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Barometer   Listen
noun
Barometer  n.  An instrument for determining the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and hence for judging of the probable changes of weather, or for ascertaining the height of any ascent. Note: The barometer was invented by Torricelli at Florence about 1643. It is made in its simplest form by filling a graduated glass tube about 34 inches long with mercury and inverting it in a cup containing mercury. The column of mercury in the tube descends until balanced by the weight of the atmosphere, and its rise or fall under varying conditions is a measure of the change in the atmospheric pressure. At the sea level its ordinary height is about 30 inches (760 millimeters). See Sympiesometer.
Aneroid barometer. See Aneroid barometer, under Aneroid.
Marine barometer, a barometer with tube contracted at bottom to prevent rapid oscillations of the mercury, and suspended in gimbals from an arm or support on shipboard.
Mountain barometer, a portable mercurial barometer with tripod support, and long scale, for measuring heights.
Siphon barometer, a barometer having a tube bent like a hook with the longer leg closed at the top. The height of the mercury in the longer leg shows the pressure of the atmosphere.
Wheel barometer, a barometer with recurved tube, and a float, from which a cord passes over a pulley and moves an index.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Barometer" Quotes from Famous Books



... artist. A good hay day is a good day for the writer and the poet, because it has a certain crispness and pureness; it is positive; it is rich in sunshine; there is a potency in the blue sky which you feel; the high barometer raises your spirits; your thoughts ripen as the hay cures. You can sit in a circle of shade beneath a tree in the fields, or in front of the open hay-barn doors, as I do, and feel the fruition and ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... a pure condition. The little German, however, while admitting that something must have gone wrong with the machinery, was not without hope that the clock might still go off, and instanced the case of a barometer that he had once sent to the military Governor at Odessa, which, though timed to explode in ten days, had not done so for something like three months. It was quite true that when it did go off, it merely succeeded in blowing ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... should soon be out of easy view of the earth! Indeed, the balance of the balloon is so extremely fine that when a single handful of these little tissue circulars was thrown out, increased ascent was shown on the dial of our aneroid barometer! ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... whole history of those trying days had to come out in open court, and the postmaster's daughter was given a descriptive and pictorial boom which many an actress envied. Peters was restored to grace when he showed plainly that his articles had kept the fickle barometer of public opinion at "set fair," in so far as Grant and Doris ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... to melt. Towards evening the barometer, which had been falling all day, went lower and lower. All creation was still. Not a sound broke the awful quiet; only in our ears there seemed to be an unnatural singing which was painful, and we closed our eyes in weariness, for the sun seemed ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... doubt if any of us before or since, ever partook of a meal with such an appetite as we did then. The beef disappeared as if by magic; the bones were polished off until they were as white as ivory, whilst the rum sank in the flask like the quicksilver in a barometer, on the ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... 13th, 14th, and 15th of June, the barometer slowly fell, without an attempt to rise in the slightest degree, and the weather became variable, hovering between rain and wind or storm. The breeze strengthened considerably, and changed to south-westerly. It was a head-wind for the Dream, and the waves had now increased enormously, and lifted ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... ecstacy to stimulate the highest functional activity, or the shock of bad news to paralyze. From cheer to despair, from the slightest sense of discomfort to the agony of lacerated nerves, digestive power goes down. Affected thus, digestive power wanes or increases, goes down or up, as mercury in a barometer from ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... in number, are among the most wonderful and useful productions of the human mind. One of them combined the result of 1,159,353 separate observations on the force and direction of the wind, and upward of 100,000 observations on the height of the barometer, at sea. As the value of such observations was recognized, more of them were made. Through the genius and devotion of one man, Commander Maury, every ship became a floating observatory, keeping careful records of winds, currents, limits of fogs, icebergs, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had go hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts the other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it pining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to get sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of thing, why—why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the wanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive hospital-bird of a Had taking ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... quite poverty stricken compared with Mrs. von Minden's. A woolen quilt and a Navajo, a coffee pot, frying pan and a small sack of sugar, a canteen, a flannel shirt and a pair of ragged socks, a gun, a small strong box, with a geological hammer, a barometer and ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... officers or Italian soldiers are in any way disposed to throw obstacles in your way; but they, unhappily for you, have with them the inevitable cars with the inevitable carmen, both of which are enough to make your blood freeze, though the barometer stands very high. What with their indolence, what with their number and the dust they made, I really thought they would drive me mad before I should reach Casalmaggiore on my way from Torre Malamberti. I started from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the previsions constituting what is commonly known as science—that an eclipse of the moon will happen at a specified time; and when a barometer is taken to the top of a mountain of known height, the mercurial column will descend a stated number of inches; that the poles of a galvanic battery immersed in water will give off, the one an inflammable and the other an inflaming gas, in definite ratio—we perceive that ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... storm gained its height, when the barometer stood at 28.40 inches, and, after that time, began to rise. Although we had been forced many miles deeper into the pack, we could not perceive that the swell had at all subsided, our ships still rolling ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... reassuring sounds. When a dog assumes the cozy habits of the cat without laying off his nobler nature, he is my friend. A dog of vegetarian aspect pleases me. Let him bear a mild eye as though he were nourished on the softer foods! I would wish every dog to have a full complement of tail. It's the sure barometer of his warm regard. There's no art to find his mind's construction in the face. And I would have him with not too much curiosity. It's a quality that brings him too often to the gate. It makes him prone to sniff when one sits upon a visit. Nor do I like dogs addicted ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... atmosphere. Associated Words: oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, ether, aerology, aerologist, aerometry, aeroscopy, aerometer, aerography, aeriferous, aerodynamics, aerial, aerophobia, azote, barograph, barometer, cyanometry, hermetic, hermetically, meteorology, ozone, neon, pneumatic, aerator, pneumatics, pneumotherapy, hygrometry, pneumatology, xenon, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... answered her abstractedly. She was tired, she said, and presently went to her room. Mr. Hoopdriver, in his courtly way, opened the door for her and bowed her out. He stood listening and fearing some new offence as she went upstairs, and round the bend where the barometer hung beneath the stuffed birds. Then he went back to the room, and stood on the hearthrug before the paper fireplace ornament. "Cads!" he said in a scathing undertone, as a fresh burst of laughter came floating in. All through supper he had been ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... storm, when the sun goes under a cloud, or on a dull day, each little weather prophet closes. A score of pretty folk-names given it in every land it adopts testifies to its sensitiveness as a barometer. Under bright skies the flower may be said to open out flat at about nine in the morning and to begin to close at ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... presence; in that fatal place she went through paroxysms of jealous impatience, angry desires to destroy the building,—a living death of untold miseries. Lemulquinier became to her a species of barometer: if she heard him whistle as he laid the breakfast-table or the dinner-table, she guessed that Balthazar's experiments were satisfactory, and there were prospects of a coming success; if, on the other hand, the man were morose and gloomy, she looked at him and trembled,—Balthazar must surely ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... had begun by this time to check off the state of the instruments. The thermometer and the barometer were all right, except one self-recorder of which the glass had got broken. An excellent aneroid barometer, taken safe and sound out of its wadded box, was carefully hung on a hook in the wall. It marked not only the pressure of the air in the Projectile, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... New-Jersey) was of opinion, that the value of lands and houses was the best estimate of the wealth of a nation, and that it was practicable to obtain such a valuation. This is the true barometer of wealth. The one now proposed is imperfect in itself, and unequal between the States. It has been objected that negroes eat the food of freemen, and therefore should be taxed. Horses also eat the food of freemen; therefore ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... noticed that the measurements are independent of the actual height of the barometer, and if several readings are taken continuously, the result will not be sensibly affected by a simultaneous change of the barometer. Almost all the readings were taken at a temperature of about 20 deg. C., and in the present state ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... height of six hundred feet—or so Byfield asserted after consulting his barometer. He added that this was a mere nothing: the wonder was the balloon had risen at all with one-half of the total folly of Edinburgh clinging to the car. I passed the possible inaccuracy and certain ill-temper of this calculation. He had (he explained) made jettison of at least ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the banks—savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks—are richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of whisky—that sure barometer of Irish prosperity—is increasing beyond all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton

