, The Work of the Honourable Robert Boyle (London: 1744), 1:97–104.
Another probable factor was that he was a close assistant in Boyle’s experiments with the elasticity of air. See Margaret Espinasse, Robert Hooke (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1956), p. 46.
Robert Hooke, Micrographia (London: 1665), pp. 221–228.
Ibid., p. 228.
Bernard De Lindenau, Tables Barometriques (Gotha: 1809), p. xxi.
Edme. Mariotte, Oeuvres de M. Mariotte (La Haye: 1740), 1: 148–182.
Twelve successive applications of this process gave an altitude of nearly thirty-five miles. Mariotte stopped here as he had no evidence that air could be expanded beyond the degree of rarefaction which it would have at this altitude.
Florian Cajori. “History of determinations of the heights of mountains,” Isis 12 (1929): 504.
Mariotte, op. cit., pp. 174–175.
Edmund Halley. “On the height of the Mercury in the Barometer at different Elevations above the Surface of the Earth; and on the Rising and Falling of the Mercury on the Change of Weather.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1686): 104–116.
Logarithms had been first invented in 1614 by John Napier. For a thorough account of the history of logarithms, see Cargill G. Knott, Napier memorial volumes (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1915).
Halley, op. cit., p. 109. The development by Halley of this formula can be summarized in modem mathematical notation as follows: by Boyle’s Law pv = constant = 30 x 900 (Halley’s constant). Thus, the cylinder of air reaching from sea-level to the place where the barometric reading is h, is \(\begin{array}{*{20}{c}} {\int {vdp = \int_h^{30} {(30 \times 900)\frac{{dp}}{p}} = [(30 \times 900)\log p]} \int_h^{30} {} } \\ { = 30 \times 900 \times (\log 30 - \log h)} \end{array}\) Changing from natural to common logarithms, by dividing by the modulus 0.434295, and by simplifying, Halley’s formula is obtained.
Halley, op. cit., p. 109.
Later in this work by Halley, he attempts to explain the reasons for the changes in the barometric readings at sea-level.
See H. Howard Frisinger, “Mathematicians in the History of Meteorology: The Pressure-Height Problem,” Historia Mathematica 1 (1974): 263–286.
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Frisinger, H.H. (1983). Meteorological Observations. In: The History of Meteorology: to 1800. Meteorological Monographs. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-940033-91-4_7
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