Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15594

    A dial to measure the height of mercury in a barometer

    Date
    13 January 1698
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p2
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 297mm
    width (page): 184mm
    Subject
    Content object
    Description
    Design of a dial to measure the height of mercury in a barometer to one-hundredth of an inch, from a letter from William Derham to Hans Sloane dated 13 January 1698. It was printed in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 20, no. 237 (1698).
    Transcription
    This figure representeth the circle and the toothed Ruler, without the interposition of the weather plate, that the contrivance may be the better seen.
    AA The Ruler with teeth, made to slide up and down.
    b. The little Finger that pointeth to the Mercury’s Height (which is placed higher on the toothed Rule than it ought to be, that it may be seen.)
    c.c.c.c. The Index or Dial-wheel.
    D.D.D.D. The Circle
    e.e. The Index.
    Transcribed by the Making Visible project
    Object history
    Printed as fig. 1, barometer, in W. Derham, ‘A contrivance to measure the height of the Mercury in the barometer, by a circle on one of the weather plates, with a register of the weather, etc. for the Year 1697’, Phil. Trans. vol. 20, no. 237 (February 1698), pp. 45-48 (ref. to figure at p. 46).
    Related fellows
    William Derham (1657 - 1735, British) , Naturalist
    Hans Sloane (1660 - 1753, Irish) , Physician
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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