1893 text
The thermometer was invented in the sixteenth century, but it is disputed who the inventor was. The claims of Santorio are supported by Borelli and Malpighi, while the title of Cornelius Drebbel is considered undoubted by Boerhaave. Galileo’s air thermometer, made before 1597, was the foundation of accurate thermometry. Galileo also invented the alcohol thermometer about 1611 or 1612. Spirit thermometers were made for the Accademia del Cimento, and described in the Memoirs of that academy. When the academy was dissolved by order of the Pope, some of these thermometers were packed away in a box, and were not discovered until early in the nineteenth century. Robert Hooke describes the manufacture and graduation of thermometers in his “Micrographia” (1665).
This text comes from a footnote on a diary entry in the 1893 edition edited by Henry B. Wheatley.
4 Annotations
First Reading
TerryF • Link
SP acquired a thermometer 23 March 1662/63
"This day Greatorex brought me a very pretty weather-glass for heat and cold." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
dirk • Link
On temperature scales
See annotation:
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
in Aqua Scripto • Link
My take be, the Weather glass be Torcellis mercury barometer invented in 1644, and I be of the opinion that the navy lads liked the idea of some weather warning besides the red skyre theory:
some on-line links. http://inventors.about.com/od/tst…
http://clk.about.com/?zi=18/19D&s…
Second Reading
Bill • Link
WEATHER-GLASS, a Glass Tube commonly supply’d with Quicksilver, that shews the Change of the Weather, with the Degrees of Heat and Cold.
---An Universal English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1724.