Note 33 — Self-Registering Systems

Both of Richard's instruments (described in Bulletin Mensuel de la Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, November 1882, ser. 3, vol. 9, pp. 531-543) were in use at Kew by 1885 and at the U.S. Weather Bureau by 1888. The firm of Richard Freres claimed in 1889 to have made 7,000 registering instruments, of which the majority were probably thermographs and barographs. At that time, certainly no other maker had made more than a small fraction of this number of self-registering instruments. The origin of Richard's thermograph seems to have been the "elastic manometer" described by E. Bourdon in 1851 (Bulletin de la Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, 1851, no. 562, p. 197). While attempting to restore a flattened still-pipe, Bourdon had discovered the property of tubes to change shape under fluid pressure. The instrument he developed in consequence became the standard steam pressure gauge.