THE SYMPIESOMETER.
Again, in 1820, Mr. Stevenson took occasion to express his solicitude for the welfare of the fishermen in the following note, suggesting the means whereby they might sometimes avoid a coming storm—a suggestion which is now to some extent carried out by the Board of Trade’s establishment of marine barometers at many of our fishing stations:—
“Mr. Stevenson informs us,” says the editor of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal[12] for 1820, “that having occasion, in the beginning of September last, to visit the Isle of Man, he beheld the interesting spectacle of about 300 large fishing boats, each from fifteen to twenty tons burden, leaving their various harbours at that island in an apparently fine afternoon, and standing directly out to sea with the intention of prosecuting the fishery under night. He at the same time remarked that both the common marine barometer, and Adie’s sympiesometer, which were in the cabin of his vessel, indicated an approaching change of weather, the mercury falling to 29·5 inches. It became painful, therefore, to witness the scene,—more than a thousand industrious fishermen, lulled to security by the fineness of the day, scattering their little barks over the face of the ocean, and thus rushing forward to imminent danger or probable destruction. At sunset, accordingly, the sky became cloudy and threatening, and in the course of the night it blew a very hard gale, which afterwards continued for three days successively. This gale completely dispersed the fleet of boats, and it was not without the utmost difficulty that many of them reached the various creeks of the island. It is believed no lives were lost on this occasion, but the boats were damaged, much tackle was destroyed, and the men were unnecessarily exposed to danger and fatigue. During the same storm, it may be remarked, thirteen vessels were either totally lost or stranded between the Isle of Anglesea and St. Bee’s Head in Lancashire. Mr. Stevenson remarks, how much it is to be regretted that the barometer is so little in use in the mercantile marine of Great Britain, compared with the trading vessels of Holland, and observes, that although the common marine barometer is perhaps too cumbersome for the ordinary run of fishing and coasting vessels, yet Adie’s sympiesometer is so extremely portable that it might be carried even in a Manx boat. Each lot of such vessels has a commodore, under whose orders the fleet sails; it would therefore be a most desirable thing that a sympiesometer should be attached to each commodore’s boat, from which a preconcerted signal of any expected gale or change of weather as indicated by the sympiesometer could easily be given.”