da Vinci, Leonardo
(1452 - 1519)
da Vinci

Precursor
Contributors to Meteorology
(Renaissance [~1400 AD] through World War I)


Below are checklists of Precursor Contributors to Meteorology on postal items (stamps, souvenir sheets, aerogrammes, postal cards, etc.) and numismatic items (banknotes and coins). Catalog numbers, years of issue, and notes on the items featured are given when available. If readers know of additional information or images, please contact the authors using the e-mail addresses at the bottom of this page.

Contributors to MeteorologyTime Period Covered
Ancient and pre-RenaissanceThrough 1300s AD
Precursor (this page)Renaissance [~1400 AD] through World War I
ModernPost World War I
Chronological and Alphabetical Indexes


Contributors to meteorology covered on this page:


The following persons are presented in chronological order. See the bottom of this page for footnotes that are common to all of the tables below.


Sejong

Sejong (King Sejong the Great of the Sejong Dynasty)
(15th century)

King Sejong the Great of the Chosun Dynasty ruled Korea from 1418 to the mid-1400s. He sought to provide his subjects with adequate food and clothing through improvements in agriculture. Since droughts plagued the kingdom, he directed every village to measure the amount of rain that fell. This was done through the use of a rain gauge invented by his son, the crown prince Munjong, in 1441 (some 220 years before the European Christopher Wren invented his rain gauge). Munjong reasoned that instead of digging into the earth to attempt to measure rainfall, it would be preferable to use a standardized container. The design was probably based on gauges from much earlier times in China or India. King Sejong sent a rain gauge to every village, and they were used as the official tool to measure the harvest potential and determine the land taxes. This is one of the earliest documented cases of the development of an instrument designed to provide a quantitative estimate of a meteorological variable.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Korea (South)236Un-watermarked1956
Korea (South)241Watermark 3121957
Korea (South)2551957
Korea (South)255aBooklet pane of 6 (6x 255)
Korea (South)275Redrawn type1957
Korea (South)B3Watermark 312, granite paper1957Also flood relief
Korea (South)B3aImperforate SS1
Korea (South)B4Watermark 317
Korea (South)291BImperforate MS4 (291 (c-f))1959
Korea (South)3391961
Korea (South)3651962
Korea (South)P251000 won (banknote)1962
Korea (South)390Watermark 317, granite paper1963
Korea (South)365aGranite paper1964
Korea (South)P38A100 won (banknote)1965
Korea (South)5191966
Korea (South)P4210,000 won (banknote)1973
Korea (South)P4610,000 won (banknote)1979
Korea (South)P4910,000 won (banknote)1983
Korea (South)1594B1993
Korea (South)17331994
Korea (South)1973aOne of MS5 (1973 (a-e + label))2000
Korea (South)2042aOne of MS8 (2042 (4x (a-b)))2000King Sejong with Hunmin Chogun manuscript
Sierra Leone2315cOne of MS6 (2315 (a-f))2000


Cusanus

Cusanus (Nicholas of Cusa, Nicolas de Cues)
(1401 - 1464)

Cusanus was a German cardinal, philosopher and administrator with interests in mathematics, astronomy and the physical sciences. He experimented with measuring the humidity of the air by weighing a piece of wool or a sponge when it was very dry, and again when it had absorbed moisture from the air. The idea for this procedure may have come from the classical Arab natural philosophers who had studied the physical sciences.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany (East)7921958
Transkei105 (Mi159)1984
Vatican3951964500th anniv. death
Vatican396
Vatican395-396 fdcTwo stamps and cachet on FDC


Alberti

Alberti, Leon Battista
(1404 - 1472)

Alberti was an Italian early Renaissance architect, artist and writer. In 1450, he invented the first mechanical anemometer. This instrument consisted of a swinging disk hanging vertically in calm conditions. In windy conditions, the disk would swing upward due to the force exerted on it by the wind. By the angle of inclination of the disk the wind force could be calculated, and in turn the wind speed estimated. The same type of anemometer was later re-invented by Leonardo da Vinci and Robert Hooke. This type of anemometer, generally referred to as a ‘swinging plate’ or 'deflection plate' anemometer, was used operationally by some countries as late as the mid-20th Century. It has now been superseded by the more accurate rotating cup anemometer.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Italy10841972(500th anniv. death)
San Marino14972001"Maletestian Temple" by Alberti


da Vinci

da Vinci, Leonardo1
(1452 - 1519)

Da Vinci was a towering figure of Renaissance art and science. He invented the balance hygrometer some time in the period 1480-1486 (a hygrometer is a device used to measure atmospheric humidity). He also designed a deflection plate anemometer and an anemoscope (a type of wind vane). (Leon Battista Alberti was actually the first to design a deflection plate anemometer, in 1450). In da Vinci's notes for the anemometer, he mentions that one would “need a clock for ‘distance traversed per hour, with the force of the wind’ ”. With respect to his hygrometers, da Vinci made the comment that they could be modo a vedere quando si guasta il tempo (used for showing when the weather is breaking).

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
AjmanMi9951971
AjmanMi995 dsImperforate deluxe sheet
Bosnia and Herzegovina842002
CanadaNoneCancel1987"Expo Leonardo da Vinci"
Cuba37161996
Cyprus5621981Self portrait1
Cyprus562 specimenSpecimen
DjiboutiUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
Dubai1541972
Ecuador757B1966da Vinci (at left)
Ecuador757c (BL31)
i757c (BL32)
On one of MS3 (757-757B), changed colors on imperforate
France6821952(500th anniv. birth)
France682 maxiCancel on maxicard1952500th anniv. birth, and da Vinci International Congress
Gambia2842aOne of MS8 (2842 (a-h))2004
Germany (East)104 (Mi312)1952500th anniv. birth
HungaryC1091952500th anniv. birth
ItalyC281932commemorating da Vinci for the Dante Alighieri Society
ItalyC29
ItalyC30
ItalyC31
ItalyC32
ItalyC33
ItalyC34
Italy3471935
Italy348
Italy4041938
ItalyC103
ItalyC105
Italy6011952500th anniv. birth
Italy601A
Italy601B
ItalyNoneStamp on postal card1952?500th anniv. birth
ItalyNoneCancel1960Leonardo da Vinci (ship)
ItalyNoneCancel (different) and cachet on cover1960Leonardo da Vinci (ship)
Italy (Aegean)C81932
Italy (Aegean)C9
Italy (Aegean)C10
Italy (Aegean)C11
Italy (Aegean)C12
Italy (Aegean)C13
LatviaCB10a1932
LiechtensteinC241948
Macedonia240 (Mi251)2002(550th anniv. birth)
Moldova417 (BL27)MS3 (417 (a-c))2002550th anniv. birth
Monaco7381969450th anniv. birth
Monaco2247 (Mi2595)2002(550th anniv. birth)
NigerC126 (Mi251)1970
NigerC142 (Mi268)C126 overprinted1970
PolandB731952500th anniv. birth
Romania8781952500th anniv. birth
Romania878 maxi1Maxicard and cancel
Romania878 maxi2Maxicard with Mona Lisa cancel
San Marino10461983
Trieste (Italy)145Italy 601 overprinted1952500th anniv. birth
Trieste (Italy)163Italy 601A overprinted1952500th anniv. birth
Trieste (Italy)164Italy 601B overprinted
Trieste (Italy)NoneStamp on Italian-overprinted postal card1952?500th anniv. birth
Turks and Caicos6561985

1The drawing in red chalk is widely (though not universally) accepted as an original self-portrait of da Vinci. However, the subject is apparently of a greater age than Leonardo ever achieved. But it is possible that he drew this picture of himself deliberately aged, specifically for Raphael's portrait of him in The School of Athens.


Paracelsus

Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim
(1493 - 1541)

Paracelsus was a Swiss physician who studied the relationships between climate and weather and medicine. He wrote that anyone who studied winds, lightning and weather would understand what caused illness.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
AustriaNoneCachet on balloon mail cover1953
Austria15461991450th anniv. death
Austria1546 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
GermanyNoneCinderella (poster stamp)pre-WWIParacelsus and other scientists
Germany (West)B3111949
Germany18171993(500th anniv. death)
Hungary32141989
St. Thomas and Prince IslandsUnknown (new issue)One of MS4 (a-d)2008Image of Paracelsus (but text refers to Theophrastus of Lesbos)
Switzerland9281993(500th anniv. death)
United StatesSP412Souvenir panel (1685)1976(In text and picture)


Nostradamus

Nostradamus (Michel de Nostre Dame)
(1503 - 1566)

Nostradamus was a French seer and visionary. He made many predictions of future events, but their real meaning is obscure and subject to interpretation. For example, when asked about tomorrow's weather, he wrote:

In the time of moons a man will be
A ponderer of cloud and raging storm.
Not for sake of probing philosophy,
But more because the cloudy brain's the norm.

From this we can interpret that he was critical of a preoccupation with the weather, and reluctant to make weather forecasts. Nevertheless, he was beset throughout his life by requests to "divine the skies," a task that he considered beneath him. The Queen of France was especially interested in his meteorological talents and begged him nightly to provide a forecast so that she would know "what to wear on the morrow". After a few of these forecasts, he finally refused, saying, "Flay me if you will, but I will not be seduced again into using my powers to predict your rainy day! Besides, would you not rather hear of the wonderful future of mankind than all this atmospheric gloom and doom"?

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Antigua and Barbuda2630SS12002
FantippoLocal1999
Great BritainNoneCancel2003500th anniv. birth
Guinea-BissauUnknown d (new issue)
Unknown d (imperf.)
One of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2008
Guinea-BissauUnknown fdc (new issue)
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
MS6 on FDC
Monaco23032003(500th anniv. birth)
Romania4592 (Mi5751-5752)Single and label, from strip of 2 (4592 (a-b + label)),
or from MS20 (4592c (5x (a-b + label)))
2003500th anniv. birth
Romania4592a maxiMaxicard


Acosta

José de Acosta
(1540 - 1600)

Acosta was a Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist who served in South America. He studied earthquakes, volcanoes, tides, currents, magnetic declinations and meteorological phenomena. In his work Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, published in 1590, he provided an explanation of the prevailing winds in the subtropical and middle latitudes. He attributed the regular easterly winds of the subtropics (the trade winds) to the movement of the heavens about a stationary Earth. According to his idea, part of this movement, transferred to the tropics, resulted in the trade winds. Acosta also attempted to explain the westerly or southwesterly prevailing winds of the mid-latitudes as being related to ascending or descending currents in the atmosphere. This idea has in it a hint of what is now known to be the atmospheric general circulation.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Peru8621985Acosta's catechism
Peru862 fdiCancel, First Day of Issue, 862
Spain14621967
SpainNoneCancel1990


Brahe

Brahe, Tycho
(1546 - 1601)

Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer and astrologer who believed that the weather could be predicted through astronomical and astrological techniques.

As early as 1564, Brahe was working to provide an empirical basis for his astrometeorological ideas. In that year, he observed the heavens during the 12 days of Christmas to test his theory that the weather of the coming year could be forecast based on those observations. In his work De nova stella in 1573, he set his belief that the probable weather for each day could be predicted on the basis of heavenly configurations, and presented his principles for the production of astrometeorological almanacs. His theory attributed most weight to the Moon in varying the solar-controlled climate, on account of its proximity to the Earth. However, he warned readers not to expect too much from weather predictions, both because the motions and effects of the heavenly bodies had yet to be properly explored, and because the fluidity of sub-lunary matter could sometimes hasten events or delay them. He recommended that weather observations be kept so that prediction could be placed on a sounder footing in the future. In fact from 1October 1582 to 21 April 1597 he did just that: he kept a daily record of the weather in Hven, and in 1585 published, under the name of one of his students, an astrometeorological calendar for the coming year based on those observations. A few years later, in 1591, book based on his studies was published, also under the name of one of his students. It contained 399 aphorisms for weather prediction on the basis of the sky's appearance, the motions of the heavenly bodies, and the behaviour of animals (this approach is reminiscent of that of Theophrastus in his Book of Signs). Brahe's involvement in the book became clear when it was later revealed that he had composed its preface. Brahe continued to believe in astrological/astronomical weather prediction, although it become clear to others that local conditions influenced the weather much more than the heavens.

In his practical astronomical work, Brahe was aware that a star observed near the horizon appears with a greater altitude than the real one, due to atmospheric refraction, and he worked out tables for the correction of this error. He was in fact the first astronomer to make such corrections for atmospheric refraction. He also made observations of a comet and used a parallax method to show that it had to be outside the atmosphere. This conclusion went against Aristotle's idea of the immutability of the heavens.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
AjmanUnknown1971
Ascension1401971"Tycho Brahe's Observatory"
Cambodia7051986
Czechoslovakia29961996
Denmark2881942Brahe's Round Tower
DenmarkB14288 surcharged1944
DenmarkB14aBooklet pane of 10 (10x B14)
Denmark3001946
Denmark300 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Denmark5241973
Denmark10351995
Denmark1036
Denmark1035-1036 fdcTwo stamps on FDC
Grenada Grenadines7461986"Tyco Brahe's notes and sketch" of comet of 1577;
"Tycho" on this stamp is misspelled
(captions on 746 and 747 are reversed)
Grenada Grenadines747
Grenada Grenadines789746 overprinted in black1986
Grenada Grenadines790747 overprinted in silver
Nicaragua1985bOne of MS16 (1985 (a-p))1994
Sweden21491995
Sweden2150
Sweden2149-2150 fdcTwo stamps and cancel and cachet on FDC
Uganda4851986
Uganda519485 overprinted1986
Yemen Arab RepublicMi9061969
Yemen Arab RepublicMi913From imperforate MS12 (12x Mi913), Mi906 imperforate with changed colours1969


Bacon

Bacon, Francis
(1561 - 1626)

Bacon was an English natural philosopher who believed that in the scientific arena one should touch and feel and measure things for oneself. As such, he was one of the earliest exponents of the scientific method, and so helped usher in a new era for science. Bacon had an insatiable curiosity about all natural phenomena. In his Preparative toward a Natural and Experimental History (written in 1620), he presented a large number of areas ("histories") in which he wished to "examine nature herself", including the following ones related to meteorology:

Unfortunately there was just not enough time, and Bacon was not able to expound upon all these subjects. He did, however, manage to publish in 1622 his work Historia Ventorum (translated as The Natural and Experimental History of Winds).

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Brazil2689dOne of MS8 (2689 (a-h))1998(modern) portrait of Michel Leiris, by Francis Bacon
(not the Francis Bacon of interest)
Romania14431961(400th anniv. birth)
Romania1443-1444+1446 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Romania1442+1445+1447 fdcCachet on FDC
RomaniaNonePostal card (red)1962(400th anniv. birth)
RomaniaNonePostal card (blue)
Sierra Leone2254dOne of MS17 (2254 (a-q + label)) and possible text in (left) margin2000


Galileo

Galileo Galilei
(1564 - 1642)

Galileo was an Italian astronomer, mathematician, physicist and philosopher who was one of the pioneers of the modern scientific method. He believed that the laws of nature could be expressed in mathematics. This approach led Galileo to refute many of the conclusions that Aristotle had put forth in his work Meteorologica.

Galileo invented the thermoscope, a precursor to the thermometer, in around 1596. He wanted to measure hot and cold during the period he lived in Padua, Italy. His thermoscope consisted of a hollow glass bulb about the size of an egg, with a long thin glass neck open at its end. The bulb was heated with the hands, the unit was inverted and the neck opening submerged in a vessel containing water. When the hands were removed from the bulb, the water rose to a certain height in the neck above the level of the water in the vessel. This height depended on the temperature of the air: the colder the air, the higher the water would rise. There was no temperature scale on this instrument. Other inventors would later independently construct thermoscopes. The Italian inventor Santorio Santorio added a scale to his air thermoscope in about 1612.

Galileo coined the term Aurora Borealis (northern dawn) to describe the northern lights in or around 1619.

Near the end of his life, Galileo considered the problem of why water could not be pumped higher than 32 feet (10 metres) above the level of a reservoir. His student Torricelli continued this work, culminating in his invention of the mercury barometer in 1644.

