I. A Scheme of a DIARY of the Weather; 
together with Draughts and Defcriptions of 
Machines fubfervient thereunto ; infcribed to 
the President and Fellows of the Royal 
Society; by Roger Pickering, F, R , S. and 
V.D.M. 
Tke Introduction. 
Read at a Meet-f g ^ H E Ufefulnefs and Importance of 
sTciefyf' my y f. I Meteorological Tables , or Dia- 
174:. vies of the IVeather, arc too well 
knownto this learned Society ,to need mentioning with 
any other View, than as an Excufe under which the Au- 
thor of the following Obfcrvations would fhclter him- 
felf, for prefuming to engage in a Subjedt, upon 
which fo many, infinitely his Superiors, have writ- 
ten: For, when both the Health and Trade of Man- 
kind confiderably depend upon the different States of 
the Atmofphere, the meaneft Endeavours to contri- 
bute to a Knowledge of it may not be without their 
Ufe, and arc, at lead, excufable. 
A Senfe of the Importance of obferving the Wea- 
ther induced Hippocrates , in his Remarks upon the 
Epidemic Difeafes in Thafos , to premife a general 
Hiftory of the Weather preceding them; and with 
the fame View did our great Mr. Boyle turn his 
Thoughts fo clofely upon the fame Subjedt : whofe 
Example, being followed by feveral judicious In- 
quirers into Nature, both abroad and at home, has 
brought the Natural Hijlory of the Air to a furprifing 
Degree of Perfection/ beyond what the Antients ever 
A could 
