Friar of the weather

The Friar of the weather (sold as fraile del tiempo ) is a hygrometer built with the hair of a blond, young woman of Slavic race. Designed by the Calella inventor Agapit Borràs Pedemonte in 1894.  The figure represents a Capuchin friar seated with a globe at his feet and an open book in his right hand. Through the pointer of his left hand, the friar indicates whether the weather will be dry, rough, windy, good, unsafe, windy, wet or rain.  As the pointer moves due to hair expansion, so does the monk's hood. The company has made more than 40 different versions of the instrument, in some of which the friar has been replaced by nuns, warriors, Christopher Columbus or even by the monk from the children's drink Kina San Clemente. The product is available in Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque, Portuguese, French, Italian, German and English. 

To commercialize it, the company Tot Ideas SL was founded , owned by the Borràs family from Mataró. When, in 2001, Juguetes Borràs merged with Educa, this company was left out of the merger and still markets today this instrument exporting it to France, Italy, Portugal and even  Malta.

 References 

 Other websites 

 Product website
 The product on the company's website
Category:Science experiments
Category:Meteorology