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XIII.—Account of a Thermometrical Register kept at Dunfermline by the Rev. Henry Fergus, from 1799 till 1837, with the principal Results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

James D. Forbes
Affiliation:
Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.

Extract

1. When I found that the interesting meteorological register of Mr Adie, which is well fitted to throw light upon the climate of Edinburgh, and of Scotland generally, was deficient of the important period of nearly sixteen years, from 1805 to 1820, I set on foot inquiries as to the existence of any other register of the thermometer which might approximately supply the defect. After some unsuccessful attempts, my attention was directed by Professor Dove's useful temperature tables to a register of the thermometer kept by the Rev. Mr Fergus of Dunfermline, of which the monthly means, from 1805 to 1824, are given in the “Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,” vol. xiii. Though the distance of Dunfermline from Edinburgh is thirteen miles in a right line, and though it occupies the opposite slope of the valley of the Forth, not far from the Ochil Hills, yet a slight comparison of the observations showed a very remarkable coincidence in its climate with that of Edinburgh, not only as regards the mean annual temperature, but also in the distribution of temperature throughout the year. I therefore made an effort to obtain the original register from which the results published in the “Edinburgh Philosophical Journal” were derived; and through the kindness, in the first instance, of Mr David Laing of the Signet Library, I was brought into communication with the Rev. John Fergus of Bower, near Wick, in Caithness, son of the Dunfermline observer, who most kindly placed in my hands his father's original register of the barometer, thermometer, and weather at Dunfermline, extending from 1799 to the time of his death in 1837, all made with one instrument, and at the same hour daily (9 a.m.), with very remarkable regularity.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1861

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References

page 358 note * This lady died at an advanced age in the interval between the writing of this paper and its being read.