... droughts in the lowlands. The summer is short in the Carpathians; usually in the months of August and September the weather is the most settled. June and July are often rainy—sometimes snowstorms cause the barometer to fall tremendously. In the mountain districts there is a great difference between the temperature of the daytime and that of the night. All those who go to the Carpathians do well to take winter ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... at Robinson's sale I believe she'd've bid on the whole concern if I hadn't come in while she was going it. As it was, she bought an aneroid barometer, three dozen iron skewers, a sacking-bottom and four volumes of Eliza Cook's poems. Said she thought those volumes were some kind of cookery-books, or she wouldn't have bid on them, and the barometer would be valuable to tell us which was north. North, mind ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... golden glories so openly before the world, instead of shrinking in modest reserve beneath their own green leaves, like the Puritan primrose and the retiring violet? The answer is, Because of the extreme rarity of the mountain air. It's the barometer that does it. At first sight, I will readily admit, this explanation seems as fanciful as the traditional connection between Goodwin Sands and Tenterden Steeple. But, like the amateur stories in country papers, it is 'founded on fact,' for all that. (Imagine, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... was passed at this place, during which time the weather was very moderate, the thermometer not exceeding 70 deg. of Fahrenheit's scale. The barometer stood at ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... English object was a barometer hanging on the wall, generally indicating one or another degree of disagreeable weather, and so seldom pointing to Fair, that I began to consider that portion of its circle as made superfluously. The deep chimney, with its grate of bituminous coal, was English ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... altogether the force of the maxim of St. Ambrose, "Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum;"—I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was not logic that carried me on; as well might one say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of years, and I find my mind in a new place; how? the whole man moves; paper logic is but the record of it. All the logic in the world would not ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... should think so. He hasn't been here for five days. In May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is serious, five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And yesterday, when I heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them to kill a chicken and prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch. He likes them. Your poor father couldn't bear fish, but he likes it. He ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... cattle in his head. However, one man knew better, but he was a "furriner," a geologist, a "rock-pecker" from the Bluegrass. To him Lum betrayed an uncanny eye in discovering coal signs and tracing them to their hidden beds, and wide and valuable knowledge of the same. Once the foreigner lost his barometer just when he was trying to locate a coal vein on the side of the mountain opposite. Two days later Lum pointed to a ravine across ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... poems are upon subjects on which perhaps he would not have ventured to have written in his own language: "The Battle of the Pigmies and Cranes," "The Barometer," and "A Bowling-green." When the matter is low or scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean because nothing is familiar, affords great conveniences; and by the sonorous magnificence of Roman syllables, the writer conceals penury of ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... as taken by an aneroid barometer confirmed his observation, but as we were ignorant of its average density it could not give us any certain indication of our height. Far beneath us an ideal world of clouds hid the surface from our view. We seemed to be floating above a range of ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... everything, without letting a muscle of his face move. And yet the habitues of his audience-chamber, and his clerks, pretended that they could always detect the nature of his impressions. A ring which he wore upon one of his fingers served as a barometer for those who knew him. If a difficult case, or one that embarrassed his conscience, presented itself, his eyes fixed themselves obstinately upon this ring. If he were satisfied that everything was right, he looked up again, and began playing with the ring, slipping it up and ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... An achromatic refracting telescope, of three and a half feet, and triple object glass, made by Mr Dollond. 8. A Hadley's sextant, by ditto. 9. Another, by Mr Ramsden. 10. An azimuth compass, by Mr Adams. 11. A pair of globes, by ditto. 12. A dipping needle, by Mr Nairne. I3. A marine barometer, by ditto. 14. A wind gage, invented by Dr Lind of Edinburgh, and made by Mr Nairne. 15. Two portable barometers, made by Mr Burton. 16. Six thermometers, by ditto. 17. A theodolite, with a level, and a Gunter's chain, by ditto. 18. An apparatus ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... face falling like the barometer before a storm. "Surely, you have not forgotten! I'll try going without entirely, if you tell me to. It is best, and you are right. But, if I do, may I not count upon your friendship to help me? And you surely will make it right with your sister, also? ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... admonition not to let the stove get red-hot. And Carley lay snuggled in the warm blankets, dreading the ordeal of getting out into that cold bare room. Her nose was cold. When her nose grew cold, it being a faithful barometer as to temperature, Carley knew there was frost in the air. She preferred summer. Steam-heated rooms with hothouse flowers lending their perfume had certainly not trained Carley for primitive conditions. She ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... worthless wild cat mines there were in that part of the country. Assessments did the business for me there. There were a hundred and seventeen assessments to one dividend, and the proportion of income to outlay was a little against me. My financial barometer went down to 32 Fahrenheit, and the subscriber ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... slight fog, and fog is essentially contrary to the organization of the Parisian bourgeois. Our friend coughed twice, and then, drawing in his head and his arm, re-entered his room like a tortoise into his shell. D'Harmental saw with pleasure that he might dispense with buying a barometer, and that this neighbor would render him the same service as the butterflies which come out in the sunshine, and remain obstinately shut up in their hermitages on the days ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... officers. Wrist watches of every shape are to be seen, each thoughtfully provided with its strap—for Mr. Jones forgets nothing. In addition to wrist watches are wrist compasses for the other arm, and for the ankles a speedometer and barometer. Thus fitted, the officer knows practically all that can be learned. I need not say that all are in gold; but a few special sets in radium can be obtained. Even these, however, are not ruinous, for with Mr. Luke Jones reasonable prices ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various