See also the Galileo satellite that was launched in 1989 and sent to explorer Jupiter and its moons from 1995 to 2003 when its mission ended.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
AjmanMi9931971
AjmanMi993 dsImperforate deluxe sheet
AjmanMi993 proofsProofs
Albania22431987
AzerbaijanUnknown (new issue)SS12009
BangladeshUnknown (new issue)From MS162009"Galilean telescope, 1609"
Benin451 (Mi201)1980
Cambodia7051986Galileo, Brahe, and Kopernicus
Central Africa Republic657 (Mi1036)
i657
1984
Central Africa Republic657a (BL284)SS1 (657)
Central Africa Republic760 (Mi1164)1985
Central Africa Republic760a (BL346)SS1 (760)
Chad923a (BL326A)
i923a (BL326B)
In (lower-middle) margin of SS1 (923)2001Also Galileo entry probe and parachute (in left margin)
China (People's Republic)NonePostal card, also front2006
Comoro IslandsB4a (Mi854)One of MS8 (B4 (a-h)), also imperforate MS8 (iB4 (a-h))1988
Comoro IslandsB4a_ds (BL263)Deluxe sheet (B4a)
Comoro Islands816tOne of pair (816P), B4a surcharged1996
Czechoslovakia1231 (Mi1461)1964400th anniv. birth
Czechoslovakia1229-1231 fdcOne of three stamps and cachet on FDC
DjiboutiC2081984
DjiboutiUnknown d (new issue)
Unknown d (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
Ecuador750B1966400th anniv. birth
GabonUnknown (new issue)SS12009
Gambia798 (Mi818)1988350th anniv. publication of Galileo's "Discourses"
Gambia799 (Mi819)
Gambia800 (Mi820)
Gambia801 (Mi821)
Gambia802 (Mi822)
Gambia803 (Mi823)
Gambia804 (Mi824)
Gambia805 (Mi825)
Gambia806 (BL58, Mi826)SS1
Gambia807 (BL59, Mi827)SS1
Germany (East)2655In (upper) margin of SS11988
Great Britain (Jersey)Unknown 12009
Great Britain (Jersey)Unknown 2
Great Britain (Jersey)Unknown 3
Great Britain (Jersey)Unknown 4From MS10
GibraltarUnknown (Mi1334)From MS82009
Grenada1999b (Mi?)One of MS9 (1999 (a-i))1991
Guinea RepublicC172a (BL369A)In (right) margin of SS1 (C172)1990Also Galileo entry probe and parachute (in right margin)
Guinea RepublicUnknown2000
Guinea RepublicUnknownIn (left-centre) margin of SS12008
Guinea-BissauMi3326One of MS4 (Mi3326-3329)?
Guinea-BissauUnknownImperforate2006
Guinea-BissauUnknown b (new issue)
Unknown b (imperf.)
One of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2008
Guinea-BissauUnknown fdc (new issue)
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
MS6 on FDC
Guinea-BissauUnknown d (new issue)One of MS4 (a-d + 2 labels)2008
Guinea-BissauUnknown ss1 (new issue)SS12009
Guinea-BissauUnknown ms5MS5 + label2009
HawaiiLocal2008
Hungary15921964400th anniv. birth
HungaryUnknownTwo of MS42009
IndonesiaUnknown (new issue)From strip of 3, or from MS3, or from MS122009
Ireland1219fOne of MS12 (1219 (a-l))2000
ItalyD16 (Mi438)1933
Italy419 (Mi634)1942Galileo teaching mathematics at Padua, and (300th anniv. death)
Italy420 (Mi635)Galileo presenting telescope to the Doge of Venice, and (300th anniv. death)
Italy421 (Mi636)(300th anniv. death)
Italy422 (Mi637)Galileo studying at Arcetri, and (300th anniv. death)
ItalyD181945
Italy888 (Mi1157)1964400th anniv. birth
Italy889 (Mi1158)
Italy1558 (Mi1842)1983
Italy2048 (Mi2402)1995
ItalyP1032000 lire (banknote)1973, 1976, 1983
ItalyNoneStamped envelope1992Galileo Galilei (in text in printed stamp)
KazakhstanUnknownOne of strip of 2, or from MS102009
Korea (North)1985a (Mi2044-2045)In (lower-left) margin of MS2 (1985-1986)1980
Korea (North)3878In (lower-middle) margin of MS3 (3878 (a-c))1999Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Halley
Korea (North)3878 red missingIn (lower-middle) margin of MS3, red missing
Laos731bOne of pair (731 (a-b))1986
Lesotho5261986
LithuaniaUnknownOne of strip of 22009
LuxembourgUnknown (Mi1832)One of strip of 22009
MalawiUnknown (new issue)2008
MalawiUnknown ms (new issue)
Unknown ms (imperf.)
One of MS2 (a-b), also one of imperforate MS2 (a-b)
MalawiUnknown fdc (new issue)
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
MS2 on FDC, also imperforate MS2 on FDC
Maldive Islands1271 (Mi?)1988
Mali1034
i1034
In (right) margin of MS4 (1034 (a-d)), also imperforate MS4 (i1034 (a-d))1999
MaliUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS2 (a-b), also imperforate MS2 (a-b)2006Also Galileo satellite
MaltaUnknownFrom MS10, or from booklet pane of 5, also cover2009
MexicoC378 (Mi1337)1971
MoldovaUnknown (Mi651)
Unknown (imperf.)
One of strip of 2, also one of imperforate strip of 2, or three of booklet pane of 6, or from MS102009
MoldovaNoneCancel2009
MonacoUnknown (Mi2940)One of strip of 2, or from MS102009
New CaledoniaUnknown fdc (new issue)Cachet on FDC2009
Nicaragua1985cOne of MS16 (1985 (a-p))1994Galileo (at right); also Galileo entry probe and parachute
NigerC125 (Mi250)1970
NigerC130 (Mi256)C125 overprinted1970
Ossetia (South)Unknown (new issue)2009Also Galileo satellite
Ossetia (South)Unknown2 (new issue)(different)
PanamaC334 (Mi825)
iC334 (Mi827)
Changed colours on imperforate1964(400th anniv. birth), "balanza hydrostatica"
PanamaC334a (BL36)
iC334a (BL37)
MS2 (C333-C334), changed colours on imperforate
Paraguay8731965
Paraguay876
Paraguay876aMS2 (873 + 876)
PolandNoneStamp on postal card1972(330th anniv. death)
Romania16471964(400th anniv. birth)
RomaniaUnknownOne of strip of 2, or two of MS4, or from MS62009
Russia (USSR)2986 (Mi3006)1964(400th anniv. birth), sunspots
RwandaUnknown c (new issue)One of MS8 (a-h + label)2009
Salvador, ElUnknown (new issue)From MS202009
San Marino1030 (Mi1260)1982
San MarinoKM1615 lire (coin)1984
SharjahUnknown1972
Sierra Leone2254oOne of MS17 (2254 (a-q + label)) and possible text in (left) margin2000
St. Vincent26961999
UkraineUnknown (Mi1035)One of strip of 2, or from MS102009
United States3178 covCachet on cover1997
UruguayUnknownMS3 (a-c)2009
Vatican954 (Mi?)1994Galileo in centre of solar system
Western SaharaUnknown1 (10 value)Unrecognized and not listed in Scott catalogs1992350th anniv. death
Western SaharaUnknown2 (15 value)
Western SaharaUnknown3 (40 value)
Western SaharaUnknown4 (60 value)
Western SaharaUnknown5 (100 value)
Yemen Arab RepublicMi9071969
Yemen Arab RepublicMi914From imperforate MS12 (12x Mi914), Mi907 imperforate with changed colours1969
Yemen Mutawakelite KingdomUnknown (Mi?)1969
Yugoslavia2502cOne of booklet pane of 7 (2502 (a-g + 2 labels)), also booklet cover (Michel MH10)2000


Kepler

Kepler, Johannes
(1571 - 1630)

Kepler was a German astronomer and mathematician. In addition to his many other scientific works, he wrote one on snowflakes in 1611: A New Year's Gift, or The Six-Cornered Snowflake, in which he discussed the "reason for the six-angled shape of the snow crystals" (i.e. snowflakes) and "the forms and symmetries in nature". This work is the first known scientific reference to snowflakes and snow crystals.

Kepler believed that the weather patterns on the Earth were related to the geometrical relationships between the Earth and the planets. For example, he thought that the conjunction of Saturn and the Sun could produce cold weather. Since the positions of the Earth and the planets could be calculated in advance, then the weather could be as well. Kepler therefore made the first known long range weather forecasts, including one of a bitterly cold winter in Germany in 1593 which, it is said, turned out to be correct.

In 1593 Kepler began recording the daily weather in Graz, in the hope of clarifying the influence of the stars on the weather. He started similar observations in Prague in 1604. The Ephemerides Part II, for 1621 and 1629, contained Kepler's daily weather observations for 1617 to 1620. His calendars between 1617 and 1624 included weather predictions. He started another set of weather observations in Sagan in 1628.

See also the Kepler satellite on the astronomical/telescope satellites page. The Kepler satellite is a NASA space telescope whose mission is to discover Earth-like planets near other stars.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
AjmanBL297SS11971400th anniv. birth
AjmanMi991 dsIn (upper) margin of imperforate deluxe sheet1971400th anniv. birth
AjmanMi992
AjmanMi992 dsIn (upper) margin of imperforate deluxe sheet
AjmanMi993 ds
AjmanMi994 ds
AjmanMi995 ds
AjmanMi996 ds
AjmanMi997 ds
AjmanMi998 ds
AjmanMi12961972400th anniv. birth
AjmanMi1297
AjmanBL361SS1 (Mi1296)
AjmanBL362SS1 (Mi1297)
AjmanWeebau 713silver
AjmanWeebau 715gold
AustriaB2821953
Benin5011980(350th anniv. death)
Benin502
Benin502 proofDie proof
BeninC342Dahomey C142 overprinted and surcharged1985
BeninC348Dahomey C143 overprinted and surcharged1985
BeninC466Dahomey C142 surcharged1996
BeninC480Dahomey C143 surcharged1996
Burundi5861981350th anniv. death
Burundi588aOn one of MS3 (586-588)
Comoro Islands4101979
Comoro Islands505
i505
1980(350th anniv. death)
Comoro IslandsB4cOne of MS8 (B4 (a-h)), also imperforate MS8 (iB4 (a-h))1988
Comoro IslandsB4c_ds (BL265)Deluxe sheet (B4c)
Comoro Islands816xOne of pair (816R), B4c surcharged1996
Cook Islands5561980350th anniv. death
Cook Islands557
Cook Islands562
Cook Islands563
Cook Islands556-563 fdcFour of eight stamps and cachet on FDC
Cook Islands563aOn one of MS4 (556-557, 562-563)
CzechoslovakiaUnknownFrom MS62009
DahomeyC1421971(400th anniv. birth)
DahomeyC143
Ecuador757B1966Kepler (at right)
FujeiraUnknown1 (35d)1971400th anniv. birth
FujeiraUnknown2 (75d)
FujeiraUnknown3 (1r)
FujeiraUnknown4 (2r)
FujeiraUnknown5 (3r)
FujeiraUnknown6 (5r)
Germany (East)12751971(400th anniv. birth)
Germany (West)10721971(400th anniv. birth)
Germany (West)1072 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
GermanyUnknownFrom MS102009Kepler name
Grenada1999a (Mi?)One of MS9 (1999 (a-i))1991
Guinea Republic1262aOne of strip of 3 (1262 (a-c))1994Kepler (on left stamp of strip)
Guinea-BissauUnknown f (new issue)
Unknown f (imperf.)
One of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2008
Guinea-BissauUnknown fdc (new issue)
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
MS6 on FDC
Hungary2667Single + label1980(350th anniv. death)
Hungary2667 fdcSingle and label and cancel and cachet on FDC350th anniv. death
Korea (North)1985 (Mi2044)From MS2 (1985a (1985-1986))1980350th anniv. death
Korea (North)1986 stamp (Mi2045)
Korea (North)1986 (BL82)SS1
Korea (North)1985 proofDeluxe proof
Korea (North)1986 proof
Korea (North)3878In (lower-left) margin of MS3 (3878 (a-c))1999Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Halley
Korea (North)3878 red missingIn (lower-left) margin of MS3, red missing
Laos5801984
MaliC388
iC388
1980(350th anniv. death)
MaliC389
iC389
MexicoC3791971(400th anniv. birth)
MongoliaC145SS11980(350th anniv. death)
ParaguayC336SS11971400th anniv. birth, Kepler and Ptolemeus
ParaguayC337SS1
Paraguay24961994
PolandNoneStamp on postal card1972(400th anniv. birth, in 1971)
Romania23091971400th anniv. birth
Romania3135aOne of MS4 (3135 (a-d))1983
Romania3135a maxiMaxicard
RomaniaNoneCancel and cachet on cover2005
St. Pierre and MiquelonC561974Kepler (at centre-right)
Sierra Leone7551986
Sierra Leone815755 overprinted1986
Sierra Leone1167aMS9 (1167 (a-i))1989
Sierra Leone2254jOne of MS17 (2254 (a-q + label)) and possible text in (left) margin2000
United StatesNone(Zazzle) personalized postage2009Kepler satellite
United StatesNone(Printed) cachet on Kepler launch cover2009Also Kepler satellite
Yemen Arab RepublicMi9081969
Yemen Arab RepublicMi915From imperforate MS12 (12x Mi915), Mi908 imperforate with changed colours1969
Yemen Arab RepublicUnknown1971400th anniv. birth


Komensky

Komensky, J.A. (Comenius)
(1592 - 1670)

Komensky, also known as Comenius, was a Czechoslovakian philosopher, writer and educator. His work Opera Didactica Omnia included a discussion of weather-related topics.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Bohemia and Moravia6Czechoslovakia 215 overprinted1939
Bulgaria9971957300th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia
CzechoslovakiaP155 korun (banknote)1921
CzechoslovakiaKM4810 korun (coin)1957(300th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia)
Czechoslovakia2151936
Czechoslovakia215 maxiMaxicard
Czechoslovakia5091952(360th anniv. birth)
Czechoslovakia510
Czechoslovakia683 (Mi892)1955Komensky University, Bratislava
Czechoslovakia684 (Mi893)Komensky medallion
Czechoslovakia7911957300th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia
Czechoslovakia792
Czechoslovakia793
Czechoslovakia793 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
Czechoslovakia793aMS4 (4x 793)
Czechoslovakia7941957(300th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia)
Czechoslovakia794 proofDie proof
Czechoslovakia1610196950th anniv. Komensky University, Bratislava
Czechoslovakia16731970300th anniv. death
Czechoslovakia1673 fdcStamp and cancel on FDC
CzechoslovakiaP9520 korun (banknote)1988
Czechoslovakia2852SS11992400th anniv. birth
Czechoslovakia2852 blackSS1 blackprint
Czechoslovakia31402001
Czechoslovakia3140 fdcFDC
Czechoslovakia3140 scSouvenir card
CzechoslovakiaUnknown2007350th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia
Czech RepublicP6200 korun (banknote)1993
Czech RepublicP13200 korun (banknote)1996
Czech RepublicP19200 korun (banknote)1998
Germany (West)10501970(300th anniv. death)
Germany (West)1050 fdc1Stamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
Germany (West)1050 fdc2Stamp and cancel and cachet (different) on FDC
Germany (West)1050 fdc3Stamp and cancel and cachet (different) on FDC300th anniv. death
Germany (East)3971958
Germany (East)3981958
Poland794 (Mi1041)1957(300th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia)
Poland794 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC1957300th anniv. publication Opera Didactica Omnia
PolandNoneCancel on postcard, also back1970300th anniv. death
Poland794 coverCancel and cachet on cover1992400th anniv. birth
PolandNonePostcard1997
Romania12241958
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope1971300th anniv. death
Russia (USSR)20591958
Slovakia7Czechoslovakia 215 overprinted1939
SlovakiaP15200 korun (banknote, Czechoslovakia P95
with affixed adhesive stamp)
1993
United StatesNoneCinderella (fundraising and publicity stamp,
Mosbaugh # 7.2230.01)
1902Komensky (at left)
United StatesNoneCinderella1970300th anniv. death


Descartes

Descartes, René
(1596 - 1650)

Descartes was a French philosopher ("Cogito, ergo sum") and mathematician. In around 1631 he described an experiment to determine the atmospheric pressure, but did not build an apparatus to carry out the experiment. In Les Météores ("Meteorology", an essay published in his book Discours de la Méthode in 1637), he hypothesized that water vapour was a distinct substance in the air, composed of minute particles separated by a highly rarefied 'subtle matter'. In 1647, Descartes proposed that, in order to quantify the readings, a scale be attached to barometers of the type invented a few years previously by Torricelli. In that year, in letter to Marin Mersenne, he wrote:

"But, so that we may also know if changes of weather and of location make any difference to it, I am sending you a paper scale two and a half feet long, in which the third and fourth inches above two feet are divided into lines; and I am keeping an exactly similar one here, so that we may see whether our observations agree".

In this way, Descartes contributed to the development of the barometer.

Descartes was the first to separate white light into its component colours as it moved from one medium such as air to another such as glass. In Les Météores he discussed this refraction of light through his description of an experiment in which he found that the separated colours were arranged such that red always appeared at one side, and the blue or violet at the other. He used a ray tracing technique to explain the formation and structure of the rainbow. Newton would later add a theoretical explanation for the arrangement of the colours of the rainbow.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Albania25161996(400th anniv. birth), also Latin name incorrectly spelled "Cartesins" rather than Cartesius
France3301937"Discours sur la Méthode"
France331
FranceKM996100 francs (coin)1991
FranceNoneCancel1992
FranceNoneCancel1995400th anniv. birth
FranceNoneCancel1996(400th anniv. birth)
FranceNoneMedallion1996(400th anniv. birth)
France25121996(400th anniv. birth)
France2512 fdc1Stamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
France2512 fdc2Stamp and cancel and cachet (different) on FDC
France2512 folderFDC-folder
Grenada2932kOne of MS17 (2932 (a-q + label))2000350th anniv. death
Monaco20151996(400th anniv. birth)
Monaco2015 proofColour proof
Monaco2015 maxiMaxicard
Sierra Leone2254nOne of MS17 (2254 (a-q + label)) and possible text in (left) margin2000(350th anniv. death)


von Guericke

von Guericke, Otto
(1602 - 1686)

Von Guericke was a German inventor, scientist and politician. Inspired by the work of Torricelli and Galileo, he proposed that air has weight and therefore must exert a pressure, and that both could be measured. To this end, he constructed a water barometer at about the same time and probably independently of Torricelli's invention of the mercury barometer in 1644. Outside his house, von Guericke erected a brass tube about 10 metres (35 feet) high with a transparent, sealed and evacuated glass portion at the top. This was his water barometer. At the top of the water inside the tube floated a small wooden mannequin which in fine weather rose with the water level due to rising atmospheric pressure to become visible through the glass. Conversely, in low pressure and bad weather it sank out of sight. Von Guericke attempted to make weather forecasts based on the information from his barometer.

While he was the mayor of Magdeburg (1646 - 1676), von Guericke continued to investigate air pressure and the properties of a vacuum. He invented a vacuum pump, and constructed what came to be known as Magdeburg hemispheres (two hollow copper hemispheres, each 51 cm in diameter, that could be held together to form a hollow sphere). In Magdeburg in 1654, he demonstrated that if the sphere composed of the two hemispheres were evacuated, then the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere would hold them together so strongly that teams of horses could not pull them apart. The demonstration was repeated in Berlin in 1663.

Von Guericke also experimented with the production of artificial clouds by releasing air from one flask into another from which the air had been evacuated. A fog then formed in the first flask, due to condensation related to the falling pressure in that flask. He concluded that air can not be turned into water, though moisture can enter the air and later be condensed back into liquid water. This line of reasoning followed from Descartes who had proposed in 1637 in his Discours de la Méthode that water vapour was a distinct substance in the air.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany4721936(250th anniv. death)
GermanyNoneMeter1994
Germany21812002(400th anniv. birth), and Magdeburg hemispheres
GermanyNoneCancel2002(400th anniv. birth), and Magdeburg hemispheres
GermanyNoneMeter2003von Guericke University, Magdeburg
Germany (East)11461969Statue of von Guericke in Magdeburg
Germany (East)B1541969von Guericke and Magdeburg hemispheres
Germany (East)17931977von Guericke and Magdeburg hemispheres
Germany (East)NoneCachet on card1989


Torricelli

Torricelli, Evangelista
(1608 - 1647)

Torricelli was an Italian mathematician. He was Galileo's most promising pupil, and succeeded him as professor of mathematics at Florence. His work Lezioni Accademiche (Florence, 1715), published nearly seventy years after his death, contains his lectures dealing with problems of mechanics, physics, meteorology and military architecture. The lectures on forces of impact and on the wind are of particular interest. In the former, he said that he was reporting ideas expressed by Galileo in their informal conversations. In the latter, Torricelli advanced the modern theory that winds are produced by differences of air temperature.

Near the end of his life, Galileo had considered the problem of why no pump, no matter how carefully contrived, was able to draw water from a well to a height of more than about 10 metres (33 feet) above the water level. Torricelli continued to work on this question. To this end, he and his student Vincenzo Viviani constructed a water barometer in 1643, but it was an inconvenient apparatus, requiring a very long (approximately 18 metres / 60 feet) and clumsy glass tube. By substituting mercury, which at room temperature is a liquid and about 14 times denser than water, Torricelli was able to reduce the length of the barometer tube to around 90 cm (35"). His instrument consisted of a long-necked glass tube with a closed bulbous end. The tube was filled with mercury and then inverted into a basin also filled with mercury. Rather than running completely out of the tube, the height of the mercury column fell to a level of about 76 cm (30") and then remained fairly steady, fluctuating by only a few per cent. We now know that these fluctuations were due partly to changes in temperature and partly to changes in atmospheric pressure above the instrument.

Torricelli was convinced by these results that the air above the barometer must have weight, and therefore must exert pressure, and that it was this pressure that was forcing the mercury to rise in the barometer tube. He also believed that the space above the mercury created by its descent from the bulb at the top of the tube must be a true vacuum.

