Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15286

    Wheel barometer

    Date
    7 October 1663
    Creator
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p1
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 265mm
    width (page): 198mm
    Subject
    Description
    Diagram illustrating a wheel barometer, showing a tube and dial for taking barometric readings. The equipment is similar to that illustrated in Hooke's Micrographia (London, 1665), but here it is depicted from an angle so that the mechanism at the rear of the dial is visible.

    Copies of this figure can be found in RBO/3/002 and RBC/2/128.
    Object history
    At the meeting of the Royal Society on 7 October 1663, ‘Mr. Hooke’s paper concerning the observables for making a history of the weather was read, and ordered to be reviewed by the president and Sir Robert Moray, and then to be registered, and sent to the several persons, who had been engaged in this work of observing the changes of weather, as Dr. Power, Mr. Beal, etc.’ (Birch 1:311).

    A figure of Hooke's wheel barometer is printed in:
    Robert Hooke, Micrographia (London: for Jo. Martyn and Ja. Allestry, 1665), scheme I, fig. 1;
    Robert Hooke, 'A new contrivance of wheel-barometer', Phil. Trans., vol. 1, no. 13 (June 1666), pp. 218-19, fig. 1; and
    Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal-Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (London: Printed by T. R. for J. Martyn and J. Allestry, 1667), p. 173.
    Associated place
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