| Description | Daily records of the weather at Fort William [Kolkata], taken at varying times, most often two records per day, morning and afternoon. Columns for date and time, barometer, hygrometer [readings cease from 18 October 1785], thermometer inside and outside, kind and quantity of clouds, wind direction and force, rain, and miscellanous remarks. Rainfall totals are carried over and totalled per month. The miscellaneous observations are often general or unusual weather events, but there are also records of earthquakes. The observations show some local variations in location, for example [p.33] 'Yesterday it rained hard at Dum Dum & today there was a very smart shower in Calcutta'; and [p.47] 'At Dum Dum in tents thermt. wet with dew'..
Prefaced by a single sheet of marbled paper, on which [verso] is the inscription: 'A copy of the Meteorological Journal kept by me from February 1st in the year 1785 untill the 28 day of June 1787 T.D. Pearse'. Stamped [p.1]: Soc. Reg. Lond. ex dono Auctoris'. and inscribed 'Nov. 20 1788'. |