Torricelli is generally credited with inventing the mercury barometer in 1644. However, his barometer had no scale, and so was useful for qualitative rather than quantitative measurements. René Descartes added a scale to the pressure tube barometer in 1647. It must also be noted that other people were working with similar concepts at about the same time. For example, the German Otto von Guericke, probably independently, invented a water barometer at about the same time that Torricelli was developing his own barometer.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
ItalyNoneCinderella (poster stamp)1908300th anniv. birth
Italy754 (Mi1020)1958(350th anniv. birth), also mercury barometer
Italy754 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Russia (USSR)2165 (Mi2194)1958(350th anniv. birth), also small barometer
San Marino1043 (Mi1273)1983Also mercury barometer
San Marino1043 maxiMaxicard


Pascal

Pascal, Blaise
(1623 - 1662)

Pascal was a French scientist, mathematician and philosopher. One of his early interests was the study of fluids. This led him to design an experiment using a barometer like the one invented by Torricelli in 1644. In this experiment, carried out in 1648, the level of mercury in a barometer equipped with a scale was measured at the base of Puy-de-Dôme, and again at the top, some 1000 metres (3300 feet) higher (Descartes had attached the first such scale to Torricelli's barometer in 1647). The account of Pierre Florin, who carried out the experiment, records that the "quicksilver" reached a height of 26 inches plus 3 ½ lines at the base of the hill, compared to only 23 inches plus 2 lines at the top. This meant that the pressure exerted by the atmosphere decreased with height, consistent with the idea that the pressure was due to the weight of the atmosphere in the column above the barometer. Pascal later repeated the experiment in Paris, where he measured the pressure difference between the base and the top of a church bell tower.

To honour his scientific work with atmospheric pressure, Pascal's name was given to the SI (International System of Units) unit of pressure. One pascal is equal to one newton per square metre. Modern meteorologists often refer to atmospheric pressure in hPa (hectopascals). A typical sea-level pressure would be around 1000 hPa. See the SI-metric unit names page for other persons after whom metric units were named.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Cambodia2057In (upper-right) corner2001(Picture only)
Central Africa Republic1359 (Mi2573)2000
Central Africa Republic1359a (BL649)SS1 (1359)
FranceB181 (Mi626)1944
France1038 (Mi1398)1962(300th anniv. death)
France1038 fdc1Stamp and cancel on FDC
France1038 fdc2Stamp and cancel (different) and cachet on FDC
France1038 maxiMaxicard
Monaco875 (Mi1080)1973350th anniv. birth
Monaco875 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Monaco875 maxiMaxicard


Cassini

Cassini, Giovanni
(1625 - 1712)

Giovanni Cassini was an Italian astronomer who spent much of his professional life in France. He knew that atmospheric refraction affected astronomical observations, and proposed a model to explain the refraction (though it later turned out to be incorrect). In 1683, with his colleague N. Fatio, he published a study that demonstrated that the phenomenon of zodiacal light has an astronomical rather than a meteorological source.

Cassini was also an expert in hydraulics and river management, and studied the flooding of the river Po.

The scientific satellite Cassini-Huygens, named after Cassini and astronomer Christian Huygens, was launched in 1997 and flew past Jupiter in 2000 on its way to Saturn. It provided the best images ever obtained of Jupiter, in which the planet's atmospheric circulation patterns are clearly seen.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Grenada2932oOne of MS17 (2932 (a-q + label))2000
Guinea RepublicUnknown (BL1483)SS12007Also Cassini satellite
Guinea RepublicUnknown1 fdcSS1 and cachet on FDC
Guinea RepublicUnknown (BL1485)SS1 (different)
Guinea RepublicUnknown2 fdcSS1 and cachet on FDC
Guinea RepublicUnknown aFrom MS6 (a-f)
Guinea RepublicUnknown c
Guinea RepublicUnknown d
Guinea RepublicUnknown f
MaliUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS2 (a-b), also imperforate MS2 (a-b)2006Also Cassini satellite
MozambiqueUnknown b
Unknown b (imperf.)
One of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2001
MozambiqueUnknown ssImpeforate SS1
St. Pierre and Miquelon3781968Incorrect first initial J, rather than G


Boyle

Boyle, Robert
(1627 - 1691)

Boyle was an Irish-born inventor and scientist who spent much of his life in England. He may have brought a Torricelli type of mercury barometer back to England after his studies in the Continent, and was one of the first to see the potential of the instrument for studying properities of the air. He built his own mercury barometers, and appears to have been the first to use the term 'barometer'. With Robert Hooke, he studied the physics of gases. After reading of Otto von Guericke's work with air pumps, Boyle and Hooke built an improved version, which Boyle used starting in 1659 to conduct a series of experiments on the properties of air. He published an account of this work, New Experiments: Physico-Mechanical Touching the Spring of Air and its Effects, in 1660. Boyle supervised the construction of the first sealed thermometer to be made in England, and his experiments with it were described in 1665 in his paper New experiments and observations touching cold, or an experimental history of cold.

Boyle is best known for his formulation around 1670 of a gas law generally referred to as Boyle's Law. It states that at constant temperature, the volume of an ideal gas is inversely proportional to the pressure. The real atmosphere, to a good approximation, follows this law. (In Europe, it is often attributed to E. Marriotte, who published it in 1676).

In the years before Boyle's death in 1691, John Locke was engaged in editing the manuscript of Boyle's General History of the Air. This pioneering meteorological work included Locke's weather observations for the period 1666 through 1683 as well as those of several other observers. The book was published posthumously early in 1693.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Grenada15371987"Boyle's Law: pressure and volume"
Ireland4921981


Huygens

Huygens, Christian
(1629 - 1695)

Huygens was a Dutch astronomer. His scientific bent led him to the conclusion that temperature measurements with thermometers would be useful only if they were made using a defined scale. (The first sealed liquid-in-glass thermometer was built in about 1654 by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II. Santorio Santorio used a scale with his air thermoscope as early as 1612). Huygens proposed in 1665 a thermometer scale in which there would be two fixed points: the freezing and boiling points of water. The modern Celsius temperature scale can be traced back to this proposal. However, for many years after Huygens' time there was no agreement on a common scale, since several different ones were proposed, and used to different degrees (for more information, see the entries for Newton, Fahrenheit, Roemer, Celsius and Kelvin; no philatelic items for Ferdinand II and Santorio are known).

The scientific satellite Cassini-Huygens, named after Huygens and astronomer Giovanni Cassini, was launched in 1997, with the goal of studying Jupiter and Saturn. It arrived near Saturn in 2004, only a few months after Huygens' 375th birth anniversary, and its detachable probe (the part of the satellite that bore the name "Huygens") was launched into the atmosphere of Titan to make measurements there.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Comoro Islands4121979(350th anniv. birth)
DjiboutiUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
Grenada2932hOne of MS17 (2932 (a-q + label))2000
Guinea RepublicUnknown (BL1484)SS12007Also Huygens probe
Guinea RepublicUnknown fdcSS1 and cachet on FDC
Guinea RepublicUnknown b (new issue)From MS6 (a-f)
Guinea RepublicUnknown e (new issue)
MaliUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS2 (a-b), also imperforate MS2 (a-b)2006Also Huygens probe
NetherlandsB361928(300th anniv. birth)
NetherlandsP8725 guilders (banknote)1955
NetherlandsB3651962Huygens' pendulum clock
Netherlands7311988Huygens and Newton (in text)
NetherlandsUnknown (new issue)2009Huygen's lens
St. Thomas and Prince IslandUnknown c (new issue)One of MS6 (a-f)2008


Locke

Locke, John
(1632 - 1704)

Locke was an English physician and philosopher. He was a friend of Robert Boyle, who urged him to keep a weather diary or weather journal following a trend that originated in the Royal Society in the 1660s. Robert Hooke also encouraged this type of activity and published a comprehensive set of instructions for making weather observations in his paper 'A Method for Making a History of the Weather'. It was presented to the Royal Society in around 1663. Locke started his own weather journal in 1666 and continued to fill it out, though with some gaps, until 1703. He generally approached the activity with enthusiasm, since he believed that the regular collection of meteorological data would contribute to the understanding of weather patterns. For example, during the first 6 months of his residency in Oxford, he managed to record almost every day at least two readings of his thermometer, barometer and wind gauge. Boyle cited some of Locke's data in the article in which he coined the term 'barometer'.

In the years before Boyle's death in 1691, Locke was engaged in editing the manuscript of Boyle's General History of the Air. This pioneering meteorological work included Locke's weather observations for the period 1666 through 1683 as well as those of several other observers. The book was published posthumously early in 1693.

While living in Essex, Locke continued to read his instruments and record the observations at least once a day from 1691 to 1703.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
United StatesNoneCancel (black and round)late 1800sLocke NY (named after Locke)
United StatesNoneCancel (red and oval)late 1800sLocke NY (named after Locke)
United StatesNoneCancel on cover1894Locke Mills ME (named after Locke)


Wren

Wren, Christopher
(1632 - 1723)

Wren was an English mathematician, astronomer and architect who had a wide variety of scientific interests, including meteorology. While studying at Oxford in around 1650, he produced preliminary designs for a rain gauge and an automatic weather observing station. In the 1660s and 1670s he experimented with a swinging plate anemometer of the type invented by Alberti in 1450; an instrument to measure humidity; "weather glasses" (small open water barometers); and Torricelli type mercury barometers. In the early 1660s, probably in collaboration with Robert Hooke, he also constructed a tipping bucket rain gauge for recording rainfall amounts. This was the earliest English rain gauge, and the first recording rain gauge ever constructed. Benedetto Castelli had devised the first (non-recording) European rain gauge in Italy in 1639, and earlier rain gauges date from the mid-14th century in Korea, in the reign of King Sejong, and from much earlier still in China and India.

Wren continued to refine his idea of an apparatus that he called a "weather clock" that would automatically record the weather, and in December 1663 described his concept to the Royal Society in a paper entitled Description of a weather clock. Hooke immediately siezed upon the idea and proposed some improvements. The two continued to work together on the design, culminating in the first working model, known as the "weather wiser", constructed by Hooke in 1669. It is interesting to note that Wren's idea of automatic weather recording skipped entirely the idea that human observers might act to regularly observe and record the weather.

Wren realized that weather observations could potentially be used to predict the weather, and in 1679 presented to the Royal Society a possible method for doing this.

Wren also saw a relationship between medicine and meteorology through the idea that there were certain "epidemic seasons" that could be identified. This is reminsicent of the ideas of Galen and Hippocrates who believed that certain climate and environmental conditions were one cause of diseases.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Great BritainNoneMedallion, also reverse1846Wren, by Art Union of London
Great BritainNoneCancel1973(250th anniv. death), and Christopher Wren school
Great BritainP38150 pounds (banknote), also back1981-1993
Great Britain1006-1010 fdcCancel and cachet on FDC1982350th anniv. birth
Great BritainNoneCinderella on cover2006
Great BritainUnknown (new issue)In (left and upper) margins of MS4 (?-?)2008"Christopher Wren" (image and in text)
Great BritainNoneCancel2008
United StatesNonePostal card1993"Wren building"
United StatesUX167Postal card1993Wren building
United StatesUX167 fdc1Stamp on postal card FDC
United StatesUX167 fdc2Stamp and cachet on postal card FDC
United StatesUX167 fdc3Stamp and cachet (different) on postal card FDC


Hooke

Hooke, Robert
(1635 - 1703)

Hooke was an English experimental scientist and instrument maker. He worked in a wide variety of areas, including meteorology. Early in his career, Hooke collaborated with Robert Boyle in studies of the properties of gases and in experiments with barometers. Hooke was the first to observe sunspots through the use of the helioscope he designed for studying the sun. He conducted experiments to weigh air and water vapour in 1663-4 and reported on them in his paper Account of experiments concerning the weight of the air & proportion of the weight of air to that of water. He considered the need for scales for thermometers to obtain consistent temperature values. To this end, he proposed that the freezing point of water would serve well for the zero point, but seems not to have considered the need for a second fixed point. Newton and others would later add a second fixed point to their temperature scales.

Starting in 1662, Hooke worked during 40 years as the curator of experiments for the Royal Society of London. In the 1660s and 1670s, he invented or improved upon several meteorological instruments. Much of this work was done in collaboration with his friend Christopher Wren.

Hooke developed the 'wheel barometer', which was a Torricelli type mercury barometer with a mechanical linkage designed by Hooke to magnify small changes in the level of the mercury. These changes were displayed through the motion of a dial on the 'wheel'. This type of barometer was common long after Hooke's time. The weather-related legends such as "fair", "unsettled" and "rain" that were eventually added to the wheel have survived to this day.

Hooke refined the swinging-plate anemometer of the type invented by Alberti in 1450. This design was the most commonly-used anemometer for some 200 years after Hooke's time, and later versions were used through the mid-20th Century in the USSR and Soviet bloc countries. Furthermore, in The posthumous works of Robert Hooke, M.D.S.R.S. Containing his Cutlerian Lecture and other discourses (edited by R. Waller, published by Sam Smith and Beni Walford, London, 1705) it is noted that on 14 November 1683 "Mr Hooke shew'd an instrument to measure the velocity of the air or wind and find the strength thereof which was by four vanes put upon an axis and made very light and easy for motion; and the vanes so contrived as that they could be set to what slope should be desired". Clearly, Hooke was close to the idea of the modern four cup anemometer, which was finally developed only in 1846 by Dr. John Robinson

Hooke constructed the first practical hygrometer for humidity measurements, based on his observation that the hairs from a goat's beard would bend when dry and straighten out when wet.

In 1663 Hooke presented to the Royal Society a paper entitled A method for making the history of the weather. It contained a comprehensive set of instructions for making weather observations, and also Hooke's recommendation that a national or international network of stations be established for the purpose of making weather observations to a common standard with calibrated instruments. These were yet more ideas that were far ahead of his time: the earliest networks of stations performing regular weather observations were set up in some European countries in approximately the mid-1850s.

In around 1669, Hooke presented to the Royal Society a working version of Wren's weather clock, known as the "weather wiser". Wren had presented his design to the Society in 1663, and Hooke had promptly improved upon it. Hooke and Wren continued to develop the apparatus together, though Hooke did the actual construction. The weather wiser incorporated Wren's tipping bucket rain gauge, and used trip hammers to mark the paper on a rotating drum with continuous measurements of pressure, temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind speed and wind direction. This was in fact the world's first automatic weather observing station. As a complicated mechanical apparatus, it was probably in need of constant repairs, but the concept of such a device as well as its construction was certainly revolutionary and far ahead of the times.

Hooke was also interested in practical aspects of the weather, and argued that hurricanes, storms, mists and fogs were all effects associated with 'denser air'. He also made detailed drawings of snowflakes and hailstones.

Hooke realised that if daily meteorological readings were tabulated, it might then be possible to use them to forecast the weather, especially if the readings were available from a number of stations in a network. His friend and colleague Wren presented a possible method for doing this to the Royal Society in 1679.

For all his meteorological work, and particularly for his development of meteorological instrumentation and his prescient recommendation that regular weather observations should be made to common standards in a network of observing stations, Hooke has been called the 'father of scientific meteorology'.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
DjiboutiUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
Grenada2932iOne of MS17 (2932 (a-q + label))2000Hooke identifies cells


Newton

Newton, Isaac
(16421 - 1727)

Newton was an English physicist and mathematician who made many important scientific discoveries. In the area of temperature measurement, he considered how thermometers could provide standard, reproducible values, and adopted Huygens' idea of a temperature scale defined by two fixed values. Huygens had suggested the freezing and boiling points of water as the two reference values. Newton kept the freezing point as his lower fixed value, but suggested that the upper reference be equal to the human body temperature. He then divided the range between the two reference values into 12 equal segments (so the body temperature would be equal to 12 degrees on this scale). Newton extrapolated the scale to warmer temperatures and found that its value for the boiling point of water would be about 33 degrees. He put forth these ideas in around 1701. Roemer and Fahrenheit would later build on this approach. It is interesting to note that Newton's scale corresponds closely to the modern Celsius temperature scale in the following way: if we multiply Newton's reference values by 3, then we retain 0° (3 X 0) for the freezing point of water (0°C), and obtain 36° (3 X 12) for the normal human body temperature (actually 37°C) and 99° (3 X 33) for the boiling point of water (actually 100°C).

Newton studied the properties of light, and confirmed Descartes' observation that white light would be separated into its constituent colours through the process of refraction. He then developed a theory to explain the colours, and showed in his work Opticks, published in 1704, that his theory explained the arrangement of colours observed in a rainbow.

To honour his scientific work, Newton's name was given to the SI (International System of Units) unit of force. One newton is equal to one kilogram metre per second squared. See the SI-metric unit names page for other persons after whom metric units were named.

See also the X-ray Multi-mirror Mission (XMM) / Newton astronomy satellite that was launched in 1999.

