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Barometer

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made in Edinburgh

Barometer
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This special barometer without mercury, also known as a sympiesometer, was made around 1825, probably by Alexander Adie (1775-1858), a scientific instrument maker based in Edinburgh. Adie had patented his design in 1818.

Adie's sympiesometer is a glass tube filled with coloured almond oil with a gas bulb filled with hydrogen at the top. A thermometer registers the temperature and the sliding silvered brass scale of pressures slides against a fixed scale of temperatures.

The sympiesometer was developed especially for use at sea, where the motion of the waves causes mercury in an ordinary barometer to behave like a hammer, shattering the glass tube container.

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