Thermometer (replica)
notes: label: Description
content: James Six (1731-1793) was a silk weaver Canterbury, England, who was interested in natural philosophy. In 1772, he described a maximum/minimum thermometer with alcohol serving as the thermometric fluid, and a bit of mercury indicating the temperature. Joseph Gatty, an Italian craftsman in Philadelphia, made a thermometer of that sort for George Washington, at Mount Vernon. This replica of that instrument was made by the H-B Instrument Co. of Philadelphia. The inscription reads "Joseph Gatty.”
label: Description
content: Thomas Jefferson noted: “I paid Joseph Gatty, a Philadelphia glassblower who specialized in weather instruments such as the maximum-and-minimum thermometer, twelve dollars for two thermometers, one for himself and one for Randolph in June 1797.”
label: Description
content: Ref: James Six, “An Account of an Improved Thermometer,” <i>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London</i> 72 (1772): 72-81.
label: Description
content: James Six, <i>The Construction and Use of a Thermometer for Showing the Extremes of Temperature in the Atmosphere, during the Observer's Absence, together with Experiments and Variations of Local Heat; and other Meteorological Observations</i> (London, 1794).
label: Description
content: Jillian F. Austin and Anita McConnell, “Two Hundred Years of the Six’s Self-Registering Thermometer,” <i>Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London</i> 35 (1980): 49-65.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.317699
label: catalog number
content: 317699
label: accession number
content: 231758
objectType: label: Object Name
content: thermometer (replica)
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 16 1/2 in x 3 1/8 in x 7/8 in; 41.91 cm x 7.9375 cm x 2.2225 cm