34 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1744. 



When speaking of the mushrooms, he means the fungus * porosus, crassus, 

 magnus, called, by way of eminence, in England, the mushroom. 



A Scheme of a Diary of tJie Weather; with Draughts and Descriptions of Ma- 

 chines subservient to it. By Roger Pickering, F.R.S, and f^.D.M. N°473, p.l. 

 On a page of a folio paper book, opening broad-ways, are drawn, at proper 

 distances, nine horizontal, and seven perpendicular lines ; in the void square 

 spaces of which the particulars of the diary are written down. The first of the 

 horizontal lines is for the days of the month and week, on which the examination 

 is made : the 2d for the hour of the day : the 3d for the weight of the air : the 

 4th for its heat : the 5 th for its moisture, or dryness : the 6th for the quarter of 

 the wind : the seventh for its force : the 8th for the weather ; as whether it be 

 rainy or cloudy, or clear : the Qth for the quantity of rain ; and the space between 

 the last line and the end of the paper, for the bill of mortality. 



The 7 perpendicular lines are for the 7 days of the week ; which, in our diary 

 begins with the first day, or Sunday. If you therefore carry your eye along the 

 paper from left to right, you may at one view see the weight of the air, and the 

 degrees of heat and moisture, &c. for the whole week. If you carry your eye 

 from top to bottom down the column, for any one day, you see regularly the 

 whole of the observations in one line for that day. Four pages, or weeks, we 

 allow to each month, and then leave a void page for the observations made 

 in that month ; and the overplus calendary days are carried on to the page 

 allotted for the next month ; only taking care to describe in every such page, 

 where the ending and beginning of two different months are to be found, the 

 names of both the months, directly over their final and initial day. The abstract 

 of the weekly bill of mortality is apparently a part of observation peculiar to this 

 plan, under which article all acute cases, depending on the state of the air, are 

 set down. 



Of the machines necessary in making observations for a diary of the weather, 

 are these five : 1 . The Barometer. — ^Those with open cisterns are more sensible 

 than the portable ones ; and with a micrometer, that divides an inch into 400 

 parts, renders them capable of showing the most minute alteration of the gravity 

 of the air. 2. The Thermometer. — One made by Fahrenheit's scale on one side, 

 with its correspondence to the graduation of the alcohol thermometer on the 

 other, is recommended. 



All the machines, except the barometer, are exposed to the open air. The 

 thermometer and hygrometer are placed in a little shed, made for their recep- 

 tion, against the study window, where the graduation could be seen through the 



* Mr. Watson, a very skilful and ingenious botanist, remarked, that the mushroom here meant, 

 is the Fungus campestrU albus supemi, inferne rtibens. J. B. See Raii Synops. Stirp. Brit. Edit, se- 

 cunda, p. 11. — Orig. 



