The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1874-02-04
MISCELLANY.
GABRIEL FIHRENHE EFT.
by JAMES PARTON.

Under the bronze statue of Dir. Franklin
which stands In Printing House Soaare. New
York, | saw boy the other day sellin.
thermometers at ten cents EACH looked up
almost expecting to see the eyebrows of the
philosopher rise in astonishnent, and q
smile of appreciation brighten his metalli,
countenance. He used to say that he would
like to return to the earth at the end of every
hundred years, to see how we were getting
on and ifhis wish could be granted this year,
am sure that, among the minor street sights
of New York, nothing would amuse or sur
prise him more than this small dealer in card
thermometers.
When DIR. Franklin first had thermom-
eter, about hundred and thirty years ago,
few persons in America had even seen one.
and there were probably not more than six on
the continent. There may have been one at
Hartford one at Yale, one at New York, and
two or three at Philadelphia. After Frank
lin obtained his thermometer, he was never
tired of experimenting with it; for many
years the laws of heat and cold, the varying
temperature of the body, and the effects of
heat upon the air currents, both indoors and
out, were objects of his vigilant investigation.
1t was he who discovered the effect of color
upon temperature, and first established that
dark clothes warm us best in cold weather
and that white clothes are most suitable for
hot. 1t was he who suggested the white cap
covering, now called the Havelock, used by
fba Euo1icl cold .,,t 4
by travellers in the desert, All this, and
much more, from the usU of Falirenleit's
thermometer.
And who was Fahrenheit, whose name is
usually printed on our thermometer to this
day? He was a Prussian merchant of
Dantzic, very ancient, narrow-streeted,
gloomy seaport on the Baltic coast from
which, in barbarous ages the Danish free
hooters set forth to ravage the English shores.
Interested from his youth in the study of
nature, he made small discovery when he was
nineteen years of age, one effect of which still
appears on the face of all our thermometers.
The winter of 1909 was remarkably cold, the
temperature falling lower at Dantzic than the
oldest inhabitant could remember it and
Fahrenheit observed that by mixing salt and
snow he could produce a degree of cold
equal to that which prevailed on the coolest
day of that coolest winter. He concluded
that that was the lowest degree of cold known
in the world, and the lowest also that could bt
produce artiticially. 1t was an unfortunate
error; for when at later day, he arranged
the scale Of his improved thermometer, HI
called that degree of cold zero, and fixed til,
boiling point at two hundred and twelve de
grees above it, a scale which is both arbitrar.
and inconvenient Zero should have been tn
freezing point, and then the boiling poin
might have been indicated either by on
hundred or two hundred, which would hav
been finally adopted; and we should have ha
, one scale in use, instead of four.
While still a young man, Farenheit becanh
SO interested in natural science, that he CAV
7 up the business in Dantzic, and went abroa
in search of knowledge; for, in those days,
a man wanted knowledge of that kind, he ha
to 90 and place himself under the personal il