Hygroscopic devices, in particular those utilizing cat guts (or perhaps catgut), were considered as very good anemoscopes, seldom failing to foretell the shifting of the wind.
The ancient anemoscope seems, by Vitruvius's description of it, to have been intended rather to show which way the wind actually blew, than to foretell into which quarter it would change.
Otto von Guericke also gave the title anemoscope to a machine invented by him to foretell the change of the weather, as to fair and rain. It consisted of a little wooden man, who rose and fell in a glass tube, as the atmospheric pressure increased or decreased. Accordingly, M. Comiers has shown that this was simply an application of the common barometer. This form of the anemoscope was invented by Leonardo Da Vinci.
References
Vitruvius lived over 1500 years before Leonardo da Vinci, therefore, the phrase declaring that the anemoscope was invented by da Vinci needs either to qualified or rephrased.See also
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Last updated on Friday March 28, 2008 at 10:52:39 PDT (GMT -0700)
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