P. E. Dowson

“ In 1835 the council of the Birmingham Philosophical Institute purchased a set of such meteorological instruments as were then in use. Osler perceived the need of appliances which should give continuous records of atmospheric changes. He therefore set himself to contrive a novel self-recording pressure-plate anemometer, and a self-recording rain-gauge. The first anemometer and rain-gauge was made by Osler in 1835, and erect at the Philosophical Institution, Cannon Street, Birmingham. ”

“ To the British Association at Birmingham in 1865 he described 'the horary and diurnal variations in the direction and motion of the air 'in the light of a minute comparison of his observations at Wrottesley, Liverpool, and Birmingham. Osler in further researches showed the relation of atmospheric disturbances to the great trade winds, and the effect of the earth's rotation in inducing eastern and western velocities in the northerly and southerly winds. Many other papers on his anemometer and on his meteorological investigations were printed in the reports of the association. ”

“ The rain was collected in a funnel, the top of which had a known area, and flowed into a vessel supported on a bent lever with a counterbalancing weight; the accumulating water caused the vessel to descend, and this movement was registered by a pencil, which produced a line on a part of the paper that was ruled with a scale of fractions of an inch. When the limit of the capacity of the counterbalanced vessel was reached, it discharged its contents automatically, and the pencil returned to the zero line. ”