1Isaac Newton was born on 25 December 1642 on the Julian Calendar. On the Gregorian Calendar, Newton's birth occurred 4 January 1643.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
AjmanMi9941971
AjmanMi994 dsImperforate deluxe sheet
Ajman StateNone
None (imperf.)
Label from MS8 + 8 labels, also imperforate MS8 + 8 labels1972
Ascension1421971
Ascension142aBooklet pane of 4 (4x 142)
Ascension3851986"Newton's reflector telescope"
BeninC2761977250th anniv. death
Benin12261999"Isaac Newton" locomotive
Bulgaria37931993(350th anniv. birth)
Burundi759SS12000
Central Africa Republic780 (Mi1188)1985"Newton" telescope
Central Africa Republic780a (BL359)SS1 (780)
Central Africa Republic781 (Mi1189)Newton and Halley
Central Africa Republic781a (BL360)SS1 (781)
Chad440B (BL151)Gold foil SS11983
Chad806gOne of MS9 (806 (a-i))1999
Congo (People's Republic, Brazzaville)C238 (Mi588)1977(250th anniv. death)
Congo RepublicMi1693One of MS6 (Mi1691-1696)2000
De La Rue (PLC)None"1" (test banknote), also back?
DjiboutiUnknown d (new issue)
Unknown d (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
DubaiC571971
Fiji5511986"Newton's reflector" telescope
France8611957
Germany17711993(350th anniv. birth)
Germany1771 blackprintBlackprint
Germany1771 hologramHologram
Germany1771 fdcStamp and cancel on FDC350th anniv. birth
Ghana1031
i1031
1987Wedgewood memorial to Newton
Ghana11301031 overprinted1989Wedgewood memorial to Newton
Ghana1130a
i1130a
1031 overprinted with comet logo
GibraltarUnknown (new issue)From MS82009
Great BritainNoneHalfpenny (trade token), also reverse1793
Great BritainNoneMedallion, also reverse~1970
Great BritainP137a1 pound (banknote)1978—1982
Great BritainP137b1 pound (banknote), also back1982—1984Isaac Newton
Great Britain11721987
Great Britain1172 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Great Britain1173
Great Britain1174
Great Britain1175
Great Britain18701999
Great Britain1870aMS4 (4x 1870)
Grenada15351987
GrenadaB141989Newton's Principia
Grenada2932dFrom MS17 (2932 (a-q + label))2000
Grenada2932p
Grenada Grenadines9091987
Guinea Republic987a (BL216)In (lower-right) margin of SS1 (987)1986"Newton", and "Telescope de Newton"
Guinea Republic988 (Mi1110A)
i988 (Mi1110B)
1986Halley and Newton
Guinea Republic988a (BL217)SS1 (988)
Guinea Republic989b (Mi1106-1111)One of MS6 (984-989)1986
Guinea Republic1262cOne of strip of 3 (1262 (a-c))1994
Guinea RepublicUnknown3 (BL1484)SS12007"Télescope de Isaac Newton" (in text in stamp); also Christian Huygens
Guinea RepublicUnknown3 fdcSS1 on FDC
Guinea-BissauUnknown2003
Guinea-BissauUnknown
Unknown (imperf.)
SS1 (stamp)
Guinea-BissauUnknown e (new issue)
Unknown e (imperf.)
One of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2008
Guinea-BissauUnknown fdc (new issue)
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
MS6 on FDC
Hungary2485Single + label, from MS4 (2485a (4x 2485 + 4 labels))1977(250th anniv. death)
India7671977Newton (in text)
Korea (North)2134Stamp-on-stamp: France 8611981
Korea (North)32651993(350th anniv. birth)
Korea (North)3266
Korea (North)3267
Korea (North)3268
Korea (North)3269
Korea (North)3265-3269 proofsDeluxe proofs
Korea (North)3265aMS3 (3265-3266+3269)
Korea (North)3265bMS3 (3265+3267-3268)
Korea (North)3878In (lower-middle) margin of MS3 (3878 (a-c))1999Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Halley
Korea (North)3878 red missingIn (lower-middle) margin of MS3, red missing
Laos5811984
Lesotho5781987
Malagasy Republic1100bOne of MS16 (1100 (a-p))1993(350th anniv. birth)
MalawiUnknown a (new issue)One of MS2 (a-b)2008
Maldive Islands12681988
MaliC3011977(250th anniv. death)
MaliC301 dsImperforate deluxe sheet
MaliUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS2 (a-b)2006
MaliUnknown (new issue)SS12009
Mauritius6261986"Newton's contemporary reflector" telescope
MexicoC3771971
Monaco16011987Newton's theory of gravity
Mongolia951aFrom MS9 (951 (a-i))1977(250th anniv. death)
Mongolia951b
Mongolia951c
Mongolia951d
Mongolia951e
Mongolia951f
Mongolia951g
Mongolia951h
Mongolia951i
MongoliaKM182500 tugrik (coin)1999
Mongolia2504hOne of MS20 (2504 (a-t))2001
MozambiqueUnknown aOne of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2001
Nagaland (India)Local1972"Newton's" telescope
Netherlands7311988Newton's prism
Nevis1185oOne of MS17 (1185 (a-q + label)); also detail in (left) margin2000
Nicaragua878
878 back
1971Newton's Law (of gravity)
Nicaragua14891985"Telescopio de Newton"
Nicaragua1985dOne of MS16 (1985 (a-p))1994
NigerC124 (Mi249)1970
NigerC124 proofDie proof
NigerC141 (Mi267)C124 overprinted1970
Paraguay871
i871
Changed colours on imperforate1965
Paraguay874
i874
Changed colours on imperforate
Poland884 (Mi1136)1959
PolandNoneStamp on postal card1972(330th anniv. birth, in 1973)
Redonda (Antigua)87371987
RomaniaNoneCachet on cover2003
Russia (USSR)5601 (Mi5758)Single + label1987
RwandaUnknown1999
St. Pierre and MiquelonC561974
St. Vincent26991999
San Marino10231982
Sierra Leone2254hOne of MS17 (2254 (a-q + label))2000
South Africa995a
955e
In (surrounding) margin of MS10 (955 (a-j))1996
Togo1365SS1 (stamp)1986Halley and Newton
Togo1409SS1, 1365 overprinted in silver1986Halley and Newton
TuvaluKM1720 dollars (coin), also obverse1993
Uganda5661987
Uruguay16291996
Viet Nam16001986
Yemen Arab RepublicMi909
iMi909
1969
Yemen Arab RepublicMi916From imperforate MS12 (12x Mi916), Mi909 imperforate with changed colours1969
Yemen Mutawakelite KingdomMi8631969
Yemen Mutawakelite KingdomiMi863 opImperforate Mi863 overprinted in red1972


Roemer

Roemer, Olaus (Rømer, Ole)
(1644 - 1710)

Roemer was a Danish astronomer. In the early 1690s, he began to measure and record the air temperature to account for its effects on his astronomical work, and starting in 1702 he constructed his own spirit (alcohol) thermometers. He also devised a temperature scale to use with them, in which the freezing point of water was 7.5 degrees and its boiling point was 60 degrees. In this scale, 0°Rø would have been equal to the modern -22.5°C. This is in qualitative agreement with Roemer's measurements made with his scale during the very cold winter of 1709.

In 1708 Daniel Fahrenheit, a young scientist eager to learn about Roemer's work, visited him in Copenhagen. Roemer showed him a modified scale, with the upper fixed point of 22.5°Rø being the human body temperature (which he supposed constant), while the lower fixed point of 7.5°Rø was unchanged from his earlier work. Newton in 1701 had used the same two fixed points in his suggested temperature scale. Fahrenheit would later modify Roemer's scale. Still later modifications after Fahrenheit's death led to the temperature scale still used in the U.S., which can therefore be traced back to Roemer.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Denmark2931944300th anniv. birth
DenmarkP4550 kroner (banknote)1970
Grenada2932qOne of MS17 (2932 (a-q + label))2000
MaliUnknown a (new issue)
Unknown a (imperf.)
One of MS2 (a-b), also imperforate MS2 (a-b)2006


Leibniz

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
(1646 - 1716)

Leibniz was a German mathematician. In a letter written in 1702 to Jacob Bernoulli (whose uncle Daniel Bernoulli did pioneering work in fluid dynamics), Leibniz was the first to propose how a non-liquid aneroid barometer would work: he suggested that an aneroid barometer would use "a small closed bellows which would be compressed and dilated by itself as the weight of the air increases or decreases". He first thought that the bellows should be made of leather, but later suggested using metal instead. However, he could find no one who could manufacture the apparatus, and never did construct a prototype himself. (Lucien Vidie built the first working aneroid barometer in France around 1844, but no philatelic items are known that mention him.)

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Albania25151996(350th anniv. birth)
Germany3601926
Germany (West)9621966(250th anniv. death)
Germany (West)962 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
Germany (West)13291980
Germany19331996(350th anniv. birth)
Germany (East)661950
MaliUnknown (new issue)SS12009Leibniz (in text)
Romania18551966(250th anniv. death)
St. Vincent15571991


Halley

Halley, Edmund
(1656 - 1742)

Halley was an English astronomer who studied comets and for whom Halley's Comet was named. His many other scientific interests included meteorology and the Earth's magnetism.

As early as 1678 Halley attempted to describe the general circulation of the air, with emphasis on the trade winds and the monsoons, and to relate them to differential solar heating over the Earth. Modern ideas of how the distribution of solar heating controls the atmospheric general circulation can therefore be traced back to Halley.

In 1686, Halley established for the first time a mathematical relationship between barometric pressure and height above sea level.

Also in 1686 he drew what is considered to be the first meteorological chart. It was a map of a large part of the world showing the trade winds and the monsoon winds in a way that, as he explained, "may be better understood than by any verbal description whatsoever" (An Historical Account of the Trade Winds, and Monsoons, Observable in the Seas Between and Near the Tropicks; With an Attempt to Assign the Phisical Cause of Said Winds, Philosophical Transactions, 183(1686), pp. 153-168). In his chart, the winds were symbolized by "the sharp end of each little stroak pointing out that part of the Horizon whence the wind continually comes; and where there are Monsoons the rows of stroaks run alternately backwards and forwards, by which means they are thicker [i.e. denser] than elsewhere".

Halley conducted some experiments to measure evaporation at the headquarters of the Royal Society of London, and used those measurements along with his estimates of the flow of the Thames to estimate the flow of rivers into the Mediterranean and the evaporation from the Mediterranean. This is a very early example of a scientific hydrological study.

In 1700 Halley realized that values of magnetic declination could be displayed as contour lines on a map, and produced the first such map over the area stretching from Europe and Africa westward to the Americas. He was also interested in the aurora, and in 1716 suggested that "the aurorae are caused by 'magnetic effluvia' moving along the Earth's magnetic field lines". In other words, he postulated that auroral curtains are aligned with projections of the Earth's magnetic field into the upper atmosphere (An Account of the late Surprising Appearance of the Lights seen in the Air, on the sixth of March last: with an Attempt to explain the Principal Phaenomena thereof, Philosophical Transactions (1683-1775), 29(1714-1716), pp. 406-428).

Halley's Comet items have been excluded from the table below, unless they specifically show Edmund Halley. Many of those Halley's Comet items are available on the Giotto, Planet, and Vega satellite pages.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Aitutaki390 labelOn label of MS3 (390 (a-c + label))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Ascension3861986
Australia982 fdcCancel on FDC1986Return of Halley's Comet
Australia982 maxiMaxicard
British Antarctic TerritoryNoneCachet on cover1970Halley station
British Antarctic Territory1301986Halley station
British Antarctic Territory1441987Halley station
British Antarctic Territory1761991Halley station
British Antarctic TerritoryNoneCachet on cover1992Halley station
British Antarctic Territory3412004Halley station
Belize813c (Mi876)One of strip of 3 (813 (a-c)), or three of MS9 (813d (3x (813 (a-c))))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Belize814SS1
Benin6161986Return of Halley's Comet
Benin809616 overprinted1996Return of Halley's Comet
British Antarctic Territory1291986Return of Halley's Comet
British Antarctic Territory130
Bulgaria3153In (upper-centre) margin of MS4 (3153 (a-d))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Bulgaria3153d maxiImage on maxicard
Cambodia7081986Return of Halley's Comet
Central Africa Republic779 (Mi1187)1985Return of Halley's Comet
Central Africa Republic779a (BL359)SS1 (779)
Central Africa Republic781 (Mi1189)
Central Africa Republic781a (BL360)SS1 (781)
Central Africa Republic785 (BL357)In (bottom) margin of SS1
Christmas Island1801986Return of Halley's Comet
Ciskei89a-j fdcCachet on FDC (stamps from MS10 (89 (a-j)))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Comoro IslandsC1581986Return of Halley's Comet
Comoro IslandsC158aImperforate SS1 (C158)
Comoro IslandsB4dOne of MS8 (B4 (a-h)), also imperforate MS8 (iB4 (a-h))1988Return of Halley's Comet;
Text on MS mentions Halley's
"première carte météorologique"
(first meteorological map)
Comoro IslandsB4d_ds (BL266)Deluxe sheet (B4d)Return of Halley's Comet
Comoro IslandsC193 (BL262A)
iC193 (BL262B)
SS1 (Mi862)
Comoro Islands816zOne of pair (816S), B4d surcharged1996Return of Halley's Comet
Cook Islands902 labelLabel from MS5 (902 (a-e + label))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Djibouti610 (Mi459)1986Return of Halley's Comet
Djibouti610a (BL120)SS1 (610)
Great Britain1133 fdcCachet on FDC1986Return of Halley's Comet
Great Britain1133 maxiImage on maxicard
Grenada13661986Return of Halley's Comet
Grenada1367
Grenada1368
Grenada1369
Grenada14161366 overprinted1986Return of Halley's Comet
Grenada14171367 overprinted
Grenada14181368 overprinted
Grenada14191369 overprinted
Grenada Grenadines7441986Return of Halley's Comet
Grenada Grenadines745
Grenada Grenadines746Return of Halley's Comet (captions on 746 and 747 are reversed)
Grenada Grenadines747
Grenada Grenadines787744 overprinted in black1986Return of Halley's Comet
Grenada Grenadines788745 overprinted in silver
Grenada Grenadines789746 overprinted in black1986Return of Halley's Comet (captions on 746 and 747 are reversed)
Grenada Grenadines790747 overprinted in silver
Guinea Republic987 (Mi1109)1986Return of Halley's Comet
Guinea Republic987a (BL216)SS1 (987)
Guinea Republic988 (Mi1110A)
i988 (Mi1110B)
Guinea Republic988a (BL217)SS1 (988)
Guinea Republic989b (BL?)MS6 (984-989)
Guinea Republic990 (BL212)SS1
Guinea RepublicBL219or220SS1 (Mi1113)1986Return of Halley's Comet
Guinea RepublicBL220or219In (surrounding) margin of SS1 (Mi?)
Guinea RepublicMi1255SS11989
Hong Kong4621986Return of Halley's Comet
Hong Kong461-464 fdcOne of four stamps on FDC
Hong Kong464aMS4 (461-464)
Hong Kong464a fdcOne stamp of MS4 on FDC
Ivory CoastC99 (Mi888)1986
Korea (North)25051985Return of Halley's Comet
Korea (North)2505 proofDeluxe proof
Korea (North)2507SS1
Korea (North)4172dOne of MS4 (4172 (a-d)), or two of booklet pane of 5 (4172e (4172 (a-c+2x d)))2001
Korea (North)4172d proofDeluxe proof of 2 (2x 4172d)
Korea (North)4172a-d proofOne of deluxe proof of 4 (4172a-d)
Laos730bOne of pair (730 (a-b))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Lesotho5261986Return of Halley's Comet
Lesotho527
Lesotho528
Lesotho529
Lesotho526-529 fdcFour stamps and cachet on FDC
Malagasy Republic798 (BL42)SS11987Return of Halley's Comet
Maldive Islands11511986Return of Halley's Comet
Maldive Islands1152
Maldive Islands1153
Maldive Islands1154
Maldive Islands1155
Maldive Islands12101151 overprinted in silver1986Return of Halley's Comet
Maldive Islands12111152 overprinted in silver
Maldive Islands12121153 overprinted in silver
Maldive Islands12131154 overprinted in silver
Maldive Islands12141155 overprinted in silver
Mali1035dOne of MS6 (1035 (a-d))1999
Mauritania623 (BL66A)
i623 (BL66B)
SS11986Return of Halley's Comet
Mauritius6251986Return of Halley's Comet
Mongolia1563SS11986Return of Halley's Comet
Montserrat6071986Return of Halley's Comet
Montserrat613cOne of MS4 (613 (a-d))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Montserrat656cOne of MS4 (656 (a-d)), 613 (a-d) overprinted in red and black1987Return of Halley's Comet
Nevis1185mOne of MS17 (1185 (a-q + label)); also detail in (left) margin20001705 - Halley predicts comet's return every 75 or 76 years
Nicaragua14841985
Nicaragua1985eOne of MS16 (1985 (a-p))1994
ParaguayC642From MS9 (C642a (5x C642 + 4 labels))1986Return of Halley's Comet
RomaniaC2691986Return of Halley's Comet
RomaniaNoneCancel2006(350th anniv. birth Halley)
Russia (USSR)5434In (upper-left) margin of SS11986Return of Halley's Comet
St. Helena3161977
St. Helena4571986(Return of Halley's Comet)
Samoa6671986Return of Halley's Comet
Seychelles5881986Return of Halley's Comet
Sri Lanka7851986Return of Halley's Comet
Togo1365SS1 (stamp)1986Return of Halley's Comet
Togo1409SS1, 1365 overprinted in silver1986Return of Halley's Comet
Tonga616bOne of strip of 5 (616 (a-e))1986Return of Halley's Comet
Tonga617bOne of strip of 5 (617 (a-e))
Uganda4851986Return of Halley's Comet
Uganda486
Uganda487
Uganda488
Uganda489SS1
Uganda519485 overprinted1986Return of Halley's Comet
Uganda520486 overprinted
Uganda521487 overprinted
Uganda522488 overprinted
Uganda523SS1, 489 overprinted
Vanuatu4251986Return of Halley's Comet
Viet Nam15991986(Return of Halley's Comet)
Zambia3541986Return of Halley's Comet
Zambia354-357 fdcOne of four stamps and cachet on FDC


Bering

Bering, Vitus
(1681 - 1741)

Bering was a Danish navigator and explorer who headed a number of Russian expeditions to Siberia from 1733 through 1739. They were carried out under the direction of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Following the instructions of the Academy, Bering and the other expedition leaders measured temperature and barometric pressure and made non-instrumental measurements of clouds, thunderstorms and other weather and natural phenomena. Many decades later, in the years 1804 to 1806, Lewis and Clark would make similar weather observations during their expedition across the western USA.

Bering's expeditions also set up some of the earliest observing stations in Siberia, but they operated only through around the mid-1700s. A sustained network of Russian weather observing stations was set up only in the 1830s, following the work of Adolpf Kupfer and Alexander von Humboldt.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Denmark2771941200th anniv. death
Denmark278
Denmark279
MalawiUnknown e (new issue)One of MS6 (a-f)2008
Russia (USSR)886 (Mi856)1941200th anniv. death
Russia (USSR)887 (Mi857)
Russia (USSR)888 (Mi858)
Russia (USSR)889 (Mi859)
Russia (USSR)19051957275th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)49241981300th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)4924 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
Russia (USSR)60191991250th anniv. Bering & Chirkof's voyage to Alaska; (250th anniv. death)
Russia (USSR)6020
United StatesNoneCachet on cover1942200th anniv. discovery Alaska, in 1741; (250th anniv. death, in 1941)


Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit, Daniel Gabriel
(1686 - 1736)

Farenheit was a German instrument maker who spent much of his working life in Holland. The young Fahrenheit was fascinated with instruments. He travelled through Europe and studied with various scientists and craftsmen. He spent a few years in London, where he became a member of the Royal Society and contributed papers to the Society on temperature, anemoscopes and barometers.

In 1708 he visited Roemer in Copenhagen. Roemer showed him his temperature scale, which had an upper fixed of point of 22.5°Rø (the human body temperature, supposed constant) and a lower fixed point of 7.5°Rø (the freezing point of water). Fahrenheit, no fan of "inconvenient and awkward fractions" according to his letters, modified Roemer's scale. He divided each degree into four parts, so that the lower fixed point became 30° (4 X 7.5) and the upper fixed point became 90° (4 X 22.5). On this scale the boiling point of water is 205°. He used this modified Roemer scale until around 1717 when he decided to make small changes to the fixed points, so that the freezing point of water became 32°F and the human body temperature became 96°F. On this changed scale the boiling point of water was 212°F. Fahrenheit made this change for a very practical reason. With fixed points of 32° and 96°, there were 64 degrees between the two, and a scale with 64 divisions could easily be drawn by successive subdivisions of the full interval into two equal parts, since 64 is a power of two. This procedure is not possible if the fixed points are 30° and 90°. Later when he discovered that the human body temperature is not constant (e.g. young people tend to have a higher body temperature than their elders), Fahrenheit simply redefined the upper fixed point as being equal to the boiling point of water, with the value of 212°F.

