New study: the Eiffel Tower as a scientific instrument
A new work on the Eiffel Tower’s decades as a meteorological and geophysical station — equipped by the same Maison Richard whose instruments fill my collection.
A new work has been published on the site — The Tower as an Instrument: Meteorological and Geophysical Research on the Eiffel Tower (A Study). It is a detailed account of a little-known side of Paris’s most recognizable structure: from its very first years and for decades afterwards, its upper platform served as a working scientific station. At about 300 metres, pressure, temperature, humidity and wind were measured and sent by cable to recorders below; atmospheric-electricity experiments were carried out here; from here, in 1910, Theodor Wulf caught the first hint of what would become cosmic rays; and from here, later, came the first radio weather forecast in France.
The impulse for this work was my own collection. It holds some thirteen by — the very French maker whose instruments stood on the Tower. The set spans almost the whole history of the firm: from Félix Richard’s Bourdon barometers, through the recording barographs of Richard Frères, to the pocket barometers and recording altimeters of . Its jewel is a great rarity — a portable for balloonists, a sensitive differential barometer by which an aeronaut could detect the slightest change of altitude, whether the balloon had begun to rise or to sink.