Wind gauge, known as Snow-Harris anemometer

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This wind gauge, known as a Snow-Harris anemometer, was made around 1860, probably by John Lilley & Son, scientific instrument makers based in London.

The device has a tube which is half filled with water to a central zero mark. The air forced into one end of the tube pushes the water up, allowing the wind speed to be measured on the scale.

The instrument is named after its designer William Snow-Harris (1791-1867). Harris based his work, published in 1858, on the first satisfactory syphon wind gauges by James Lind in 1775, which made use of U-shaped glass tubes.

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• Online ID: 000-100-102-686-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  T.1935.18
• Date: Around 1860
  c. 1860
  
• Material: Anemometer, Snow-Harris
  
• Dimensions:
• What: Anemometer, Snow-Harris
  
• Subject: 10. METEOROLOGY (Departmental Classification)
  
• Who: Lilley and Son, London (Maker)
  Snow-Harris (Eponym)
  
• Where: England, London
  
• Event:
• Description: One of a group of meteorological instruments and apparatus - a Snow-Harris anemometer, probably by John Lilley and Son, London, c. 1860
  
• References:
  • For John Lilley & Son, see Clifton, Gloria, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851. London: 1995, p 168 
  • Snow-Harris, W., Nautical Magazine (1858), pp 113-22 
• Translations:
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