VALUE OF BAROMETER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1943, Page 4

VALUE OF BAROMETER

DISCOVERY COMMEMORATED IN TORONTO DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE Toronto. The discovery of the barometer in 1643 was commemorated here by a recent series of lectures at the University of Toronto outlining the development of all fields of natural science and the effects on human progress resulting from this discovery. The lectures were sponsored by the Royal Meteorological Society, Canadian branch, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the Royal Canadian Institute, and the University. Importance of specialised study of the effect of lakes on weather, and of forecasting weather information for lake mariners was discussed by C. G. Andrus, of the United States Weather Bureau, who said that during the past summer the tonnage passed through tne locks at Sault Ste. Marie has been infinitely greater than in any previous period in the locks’ history. After Torricelli’s experiments, which resulted dn the barometer and proved his theory that the atmosphere has weight, the natural sciences had found a wholly new basis for research, leading to. the researches by Boyle and others, upon which present-day natural science laws have been erected, said Dr. Louis C. Karpinski of the University of Michigan, President of the History of Science Society. The religious power of the 15th century against which Torricelli and hi? fellow natural scientists had to .work was described by George S. Brett, who quoted from contemporary writings the belief that the very consideration of such a thing as a vacuum was sacrilegious. Dr John Patterson, Controller of the Dominion Meteorological Service, Toronto, performed the experiment first done by Torricelli. W. E. Knowles Middleton of the Meteorological Office described the steps taken over the past 300 years to improve barometer types, inculding the aneroid, or metallic vacuum case type.—“ Christian Science Monitor.”