... comes the murmur of a waterfall. The guide answers that it is the rushing current of air at the mouth of the cave, sometimes in and sometimes out. Prof. J.E. Todd, in bulletin No. 1, S. Dakota Geological Survey, p. 48, says: 'This phenomenon is found to correspond with the varying pressure of the barometer, and with its single opening and capacious ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen

... enter and examine the inside of the house, we should find three or four good-sized rooms, comfortably furnished, and all stocked with subjects of natural history, and implements of the chase. In one of the rooms we should see a barometer and thermometer hanging against the wall, an old clock over the mantel-piece, a sabre and pistols, and a book-case containing many choice ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... politicians with both eyes upon the political barometer, "the Forest Service, in selling lumber by such methods, is playing into the hands of the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... exceeding seventy-five degrees, Fahrenheit. During the months of April, May and June, the thermometer ranged from forty deg., at 5 A.M., to about sixty-five deg., in the middle of the day. I kept no record later than June, having loaned my instrument to a vessel, whose barometer had become useless. The annual rainfall varies according to local topography, from forty-five inches to seventy-five inches, the west coast, especially at the heads of the inlets, receiving much the largest amount, and the north and ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... table, grasped the paper-weight, and threw it on the floor by her side. I took care to aim a little to one side, and, before she disappeared (I did it so that she could see it), I grasped a candlestick, which I also hurled, and then took down the barometer, continuing ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... the smoking-room at Monkland Court that same evening,—on his way to bed, went to the Georgian corridor, where his pet barometer was hanging. To look at the glass had become the nightly habit of one who gave all the time he could spare from his profession to hunting in the winter and to racing in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the door—the hearse. The whole party had assembled to see him go. Good-bye, good-bye. Mechanically he tapped the barometer that hung in the porch; the needle stirred perceptibly to the left. A sudden smile lighted up his ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... through the story; careful scientific explanation of critical events (the ascension, filling the balloon, rising and falling, ballast); use of dialogue to convey scientific information (the history of ballooning); use of scientific instruments (barometer, compass); chapter heads to presage the story; escapes from perilous events caused ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne

... of the Australian continent, though the usual westerly winds and gales of the highest latitudes prevail during the greater portion of the year, hurricanes are not infrequent. Gales commence at NW with a low barometer, increasing at W and SW, and gradually veering to the south. True cyclones occur at New Zealand. The log of the Adelaide for 29th February, 1870, describes one which travelled at the rate of ten miles an hour, and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... time occupied by the trials the direction of the wind was W.N.W. to W. by N., pressure 2-1/2 to 4-1/2 lbs. on the square foot. The barometer stood at ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood

