Originally published on Photoblog by Gethin Thomas AUGUST. 26, 2020
[21-365] 26th August 2020- Yesterday my [365] photo was a stormy picture of the creek in which I mentioned Admiral Fitzroy. That gave me the idea to post a picture of the Storm Glass today, the day after the storm.
The storm glass or chemical weather glass was an instrument which was proposed as a method for predicting weather. It consisted of a special liquid placed inside a sealed transparent glass. The state of crystallization within the liquid was believed to be related to the weather. The inventor is unknown but the device became popular in the 1860s after being promoted by Admiral Robert FitzRoy who claimed that
"if fixed, undisturbed, in free air, not exposed to radiation, fire, or sun, but in the ordinary light of a well-ventilated room or outer air, the chemical mixture in a so-called storm-glass varies in character with the direction of the wind, not its force, specially (though it may so vary in appearance only) from another cause, electrical tension."
The compositions of the liquid in a storm glass varied but usually contained "camphor, nitrate of potassium and sal-ammoniac, dissolved by alcohol, with water and some air." These devices are now known to have little value in weather prediction but continue to be a curiosity.
And yet it correctly tells me that we have Fair Weather today as you can tell by the blue sky. The clear liquid is in the top half of the Storm Glass as the crystals today have sunk to the bottom. Some days it has the most amazing crystal formations visible. I may do another later in my 365 just of the interesting crystal patterns.
I was also checking my old macro lens works with my new camera, using an adapter. It does.
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