On Display
Aitken's pocket dust counter.
Sunshine recorder using a glass sphere set in a wooden bowl.
The aspect that made the Rutherford maximum and minimum thermometer innovative was the way the temperatures reached were marked by a tiny steel spring inside the tube. This would be pushed up by the mercury or down by the spirit, and lodge at the ext
This was a portable instrument that could be used to measure the apparent speed of clouds, giving an insight into the state of the upper atmosphere. The pointer was lined up with the cloud so that the reflection of the cloud could be seen in the blac
Mercury barometers needed to have two tubes that were at least 33 inches long, and were generally cumbersome to carry around. To allow for readings of air pressure by a pocket instrument, a much shorter glass tube was doubled back on itself to fit a
Of the many sizes of rain gauge available during the latter part of the 19th century, the most convenient were the five inch and eight inch diameter gauges. The collecting funnel sat at the top of a cylinder set firmly in the ground, and a collecting
Pilot balloons were used as tracers for wind in the upper air, and to carry lightweight meteorological instruments. They would be monitored by meteorologists on the ground, either visually using adapted theodolites, or by radar. The slide rule was sp
This combined barometer, thermometer and hygrometer was made by George Graham (1673-1751), the leading clockmaker of his day. Graham has signed the dial of the central hygrometer in this three part table instrument. The measure of humidity by the hyg
Daniel Quare obtained a patent for a barometer design in 1695. This claimed that the barometer could be inverted without either spilling the mercury or allowing air to get into the tube. Although his main business was as a clockmaker, Quare was also
Made by George Adams of Fleet Street, London. The temperature scale ranges from minus 13 to plus 217 degrees Fahrenheit - beyond the range of most weathers.
This instrument was designed by Gordon Dobson of Oxford University to measure the amount of ozone in the stratosphere. He set it up on the ground, pointing vertically, to record the amount of ultra-violet light that had penetrated the atmosphere. Thi
Casartel of Amsterdam made this alcohol thermometer. He marked it with both Fahrenheit and Florentine scales, as no one scale was universally recognised at the time. The domestic design of the thermometer shows its probable origin as a stylish orname
Simple barometer with weather sayings to help the mariner to make his own forecast
In 1783, Horace Benedict de Saussure, a Swiss physicist and geologist, made the first hair hygrometer, using a human hair to measure humidity. This type of mechanical hygrometer makes use of the principle that organic substances expand and contract a
In 1960 A W Brewer developed his mast ozonesonde for measuring the ozone in the stratosphere. The device was heavier than the lightweight instruments carried in balloons to investigate the physical characteristics of the upper air. It therefore requi
A magnetised weather maps created for television forecasts, with magnetic captions, symbols, and discs for temperatures and wind speeds.