... is generally experienced by those who have the misfortune to lose a limb after the middle age. HIS LORDSHIP usually predicted an alteration in the weather with as much certainty from feeling transient pains in this stump, as he could by his marine barometer; from the indications of which latter he kept a diary of the atmospheric changes, which was written with his ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty

... N. air &c. (gas) 334; common air, atmospheric air; atmosphere; aerosphere[obs3]. open air; sky, welkin; blue sky; cloud &c. 353. weather, climate, rise and fall of the barometer, isobar. [Science of air] aerology, aerometry[obs3], aeroscopy[obs3], aeroscopy[obs3], aerography[obs3]; meteorology, climatology; pneumatics; eudioscope[obs3], baroscope[obs3], aeroscope[obs3], eudiometer[obs3], barometer, aerometer[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... worked all day putting up a stone hut, ten by nine feet, and seven feet high, thatched with boughs. We finished it; it will make us safe at night. Being a very fair hut, it will be a great source of defence. Barometer 28.09; thermometer 68 deg. at 5 p.m. Hope to have rain, as ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... he allowed his attention to wander from Hilma Tree, he found that he had been staring fixedly at a thermometer upon the wall opposite, and this made him think that it had long been his intention to buy a fine barometer, an instrument that could be accurately depended on. But the barometer suggested the present condition of the weather and the likelihood of rain. In such case, much was to be done in the way of getting the seed ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... my dear girl! Stick to your plan. Don't let me spoil your afternoon! Gracious heaven! I—I—why, I can quite well take Madame Frabelle myself.' He looked at the barometer. 'The glass is going up,' he said, giving it first a tap and then a slight shake to encourage it to go up higher and to look sharp about it. 'So that's settled, then, dear. That's fixed up. I'll take her on the river. I don't mind in the very least. I shall be only too pleased—delighted. ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... pressure of the cooler and denser air without. But we very well know that the best of flues and chimneys will draw only by favor of lively fires or clear weather. They fail us utterly when most needed, in warm and murky weather, when the barometer is low, and the thin atmosphere drops, down its damp and dirty contents, burying us to the chimney tops in a pestilent congregation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... of a husband, there are circumstances which have led us to consider the nuptial couch as an actual means of defence. For it is only in bed that a man can tell whether his wife's love is increasing or decreasing. It is the conjugal barometer. Now to sleep in twin beds is to wish for ignorance. You will understand, when we come to treat of civil war (See Part Third) of what extreme usefulness a bed is and how many secrets a wife reveals in bed, without ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... strongest examples of the opposite physiognomy, in good people who think they have committed "the unpardonable sin" and are lost forever, who crouch and cringe and slink from notice, and are unable to speak aloud or look us in the eye.... We ourselves know how the barometer of our self-esteem and confidence rises and falls from one day to another through causes that seem to be visceral and organic rather than rational, and which certainly answer to no corresponding variations in the esteem in which we are ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... preceding the evening when "Down by the Sea" was to be publicly presented upon the stage of the town hall was overcast and cloudy. Judah, with one eye upon the barometer swinging in its gimbals in the General Minot front entry, had gloomily prophesied rain. Captain Sears, although inwardly agreeing with the prophecy, outwardly ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... ease the hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington, when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle," or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... was due to leave her dock. The first mate made his way to the upper deck. He found his captain in the pilot-house, studying the barometer. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly

... never was a minister's daughter, and I don't remember ever havin' been deserted by my sweetheart when I was young and trusting. If I was to draw a picture of my life it would look like one of those charts that the weather bureau gets out—one of those high and low barometer things, all uphill and downhill like a chain of mountains ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... been reported from aloft, and the master, while adjusting the tubes of the long glass, had observed with quiet bitterness to Mr. Baker that, after fighting our way inch by inch to the Western Islands, there was nothing to expect now but a spell of calm. The sky was clear and the barometer high. The light breeze dropped with the sun, and an enormous stillness, forerunner of a night without wind, descended upon the heated waters of the ocean. As long as daylight lasted, the hands collected on the forecastle-head watched on the eastern sky the island ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... Ephie's spirits had gone up and down like a barometer in spring. In this short time, she passed through more changes of mood than in all her previous life. She learned what uncertainty meant, and suspense, and helplessness; she caught at any straw of hope, and, for a day on end, would be almost comforted; she invented numberless excuses for ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... to have plum-duff on Sunday. His well was near his house, and every morning he dropped into it a lead and line, and noted down the depth of water. Three times a day he entered in a little note-book the state of the weather, the height of the mercury in barometer and thermometer, the direction of the wind, and special weather ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... have been considered as signs of wealth; and their increase is a sign most undoubtedly of more trade; but this is a barometer, of which it requires some skill to understand the real ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... ultimately dependent on the ability of men to cooeperate. The best barometer of civilization is the desire and ability of men to cooeperate. The willingness to share with others,—the desire to work with others is the great contribution which Christianity has given to the world. The effect of this new spirit is most thrilling when ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson

... wore on the storm held steadily; steadily and rapidly the barometer kept counting backward; and we took the river's width in wind and sea for half the night. We could not sleep, and sat bolstered up in our chairs. The Commodore quite likely did breathe audibly now ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... subscribe to a news agency which will wire all the stuff one cares to have so violently fresh, into a phonographic recorder perhaps, in some convenient corner. There the thing will be in every house, beside the barometer, to hear or ignore. With the separation of that function what is left of the newspaper will revert to one daily edition—daily, I think, because of the power of habit to make the newspaper the specific ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... cloud of blooms which would clothe the limes and the chestnuts and the beeches along the ghost's walk. But there was gloomy weather within doors as well; for poor Harry was especially sensitive to variations of the barometer, without being in the least aware of the fact himself. Again Hugh found him in the library, seated in his usual corner, with Polexander on his knees. He half dropped the book when Hugh entered, and murmured with ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... so singularly. It seemed to move very slowly—a great black cloud, which looked intensely luminous withal, and yet so dense and heavy, that an ordinary observer might have mistaken it for one of the ordinary rain squalls encountered in the tropics. Captain Lane consulted his barometer, and ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... of our having a gale, the barometer having fallen considerably since the morning; while the sea got up more and more and the horizon ahead became banked with a mass of blue-black clouds as dark as night, patches of lighter vapour also scudding rapidly ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... So it will be with us, dear brethren, if we do not give heed to our ways and listen to the word which may be bitter in the mouth, but, eaten, turns sweet as honey. Nailing the index of the barometer to 'set fair' will not keep off the thunderstorm, and no negligence or dislike of divine threatenings will arrest the slow, solemn march, inevitable as destiny, of the consequences of our doings. Things will be as they will be. Believed or unbelieved, the avalanche ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... regulated the temperature of the drawing-room, overcrowded with nosegays, fearing for her the April frosts or March sun; and like the plants in pots that are put out and taken in at stated times, he made her live methodically, ever watchful of a change of barometer ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet

... Wordsworth is the greatest poet of nature that our literature has produced. If we go further, and study the poems that impress us, we shall find four remarkable characteristics: (1) Wordsworth is sensitive as a barometer to every subtle change in the world about him. In The Prelude he compares himself to an aeolian harp, which answers with harmony to every touch of the wind; and the figure is strikingly accurate, as well as ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... fear seized on all on board, and men who a short time before were full of courage and strength now became as helpless as children. The current was less rapid inside, but the noise increased and became even more bewildering; while the barometer would rise and fall quickly, and the compasses became agitated under the influence of some strong magnetic disorder. Every few minutes deep and rumbling sounds would break in the distance, roll along the cavern, ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... increased, the price fell, and the seaboard south, feeling the competition of the virgin soils of the southwest, saw in the protective tariff for the development of northern manufactures the real source of her distress. The price of cotton was in these years a barometer of southern prosperity and of southern discontent. [Footnote: See chap, xix., below; M. B. Hammond, Cotton Industry, part i., App. i.; Donnell, Hist. of Cotton; Watkins, Production and ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... button in the row and the bright light concentered at a particular place on the concrete wall, illuminating, in a row, a clock, a barometer, and centigrade and Fahrenheit thermometers. Almost in a sweep of glance he read the messages of the dials: time 4:30; air pressure, 29:80, which was normal at that altitude and season; and temperature, Fahrenheit, 36. With another press, the gauges of time and heat and air were ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... of the water, and you feel it burdened by a great weight; air is therefore heavy. Put air in equilibrium with other bodies, and you can measure its weight. From these observations were constructed the barometer, the siphon, the air-gun, and the air-pump. All the laws of statics and hydrostatics were discovered by experiments as simple as these. I would not have my pupil study them in a laboratory of experimental physics. I dislike ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... shall have more wind than we want before morning," added the smoker. "He wishes the brig was twenty miles farther out to sea, for his barometer has gone down as though the bottom had dropped ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... was disposed by circumstances and by nature, or by second nature, to the vigilance of a dependent's life; accustomed to watch and consult daily the barometer of court favour, he soon felt the coming storm; and the moment he saw prognostics of the change, he trembled, and considered how he should best provide for his own safety before the hour of danger arrived. Numerous libels against the minister appeared, which Lord Oldborough never read, but ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... The thieves ransacked the library and got very little for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers burst open, and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of Pope's 'Homer,' two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of twine ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... over the muslin blinds an impotent sprig is scattered. In the worsted rosettes of the bell-ropes, in the plaster picture-frames, in the painted tea-tray and on the cups, in the pediment of the sideboard, in the ornament that crowns the barometer, in the finials of sofa and arm-chair, in the finger-plates of the 'grained' door, is to be seen the ineffectual portrait or to be traced the stale inspiration of the flower. And what is this bossiness around the grate but some blunt, black-leaded garland? ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell

... and others.] No workman, or other person, shall knowingly injure a water gauge, barometer, air-course, brattice, equipment, machinery, or live stock; obstruct or throw open an airway; handle or disturb any part of the machinery of the hoisting engine of a mine; open a door of a mine and neglect to close it; endanger the mine or those ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous

... by its fruit, so is the state of a man's heart known by his desires. The desires of the righteous are the touchstone or standard of Christian sincerity—the evidence of the new birth—the spiritual barometer of faith and grace—and the springs of obedience. Christ and him crucified is the ground of all our hopes—the foundation upon which all our desires after God and holiness are built—and the root by which they are nourished. It is from this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... understands the use of instruments, and can take observations of the temperature of hot springs, if any are found. HALL knows nothing about instruments, and could not tell the time by a barometer if his life depended upon it. Therefore HAYES should ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various

