J. F. Campbell, 1822–85, and his Refracting Quadrant

Abstract

LAST year I purchased at auction a well-made piece of optical apparatus which intrigued me because I could not divine its purpose. It looked like a sphere of glass with circles etched upon it, set in a block of wood. After cleaning, some writing and the initials J. F. C. appeared on the box which, to make a long story short, turn out to be those of J. F. Campbell. But although his name as applied to the Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorder is a household word, none of the physicists or meteorologists to whom I applied for information knew anything about the man. Nor have I been able to find that any obituary notice of him appeared in NATURE or in the usual journals.