THE DEVELOPMENT OF METEOROLOGY. 
35 
western Europe a revival of knowledge was going on that led 
Rudolf II to establish at Prague an academy that was dis- 
tinguished by the presence of Tycho Brahe and Kepler. The 
modern academy of science, considered as a voluntary asso- 
ciation of individuals for the promotion of knowledge, began 
with numerous establishments in Italy in the middle of the 
16th century, and meteorology owes almost as much to the 
300 years of activity of the Academia del Lincei, founded in 
1603, as it does to the ten years of the Academia del Cimento. 
W ith the invention of the thermometer by Galileo, the air 
pump by Otto von Guericke, and the barometer by Torricelli 
begins the modern period of meteorology, when accurate ex- 
periments and observations began to be possible. We thus 
pass from the first crude stages of observation and fancy to 
the days when every hypothesis was tested by observation — 
to the days when academies of science became prominent 
and when the motto of the Academia del Cimento at Flor- 
ence, “ Provando e reprovando ” became the watchword of 
science. This Academy of Experimentation devoted itself to 
the fundamental problems of physics; it existed only be- 
tween the 19th of June, 1657, and the 14th of July, 1667 ; 
the latter is the date of dedication of its unique published 
volume, “ Saggi ” or Reports on the Experiments made by the 
Academy — a volume justly looked upon as the foundation- 
stone of modern experimental physics. This volume was 
written in the Italian, or popular, language for every one to 
read easily, and was intended to be the authoritative expres- 
sion of the conclusions arrived at by nine of the ablest Italian 
thinkers. The Academy did indeed keep a diary showing 
everything that was said and done by each person in its daily 
convocations, but the “Saggi” contains no reference to these 
individuals ; it makes public only that upon which all could 
agree. Galileo, who died 1642, January 8, (n. s.), had been 
dead twenty-five years, but the spirit that pervades this vol- 
ume so perfectly represents that which had animated Galileo 
during his life that, without mentioning his name, these nine 
students of his reaffirmed and expanded all that he had con- 
tended for; so that it has been w r ell said that the “Saggi” 
6 — Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 15. 
