2-995-647 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Barometers for life-boat stations, 1860. 'Public attention has frequently been called to the invaluable use of a barometer for indicating a coming storm. It not unfrequently happens that a notice of a gale is given by a barometer two or three days before it actually takes place. It seems plain that with such powers placed providentially in our hands the calamities now endured by our fishermen and coasters might in many instances be avoided. A good barometer in a public situation would warn them in time what to expect, and they could thus be frequently able to avoid the terrible consequences of storms so often at present proving fatal to them...Some time since Admiral Fitzroy, who, as chief of the meteorological department of the Government, obtained the sanction of the Board of Trade to supply some forty of our poorer fishing villages with barometers, some of which have been of great service to the fishermen...It is proposed to fix such instruments wherever found useful and practicable in conspicuous positions of the National Life-boat Institution's life-boat houses, which are situated on most parts of the coast of the United Kingdom...The making of the barometers has been intrusted to Messrs. Negretti and Zambra...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1860.