Fahrenheit is generally credited as the first person to make commercially-available reliable thermometers. His originally followed common practice and used alcohol in his thermometers, starting in around 1709. However, he was able to develop a method to purify mercury, and so in 1714 became the first person to take advantage of its properties for use in thermometers. Another of his improvements to thermometer design was the introduction of cylindrical bulbs to replace spherical ones. Fahrenheit seems to have been a good businessman, and his detailed technique for making thermometers remained a trade secret for some time. Perhaps the commercial availability and quality of his thermometers explain why his temperature scale became so widely accepted, while other scales remained in obscurity.

Among the other instruments which he devised were a constant-weight hydrometer and a 'thermobarometer' designed to estimate barometric pressure by determining the boiling point of water. The latter instrument is now known as the 'hypsometer' or 'hypsometric thermometer'. Fahrenheit is credited with the earliest invention of this instrument (in 1724). Around 1800 de Caldas independently re-invented it.

The United States is now the only major country that still clings to the Fahrenheit temperature scale. The vast majority of the rest of the world uses the Celsius temperature scale, which is the accepted international standard for temperature measurement.

The table below includes only items with the name Fahrenheit spelled out. Many other items, indicated only by the symbol °F for degrees Fahrenheit are available on the thermometers, temperatures and temperature units page.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania2261971Thermometer, "Fahrenheit" (in text)
Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)NoneCinderella (tan)1960sMonthly temperatures (°F); "Fahrenheit" (in text)
United States4070 (Mi4115)
4070_back
One of MS40 (4072a (4033-4072)), also back2006Record temperature: "Fahrenheit" (in text on back)


Diviš

Diviš, Prokop
(1698 - 1765)

Diviš was a Czechoslovakian thelogian who experimented with atmospheric electricity. He has been called the "European Franklin". He attempted to draw electricity from clouds and built a functional lightning conductor (lightning rod) at about the same time as Benjamin Franklin, but his work may not have been done completely independently of Franklin's work, which was already known in Europe in the early 1750s. (For example, in May of 1752 in France, Thomas François d'Alibard conducted an experiment similar to Franklin's.)

In any case, a grounded lightning rod was erected by Diviš at Prenditz, Moravia in 1754. This was the first practical European lightning rod. Diviš petitioned the Emperor Franz-Josef in1755 to put up similar rods all over the country and thus protect the land from lightning, but the proposal was rejected on the advice of the mathematicians of Vienna. The lightning rod at Prenditz remained standing for 6 years, until it was torn down by an angry mob convinced that it had caused a drought.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Czechoslovakia661 (Mi867)1954
Czechoslovakia662 (Mi868)
Czechoslovakia661-662 fdcTwo stamps and cancel and cachet on FDC


Bernoulli

Bernoulli, Daniel
(1700 - 1782)

??

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
??


Celsius

Celsius, Anders
(1701 - 1744)

Celsius was a Swedish astronomer and mathematician who worked in thermometry and studied the Aurora Borealis.

Around 1701 Newton had proposed a temperature scale in which the lower fixed point was 0° and the upper fixed point was 12°. On this scale the boiling point of water was 33°. Celsius was probably aware of this work and built on it in 1742 by proposing a 100 degree scale between the freezing point of water (100° in his original scale) and the boiling point of water (0° in his original scale). He published this proposal in a paper entitled Observations on two persistent degrees on a thermometer. It is not known what led him to associate the higher value with the colder fixed point, and vice versa. Perhaps he wanted to introduce more originality into his work, or perhaps he was influenced by the Royal Society's temperature scale (used until about 1725), in which the '0' was 'extreme hot' and '90' was extreme cold.

In any case, Celsius' proposed scale was intuitively backwards and was inverted soon after his death so that 0° was the lower fixed point and 100° the upper fixed point. In this way the modern Celsius scale was born. It was accepted as a standard, first in Sweden and France, and then across the globe. Temperature values measured in this scale were originally referred to as degrees "centigrade" ('centi' referring to one hundred, and 'grade' referring to degrees). However, in 1948 Celsius' name became the official temperature unit, when the Ninth General Conference of Weights and Measures declared that 'degrees centigrade' should thereafter be referred to as 'degrees Celsius'. In the early 21st century, only the United States still clings to the Fahrenheit scale; the Celsius scale is the accepted international standard everywhere else.

Celsius was also interested in the Aurora Borealis. In 1724 he and his student Olaf Peter Hiorter noted that the aurora borealis are accompanied by deflections of a magnetic compass. This discovery confirmed the relationship between auroras and magnetic fields. Celsius' observations of the aurora were published in Nuremburg, Germany in 1733 in a work entitled Observations of the Northern Lights in Sweden.

In addition to the table below, another list of Celsius items is available on the SI-metric unit names page. For a single temperature-related item listed below (from Ghana), the name Celsius is spelled out. Many other items, indicated only by the symbol °C for degrees Celsius are available on the thermometers, temperatures and temperature units page.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Ghana5731976Temperatures correctly given as degrees "Celsius" (in text)
Nevis1185k (Mi1458)One of MS17 (1185 (a-q + label)); also detail in (left) margin2000
Sweden1402 (Mi1188)One of booklet pane of 6 (1402a (6x 1402)), also inside cover1982Also thermometer
Sweden1401-1402 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC


Franklin B

Franklin, Benjamin
(1706 - 1790)

"Some are weather-wise, some are otherwise!" This quip is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States. He was not only a political pioneer, but also a scientist with a keen interest in the weather. His work in atmospheric electricity led to his becoming the first American with an international scientific reputation. The body of his weather-related work represents a major 18th century contribution to the science of meteorology.

In Philadelphia, Franklin attempted to observe a lunar eclipse on 21 October 1743, but clouds that arrived from the southwest ahead of a storm covered the sky and hid the eclipse. This happened despite winds near the surface that were blowing from the northeast. Franklin noted this difference, and later learned from his brother that clouds from the same storm had not reached Boston until after the eclipse. Boston is to the northeast of Philadelphia, and Frankin concluded that the storm as a whole must have been moving toward the northeast, despite the fact that the winds near the surface were from the northeast. This is the first recorded instance in which a scientist realized that the movement of a storm as a whole could differ from the motion of the air at the surface.

In 1749 Franklin observed updrafts of air, and concluded that they were due to local heating of the surface by the sun. He was one of the first to present this explanation for this phenomenon. Such updrafts lead to the summertime clouds now known as convective clouds.

Franklin was interested in the Gulf Stream: the temperature of its waters, and their direction and speed of flow, and in fact published the first known map of the Gulf Stream.

Franklin also studied waterspouts. In his paper Waterspouts and Whirlwinds he included a diagram of showing his hypothesized structure of a waterspout (the diagram is reproduced on U.S. Scott 4022, which is found in the table below). Concerning their formation, he wrote that:

"The air immediately over it [the Gulf Stream], however, may receive so much warmth from it as to be rarified and rise, being rendered lighter than the air on each side of the stream; hence those airs must flow in to supply the place of the rising warm air, and meeting with each other, form those tornados and waterspouts frequently met with, and seen near and over the stream."

Franklin understood the basic mechanism of formation of the extensive fogs that can occur over the western Atlantic off eastern Canada. He wrote that:

"as the vapour from a cup of tea in a warm room, and the breath of an animal in the same room, are hardly visible, but become sensible immediately when out in the cold air, so the vapour from the gulph [gulf] stream, in warm latitudes is scarcely visible, but when it comes into the cool air from Newfoundland, it is condensed into the fogs, for which those parts are so remarkable."

Franklin wondered if lightning was in fact an electrical phenomenon. In 1750, he hypothesized that electricity could be taken from clouds via a tall metal aerial insulated from the ground. To do this, he proposed bringing a grounded lead with an insulated wax handle close to such an aerial, and expected that an electric spark would then discharge from the aerial to the grounding wire. This idea formed the basis of his proposal to study lightning through the use of a kite in an electrical storm. This famous experiment has in fact almost become a myth, with Franklin at its centre. He certainly could not have safely conducted it in the way it is often depicted, with him holding the kite string with an attached key waiting to be struck by lightning! He knew the potential dangers, and had several ideas on how to safely show that electricity was present. For example, he proposed attaching a Leyden Jar (a device for collecting electricity - essentially, a capacitor) to the string. If the jar was empty before flying the kite and full afterwards, then that would be evidence that thunderclouds contain electricity.

Franklin probably carried out his kite experiment in June 1752. Clearly he had to be insulated from the current; otherwise he would have been in danger of electrocution from a lightning strike (and in fact others, such as Prof. Georg Wilhelm Richmann in St. Petersburg, were electrocuted when they tried to repeat Franklin's experiment). Through this experiment, Franklin proved that lightning is a form of electricity. He explained his reasoning later in 1752 in a letter to England in which he gave directions for repeating the kite experiment:

"When rain has wet the kite twine so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it streams out plentifully from the key at the approach of your knuckle, and with this key a phial, or Leiden jar, maybe charged: and from electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all other electric experiments [may be] performed which are usually done by the help of a rubber glass globe or tube; and therefore the sameness of the electrical matter with that of lightning completely demonstrated."

The results of the kite experiment were not formally published until Joseph Priestley's 1767 History and Present Status of Electricity. Franklin's own publication Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia in America…to Which are Added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects (London, 1769) came two years later. This book presents his investigations on electricity, his kite experiments, and his invention of the lightning conductor.

Franklin's electrical experiments led directly to his invention of the lightning rod. He surmised that large conductors with a sharp rather than a smooth point could be of use in protecting buildings from lightning. These conductors would be "upright Rods of Iron, made sharp as a Needle and gilt to prevent Rusting, and from the Foot of those Rods [would extend] a Wire down the outside of the Building into the Ground;...Would not these pointed Rods probably draw the Electrical Fire silently out of a Cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible Mischief!" Following a series of experiments on Franklin's own house, such lightning rods were installed on the Academy of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) and the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in 1752. They were so successful that people wanted to make lighting rods for themselves. In fact, lighting rod apparel even became fashionable for a time!

Prokop Diviš erected the first practical European lightning rod in Moravia in 1754, two years after Franklin's first lightning rods in America.

Franklin designed a model "thunder house" to showcase the effectiveness of his lightning rod. In it was a can filled with flammable gases. When static electricity was applied to the top of the house, the electricity traveled down a wire to the can where it made a spark which ignited the gases, blowing the lid of the can off with enough force to knock the roof off the house. However, with a lightning rod is attached to the top of the house, the static electricity was safely transported to the ground and the house was spared.

Franklin considered the Aurora Borealis, and concluded (erroneously) that it must be related to atmospheric circulation patterns.

Franklin happened upon the principle of refrigeration by observing that on a very hot day, he stayed cooler in a wet shirt in a breeze than he did in a dry one. In an experiment one warm day in Cambridge, England in 1758, Franklin and fellow scientist John Hadley experimented by continually wetting the ball of a mercury thermometer with ether and using bellows to evaporate the ether. With each subsequent evaporation, the thermometer read a lower temperature, eventually reaching 7°F (-14°C). Another thermometer showed the room temperature to be constant at 65°F (18°C). In his note Cooling by Evaporation, Franklin concluded that "one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day."

Franklin was living in Paris in 1783 (he was the first American ambassador to France, from 1776 to 1785) when the volcano Laki in Iceland erupted (Iceland Scott 577 commemorates the 200th anniversary of the event). The eruption in fact lasted eight months, from June 1783 to February 1784. In the second half of 1783, a persistent haze referred to as a "dry fog" covered Europe, and was observed to be the densest European dry fog since the eruption of another volcano, Eldgjá, in 934 AD. The following winter (1783-1784) was very cold both in Europe and in eastern North America. Franklin concluded that volcanic eruptions could be related to the dry fog and the subsequent cold weather:

"During several of the summer months of thc year 1783, when the effect of the sun's rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should have been greater, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, and great part of North America. This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it, as they easily do a moist fog, arising from water. They were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it, that when collected in the focus of a burning glass they would scarce kindle brown paper. Of course, their summer effect in heating the earth was exceedingly diminished. Hence the surface was early frozen. Hence the first snows remained on it unmelted, and received continual additions. Hence the air was more chilled, and the winds more severely cold. Hence perhaps the winter of 1783-1784 was more severe than any that had happened for many years.

The cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained. Whether it was adventitious to this earth, and merely a smoke, proceeding from the consumption by fire of some of those great burning balls or globes which we happen to meet with in our rapid course round the sun, and which are sometimes seen to kindle and be destroyed in passng our atmosphere, and whose smoke might be attracted and retained by our earth; or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing to issue during the summer from Hecla in Iceland, and that other volcano which arose out of the sea near that island, which smoke might be spread by various winds, over the northern part of the world, is yet uncertain. It seems however worth the enquiry, whether other hard winters, recorded in history, were preceded by similar permanent and widely extended summer fogs. Because, if found to be so, men might from such fogs conjecture the probability of succeeding hard winter, and of the damage to be expected by the breaking up of frozen rivers in the spring; and take such measures as are possible and practicable, to secure themselves and [their] effects from the mischiefs that attended the last."

In this explanation, Franklin mentions Hecla (which erupted in 1768) and "another volcano which rose out of the sea"; one supposes that he must really have been referring to Laki. He was therefore one of the first (if not the first) to consider the effects of volcanic eruptions on the weather and climate, and to suggest that a useful technique to forecast cold winters could be based on those effects. The eruption of the volcano Tambora in 1815 confirmed these ideas: 1816 became the "year without summer" over parts of America and Europe.

In Paris on 27 August 1783, J.A.C. Charles launched the first balloon inflated with hydrogen gas. Franklin witnessed this launch and later described the crowd's extravagant speculations as to the uses to which such an invention could be put. Franklin himself considered that "possibly it may pave the way to some Discoveries in Natural Philosophy of which at present we have no Conception". Franklin was right: such balloons would soon be used (by Charles himself and others) as the earliest platforms from which measurements of variables such as temperature and humidity in the atmosphere above the surface could be made. These would indeed be new "Discoveries in Natural Philosophy".

Perhaps Franklin's contributions to science and to the politics of his country are best summarized in an epigram on a French bust of him, which states simply that "He wrested the flash of lightning from heaven and the scepter from the tyrants."

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Argentina6601956250th anniv. birth
Bulgaria9501956
Canada691 (Mi627)1976
Canada2155 fdcCancel and cachet on FDC2006
Cook Islands447SS11976Franklin (at right)
Cook Islands9121986
Cook IslandsB130912 overprinted in silver1987
CubaC1501956Franklin's kite in lightning storm
France814 (Mi1113)1956
France814 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
Great Britain7851976
Great BritainNonePostal card1976
Grenada17711989"Ben and me" set
Grenada1772
Grenada1773
Grenada1774
Grenada1775
Grenada1776
Grenada1777
Grenada1778
Grenada1779
Grenada1780SS1
Grenada1781SS1
Maldives2421jOne of MS17 (2421 (a-q + label))2000Franklin and lightning
Romania11221956
Russia (USSR)18751956
United States11847First U.S. postage stamp
United States1101875
United States1331880
United States1561873
United States4221912
United States5091917
United States5121917
United States5131919
United States948Imperforate MS2 (a-b)1947Franklin (at left)
United States1073 (Mi694)1956"Franklin taking Lightning from the Sky" by B. West; 250th anniv. birth
United StatesNoneMeter1961University of Pennsylvania, founded by Franklin
United States1690 (Mi1277)1976
United StatesNoneLocal postage on cover1976Franklin and lightning
United StatesNoneCancel and cachet (USA 1073) on cover1976"From Franklin's kite to Viking Mars Lander"
United StatesCP183Commemorative panel (2038)1983
United States2779One of block of 4 (2782a (2779-2782))1993
United StatesP495100 dollars (banknote)1993
United States4022 (Mi?)
4022_back
2006
United States4023 (Mi?)
United States4024 (Mi?)
United States4025 (Mi?)
United StatesNoneCancel (and various Franklin stamps as postage and in cachet) on cover2006300th anniv. birth


Euler

Euler, Leonard
(1707 - 1783)

Euler was a Swiss mathematician who studied a variety of problems in pure and applied mathematics. He worked extensively in the field of hydrodynamics, and in September 1755 presented a memoir entitled Principes généraux du mouvement des fluides ("General principles of fluid motion") to the Académie royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres of Berlin. This led to a paper published for a wider audience in 1757. In it, he described the concept of an internal pressure field in a fluid, which allowed him to apply Newton's second law of motion to infinitesimal fluid elements, and in turn to derive a set of hydrodynamical equations. In effect, his work formed the basis for the science of fluid motion, and Euler's equations have since found application in many studies of fluids, including studies of atmospheric flow and atmospheric turbulence.

Euler's name is attached to one common frame of reference used in fluid dynamics and atmospheric studies, known as the Eulerian frame of reference. In it, measurements are made at a fixed point in a moving fluid, and the equations of motion are written with reference to that fixed point. (The Lagrangian frame of reference is the other one that is commonly used).

Euler also had a passing interest in the aurora. In 1746, he suggested erroneously that the aurora consisted of "particles from the Earth's own atmosphere driven beyond its limits by the impulse of the sun's light and ascending to a height of several thousand miles". He believed that the aurora are common in polar regions because "near the Poles, these particles would not be dispersed by the Earth's rotation".

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany (East)581950
Germany (East)3531957(250th anniv. birth)
Germany (East)23711983(200th anniv. death)
Guinea-BissauUnknown ss (new issue)In (upper-right) margin of SS12008
Guinea-BissauUnknown fdc
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
SS1 on FDC, also imperforate SS1 and cachet on FDC
SwitzerlandB2671957(250th anniv. birth)
SwitzerlandP5310 franken (banknote)1979—1992
SwitzerlandUnknown (new issue)2007(300th anniv. birth)
RomaniaNoneCancel and cachet on postcard2007(300th anniv. birth)
Russia (USSR)19321957250th anniv. birth


Buffon

de Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon)
(1707 - 1788)

Buffon was a French naturalist, biologist, mathematician and the keeper of the Royal Botanical Garden near Paris. He studied a wide variety of scientific topics, and attempted in his Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière to present the entire sum of knowledge of natural history and related sciences in a single massive work.

Buffon noted that different regions could have distinct animals and plants despite similar environments. He believed that animal species originated in a "centre of creation" and that they could improve or degenerate during a movement away from that centre. He felt that such a spreading-out must have been facilitated by changes in the climate.

Buffon proposed that the flora and fauna of the New World were inferior to those of Europe, through, among other things, some defective characteristics of its climate. He wrote in the Histoire naturelle that "In America, therefore, animated Nature is weaker, less active, and more circumscribed in the variety of her productions; for we perceive, from the enumeration of the American animals, that the number of species is not only fewer, but, in general, that all the animals are much smaller than those of the Old Continent... In this New World, therefore, there is some combination of elements and other physical causes, something that opposes the amplification of animated Nature: there are obstacles to the development... These effects must be referred to the quality of the earth and atmosphere, to the degree of heat and moisture, to the situation and height of mountains, to the quantity of running and stagnant waters, to the extent of forests, and, above all, to the inert condition of Nature in that country. In this part of the globe, the heat in general is much less, and the humidity much greater".

