Fortin barometer

Reservoir of a Fortin barometer

Fortin barometers use a variable displacement mercury cistern, usually constructed with a

thumbscrew pressing on a leather diaphragm bottom (V in the diagram). This compensates for
displacement of mercury in the column with varying pressure. To use a Fortin barometer, the level of
mercury is set to zero by using the thumbscrew to make an ivory pointer (O in the diagram) just
touch the surface of the mercury. The pressure is then read on the column by adjusting the vernier
scale so that the mercury just touches the sightline at Z. Some models also employ a valve for
closing the cistern, enabling the mercury column to be forced to the top of the column for transport.
This prevents water-hammer damage to the column in transit.

Sympiesometer
Sympiesometer inscribed at bottom Improved sympiesometer and at top A R Easton, 53 Marischal Street,
Aberdeen. Owned by descendants of the Aberdeen shipbuilding Hall family.

A sympiesometer is a compact and lightweight barometer that was widely used on ships in the early
19th century. The sensitivity of this barometer was also used to measure altitude. [16]
Sympiesometers have two parts. One is a traditional mercury thermometer that is needed to
calculate the expansion or contraction of the fluid in the barometer. The other is the barometer,
consisting of a J-shaped tube open at the lower end and closed at the top, with small reservoirs at
both ends of the tube.
Wheel barometers
See also: Italians in the United Kingdom 15th to 18th centuries
A wheel barometer uses a "J" tube sealed at the top of the longer limb. The shorter limb is open to
the atmosphere and floating on top of the mercury there is a small glass float. A fine silken thread is
attached to the float which passes up over a wheel and then back down to a counterweight (usually
protected in another tube). The wheel turns the point on the front of the barometer. As atmospheric
pressure increases mercury moves from the short to the long limb, the float falls and the pointer
moves. When pressure increases the mercury moves back, lifting the float and turning the dial the
other way.[17]
Around 1810 the wheel barometer, which could be read from a great distance, became the first
practical and commercial instrument favoured by farmers and the educated classes in the UK. The
face of the barometer was circular with a simple dial pointing to an easily readable scale: "Rain -
Change - Dry" with the "Change" at the top centre of the dial. Later models added a barometric scale
with finer graduations "Stormy (28 inches of mercury), Much Rain (28.5), Rain (29), Change (29.5),
Fair (30), Set fair (30.5), very dry(31)".
Natalo Aiano is recognised as one of the finest makers of wheel barometers, an early pioneer in a
wave of artisanal Italian instrument and barometer makers that were encouraged to emigrate to the
UK. He listed as working in Holborn, London c.1785-1805. [18] From 1770 onwards a large number of
Italians came to England because they were accomplished glass blowers or instrument makers. By
1840 it was fair to say that the Italians dominated the industry in England. [19]