Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15323

    Line drawing of a barometer

    Date
    10 February 1686
    Creator
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p1
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 319mm
    width (page): 194mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    A tiny line drawing (31 x 4 mm) of a design of a barometer by Robert Hooke in the margin of the text. Hooke read his paper at the meeting of the Royal Society on 10 February 1686. Later on, at the meeting on 23 June 1686, Denis Papin, Edmond Halley and Henry Hunt were asked to make an actual barometer after Hooke's design. Hooke's paper was printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 16, no. 185 (November and December 1686).
    Object history
    10 February 1686, 'Then Mr Hooke read his discourse of Improvement of the Barometer, by takeing of the inequality of the pressure of the coloured liquor, in Mr Hubin's way, he was desired to give it in, to be registered; he desired to be excused at that time but promised shortly to bring in an account thereof' (JBO/8/29).

    23 June 1686, 'Ordered that Mr Papin, Mr Hunt and E. Halley, do consider of the means of makeing and filling a Barometer after the manner proposed by Mr Hook, and that they get one made for the Society' (JBO/8/79). Cf. for the same date: ‘It was ordered that Dr. Papin, Mr. Halley, and Mr. Hunt do consider of the means of making and filling a barometer after the manner proposed by Mr. Hooke; and that they get one made for the Society’ (Birch 4:491).

    R. Hooke, ‘A description of an invention, whereby the divisions of the barometer may be enlarged in any given proportions’, Phil. Trans., vol. 16, no. 185 (November and December 1686), pp. 241-44, fig. 1.
    Related fellows
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural philosopher
    Edmond Halley (1656 - 1742, British) , Astronomer
    Associated place
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