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TUESDAY, APRIL 4tli, 



A Lecture on "Wind Force, and tlie way it is Measured," was 

 given by J. K. Laughton, Esq., R.X., M.A., President of the 

 Meteorological Society, Vice-President of tlie Association. 



Tlie force of wind must liave been noticed from the very 

 earliest times, and tlie men whose huts Avere bloAvn down or whose 

 boats were daslied to pieces liad, beyond <loubt, in aU languages 

 special names indicating the degrees of violence of a storm. But 

 no attempt seems to have been made to measure this force till 

 towards the middle of the 17tli century. The first instrument of 

 which we have any knowledge was mentioned to the Eoyal Society 

 in 1667, by Dr. Hooke, who described it as used by seamen. It 



consisted of a plate c d suspended by a bar from a pivot, and 

 thus able to swing upwards along a graduated quadrant a b, the 

 quadrant itself, together with the plate, turning freely, as a vane, 

 on a vertical shaft. The same kind of thing has been reproduced 

 since in many different forms, and closely corresponds with the 

 swinging sign— "The Red Lion" or "The Dun Cow,"— such as 

 may be seen commonly enough at the door of a country public 