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison realized that this thesis had to be refuted if America were to be considered as a peer by the European nations. To this end, they conducted their own programs of weather observations as well as studies of American fauna.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceB2411949
FranceB238-B243 fdcOne of six stamps on FDC
France21231988Buffon's Histoire naturelle; (200th anniv. death)
France2124
France2125
France2126


Lomonosov

Lomonosov, Mikhail V.
(1711 - 1765)

Lomonosov was a pioneering Russian scientist who came to be known as the Father of Russian Science. He worked in a wide variety of scientific areas.

In 1732 Vitus Bering was placed in charge of five epic voyages of exploration of eastern and northern Russia and the Arctic ocean by the Empress Anna. They lasted from 1733 to 1742 and came to be known as the Great Northern Expeditions. Lomonosov helped organize these expeditions. He ensured that each ship had the necessary physical and astronomical instruments and developed special ship log books and meteorological log books. He wrote a book in 1763 that described the various explorations of the northern seas from the earliest expeditions to the Great Northern Expeditions. In it he presented his ideas on Arctic ocean currents, sea ice drift, sea ice type and the dependence of the freezing point on the salinity of the water. He also explained the role of the sun as an Arctic heat source and theorized that an exchange of heat through the ice from the water below to the atmosphere above could moderate the cold Arctic temperatures. In addition, he presented one of the first scientific explanations of the aurora borealis.

Around 1750, Lomonosov designed a rotational anemometer: a vertical wheel equipped with vanes (like a small water wheel) that was turned by the wind. This wheel was oriented into the wind by a large flag-shaped paddle that acted as a wind vane. By means of teeth and a cord, this motion was transmitted to a secondary wheel equipped with a speed scale. In addition, the instrument design included a source of mercury that was able to fall into various bins (small boxes) of wind direction. At least in theory, the distribution of wind direction in a given time period could be determined by measuring the amount of mercury that fell into each box during that period.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Cuba37171996
Czechoslovakia6221953Lomonosov State University
DjiboutiC130 (Mi?)1980Lomonosov State University
Ghana10291987
Ghana11281029 surcharged1989
Ghana1128a1128 overprinted with Halley's Comet logo1989
RomaniaB3601947
Romania14471961(250th anniv. birth)
Romania1442+1445+1447 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Romania1443-1444+1446 fdcCachet on FDC
RomaniaNonePostalcard, printed stamp like 14471961(250th anniv. birth)
Russia (USSR)326Perforated 12 ½ X 13 ½1925
Russia (USSR)326aPerforated 12 ½ X 12
Russia (USSR)326bPerforated 13 ½ X 12 ½
Russia (USSR)326cPerforated 13 ½
Russia (USSR)327Perforated 12 ½ X 13 ½
Russia (USSR)327aPerforated 12 ½
Russia (USSR)9881945
Russia (USSR)13201949
Russia (USSR)1321
Russia (USSR)1322Lomonosov Museum
Russia (USSR)1786From MS4 (1786a (4x 1786))1955200th anniv. Lomonosov State University
Russia (USSR)1787From MS4 (1787a (4x 1787))
Russia (USSR)NoneStamped envelope1955Lomosov (State) University
Russia (USSR)1898 (Mi1908)1956
Russia (USSR)23491960Lomonosov State University
Russia (USSR)2544 (Mi2550)1961250th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)2545 (Mi2551)
Russia (USSR)2546 (Mi2552)
Russia (USSR)2544 coverStamp and cachet on cover1961250th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)NoneCancel and cachet on stamped envelope1961250th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)NoneCancel (same) and cachet (different) on stamped envelope1961250th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)NoneCancel (different) and cachet (same) on stamped envelope1961250th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)NoneCancel (same) and cachet (different) on stamped envelope1961250th anniv. birth
Russia (USSR)NoneStamped envelopeEarly 1980s
Russia (USSR)46501978Lomonosov State University
Russia (USSR)5509 (Mi5658)1986275th anniv. birth (indicated on FDC)
Russia (USSR)5509 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC275th anniv. birth
Russia61181992Lomonosov State University
Russia68332004Catherine II watching a scientific presentation by Lomonosov
Russia6881From MS9 (6881a (9x 6881 + 3 labels))2005250th anniv. Lomonosov State University
Russia6881 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC


Bošković

Bošković, Rudjer Josip
(1711 - 1787)

Bošković was a Croatian scientist who worked in a wide variety of disciplines. He wrote some 70 papers on many subjects including optics, astronomy, gravitation, meteorology and trigonometry. He also made observations of the aurora borealis, and following an episode in December, 1837 estimated the height of the aurora to be about 1000 km (600 miles). He also put forth some hypotheses about the causes of the aurora.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Croatia59 (Mi148)1943
Croatia60 (Mi149)
CroatiaP161 dinar (banknote)1991
CroatiaP175 dinara (banknote)
CroatiaP1810 dinara (banknote)
CroatiaP1925 dinara (banknote)
CroatiaP20100 dinara (banknote), also back
CroatiaP21500 dinara (banknote), also back
CroatiaP221000 dinara (banknote), also back
CroatiaP232000 dinara (banknote), also back1992
CroatiaP245000 dinara (banknote), also back
CroatiaP2510,000 dinara (banknote), also back
CroatiaP2650,000 dinara (banknote)1993
CroatiaP27100,000 dinara (banknote)
Yugoslavia595 (Mi949)1960
Yugoslavia1834 (Mi2210)1987(200th anniv. death)


Diderot

Diderot, Denis
(1713 - 1784)

Diderot was a French philosopher and writer. In the Encyclopédie, ou Dictonnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (earliest edition published in 1751 in France by Diderot and d'Alembert), Diderot included one of the earliest definitions of modern meteorology. He wrote: "From the study, conducted with the senses, of wind, rain, hail, thunder, etc, consideration has passed to the determination of their origins, causes, effects, etc, and produced the science called meteorology". Diderot also discussed "meteors" (Météores, comme vents, pluies, tempêtes, tonnerres, aurores boréales, etc - "Meteors", such as winds, rain, storms, thunder, the Aurora Borealis, etc). In the language of the time, "meteor" referred generally to "a body or an appearance of a body in the atmosphere that is formed from substances that float there". The modern word "meteorology" has as its root the word "meteor" in this sense. The Encyclopedia embodied the spirit of the Enlightenment, and Diderot's foreshadowing of the modern science of meteorology flowed natuarally from that spirit.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
CamerounC320
iC320
1984(200th anniv. death)
DahomeyC93
iC93Single + label
1968
FranceB3231958
FranceB323 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
FranceB565 (Mi2430)1984(200th anniv. death)
FranceB565 fdc1Stamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
FranceB565 fdc2Stamp and cancel (same) and cachet (different) on FDC
FranceB565 fdc3Stamp and cachet on FDC
FranceB565 maxiMaxicard
FranceB565 sc1Souvenir Card
FranceB565 sc2Souvenir Card (different)
Monaco22132001Diderot (at right)
Russia (USSR)27841963250th anniv. birth
Wallis and Futuna316
i316
1984(200th anniv. death)
Wallis and Futuna316 dsDeluxe sheet
Wallis and Futuna316 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC


Juan

Juan, Jorge
(1713 - 1773)

Juan was a Spanish explorer and writer. In 1754 he founded the Marine Guards Company Observatory in Cádiz. Some meteorological observations were made there, though they were not systematic and were not recorded. Before his death in 1773, Juan deplored the lack of interest in making meteorological observations and in taking care of the expensive meteorological instruments that had been imported from England. The original Observatory declined after Juan's death, but a new one completed in 1797 on the same site renewed Spanish meteorological and other scientific work and became known as the Spanish Nautical Observatory.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Ecuador348 (Mi355)1936Juan (at right)
Ecuador350 (Mi357)1936Juan (at right)
EcuadorC40 (Mi360)350 overprinted AÉREO1936Juan (at right)
Spain18091974(200th anniv. death)
Spain33172004Juan, and 250th anniv. Nautical Observatory


d'Alembert

d'Alembert, Jean Le Rond
(1717 - 1783)

D'Alembert was a French mathematician who pioneered the use of partial differential equations in studies of fluid motion. His work on this topic first appeared in a study on winds entitled Réflexions sur la cause générale des vents (Thoughts on the Origins of the Winds) submitted to the Berlin Academy in 1747. In it, d'Alembert assumed that the winds were generated by tidal effects on the atmosphere and that heating played only a minor role. It is now known that solar heating is the ultimate driver of the atmospheric circulation and winds. Nevertheless d'Alembert's work was mathematically sound and presented for the first time the equations of motion of an incompressible fluid on the two-dimensional Earth's surface represented in spherical coordinates.

Euler recognized the power of d'Alembert's methods and incorporated them into his own work on fluid motion.

With Diderot, d'Alembert was one of the first contributors to the French Encyclopédie, ou Dictonnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceB3321959
FranceB332 fdc1Stamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
FranceB332 fdc2Stamp and cancel and cachet (different) on FDC


Hell

Hell, Maximilian
(1720 - 1792)

Hell was a Jesuit astronomer, mathematician, writer and director of the Central Observatory in Vienna. In 1767 he accepted an invitation from King Christian VII of Denmark and Norway to direct a scientific expedition to northern Norway with the primary goal of observing the transit of Venus and the subsequent eclipse. During the expedition, which lasted from 1768 to 1770, Hell studied the Aurora Borealis and developed a theory for their origin. He and his team also collected scientific data on biology, meteorology, oceanography, zoology, geography, natural history and linguistics for an encyclopedia of the Arctic regions that they hoped to publish. Unfortunately, the encyclopedia was abandoned because of the suppression of the Society of Jesuits in 1773.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Czechoslovakia16701970250th anniv. birth
Czechoslovakia1670 die proofDie proof


Kant

Kant, Immanuel
(1724 - 1804)

Kant was a Prussian philosopher who was also interested in natural science. He published works on aesthetics and ethics and in a wide range of scientific fields including physics, astronomy, geology, meteorology, anthropology and psychology.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany356From booklet pane of 8 (356a (8x 356 + 2 labels))1927
Germany (East)15421974(250th anniv. birth)
Germany (West)8311961
Germany (West)11441974(250th anniv. birth)
Haiti4141956
HaitiC105
iC105
1956
HaitiC106
HaitiC107
HaitiC107a
iC107a
MS3 (C105, C106 and a grey-black 1.25g value stamp of similar design to C105-C107)
LatviaNoneCancel and cachet on cover2004280th anniv. birth, (200th anniv. death)


Cook

Cook, James
(1728 - 1779)

Cook was an English explorer and scientist. His voyages to the Pacific, unprecented for the time in their scope, were both journeys of exploration and of science. Observations were made in a variety of scientific disciplines, from ethnology and anthropology through botany and biology to glaciology1 and meteorology. Cook's ships made the first recorded observations2 of the Aurora Australis (the Southern Hemisphere aurora) in 1773 during his second expedition (1772-1775). Among the members of that expedition were the astronomer and meteorologist William Wales and the naturalists J. R. Forster and his son Georg Forster.

1For example: Around 12 January 1773: "a thermometer was sent down 100 fathoms and when it came up the mercury was at 32 [°F] which is the freezing point, some little time after, being exposed to the surface of the Sea, it rose to 33½ and in the open air to 36. Some curious and intresting experiments are wanting to know what effect cold has on Sea Water". The next day, according to Forster, "Capt Cook took a half pint pot filled it with small Ice to the very top & filled the interstices with water: then was the pot set before the fire. Some particles of Ice were standing above the Surface of the water & the brim of the pot so that it might be said it were more than full. As soon as the Ice began to melt the water sunk gradually in the pot, till at last there was not the least Ice left & the water was ¼ of an Inch below the brim of the pot."

2Wales' observation: On 16 January 1773 William Wales, the astronomer, missed the first sighting of the Aurora Australis. The next day he recorded "I... found it to be the very same phenomenon which we call the Northern Lights in England. The natural state of the heavens, except in the S.E. quarter, and for about 10° of altitude all round the horizon, was a whitish haze, through which stars of the third magnitude were just discernable. All round, the horizon was covered with thick clouds, out of which arose many streams of a pale reddish light, that ascended towards the zenith. These streams had not that motion which they are sometimes seen to have in England but were perfectly steady, except a small tremulous motion which some of them had near their edges".

2An observation by the crew of the Adventure: In February 1773, Tobias Furneaux, master of the Adventure [the companion ship to Cook's Resolution] "kept between the Latitude of 52° and 53° South, had much Westerly winds hard gales with squalls, snow and sleet with a long hollow sea from the SW Quarter so that we judge there is no Land in that quarter... On the 26th [of February 1773] at night we saw a Meteor of an uncomon brightness in the NNW, it directed its' course to the SW with a very great light in the southern sky, such as is known to the Northward by the name Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights: We saw the Lights for several nights running; and what is remarkable we have seen but one Island of Ice since we parted company with the Resolution..."

See the following web sites for additional philatelic information on Captain Cook:

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Aitutaki171One of MS2 (172a (171-172))1979200th anniv. death
Albania2477bOne of block of 4 (2477 (a-d))1995
Australia3761964
Australia482aMS6 (contains imperforate 477-482)1970200th anniv. Cook in Australia
Australia1727bOne of MS3 (1727 (a-c)), also imperforate MS3 (1727d)1999
Australia1727b maxiMaxicard
Australian Anatarctic TerritoryL211972200th anniv. Cook's circumnavigation of Antarctica
Australian Anatarctic TerritoryL22
British Antarctic Territory451975
British Antarctic TerritoryUnknown (new issue)2008
Cook Islands631920
Cook Islands851932
Cook Islands1321949Cook statue
Cook Islands1381949
Cook Islands2651969
Cook Islands4461976
Cook Islands447SS11976Cook (at left)
Cook Islands4801978200th anniv. Cook's arrival in Hawaii
Cook Islands481
Cook Islands482
Cook Islands482aMS3 (480-282)
Cook Islands499480 overprinted1978250th anniv. birth
Cook Islands500481 overprinted
Cook Islands501482 overprinted
Cook Islands501aMS3 (499-501), 482a overprinted
Cook Islands5101979(200th anniv. death)
Cook Islands513
Cook Islands513aMS4 (with stamps similar to 510-513)
Laos4911983Cook, and Endeavour (ship)
New CaledoniaC1141974
New Hebrides (British)189One of strip of 3 (191a (189-191))1974200th anniv. discovery New Hebrides by Cook
New Hebrides (British)192
New Hebrides (French)208One of strip of 3 (210a (208-210))1974200th anniv. discovery New Hebrides by Cook
New Hebrides (French)211
New Zealand1971935
New Zealand2301940
New Zealand4311969200th anniv. Cook's landing in New Zealand
New Zealand434aMS4 (431-434)
New Zealand14131997
ParaguayC383 (BL227)1974
ParaguayC464SS11978250th anniv. birth; 200th anniv. death, in 1979
Samoa7021987
South Georgia411975200th anniv. Cook's discovery of South Georgia
South Georgia42
South Georgia43
South Georgia41-43 fdcThree stamps and cachet on FDC
United States17321978200th anniv. Cook's arrival in Alaska
United States1732 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
United States17331978200th anniv. Cook's arrival in Hawaii
United States1733 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Vanuatu7351999
Vanuatu735aMS3 (733-735)


de Bougainville

de Bougainville, Louis-Antoine
(1729 - 1811)

De Bougainville was a French explorer, sea captain and scientist. From 1766 to 1769 he led the first French circumnavigation of the globe in two ships, the Boudeuse and the Étoile. The expedition was one of the first of the great naval exploration trips to have a scientific component (through the presence of the naturalist Commerson and the astronomer Veron). A few years later Cook would build on this model in his own journeys around the world.

During his stay in the Strait of Magellan, which separates Tierra del Fuego from the mainland of South America, de Bougainville made meteorological, hydrographical and ethnographical studies (Reference: Museo Territorio, Ushuaia, Argentina). More generally, the expedition logs from his voyage around the globe contained astronomical, meteorological, hydrographical and navigational references.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Cambodia12361992
FranceB593-B598 folderFDC folder1988de Bougainville and other explorers (on cover)
FranceB5971988
FranceB597 fdcCancel and cachet on FDC1988
FranceB598aBooklet pane of 6 (B593-B598)1988
French Southern and Antarctic Territories3222003Bougainville (ship)
Malagasy RepublicNoneUn-issued proof1995
New Caledonia1581928de Bougainville (at left)
New Caledonia1591938
New Caledonia1601940
New Caledonia1611928
New Caledonia1621933
New Caledonia1631939
New Caledonia1641940
New Caledonia1651928
New Caledonia1661940
New Caledonia1671933
New Caledonia1681938
New Caledonia1691928
New Caledonia1701939
New Caledonia1711940
New Caledonia1721928
New Caledonia1731928
New Caledonia1741928
New Caledonia1751928
New Caledonia199 (Mi?)158 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"1933de Bougainville (at left)
New Caledonia200162 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia201165 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia202167 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia203169 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia204172 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia205173 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia206174 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia207175 overprinted "Paris-Noumea"
New Caledonia239159 overprinted "France Libre"1941de Bougainville (at left)
New Caledonia240162 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia241164 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia242165 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia243166 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia244167 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia245169 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia246170 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia247171 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia248172 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia249173 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia250174 overprinted "France Libre"
New Caledonia251175 overprinted "France Libre"
New CaledoniaQ5158 overprinted "Colis Postaux"1930de Bougainville (at left)
New CaledoniaQ6169 overprinted "Colis Postaux"
New Hebrides (British)1271968
New Hebrides (British)1281968
New Hebrides (British)1291968
New Hebrides (French)1431968
New Hebrides (French)1441968
New Hebrides (French)1451968
Papua New Guinea9731999
Samoa2901968200th anniv. de Bougainville's visit to Samoa
Samoa291
Samoa292
Samoa293
Samoa7031987
Solomon Islands443In (lower) margin of MS4 (443 (a-d))1981
St. Helena4691986
Vanuatu7341999
Vanuatu735aMS3 (733-735)
Vanuatu737aMS3 (734, 736-737)
Wallis and FutunaC451973
Wallis and FutunaC45 proofsColour proof strip


Banneker

Banneker, Benjamin
(1731 - 1806)

Banneker was a self-educated American astronomer, surveyor and writer. Following his astronomical interest, he used his mathematical skills to make all the calculations necessary for an almanac. He published his first almanac in 1792. In it was information about eclipses and sunrise and sunset times along with weather forecasts, expected seasonal changes in the weather and ideas on weather-related subjects such as the planting of crops. His almanac became quite popular in America and was even known in England and France. Banneker published it yearly during a 10 year period.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Turks and Caicos5231982Banneker (at left); (150th anniv. birth, in 1981)
United States18041980(150th anniv. birth, in 1981)
United States1804 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC


Cavendish

Cavendish, Henry
(1731 - 1810)

Cavendish was an English physicist and chemist.Following Priestley, he conducted many experiments with gases and was the first to determine a rough composition of the atmosphere: approximately 4/5 "phlogisticated air" (mostly nitrogen in modern terms) and 1/5 "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen). Cavendish also showed that water is composed of "inflammable air" (hydrogen) and dephlogisticated air.

