5th. A fluctuating and unsettled state of the mercurial column indicates changeable weather.
As the barometer is subject to slight diurnal variations, irrespective of those atmospheric changes which affect the weather, it is desirable in making comparative observations to do so at fixed hours of the day. Nine or ten in the morning and same hour in the evening are good times for observations that are to be recorded. These are about the hours of daily maxima or highest readings due to regular diurnal variation.
The true reading of the barometer is the height at which it would stand if placed at the level of the sea at high tide; but, as barometers are always placed more or less above this level, a correction for elevation is necessary. When the height of the place is known this correction may be made by adding one tenth of an inch to the actual reading for every 85 feet of elevation up to 510 feet; the same for every 90 feet between 510 and 1140 feet, for every 95 feet between 1140 and 1900 feet, and for every 100 feet above this and within our mountain limits. This simple and easy rule is sufficiently accurate for practical purposes. Thus, a barometer on Bray Head, or any place 800 feet above the sea, would require a correction of six-tenths for the first 510 feet, and a little more than three-tenths more for the remaining 290 feet. Therefore, if such a barometer registered the pressure at 29-1/10, the proper sea-level reading would be a little above 30 inches.
The most important prognostications of the barometer are those afforded by what is called the “barometric gradient or incline,” showing the up-hill and down-hill direction of the atmospheric inequalities; but this can only be ascertained by comparing the state of the barometer at different stations at the same time. Thus, if the barometer is one-fourth of an inch higher at Dublin than at Galway, and the intermediate stations show intermediate heights, there must be an atmospheric down-hill gradient from Dublin to Galway; Dublin must be under the upper and Galway under the lower portion of a great atmospheric wave or current. It is evident that when there is thus more air over Dublin than over Galway, there must follow (if nothing else interferes) a flow of air from Dublin towards Galway. It is also evident that, in order to tell what else may interfere, we must know the atmospheric gradients beyond and around both Dublin and Galway, and for considerable distances.
We are now beginning to obtain such information by organizing meteorological stations and observatories, and transmitting the results of simultaneous observations by means of the electric telegraph to certain head-quarters.
The subject is occupying much attention, and the managers of those splendid monuments of British energy—our daily newspapers—are publishing daily weather charts, and therefore a few simple explanations of the origin, nature, and significance of such charts will doubtless be appreciated by our readers.
The grand modern improvement of the barometer, the thermometer, the anemometer, the pluviometer, etc., is that of making them “self-registering.” We are told that Cadmus invented the art of writing, and we honor his memory accordingly. But he ventured no further than teaching human beings to write. Modern meteorologists have gone much further; they have taught the winds and the rains and the subtle heavings of the invisible air to keep their own diaries, to write their own histories on paper that is laid before them, with pencils that are placed in their fleshless, boneless, and shapeless fingers. This achievement is wrought by comparatively simple means. The paper is wound upon an upright drum or cylinder, and this cylinder is made to revolve by clock-work, in such a manner that a certain breadth travels on during the twenty-four hours. This breadth of paper is divided by vertical lines into twenty-four parts, each of which passes onward in one hour. Connected with the barometer is a pencil which, by means of a spring, presses lightly upon the revolving sheet, and this pencil, while thus pressing, rises and falls with the mercury. It is obvious that, in this manner, a line will be drawn as the paper moves. If the mercury is stationary, the line will be horizontal—only indicating the movement of the drum; if the mercury falls, the line will slope downwards; if it rises, it will incline upwards. By ruling horizontal lines upon the paper, representing inches, tenths, and smaller fractions, if desired, the whole history of the barometrical movements will be graphically recorded by the waving or zigzag lines thus drawn by the atmosphere itself.
The subjoined copy of the Daily Telegraph Barometer Chart represents, on a small scale, a four days’ history of barometrical movements:
The large figures at the side (29 and 30) represent inches; the smaller figures tenths of inches.
