Barometer

Add to album

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.

Record details

To search on related items, click any underlined text below.

• Online ID: 000-100-102-712-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  T.1967.99
• Date: Around 1825
  c. 1825
  
• Material: Glass fronted wooden case, silvered face, purple fluid in glass tube, mercury in glass thermometer. Inscription: PATENT / A. ADIE / EDINBURGH / No. 579 // Spencer Browning / & Rust / Agents / London //; Capt Robertson / Monarch // Capt A. Paterson's / Shi
  Sympiesometer
  
• Dimensions: 24.50" H
  
• What: Sympiesometer
  
• Subject: 10. METEOROLOGY (Departmental Classification)
  
• Who: A. Adie, Edinburgh (Maker)
  Captain A. Paterson (Inscribed on the Sympiesometer)
  Robertson (Inscribed on the Sympiesometer)
  Spencer, Browning & Rust (Inscribed on the Sympiesometer)
  
• Where: China
  Scotland, Midlothian, Edinburgh
  
• Event:
• Description: Sympiesometer for meteorology, patented in 1818, by Alexander Adie, Edinburgh, c. 1825
  
• References:
  • Adie, Alexander 'Description of the Patent Sympiesometer or New Air Barometer'. Edinburgh Philosophical Journal 1. 1819 pp 54-60 
  • Middleton, W E Knowles. The History of the Barometer. Baltimore, 1964. pp 378-81 
• Translations:
• Related Records: