THE 
AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, &c. 
Art. 1L—On a New Form of Mountain or other Barometer ; 
by J. H. Atexanper, Esq.—(with a plate.) 
Tue modifications of shape and details, which different ingen- 
ious individuals have proposed or executed upon barometers, are 
now so numerous, that, if on the one hand one might be suppos- 
ed dispensed from adding to the variety, equally on the other the 
want of full acceptation, with any, serves to shew the object yet 
unattained, and the whole subject therefore open still for reflection 
and effort. I question much if, generally, in the judgments of 
those who have had more especial occasion for making observa- 
tions with mountain-barometers, all the modern complications 
of structure, introduced with the best intentions, are not found to 
have contributed to the embarrassment of the observations if not 
of the result; by rendering necessary a number of merely collat- 
eral operations and by hiding accidental defects, which are only 
least harmful when soonest found out. 
Mr. Hassler seems to partake of an opinion like this, from the 
account which has been recently published* of the new portable 
barometer of his construction—an instrument characterized by 
all the originality and much of the appropriateness, which belong 
to all the works of this distinguished philosopher. I mention 
this instrument in particular, that I may not obtain credit for 
more novelty than really belongs to the arrangement which I pro- 
pose. ‘Touching the respective merits of either or of any other 
arrangement, it is not my purpose now to speak. 
* Doce. 176, H. R. 2d session, 27th Congress. 
Vol. xiv, No. 2.—July-Sept. 1843. 30 
