Note 28 — Self-Registering Systems

This instrument has been persistently associated with Sir Samuel Morland (1625-1695). For example, A. Sprung of the Deutsche Seewarte described his own balance-barometer as a "Wagebarograph nach Samuel Morland" (in L. Loewenherz, Bericht über die wissenschaftlichen Instrumente auf der Berliner Gewerbeausstellung im Jahre 1879, Berlin, 1880, p. 230ff). Sprat (op. cit. footnote 10, p. 313) reported that Wren had proposed "balances to shew the weight of the air by their spontaneous inclination." This must, therefore, be Wren's invention, unless he got it from Morland, who does not seem to have published anything about the barometer but only to have described some ideas to a friend. But Morland's was probably the inclined and not the balance barometer. (See under "barometer" in Charles Hutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, London, 1796, vol. 1; also J. K. Fischer, Physikalisches Wörterbuch, Göttingen, 1798).