whole; and the more perfecdy understood connexion of 

 parts invites to further generalization. 



Very different is the position of an infant science like 

 Meteorology. The unity of the whole ... is not always 

 kept in view, even as far as our present very limited general 

 conceptions will admit of: and as few persons have devoted 

 their whole attention to this science alone ... no wonder 

 that we find strewed over its irregular and far-spread 

 surface, patches of cultivation upon spots chosen without 

 discrimination and treated on no common principle, which 

 defy the improver to inclose, and the surveyor to estimate 

 and connect them. Meteorological instruments have been 

 for the most part treated like toys, and much time and labor 

 have been lost in making and recording observations utterly 

 useless for any scientific purpose. Even the numerous 

 registers of a rather superior class . . . hardly contain one 

 jot of information ready for incorporation in a Report on 

 the progress of Meteorology .... 



The most general mistake probably consists in the idea 

 that Meteorology, as a science, has no other object but an 

 experimental acquaintance with the condition of those 

 variable elements which from day to day constitute the 

 general and vague result of the state of the weather at any 

 given spot; not considering that . . . when grouped 

 together with others of the same character, [they] may afford 

 the most valuable aid to scientific generalization.' 



Forbes goes on to call for a greater emphasis on 

 theory, and the replacement of the many small-scale 

 observatories with "a fev\' great Registers" to be ade- 

 quately maintained by "great Societies" or by the 

 government. He suggests that the time for pursuit 

 of theory might be gained from "the vague mechanical 

 task to which at present they generally devote their 

 time, namely the search for great numerical accuracy, 

 to a superfluity of decimal places exceeding the com- 

 pass of the instrument to verify." 



From its founding the British Association sponsored 

 systematic observation at various places. In 1842 it 

 initiated observations at the Kew Observatory, which 

 has continued until today to be the premier meteoro- 

 logical observatory in the British Empire. The 

 American scientist Joseph Henry observed the func- 

 tioning of an observatory maintained by the British 

 Association at Plymouth in 1837, and when he became 

 Secretary of the new Smithsonian Institution a few 

 years later he made the furtherance of meteorology 

 one of its first objectives. 



The Kew Observatory set a pattern for systematic 

 observation in England as, from 1855, did the Smith- 

 sonian Institution in the United States. The instru- 

 ments used differed little from those in use at Mann- 

 heim over half a century earlier ^ (fig. 1). They were 

 undoubtedly more accurate, but this should not be 

 overstressed. Forbes had noted in his report of 1832 

 that some scientists were then calling for a return to 

 Torricelli, for the construction of a temporary barom- 

 eter on the site in preference to reliance on the then 

 existing manufactured instruments. 



The First Self-Registering Instruments 



From the middle of the 17 th century meteorological 

 observations were recorded in manuscript books 

 known as "registers," many of which were published 

 in the early scientific journals. The most effective 

 utilization of these observations was in the compilation 

 of the history of particular storms, but where a larger 

 synthesis was concerned they tended, as Forbes has 

 shown, to show themselves unsystematic and non- 

 comparable. The principal problems of meteoro- 

 logical observation have been from the outset the 

 construction of precisely comparable instruments and 

 their use to produce comparable records. The former 

 problem has been frequently discussed, and perhaps, 

 as Forbes suggests, overemphasized. It is the latter 

 problem with which we are here concerned. 



The idea of mechanizing the process of observation, 

 not yet accomplished in Forbes' time, had been put 

 forward within a little over a decade of the first use 

 of the thermometer and barometer in meteorology. 

 On December 9, 1663, Christopher Wren presented 

 the Royal Society with a design for a "weather clock," 

 of which a drawing is extant.^ This drawing (fig. 2) 



''J. D. Forbes, "Report upon the Recent Progress and Present 

 State of Meteorology," Report of the First and Second Meetings of 

 the British Association jor the Advancement of Science, 1831 and 1832, 

 1833, pp. 196-197. 



f" On the instruments used at Mannheim see Gerland and 

 Traumiiller, op. cit. footnote 1, p. 349ff. The Princeton physi- 

 cist Arnold Guyot prepared a set of instructions for observers 

 that was published in Tenth Annual Report . . . of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, 1856,p.215ff. It appearsiromthe Annual Report 

 of the British Association for the Advance of Science in the 1830's 

 that the instruments used in England were nearly the same as 

 those later adopted by the Smithsonian, although British 

 observatories were beginning to experiment with the self- 

 registering anemometer at that time. A typical set of the 

 Smithsonian instruments is shown in figure 1. 



' H. Alan Lloyd, "Horology and Meteorology," Journal 

 Suisse d'Horlogerie, November-December, 1953, nos. 11, 12, p. 

 372, fig. 1. 



PAPER 23: THE INTRODUCTION OF SELF-REGISTERING METEOROLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS 



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