Essays
I write occasional popular-science / analytical essays on antique meteorological instruments — their mechanisms and materials, the slow chemistry of ageing metals and patina, and the craft of conservation and restoration, with the odd detour into collecting itself. These aren’t peer-reviewed papers; they’re the observations of a practising collector and restorer, grounded in instruments from my own collection and, wherever possible, in cited sources.
- InstrumentsThe Gunpowder Thermometer: Temperature Control in Powder Magazines, Arsenals, Ammunition Depots, and Artillery Production
Why the temperature of a powder magazine was a question of ballistics and chemical safety, not of housekeeping — and how a plain mercury thermometer, sometimes a metre and a half long, became an instrument of military discipline.