DEVELOPMENT OF METEOROLOGY—ABBE. 998 
library and museum at Alexandria, Egypt, founded by the Ptolemies, 
Soter and Philadelphus, 250 B. C., became the center of the most 
famous school of science of all antiquity, and developed into a true 
university, which lasted until overthrown by the Arab Mohammedans. 
To it we owe Eratosthenes, Euclid, Diophantus, Ptolemy, Synesius, 
and many other mathematicians and astronomers. The observatory 
of Ulugh Bey and Tamerlane at Samarkand was for twenty years, 
1430 to 1449, a center for the revival of Arabic science, while at the 
same time in western Europe a revival of knowledge was going on 
that led Rudolf II to establish at Prague an academy that was distin- 
guished by the presence of Tycho Brahe and Kepler. The modern 
academy of science, considered as a voluntary association of individ- 
uals for the promotion of knowledge, began with numerous establish- 
ments in Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century, and meteorology 
owes almost as much to the three hundred years of activity of the 
Academia del Lincei, founded in 1603, as it does to the ten years of 
the Academia del Cimento. 
With the invention of the thermometer by Galileo, the air pump 
by Otto von Guericke, and the barometer by Torricelli begins the 
modern period of meteorology, when accurate experiments and ob- 
servations began to be possible. We thus pass from the first crude 
stages of observation and fancy to the days when every hypothesis 
was tested by observation—to the days when academies of science 
became prominent and when the motto of the Academia del Cimento 
at Florence, “ Provando é reprovando,” became the watchword of 
science. This Academy of Experimentation devoted itself to the 
fundamental problems of physics; it existed only between the 19th 
of June, 1657, and the 14th of July, 1667; the latter is the date of 
dedication of its unique published volume, “ Saggi,” or Reports on 
the Experiments made by the academy—a volume justly looked upon 
as the foundation stone of modern experimental physics. This vol- 
ume was written in the Italian, or popular, language for every one 
to read easily, and was intended to be the authoritative expression 
of the conclusions arrived at by nine of the ablest Italian thinkers. 
The academy did indeed keep a diary showing everything that was 
said and done by each person in its daily convocations, but the 
“ Saggi ” contains no reference to these individuals; it makes public 
only that upon which all could agree. Galileo, who died 1642, Jan- 
uary 8 (n. s.), had been dead twenty-five years, but the spirit that 
pervades this volume so perfectly represents that which had ani- 
mated Galileo during his life that, without mentioning his name, 
these nine students of his reaflirmed and expanded all that he had 
contended for; so that it has been well said that the “ Saggi” reads 
as though the spirit of Galileo had risen from his grave. The vol- 
ume was soon translated into Latin and English, and perhaps into 