Cavendish was interested in applied sciences, including various aspects of meteorology. He made studies of heat in the mid-1770s. Using the Royal Society's meteorological instruments he developed corrections to be applied to thermometer readings to make them more accurate. In 1783 he published a method to determine the freezing point of mercury (which can freeze in very cold conditions, rendering mercury thermometers useless at those temperatures). He is also credited with the invention of the maximum and minimum thermometer, for which he was awarded the Royal Society's gold medal.

At one time Cavendish was a member of a committee charged with devising the best method of protecting the powder magazine at Purfleet from lightning. He also developed a theory of partial pressures before Dalton, but never published it.

In a work published in 1790, he estimated the height of the aurora to be 80-112 km using triangulation (On the height of the luminous arch which was seen on 23 February 1784. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 80, 101, 1790).

After his death, Cavendish's estate was used in part to establish the Cavendish Laboratory, in whose early years there was a tradition of meteorological work. For example, Sir William Napier Shaw lectured in meteorology and conducted meteorological research at the Laboratory. His work included the study of instruments for measuring the dewpoint of the air.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
SpainNoneCancel2006Cavendish and "Día de la Química"


Washington

Washington, George
(1732 - 1799)

George Washington was the first President of the United States. Born in 1732 into a well-to-do Virginia family, he grew up in the family plantation at Mount Vernon. He would always be a farmer at heart even during his long service to his country.

Washington left a prodigious 36 volumes of diaries. They include many weather observations and comments on the weather, a topic that apparently fascinated him, probably because of his rural farming background.

His weather observations were irregular and unstructured rather than being organized along scientific lines. He had few instruments: the principal one was his magnificent weather vane, which serves to this day atop the cupola at Mount Vernon. This imposing instrument is in the shape of a dove, some 40" long and with a wingspan of 35".

Although Washington mentions "falling weather" now and again in his diaries, he had no barometer to measure the atmospheric pressure. It appears that two barometer-thermometer instruments now on display at Mount Vernon are connected to him only through his descendents.

Washington did have at least one thermometer, which hangs today in his original bedroom. It is thought that in his time it was located in the East Hall outside his study. Made by Joseph Gatty, a New York instrument maker, this thermometer was able to record the day's high and low temperatures. Washington began to record temperatures in his diaries in January 1785. It appears that many or most of his temperature measurements were made inside his mansion, while some others were made outdoors. His diaries usually do not specify the location of the observations, though in some cases there are clues. For example, on 19 January 1785 he recorded a temperature of 48°F in the morning, at noon and at sunset. These reading were likely made indoors. On other occasions there are discrepancies between his recorded temperatures and his general observations of the weather. For example, he wrote on 26 May 1785 that the weather was warm until about 5:00 P M when clouds and high wind brought about a marked change in the temperature of the air. Yet his three (probably indoor) readings for the day are 65°, 68°, and 67°F. On 7 December 1785 he is more specific: "Thermometer at 52 in the Morning & 59 at Noon, but removing it afterwards out of the room where the fire was, into the East Entry leading in to my Study, this circumstance with the encrease of the cold fell the Mercury to 42". Washington may not have realized or cared that the useful measurements for a scientific record are those made in the outside atmosphere where they are unchanged by human activity. This was in contrast to the consistent, careful approach to weather measurements of his contemporary Thomas Jefferson. However, some of Washington's extremely cold readings probably indicate that the thermometer was outdoors in those cases. For example, he wrote on 5 February 1788 of weather so cold that the mercury did not rise out of the bulb of the thermometer all day. This was one of the coldest days of the century, when near Philadelphia the temperature registered only 17°F below zero.

In matters of weather, Washington could be very persistent. For example, on 30 April 1785 he was unable to personally record the weather because of a trip to Richmond, so he put Mrs. Washington in charge of the thermometer: "Mercury (by Mrs. W's acct.) in the Morning at 68, at Noon 69, and at Night 62." In 1793 he instructed farm manager William Pearce that "as it is not only satisfactory, but may be of real utility to know the state of the weather as to heat & cold, [and] drought or moisture, prefix, as usual, at the head of every week's report a meteorological account of these. The Thermomiter which is at Mount Vernon will enable you to do the first."

Much Washington lore is related to the weather. He was seasick for days during a stormy voyage to Barbados; he suffered cold cruel winters at Valley Forge and Morristown; the carriage roads on which he travelled for years and years were often dusty or muddy. On 9 March 1797 he left Philadelphia for the last time after years of political toil to return for good to his beloved Mount Vernon. One entry in his diary for that day was simply: "Wind changed to No. Wt. blew very hard & turned very cold." Even the end of his life has a weather connection: it is possible that an ill-advised horseback ride in a December storm contributed to his demise: he died on 14 December 1799 of a throat infection that was possibly a consequence of that braving of the elements.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Antigua and Barbuda1713 (Mi1872)1993First airmail in the U.S. via Blanchard's balloon, 1793
Canal Zone (United States)971927
EcuadorC5891976
EcuadorC590
MaliC4461982(250th anniv. birth)
United States141855
United States1581873
United States2101883
United States3321908
United States3811911
United States7041932(200th anniv. birth)
United States7211932(200th anniv. birth)
United StatesKM16425 cents (coin)1932—1975
United States948Imperforate MS2 (a-b)1947Washingon (at right)
United States19521982250th anniv. birth
United StatesP4961 dollar (banknote)1995
United StatesKM290+25 cents (coin)1999—>


Priestley

Priestley, Joseph
(1733 - 1804)

Priestley was an English theologian and scientist. He investigated the properties of gases and discovered several new gases including, in 1774, one that he called "dephlogisticated air". He felt that it was in some sense an especially pure form of air, but did not further investigate its characteristics. For this work, he is generally credited with the discovery of oxygen, though he did not use that term.

Lavoisier and Cavendish continued Priestley's experiments with air. Cavendish determined that air is composed of approximately 80% "phlogisticated air" and 20% "dephlogisticated air". Lavoisier determined some properties of those two component gases: one supports combustion and oxidation (dephlogisticated air, that he named oxygène) and the other is inert (phlogisticated air - nitrogen - that he named azote).

In the late 1700s, Erasmus Darwin, James Watt, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood and Priestley formed an informal group known as the Lunar Society. The friends met to discuss topics of current interest in chemistry, mineralogy, meteorology, astronomy, and physics.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Maldives2421iOne of MS17 (2421 (a-q + label))2000
United States20381983(250th anniv. birth)
United States2038 fdc1Stamp and cachet on FDC
United States2038 fdc2Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc3Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc4Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc5Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc6Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc7Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc8Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc9Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc10Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc11Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc12Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc13Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States2038 fdc14Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United StatesSP910Souvenir page (2038)
United StatesCP183Comemorative panel (2038)


Wales

Wales, William
(1734 - 1798)

Wales was an English astronomer who was sent to Fort Prince of Wales on Hudson Bay to observe the transit of Venus that took place 3 June 1769. The Journal of the expedition (Journal of a Voyage, made by Order of the Royal Society, to Churchill River, on the North-west Coast of Hudson's Bay; of Thirteen Months Residence in that Country; and of the voyage back to England in the Years 1768 and 1769) shows that Wales was not just an astronomical observer; he also describes also the fauna and flora, the geography, the people and the weather. He was the first scientist to spend a winter at the Bay and to make regular weather observations in Canada. A publication treating the meteorological work of this expedition was written in 1770 by Wales and Joseph Dymond: Observations on the State of the Air, Winds, Weather, etc. made at the Prince of Wales's Fort, on the North-West Coast of Hudson's Bay, in the Years 1768 and 1769. (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. l, pp. 137-78).

Wales also participated as astronomer and meteorologist in Captain James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific (1772 -1775).

During that trip, the artist William Hodges made a painting, from on board the Resolution, of the Cape of Good Hope. It was said at the time that "the theory of condensation that related altitude, wind, temperature and rainfall was at this time only beginning to be fully understood. Its dramatic demonstration at the Cape deeply interested the meteorologist Wales, as its adequate pictorial portrayal clearly excited the artist Hodges".

Also during that trip, on 16 January 1773 Wales recorded missing the first sighting of the Aurora Australis (southern lights). However, the next night he did observe them, and wrote: "I... found it to be the very same phenomenon which we call the Northern Lights in England. The natural state of the heavens, except in the S.E. quarter, and for about 10° of altitude all round the horizon, was a whitish haze, through which stars of the third magnitude were just discernable. All round, the horizon was covered with thick clouds, out of which arose many streams of a pale reddish light, that ascended towards the zenith. These streams had not that motion which they are sometimes seen to have in England but were perfectly steady, except a small tremulous motion which some of them had near their edges".

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Canada479 fdc (Mi420 fdc)Cachet on FDC1968200th anniv. first fixed meteorological readings in Canada; "William Wales, scientist, astronomer, explorer"
New Hebrides (British)190One of strip of 3 (191a (189-191))1974200th anniv. discovery New Hebrides by Cook
New Hebrides (French)209One of strip of 3 (210a (208-210))1974200th anniv. discovery New Hebrides by Cook


Lagrange

Lagrange, Joseph Louis
(1736 - 1813)

Lagrange was a French mathematician.

His name is associated with one common frame of reference used in fluid dynamics and atmospheric studies, known as the Lagrangian frame of reference. In it, measurements are made following fluid motion, and the equations of motion are written with reference to a point moving with the flow. (The Eulerian frame of reference is the other one that is commonly used). In modern meteorological work, the Lagrangian approach has been found to be very useful in NWP (numerical weather prediction) models of the atmosphere.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
France8691958
France869 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
France869 maxiMaxicard


Watt

Watt, James
(1736 - 1819)

James Watt was a Scottish instrument maker and inventor. During his work which led to the invention of the steam engine, he learned much about the properties of water vapour and steam, and independently discovered that a latent heat of vaporization is associated with the change of phase of water from liquid to gas. He also tabulated the vapour pressure of water as a function of temperature before the work of Clapeyron. Both these concepts are important in meteorology.

In the late 1700s, Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Watt formed the Lunar Society. It was an informal group of friends that met to discuss the latest topics in chemistry, mineralogy, meteorology, astronomy and physics.

To honour his scientific work, Watt's name was given to the SI (International System of Units) unit of power. One watt is equal to one joule per second. See the SI-metric unit names page for other persons after whom metric units were named.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Albania2205cOne of strip of 4 (2205 (a-d))1986(250th anniv. birth)
Albania2206Imperforate SS1
Cuba37181996(260th anniv. birth)
Grenada15381987(250th anniv. birth, in 1986)
Lesotho1213aOne of MS6 (1213 (a-f))1999James Watt (ship)
Maldives2421dOne of MS17 (2421 (a-q + label))2000
Mali5381986(250th anniv. birth)
Mali538 dsDeluxe sheet
Mali581538 overprinted1992(250th anniv. birth, in 1936)
Monaco10011975wattmeter
St. Thomas and Prince IslandUnknown e (new issue)One of MS6 (a-f)2008
Sierra Leone2296bOn stamp and in (right) margin of MS2 (2296 (a-b))2000
Sierra Leone2517eOne of MS6 (2517 (a-f))2002
Wallis and Futuna Islands341
i341
1986(250th anniv. birth)


Herschel, W

Herschel, William
(1738 - 1822)

William Herschel was an English astronomer and the discoverer of the planet Uranus.

He also had some interest in climate. In the late 1700s he hypothesized about physical processes that might affect the climate, such as cooling due to volcanic or meteoric dust veils in the atmosphere, or warming due to increased solar activity. Benjamin Franklin also had the same idea about volcanic eruptions as possible precursors of cold temperatures and in particular of very cold winters such as the one he experienced in France in 1783-1784 after and during the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki (that eruption took place from June 1783 to February 1784). Herschel was more interested in the effects of the sun, and noted that in years during which many dark spots appeared on the face of the sun there were often bountiful harvests of wheat. Herschel published some articles about possible solar effects on climate in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society between 1780 and 1801. The article of 1801 posed the question of whether or not any relation could be found between solar activity (as represented by the occurrence of sunspots) and the price of corn. Herschel was unable to provide a conclusive answer.

Herschel was also the first person to deduce that an atmosphere must exist on Mars. He observed curious white spots at the Martian poles that changed with time. Since the inclination of the Martian axis of rotation was similar to that of Earth, he concluded that the Martian seasons should resemble those of Earth, so that the Martian white spots could be interpreted as polar snow, which in turn meant that there must be an atmosphere to allow the snow to form and fall.

William Herschel's son John Herschel was an astronomer who had a strong interest in meteorology.

See also the Herschel satellite on the astronomical/telescope satellites page. The Herschel satellite is an ESA space telescope that will investigate the history of how stars and galaxies formed and to study how they continue to form in our own and other galaxies.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Central Africa Republic8441987
Comoro Islands4131979
GabonC2451981
GabonC247aMS3 (C245-C247)
Great Britain6161970(100th anniv. death, in 1971); John Herschel (at right); William Herschel, John Herschel's father (at left)
Great BritainNoneCachet on cover1981
Great Britain1337 fdcCancel on FDC1990
Grenada1999d (Mi?)One of MS9 (1999 (a-i))1991
Guinea RepublicUnknownPossibly unofficial1998Halley's Comet theme, but shows William Herschel
Guinea RepublicUnknown ss (BL1392)SS12007
Guinea RepublicUnknown ms3 (Mi5067-5069)On one of MS3
Guinea-BissauUnknown ss (new issue)In (lower) margin of SS12008
Guinea-BissauUnknown fdc
Unknown fdc (imperf.)
SS1 on FDC, also imperforate SS1 on FDC
Ivory CoastC100 (Mi889)1986
Ivory CoastC100aImperforate SS1
MaliC4241981
Nevis1185eOne of MS17 (1185 (a-q + label))2000
Nicaragua1985gOne of MS16 (1985 (a-p))1994
St. Vincent2700gOn one of MS9 (2700 (a-i))1999
Sierra Leone1167dOne of MS9 (1167 (a-i))1991
United StatesNone(Space Voyage) cachet on Voyager-2 launch cover1986
United StatesNone(Printed) cachet on Herschel and Planck launch cover2009Also Herschel satellite


de Saussure

de Saussure, Horace Bénédict
(1740 - 1799)

De Saussure was a Swiss physicist and alpinist who combined his love of mountains with his scientific training. He carefully studied the geology, chemistry and meteorology of the Alps. He believed that weather observations taken at high altitudes in the mountains could be of great importance to the science of meteorology, and made careful observations of pressure, temperature and humidity at different altitudes. He even carried barometers and thermometers to some mountain summits. At the top of Mont Blanc in 1787, for example, he found that the air pressure was represented by a reading of "16 inches and one line". He also measured the composition and transparency of the air at different heights, as well as the strength of solar radiation.

De Saussure himself developed many of the instruments that he used to make his observations. He built a cyanometer for measuring the blueness of the sky and a diaphanometer for judging of the clearness of the atmosphere. He tinkered with anemometers, and adapted thermometers to measure temperatures other than the usual air temperature. For example, he inserted the thermometer bulb into a piece of wet sponge and then swung the thermometer rapidly so that it revolved in a circle. In modern terminology, this instrument is known as a wet bulb thermometer. It measures the wet bulb temperature which, in combination with the dry bulb temperature (the usual air temperature measurement from a thermometer whose bulb is not moistened), can be used to calculate the relative humidity and the dew point of the air. De Saussure also measured temperatures in the ground, to the greatest depths to which he could drive his thermometer staves, and showed that the summer heat took six months to reach a depth of 30 feet into the ground. He also measured water temperatures, and showed that the water at the bottom of deep lakes is cold and has little change in temperature during the four seasons. These measurements were made possible by a novel invention: he used thermometers wrapped in insulating material so that the observed value from within the ground or lake would change very little as the instrument was raised to the surface. De Saussure also considered precipitation and estimated its effects on streams, rivers, lakes and glaciers.

As a result of his work in hygrometry, de Saussure was the first to show that air expands and decreases in density with increasing moisture content. Not only did he experiment with a wet bulb thermometer, but also he experimented tested various types of hygrometer. This research culminated in his invention of the hair hygrometer in around 1775. It is for this invention that he is best remembered. In his book Essais sur l'Hygrométrie, published in 1783, he discussed the general principles of hygrometry, presented the results of his experiments with various hygrometers, and described his hair hygrometer. He also discussed the principles of evaporation and presented some meteorological applications of his research.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Monaco1558 (Mi1781)1986200th anniv. 1st ascent of Mont Blanc; de Saussure (at left)


Cutler

Cutler, Rev. Manasseh
(1742 - 1823)

Cutler was an American Congregationalist clergyman and scientist. As a scientist his reputation was second only to that of Benjamin Franklin. Cutler became a lawyer, studied medecine and also found time for research in astronomy, meteorology and botany. He contributed some small papers on astronomy and meteorology to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which he was elected as a member in 1781.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
United States7951937Cutler (at left)
United States795 essayEssay


Lichtenberg

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph
(1742 - 1799)

Lichtenberg was a German scientist who taught at the University of Göttingen and became a leading German expert in many scientific fields including chemistry, geology, physics, meteorology and astronomy. His friends and admirers included Goethe and Kant.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany17491992(250th anniv. birth)


Condorcet

Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas
(1743 - 1794)

Condorcet was a French philosopher and writer. He wrote that "Hardly a fiftieth part of those men to whom nature has given talent receive the education necessary to make use of their talent; and that, therefore, the number of men destined to push back the frontiers of the sciences by their discoveries will grow in the same proportion (as universal education increases). We shall show how this quality of education, and the equality that will arise among nations, will speed up the advances of those sciences whose progress depends on observations repeated in greater number over a larger area; all that mineralogy, botany, zoology, meteorology can be expected to gain thereby; and finally what an enormous disproportion exists, in these sciences, between the weakness of the means that nevertheless have led us to so many useful and important truths, and the great scope of the means men will in the future be able to deploy".

This text shows that he understood that sciences such as meteorology depend upon repeated observations over a large area, and also that he was optimistic that the future would bring great advances in many sciences including meteorology. This optimism was consistent with his belief in social progress and in the 'perfectibility' of Man.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
France2162cOne of MS4 (2162 (a-d))1989


Lavoisier

de Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent
(1743 - 1794)

Lavoisier was a French chemist who is often referred to as the "father" of modern chemistry. In 1774, Joseph Priestley described to Lavoisier his experiments with air and his discovery of what he called "dephlogisticated air". Cavendish then determined that air is composed of approximately 80% "phlogisticated air" and 20% "dephlogisticated air". Lavoisier in turn measured some properties of those two component gases: one supports combustion and oxidation (dephlogisticated air, that he named oxygène) while the other is inert (phlogisticated air - nitrogen - that he named azote). Lavoisier also conducted experiments with water, and concluded in 1782 that it is composed of hydrogen (Cavendish's "inflammable air") and oxygen.

