3-052-400 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Measuring the wind: a sketch at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, [London], 1880. 'The picturesque group of buildings on the hill in Greenwich Park, occupied by the Royal Observatory, under the superintendence of Sir G. B. Airy, the Astronomer Royal, contains various apparatus for the scientific purposes of recording meteorological phenomena, and those of the terrestrial magnetic currents, as well as for that of scanning the position and motions of the heavenly bodies. The Superintendent of the Meteorological and Magnetic Department is Mr. William Ellis. One important branch of these observations is conducted by means of the anemometer, a self-acting apparatus for continuously noting even the momentary changes in the direction and pressure of the wind: to which is added, by another apparatus, the indication of the rainfall from hour to hour. At the summit of one of the two turrets, overlooking the Park and the Royal Naval College and Royal Naval School, with the Thames beyond, at the north front of the Observatory, is erected Osler's Self-Registering Anemometer, of which we give an Illustration...The anemometer was made by Newman, on a plan furnished by Mr. A. Follett Osler, F.R.S.'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.