... is a desk and a book. In the book are written down the names of the guests, together with marks indicating the direction of the wind and the height of the barometer. It is here that the newly arrived guest waits until he has time to open the door leading to ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... a clear north-wester; the crests of the seas emit a luminous light that is far more apparent than at other times; and the face of the ocean, at midnight, often wears the aspect of a clouded day. The nerves, too, answer to this power of the eastern winds. We have a barometer within that can tell when the wind is east without looking abroad, and one that never errs. It is true that allusions are often made to these peculiarities, but where are we to look for the explanation? On the coast of America the sea-breeze comes from the rising sun, while on that of Europe ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... planks from which the sweated pitch was no sooner holy-stoned than it oozed forth again to smear their purity. Though stout awnings defied the direct fury of the sun they could not shut out its glare and furnace heat. And the human barometer showed the stress of life. Stump was a caldron in himself, Tagg a bewhiskered malediction in damp linen. The temper of the crew, stifling in crowded quarters, suggested—that they were suffering from ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... in the sunshine of Indian summer; a fortnight of still starry nights and days almost without a cloud. As a rule, such weather breaks up in a gale, of which the glass gives timely warning. But the mercury in Mr. Fossell's barometer indicated no depression—or the merest trifle. The drenched night air was warm: to Miss Gabriel, inhaling it in the passage by the drawing-room door, it seemed to be laden with the scents of summer, and Miss Gabriel had not lived all her life in Garland Town without learning the ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... by the barometer. The weight of the air in round numbers is 15 lb. to the square inch and will support a column of water 1 in. square, 34 ft. high, or a column of mercury (density 13.6) 1 in. square, 30 in. high. The parts necessary to make a simple ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... the breakers showing white through the darkness, like the fangs of a beast of prey, the captain of a fishing schooner on George's banks has need of every resource of the sailor, if he is to beat his way off, and not feed the fishes that he came to take. Nowhere is the barometer watched more carefully than on the boats cruising about on George's. When its warning column falls, the whole fleet makes for the open sea, however good the fishing may be. But, with all possible caution, the losses are so many that George's, ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... weather came up hazy, the wind began to fall off, and the barometer began to exhibit very queer spasms indeed, rising with a sort of jerk at first, and then dropping down the tenth of an inch at a clip, with the atmosphere becoming close and sultry, and the men gasping ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... promenade," he said, as if brought to himself by the sound of Donal's overtaking steps. "After dinner always, Mr. Grant, wet weather or dry, still or stormy, I walk here. What do I care for the weather! It will be time when I am old to consult the barometer!" ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... conversation, if a squirt on one side and Niagara on the other can be called conversation, was directed for the moment upon the iniquity of the English rate of exchange, which seemed to me very much like railing against the barometer. My companion, who has forgotten more economics than ever Clemenceau knew, was about to ask whether France was prepared to take the rouble at face value, but the roaring voice, like a strong gramophone with a blunt needle, submerged all argument. We have ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... dear, pardon me, was that the barometer was higher than it had been for a week. But, as you might have observed if these details were in your line, my love, which they are not, the rise was extraordinarily rapid, and there is no surer sign of unsettled ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... that during the 24th of July the engineer had frequent consultations with his mate. He and Tom Turner kept constant watch on the barometer—not so much to keep themselves informed of the height at which they were traveling as to be on the look-out for a change in the weather. Evidently some indications had been observed of which it was ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne

