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Dr. George Merryweather's 1851 Tempest Prognosticator
uthor has graciously shared this material from his website with readers of the Victorian Web. The Tempest Prognosticator in the Festival of Britain's Dome of Discovery, 1951.[For another view of the Prognosticator]nyone fortunate enough to have a copy of A Tonic to The Nation (1976) will already be familiar with the reference to the above on page 163 in the piece written by T.W.
On the circular base of his apparatus he installed glass jars, in each of which a leech was imprisoned and attached to a fine chain that led up to a miniature belfry -- from whence the tinkling tocsin would be sounded on the approach of a tempest." This was done by means of postal communications with Mr. Henry Belcher, then president of the Philosophical Society and of Whitby Institute; and on February 27th of the following year he read to Members of the Society an “Essay explanatory of the Tempest Prognosticator in the building of the Great Exhibition for the Works of Industry of All Nations.” The essay is reported to have taken nearly three hours to read, and was shortly afterwards printed in London for distribution among visitors to London’s “Great Exhibition", which our Whitby doctor considered to be one of the grandest ideas that ever emanated from the mind of man. This information the honorary keeper of Whitby Museum was able to supply, and a very faithful replica of Dr. George Merryweathers "Tempest Prognosticator" was constructed, from the printed description in a copy of his Essay and the copperplate drawing which illustrated it.
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