Paper, 'On barometric oscillations during thunderstorms, and on the brontometer, an instrument designed to facilitate their study' by George James Symons

Description

Symons writes: 'The fact that a rise of the barometer occurs during thunderstorms has been supposed by many to be newly discovered through the general establishment of self-recording barometers; but Dr Hellmann has shown that it was noticed by J J Planer as far back as 1782. In 1784, Rosenthal epitomised the facts as follows:—“When a thunderstorm approaches the place where a barometer is situated, the mercury in the tube begins to rise; the nearer the thunder-cloud comes to the zenith of the observer, the higher does the mercury rise, and it reaches its highest point when the storm is at the least distance from the observer. As soon, however, as the cloud has passed the zenith, or has become more distant from the observer, the weight of the atmosphere begins to decrease and the mercury to fall.”'

Annotations in pencil and ink. Includes two pages of graphs of barometric oscillations.

Subject: Meteorology / Barometry

Received 24 April 1890. Read 8 May 1890.

A version of this paper was published in volume 48 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On barometric oscillations during thunderstorms, and on the brontometer, an instrument designed to facilitate their study'.

Reference number

PP/16/4

Earliest possible date

1890

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

15 pages

Format

Manuscript
Diagram