... there has been much sobriety as well as diligence of investigation, are, perhaps, not despised as authority. Some superior weight may even be attached to the later and maturer views. But man changes them every other day; if they rise and fall with the barometer; if his whole life has been one rapid pirouette, it is impossible with gravity to discuss the question, whether at some point he may not have been right. Whoever be in the right, he cannot well be who has ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... pump up a blush, and smile, and purr that she was SO glad, 'cause then she'd have comp'ny. And Eben would glower at Beriah and Beriah'd grin sort of superior-like, and the mutual barometer, so's to speak, would fall about a foot during the next hour. The brotherly business between the two prophets was coming to an end fast, and all on account ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... then the atmospheric pressure of 15 pounds per square inch on the water in the well, can raise the water in the tube to such height only that the entire column of it weighs 15 pounds. Having been thus enlightened about the pump's action, the action of a barometer becomes intelligible. He perceives how, under the conditions established, the weight of the column of mercury balances that of an atmospheric column of equal diameter; and how, as the weight of the atmospheric column varies, there is a corresponding ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... the leg, had recovered, was shortly going back, and was animated. His leg was all right, except that in wet weather it ached. In fact he could even tell by it when we were going to have rain. His "blooming barometer" he called it. Here he laughed—a hearty laugh, for he was a genial blade and liked ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... after the rest were sleeping, Ferriss, who had not closed his eyes, bestirred himself, and, as quietly as possible, crawled from his sleeping-bag. He fancied there was some slight change in the atmosphere, and wanted to read the barometer affixed to a stake just outside the tent. Yet when he had noted that it was, after all, stationary, he stood for a moment looking out across the ice with unseeing eyes. Then from a pocket in his furs he drew ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... still, we were all in good spirits, except that we regretted the loss of the ship and could not help thinking what had become of you fellows. We ran on for three days and then began to look out for Grampus Island, when the weather became threatening. As the barometer fell, so did our spirits. Had we all been in the boats, we might by this time have reached the shore, but of course they would not desert the rafts. The second lieutenant had charge of one raft, ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as you ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... my watch, cornet, compass, and barometer were condemned as being the work of malevolent spirits. Instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but the general conclusion is that anything that suggests the unintelligible, the unusual, the suspected, the gloomy, is at once attributed ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... waves, that curled over their ridges into valleys of foam like half-melted snow, and it was blowing pretty well half a gale now from the north-west, to which point the wind had hauled round, it was keeping steady in that quarter, for the barometer remained high, and the Silver Queen, heading south-west by south, was bending well over so that her lee-side was flush almost with the swelling water. She was racing along easily, and presented a perfect picture, with the ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... admitted that the world turned round, as the books say; but when I suggested to him the difficulty of keeping things in their places, with the earth upside down, he acknowledged candidly—for he was all candour, I must say that for him—and owned that he had made a discovery by means of his barometer, which showed that the world did not turn round in the way you describe, or by rolling over, but by whirling about, as one turns in a dance. You must remember your ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... surrounded by able men; you need officials of ripe experience in every department. Now, the first consideration of a small State like this, hemmed in as it is by powerful Kingdoms which the least change in the political barometer may convert into active enemies, is a strong and progressive system of finance. I am vain enough to think that you may find my services useful in that direction. There is no man in Delgratz who has had my training, and so assured am I of the success that will attend your Majesty's reign that ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... bulletin-board, inscribed with the hours at which ships are sighted and entered into dock: the Kaiser was not there: and with prone outlook he went seeking an assistant superintendent; but, sighting a fellow-operator, come, as usual, to digest the world, from barometer-reports to coffee-quotations at Rio, Charles P. Stickney cried to him: "Funny about the Kaiser! ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... the cold water entering for the purpose of condensation is heated by the steam, and emits a vapor of a tension represented by about three inches of mercury; that is, when the common barometer stands at 30 inches, a barometer with the space above the mercury communicating with the condenser, will stand at about ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... state o' things," pursued the Captain, "to be always bouncin' up an' down wi' hopes, an' fears, an' disappointments, like a mad barometer, not knowin' rightly what's what ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... the Astronef doesn't take any account of high or low or up or down," he replied, looking at the dial of an aneroid barometer by the side of him. "Roughly speaking, we're rather over 60,000 feet—say ten miles—from the surface of the Atlantic. That's why I asked Andrew whether everything was tight. You see we couldn't breathe the air there is outside ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... a barometer, not for weather, but for rank. Every one of noble blood, or filling certain offices, ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... Phoebe gave the last of the dishes a brief touch of the dish-towel and then ran into the main room to watch the barometer. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... is your current life's answer to these interrogatives that most interest people in this material world in your behalf. Only as we increase in commercial pursuits, ownership of property, and the higher elements of production through skilled labor will our political barometer rise. Upon these we should anchor our hopes, assured that higher education, with its "classic graces, will follow in ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... culture has spread itself, and has smoothed down all sharp individual traits; when, in the absence of heroic characters, a social comfort and cooperation have come in. There is no poet, but scores of poetic writers; no Columbus, but hundreds of post-captains, with transit-telescope, barometer, and concentrated soup and pemmican; no Demosthenes, no Chatham, but any number of clever parliamentary and forensic debaters; no prophet or saint, but colleges of divinity; no learned man, but learned societies, a cheap press, reading-rooms, and book-clubs, without ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... you wish to succeed as a writer Of songs that undoubtedly count, By making the atmosphere brighter, The moral barometer mount, Then be it your aim and endeavour to try For the lump in the throat and ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various

