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Sir Isaak Newtons Scale. I should bave taken no 

 further trouble in the matter had uot my interest in it 

 been again revived by reading a paper in the Philoso- 

 phical Transactions for the year 1701, in which it is 

 proposed to make a thermometer founded on the tem- 

 pérature of the human body. The paper is anonymous, 

 but I believe it is the opinion of Lord Kelvin that it 

 was written by no less a man than Sir Isaak Newton. 



The paper in the Philosophical Transactions sup- 

 posed to be written by Newton is to be found in Vol. 

 XXII pag. 824. April 1701. 



Hier folgt nun die Beschreibung des Newton'schen 

 Leinölthermometers und dessen Skale, die auf zwei festen 

 Punkten beruht, nämlich der Temperatur des schmel- 

 zenden Schnees 0° und der Blutwärme des Menschen 

 12°; durch Auftragen weiterer Skalenteile gelangt man 

 bei 34° zum Siedepunkt des Wassers. Von einer Be- 

 rücksichtigung des Luftdrucks ist nicht die Rede. Näheres 

 über diese Skale folgt weiter unten. 



Nun fährt Samuel Wilks fort: 



A few years after the publication ot this paper 

 Fahrenheit made bis thermometer, and followed Newton 

 by making the température of the body bis first resting 

 place, counting upwards and downwards from this fixed 

 point. Whether he knew of Newton's essay I am not 

 aware, but in all probability he did. He found he could 

 get a greater cold than that of freezing water by mixing 

 together ice and sait. This point, he made bis zéro. 

 He thought also that it would be better if he enlarged 

 the scale by doubling the numbers, and making that of 

 the body 24 instead of 12, starting of course from bis 

 own zéro. This made the freezing point 8 and the 

 boiling point 53, which, as his predecessor has said, was 

 about three times that of the human body. His scale 



