The Introduction of 



MUS. COMP. ZOOL. 

 LIBRARY 



APR 1 6 1963 



HARVARD 

 UNlVERSriY 



SELF-REGISTERING 



METEOROLOGICAL 



INSTRUMENTS 



Robert P. Multhauf 



The develo-pment of self-registering meteorological instruments began 

 very shortly after that of scientific meteorological observation itself. 

 Yet it IV as not until the 1860's, ttvo centuries after the beginning of 

 scientific observation^ that the self-tegistering instrument became a 

 factor in meteorology . 



This time delay is attributable less to deficiencies in the techniques 

 of instrument-making than to deficiencies in the organisation of 

 meteorology itself. The critical factor xoas the establishment in the 

 1860's of well-financed and competently directed meteorological obser- 

 vatories., most of tvhich ivere created as adjuncts to astro7iotnical 

 observatories. 



The Author: Kobert P. lAulthauf is head curator of the de- 

 partment of science and technology in the United States National 

 M-Usemn, SmithsoniaJi Institution. 



rHE FLOWERING OF SCIENCE in the 

 17th century was accompanied by an efflo- 

 rescence of instrument invention as luxurious 

 as that of science itself. Although there were fore- 

 shadowing events, this flowering seems to have owed 

 much to Galileo, whose interest in the measurement 

 of natural phenomena is well known, and who is him- 

 self credited with the invention of the thermometer 

 and the hydrostatic balance, both of which he devised 

 in connection with experimentation on specific scien- 

 tific problems. Many, if not most, of the other 



Italian instrument inventors of the early 17th century 

 were his disciples. Benedetto Castelli, being inter- 

 ested in the effect of rainfall on the level of a lake, 

 constructed a rain gauge about 1628. Santorio, well 

 known as a pioneer in the quantification of animal 

 physiology, is credited with observations, about 1626, 

 that led to the development of the hygrometer. 



Both of these contemporaries were interested in 

 Galileo's most famous invention, the thermoscope — 

 forerunner of the thermometer — which he developed 

 about 1597 as a method of obtaining comparisons of 



96 



BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