... passed through this belt, and rejoiced in the growing clearness of the upper sky, I saw that my only prospect would be in cloud-land. After many windings, along which the blossoms and buds of the fruit-trees indicated the altitude as exactly as any barometer, we finally reached the crest of the topmost height, the frontier of Appenzell and the battle-field of Voeglisegg, where the herdsman first measured his strength with the soldier and the monk, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... Alkmaar, Cornelius Drebbel, who performed such astounding feats for the amusement of Rudolph of Germany and James of Britain, is also supposed to have invented the thermometer and the barometer. But this claim has been disputed. The inventions of Jansens ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Arequipa, on a slope of the Andes, 8,000 feet above the sea-level. Here the post provided for by the "Boyden Fund" was established in 1891, under ideal meteorological conditions. Temperature preserves a "golden mean"; the barometer is almost absolutely steady; the yearly rainfall amounts to no more than three or four inches. No wonder, then, that the "seeing" there is of the extraordinary excellence attested by Mr. Pickering's observations. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... here, I've seen the bond-room clerks grip their desks like they expected to be blown through the windows; and the sickly green tinge on Piddie's face when he comes out from a hectic ten minutes with the big boss is as good a trouble barometer as you'd want. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... the acid runs in or moves up. This must be done with very great care. When accurately adjusted, it should move neither way. Now read off the volume of the NO gas in cubic centimetres from the measuring tube. Read also the thermometer suspended near the bulb, and take the height of the barometer in millimetres. The calculation is ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... no string or cord. Finally she said, "Wait a moment." Little waited. This time her face did not appear. The barometer came slowly down at ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the circulation of the winds, especially those great movements a thousand miles in diameter known as 'lows' and 'highs' or cyclones and anti-cyclones. In the United States, an anti-cyclone generally means fair weather, and in an anti-cyclone the barometric column rises. That's why a barometer helps to foretell weather some time in advance; it responds to the vast movements of the atmosphere rather than ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... down into a quiet monotonous routine of eating, smoking, watching the barometer, and sleeping twelve hours a day. The gale with which we were favoured two weeks ago afforded a pleasant thrill of temporary excitement and a valuable topic of conversation; but we have all come to coincide in the opinion of the Major, that it was a "curious ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... rate he reached the brink of the descent before any of the rest. They unconsciously kept their eyes on Fritz. He would serve as a barometer, and from his actions they could tell pretty well the conditions existing down below. If Fritz exhibited any symptoms of horror, then it would afford them a chance to steel their nerves against the sight, before ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... stood at the Minimes. The party were ‘struck with admiration and astonishment at this result;’ and ‘so great was their surprise that they resolved to repeat the experiment under various forms.’ The glass tube, or the barometer, as we may call it, was placed in various positions on the summit of ‘the mountain’—sometimes in the small chapel which is there; sometimes in an exposed and sometimes in a sheltered position; sometimes when the wind blew, and sometimes when it was calm; sometimes in rain, and ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... when he swept his eye round at all this loveliness; then he turned on his heel and took a look at the aneroid fastened to the wall of the sitting-room of the Life-Saving Station. The arrow showed a steady shrinkage. The barometer had fallen ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... standing near his writing-table, and pointing angrily to some envelopes, papers, and little piles of coin upon it as he addressed some observations to the bailiff, Jakoff Michaelovitch, who was standing in his usual place (that is to say, between the door and the barometer) and rapidly closing and unclosing the fingers of the hand which he held behind his back, The more angry Papa grew, the more rapidly did those fingers twirl, and when Papa ceased speaking they came to ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... is another proof of the illusion of material sense. On the eye's retina, sky and tree-tops apparently join hands, clouds and ocean meet 122:18 and mingle. The barometer, - that little prophet of storm and sunshine, denying the testimony of the senses, - points to fair weather in the midst of murky 122:21 clouds and drenching rain. Experience is full of instances of similar illusions, which every thinker can recall ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... bills; and as for a little knowledge of the laws of electricity, one thrift I am sure it would produce—thrift to us men, of having to answer continual inquiries as to what the weather is going to be, when a slight knowledge of the barometer, or of the form of the clouds and the direction of the wind, would enable many a lady to judge for herself, and not, after inquiry on inquiry, disregard all warnings, go out on the first appearance of a ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... but the wind had changed to the east and the barometer threatened more bad weather to come. When Seth came in to breakfast he found his helper sound asleep in a kitchen chair, his head on the table. The young man was pretty well worn out. Atkins insisted upon his going ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... then, when I was watching this miracle, rattle its chain and hang the other way. A regiment of boots on the floor—I suppose it was boots—would tramp to one corner, remain quiet for a while, and then clatter elsewhere in a body. Towards daybreak the skipper appeared in shining oilskins, tapped the barometer, glanced at me, and laughed because my pillow—which was a linen bag stuffed with old magazines—at that moment became lower than my heels, and the precipitous rug tried to smother me. I ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson

... hardly conceive it possible, that the small quantity of aeriform fluids which then escape from the fissured ground, can produce such remarkable effects. There appears much probability in the view first proposed by Mr. P. Scrope, that when the barometer is low, and when rain might naturally be expected to fall, the diminished pressure of the atmosphere over a wide extent of country, might well determine the precise day on which the earth, already stretched to the utmost by the subterranean forces, should yield, crack, and consequently tremble. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... Lens, including thickness, &c., Ivory's paper on Equations, Achromatism of microscope, Capillary Attraction, Motions of Fluids, Euler's principal axes, Spherical pendulum, Equation b squared(d squaredy/dx squared)(d squaredy/dt squared), barometer, Lunar Theory well worked out, ordinary differential equations, Calculus of Variations, Interpolations like Laplace's for Comets, Kepler's theorem. In September I had my old telescope mounted on a short tripod stand, and ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... back discontented and disappointed. The more or less of liberty which he is allowed to enjoy, is his barometer of the political atmosphere. If he gets leave, all goes well; if he is kept at his post, the country is in danger. His opinion on public affairs is but a calculation of his own interest. My friend is almost ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... had given him returned to his mind, and with it the fear that the pastor was under a delusion—that, as a rich man is sometimes not unnaturally seized with the mania of imagined poverty, so this poor man's mental barometer had, from excess of poverty, turned its index right ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... there." The man pointed to the laboratory door. I went and opened it and stood listening. In a corner by the window a clock-work recording barometer was ticking with a ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... he had not gone, and his assurances that if he had "only known, etc."; to which she gave an impatient hearing, quite unlike her gentleness of the two preceding days. There were little things in her manner Which indicated a falling barometer, and suggested that the day might not ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... might be thundering in front of the fortifications. The communiques from Joffre became less frequent and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in one sense. Her exits were guarded against all who were not in uniform and going to fight; to all who ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... the barometer, for the wind no sooner began to blow, than the mercury in the tube began to fall. Another remarkable thing attended the coming on of this wind, which was very faint at first. It brought with it a degree of heat that was almost intolerable. The mercury in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr

... revolver, a hunting knife, and some fishing tackle; one three and a quarter by four and a quarter folding pocket kodak, one panorama kodak, a sextant and artificial horizon, a barometer, a thermometer. I wore a short skirt over knickerbockers, a short sweater, and a belt to which were attached my cartridge pouch, revolver, and hunting knife. My hat was a rather narrow brimmed soft felt. I had one pair of heavy leather moccasins reaching almost to my knees, one pair of high seal-skin ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... over the words, and she wiped her eyes with the corner of her head-shawl; but her face remained as immobile as features cast in metal. When one has wept out of the heart for years, as Sarah Newbolt had wept, the face is no longer a barometer over the tempests of ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden



Words linked to "Barometer" :   aneroid, barometric, weatherglass, measuring instrument, measuring device, measuring system



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