Tempest Prognosticator, now isn't that a catchy name... for something to sell on your ecommerce website?
No? Well there wasn't any ecommerce in 1851, but how about it's newer nickname, "Leech Barometer”?
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A contemporary account of the invention described it as an "elaborate and highly ornate apparatus... evolved by a certain Dr. Merryweather (no epigram intended) who had observed that during the period before the onset of a severe storm, fresh water leaches tended to become particularly agitated. The learned Doctor decided to harness the physical energy of these surprisingly hysterical aquatic bloodsuckers to operate an early warning system. On the circular base of his apparatus he installed glass jars, in each of which a leech was imprisoned and attached to a fine chain that led up to a miniature belfry--from whence the tinkling tocsin would be sounded on the approach of a tempest."
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You Brits can even visit the leeches, at Barometer World in Quicksilver Barn, Merton, Okehampton, Devon, but I'll bet they're phony leeches.
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