Over the years, enormous ingenuity has been directed to the problem of designing a barometer that could be safely moved from one place to another. One solution was to have the cistern full during transport, and mechanically expanded to a proper size for actual use. This example is of that sort. The “Tonnelot à Paris” inscription refers to Jules Tonnelot, a Parisian who showed his meteorological instruments at the international exhibitions of 1878, 1889 and 1900.
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