Cumulative Temperatures

Abstract

UNDER the above heading, among the “Meteorological Notes” in your issue of last week, I notice the announcement that “To simplify the difficulty of obtaining sums of temperature… M. von Sterneck's has recently proposed to obtain these indirectly by observation of the sums of actions produced by the temperature”. And that M. von Sterneck's proposal is to employ for this purpose a pendulum clock in which the variation of rate due to the raising or lowering of the centre of gravity of the pendulum under variations of temperature is, through its influence upon the daily error of time shown on the dial, employed for determining the mean temperature of the air throughout the twenty-four hours. And the notice concludes by saying that M. von Sterneck has also proposed to apply the same principle to determine the variations in atmospheric pressure and in the intensity of magnetism.