Lavoisier's second scientific love was meteorology. At the age of 20 he began making barometric observations in his home, and later expanded this work to include observations of air pressure, temperature, moisture content and wind speed and direction. In an idea well ahead of its time (that would be echoed by Lamarck in the early 1800s and von Humboldt in the late 1830s), he advocated the creation of a worldwide network of weather observing stations, and was involved in the creation of an informal network of weather correspondents in France and elsewhere in Europe. This network supplied the Journal de Paris with weather observations that it began to publish in 1777. "With all this information," Lavoisier wrote, "it is almost always possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts which would be very useful to society" (Oeuvres, Vol. III, p. 771, published 1865).

In 1776, Lavoisier found that some temperature values provided by the Réamur thermometer (devised in 1732) were not in agreement with those obtained with more recent instruments. He therefore defined precise rules for the fabrication and graduation of thermometers and provided twelve standard models to the Academy of Sciences.

Lavoisier also studied atmospheric electricity and the formation of thunder and in 1781 with Laplace and Volta demonstrated that hydrogen, nitric oxide, carbon dioxide and water vapor, in passing from the liquid to the vapor state, emitted electrical charges that could be measured with an electrometer. With Benjamin Franklin, Lavoisier installed lightning rods on the roof of Saint-Paul's Church.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
DjiboutiUnknown c
Unknown c (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
DjiboutiUnknown fdcOne of MS4 and cachet on FDC
France4641943(200th anniv. birth)
France464 maxiMaxicard
GermanyNoneCinderella (poster stamp)pre-WWI
MalawiUnknown b (new issue)One of MS2 (a-b)2008
Maldive Islands13891990Lavoisier and his wife
Mali476
i476
1983200th anniv. Lavoisier's determination of the composition of water
Mali476 dsDeluxe sheet
San Marino10241982
San Marino1024 maxiMaxicard


Jefferson

Jefferson, Thomas
(1743 - 1826)

Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, a founding father of the United States and the third President of that country. He and his friend James Madison (who later became the fourth U.S. president) were very interested in meteorology, partly for its intrinsic scientific value and partly because they felt that they had to refute the French naturalist Buffon's published claim that American nature was somehow inferior to that of Europe, due to a supposedly inferior climate. As a result, Jefferson and Madison made a large number of weather observations during their lives.

Jefferson made regular weather observations at his home in Monticello from 1772 to 1778. During those same years the president of William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, the Reverend James Madison (cousin of James Madison the future U.S. president), took his own weather observations in Williamsburg. In 1777 and 1778 Jefferson and Reverend Madison co-operated and took the first known simultaneous weather observations in America.

Jefferson was a dedicated weather observer who kept careful records. He even took an observation at 6:00 am on 4 July 1776, and then again later in the afternoon that same day, and duly recorded the maximum temperature in Philadelphia as 76 degrees Fahrenheit on the first day of existence of the new republic, though it is possible that this observation was taken indoors. This was the practice of the time as prescribed from England by Dr. James Jurin, secretary of the Royal Society of London, who advocated placing the thermometer "in a room which faces the north, where there is very seldom if ever any fire in the fireplace". Washington and Madison also followed this practice in their early observations. However, the Americans eventually realized that observations should be taken out of doors, away from any man-made influence on the readings. Furthermore, Jefferson came to understand the effect that direct sun would have on temperature observations. In 1790, before moving to a new house, he wrote to his son-in-law T. Randolph: "I have not begun my meteorological diary; because I have not yet removed to the house I have taken. I remove tomorrow: but as far as I can judge from its aspects there will not be one position to be had for the thermometer free from the influence of the sun both morning & evening. However, as I go into it, only till I can get a better, I shall hope ere long to find a less objectionable situation."

Jefferson was also interested in how weather, and especially extreme weather, might affect the affairs of man and society. He lived in Paris as American ambassador to France during the years before the outbreak of the French revolution, and commented on the long and severe European winter of 1788-1789: "…while labouring under the want of money for even ordinary purposes, in a government which required a million of livres a day, and driven to the last ditch by the universal call for liberty, there came on a winter of such severe cold as was without example in the memory of man, or in the written records of history. The Mercury was at times 50 degrees below the freezing point of Fahrenheit and 22 degress below that of Réamur. All outdoor labour was suspended, and the poor, without the wages of labour, were of course without either bread or fuel. The government found its necessities aggravated by that of procuring immense quantities of firewood, and of keeping great fires at all the cross streets, around which the people gathered in crowds, to avoid perishing with cold… ". In 1801 he expressed a similar idea in a letter to W. Dunbar: "I have often wondered that any human being should live in a cold country who can find room in a warm one. I have no doubt but that cold is the source of more sufferance to all animal nature than hunger, thirst, sickness, & all the other pains of life & of death itself put together."

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Guinea Republic1101SS11988
Micronesia1721993250th anniv. birth
St. Pierre and MiquelonUnknown (new issue)SS12007
Uganda5001986Jefferson Memorial
United States121856(30th anniv. death)
United States301861
United States671861
United States761863(120th anniv. birth)
United StatesU89-U92Stamped envelopes1870-1871
United States1391870
United States1611873(130th anniv. birth)
United StatesUO39Stamped envelope1873
United StatesU189Stamped envelope1875
United States2091882
United StatesUX8Postal card1885
United StatesUX9Postal card1886
United States2281890
United StatesUX12Postal card1894
United States2751895
United StatesUX14Postal card1897
United States3101903(160th anniv. birth)
United States3241904
United StatesUX27Postal card1914
United States5611923(180th anniv. birth)
United States5901926(100th anniv. death)
United StatesUX29Postal card1917
United StatesUX30Postal card1918
United StatesUX31Postal card, UX29 surcharged1920
United StatesUX32Postal card, UX29 surcharged1920
United StatesUX33Postal card, UX29 surcharged1920
United StatesUX34Postal card, UX29 surcharged1920
United StatesUX35Postal card, UX29 surcharged1920
United States6671929
United States8071938
United StatesKM1925 cents (coin) (nickel)1938—1942
United States8511939
United StatesKM192a5 cents (coin) (silver)1942—1945
United StatesKMA1925 cents (coin) (nickel)1946—2003
United StatesUX39Postal card, UX27 surcharged1952
United StatesUX41Postal card, UX27 surcharged1952
United States10331954-1968
United States10471956Jefferson's home, Monticello; (130th anniv. death)
United States12781968
United States1278ABooklet pane of 8 (8x 1278)1968
United States1278A fdcBooklet pane on FDC1968
United States1687bOne of MS5 (1687 (a-e))1976Jefferson (at left); (150th anniv. death)
United States17791979
United States2216cOne of MS9 (2216 (a-i))1986(140th anniv. death)
United StatesP4972 dollars. (banknote)1995
United StatesP5162 dollars (banknote)2003
United StatesNoneCachet on cover2004
United StatesNoneCancel on cover2004
United StatesKM3605 cents (coin)2004
United StatesKM3615 cents (coin)2004
United StatesKM3685 cents (coin)2005
United StatesKM3695 cents (coin)2005
United StatesKM3815 cents (coin)2006—>


Lamarck

Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste
(1744 - 1829)

Lamarck was a French botanist and zoologist who also had scientific interest in meteorology, chemistry, geology and paleontology. He wrote a number of articles related to meteorology, including his first known publication in any field (in 1776): Memoir on the Principal Phenomena of the Atmosphere.

Lamarck felt that climate necessarily influenced animal life, and so must be one of the principal environmental factors in the process of evolution. He speculated that changes in the atmosphere were due to atmospheric tidal effects caused by the sun and the moon. He believed that the total depth of the atmosphere was in the range of 66-80 km, and noted that clouds, winds, rain, thunderstorms, fog, hail and all other common meteors were limited to the lowest part of the atmosphere (a layer he estimated to be about 10 km deep, the 'troposphere' in modern terms).

Lamarck published his Annuaires météorologiques from 1799 to 1810. These works had some similarities to weather almanachs and were destined in part for the use of people such as farmers, doctors and mariners. Each volume included his estimate of the probabilities of different weather for different time periods. However, each volume also presented some of his general ideas about meteorology, such as his proposed cloud classification (see below). Thus these works were more than mere weather almanachs.

Lamarck proposed the first system of cloud classification in 1802, in the Annuaire météorologique (Volume 3) and in a paper entitled On Cloud Forms. He noted that "it is not in the least amiss for those who are involved in meteorological research to give some attention to the form of clouds; for, besides the individual and accidental forms of each cloud, it is clear that clouds have certain general forms which are not all dependent on chance, but on a state of affairs which it would be useful to recognize and determine". He initially proposed five cloud types "related to general causes which are easily ascertained":

In the Annuaire for 1805 he proposed a more detailed classification: 12 different categories and a total of 20 different cloud types. However, Lamarck's system was not taken up by others, possibly because of its unusual terminology combined with its relatively large number of categories. The Englishman Luke Howard proposed his own cloud classification in 1803, and it became widely accepted, while Lamarck's system disappeared into history.

In the Annuaire for 1807 Lamarck proposed the creation of a French central meteorological bureau that would collect data from different observatories and then use the data to produce weather forecasts. An attempt to do this through the French medical academy and directed by Lamarck himself had already been made in 1801; it was discontinued soon thereafter. The first national French meteorological bureau, the Bureau central météorologique, would not formally come into existence until 1878, following some 20 years of work by Urbain LeVerrier to build its various components. Morse's electric telegraph, which would permit the rapid diffusion of weather data in the 1850s and thereafter, was a key development without which central weather bureaus could not exist. Lamarck's idea was simply some 50 years ahead of its time.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceNoneCancel and cachet on cover1979150th anniv. death


Jeffries

Jeffries, John
(1745 - 1819)

Jeffries was an American physician and scientist-adventurer with an interest in various physical sciences including meteorology. He made two balloon flights with the French aeronaut J.-P. Blanchard with the goal of making atmospheric measurements.

In their first flight together on 30 November 1784, they flew about one hour and travelled almost 30 km from London to Dartford. Jeffries made some observations of the atmosphere. He found that the temperature decreased with height, from 11°C at the ground to -2°C at 9000 feet. He also recorded a steady decrease of pressure with height, and noted large variations in humidity as the balloon rose.

In their second flight, on 7 January 1785, Jeffries and Blanchard became the first people to cross the English Channel by air; they flew from Dover to Calais in about 2½ hours. The balloon flew so low that to avoid hitting the water the aeronauts were forced to throw nearly everything overboard, including most of the clothes they were wearing! Jeffries had planned to make additional atmospheric observations during this flight, but unfortunately the instruments were jettisoned along with everything else.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Anguilla54319831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Barbuda580 (Mi661)19831"Blanchard and Jeffries' flight, 7 January 1785"; balloon crossing the English Channel
Cambodia41519831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Central Africa Republic609
i609
19831J. P. Blanchard and his balloon crossing the English Channel (with Jeffries)
Comoro IslandsC124 (Mi683)19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Cook Islands762 (Mi949)Single + label19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Cook Islands765 (BL143)SS119831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Cook Islands766cOne of MS5 (766 (a-e)) (BL144), 762 surcharged19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
FujeiraMi6221971Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Great Britain1073j fdcCachet on MS9 (2x 890c + 2x 974 + 4x 1073 + 1084) FDC1985"The Blanchard and Jeffries balloon"
Great BritainNoneCancel1985200th anniv. Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Grenada15221987Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Korea (North)2255dOne of MS5 (2255 (a-e + label))19822Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
KyrgyzstanUnknown iOne of MS9 (a-i)20001785 "Blanchard and Jeffries, 1785" (balloon crossing of the English Channel)
Laos46019831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Libya1144d (Mi1212)One of strip of 6 (1144 (a-f)) (BL80)19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Malagasy Republic1390c (Mi2046)One of MS9 (1390 (a-i)) (Mi2044-2052)19981785 "Blanchard et Jeffries" (balloon crossing of the English Channel)
MongoliaC16519822"1785 - Blanchard - France"; balloon crossing the English Channel (with Jeffries)
NicaraguaBL111In (upper-centre) margin of SS11980Balloon used by Blanchard and Jeffries to cross the English Channel
NicaraguaC1041In (upper-right) margin of SS119831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Nicaragua2298 (Mi4089)SS11999Blanchard and description of Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon flight across the English Channel in January 1785. However the balloon at the upper-right is the one Blanchard used in his first ascent 2 March 1784
ParaguayC383 (BL227)1974Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Poland2434 (Mi2730)1981"J. Blanchard, J. Jeffries, 1785"; balloon crossing the English Channel
Rwanda1187 (Mi1271)19842"Blanchard et Jeffries, 1-7-1785"; balloon crossing the English Channel
St. Thomas and Prince Islands704aIn (left and lower-right) margin of MS12 (4x (703a+703b+704))19831"John Jeffries" (at lower-right)
United States2032 fdc1Cachet on FDC19831Jeffries and barometer; Jeffries and Blanchard in cachet text
United States2032-2033 fdcCachet on FDC (also with C54)Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Upper Volta620 (Mi887)19831Jeffries; Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Upper Volta620a (BL63)SS1 (620)
Vanuatu35619831"1785 - Blanchard and Jeffries"; balloon crossing the English Channel
VietNam (North)126519831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Yemen (PDR)316dOne of MS4 (316 (a-d)), or one of deluxe MS4 (316 ds (a-d))19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel

1All items issued in 1983 commemorate the general theme of the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon. It took place on 21 November 1783. On that date, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes rose in a hot air balloon and flew approximately 9 km from the centre of Paris to the suburbs in about 25 minutes.
2200th anniversary (in 1983) of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon (for items issued in 1982 or 1984)
3200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon the United States, by Jean-Pierre Blanchard (for items issued in 1993).


Monge

Monge, Gaspard
(1745 - 1818)

Monge was a French mathematician and member of the Académie des Sciences. He also worked in other scientific fields such as physics, chemistry and meteorology, and contributed studies in those areas to the Académie. He studied the composition of water, which he was able to deduce at about the same time as Lavoisier.

Monge participated in Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, where he studied the physical cause of desert mirages. He explained that they were related to the layer of superheated air next to the desert surface: the boundary between this air and the cooler, denser air just above causes light rays from the sky to bend upward and into the eye of the observer, instead of moving in a straight line and striking the sand. This creates the illusion of water in the distance (the observer interprets the light as water on the sand). Monge's paper explaining the phenomenon appeared in 1800 in the Mémoires sur l'Égypte of the Egyptian Institute. It was still being cited 70 years later by the French scientific writer Flammarion.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceB2791953
France2232aOne of MS4 (2232 (a-d))1990
France2232a fdcCancel and cachet on FDC
France2232a fdc2Cancel and cachet (different) on FDC
France2232a fdc3Cancel and cachet (different) on FDC
France2232a fdc4Cancel and cachet (different) on FDC
France2232a maxiMaxicard
France2232a folderFDC folder


Volta

Volta, Alessandro
(1745 - 1827)

Volta was an Italian physicist who invented the battery. He also made important contributions to meteorology and the study of gases, notably with his discovery of methane.

At the tender age of 18 Volta began his studies of electricity. He examined Benjamin Franklin's investigations into static electricity and concluded that Franklin was indeed correct when he stated that lightning is a form of static electricity.

In 1783 Volta showed that air expands at a constant rate with increasing temperature. He published this result, but his paper was ignored and forgotten. The relationship was re-derived by Charles in 1787 (who did not publish it) and by Gay-Lussac in 1802 (who did publish it). It is now most commonly known as Charles' Law.

As part of his research into batteries, Volta developed several new devices. One of them, the straw electrometer, was designed to measure atmospheric electricity.

To honour his scientific work, Volta's name was given to the SI (International System of Units) unit of electric potential. See the SI-metric unit names page for other persons after whom metric units were named.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Cyrenaica25Italy 188 changed colour and overprinted1927100th anniv. death
Cyrenaica26Italy 189 changed colour and overprinted
Cyrenaica27Italy 191 changed colour and overprinted
DjiboutiC107Afars and Issas C105 overprinted1977150th anniv. death
Eritrea102 (Mi125)Italy 188changed colour and overprinted1927100th anniv. death
Eritrea103 (Mi126)Italy 189 changed colour and overprinted
Eritrea104 (Mi127)Italy 191 changed colour and overprinted
Italy188 (Mi259)1927100th anniv. death
Italy189 (Mi260)
Italy190 (Mi261)
Italy191 (Mi262)
Italy526 (Mi784)1949Voltaic pile
Italy527 (Mi785)1949
Italy1873 (Mi2205)1992
Italy2309 (Mi2560)1999
San Marino10421983
Somalia97Italy 188 changed colour and overprinted1927100th anniv. death
Somalia98Italy 189 changed colour and overprinted
Somalia99Italy 191 overprinted
Trieste (Italy)53Italy 526 overprinted1949Voltaic pile
Trieste (Italy)54Italy 527 overprinted1949
Tripolitania25Italy 188 changed colour and overprinted1927100th anniv. death
Tripolitania26Italy 189 changed colour and overprinted
Tripolitania27Italy 191 changed colour and overprinted


Charles

Charles, Jacques Aléxandre César
(1746 - 1823)

J. A. C. Charles was a French chemist, physicist and aeronaut. On 27 August 1783 he tested his unmanned hydrogen balloon and along with Benjamin Franklin watched it rise into the atmosphere. On 1 December 1783 Charles and Nicolas Robert made the first manned ascent in his hydrogen balloon La Charlière (the earlier ascent of Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes on 21 November 1783 was made in a hot air balloon). They ascended to a height of approximately 3000 m and carried a barometer and thermometer to measure the pressure and the temperature of the air. This was therefore not only the first manned hydrogen balloon flight, but also the first scientific balloon flight that provided the first meteorological sounding information.

In 1787 Charles discovered the relationship between the volume of a gas and its temperature (at a constant volume the pressure of a gas is proportional to its temperature in kelvins), though he never published the work. Volta had already published in 1783 a similar result, but his work was ignored or forgotten. Gay-Lussac later referred to Charles' work and re-derived the law and published it in 1802. It is generally known as Charles' law, but has also been referred to Gay-Lussac's law.

Note: Charles' balloon, La Charlière, is mentioned frequently in the table below.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Andorra (French)30419831La Charlière (at right)
Azerbaijan5071995First hydrogen balloon (tested by Charles in Paris on 27 August 1783)
Belgium1146 fdcCachet on FDC19831La Charlière
BerneraUnknown cOne of MS419831La Charlière, 1783
Central Africa RepublicC191 (Mi544)1978La Charlière (balloon is very similar to La Charlière as depicted in Latvia CB11)
Central Africa RepublicC191a (BL28)SS1 (C191)
Central Africa Republic614 (BL256)SS119831Charles and La Charlière (at left)
Central Africa Republic1331hFrom MS8 (1331 (a-h))2000La Charlière
ChadC263 (Mi963)19831"MM Charles et Robert - 1.12.1783"; La Charlière
Cuba257619831La Charlière
Ecuador1059 (Mi1966)19842La Charlière
Ecuador1060 (BL111)In (lower-right) margin of SS1
France1863 cardBlack cancel on special postal card19831Charles and La Charlière
France1864 (Mi2388)From MS20 (1864a (10x (1863-1864) + 10 labels))19831J. Charles and M-N Robert; La Charlière
France1864 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC19831Charles and La Charlière
France1864 card1(Violet) cancel and cachet on special card19831"Jacques Charles" and La Charlière; "first flight in a hydrogent balloon made by Professor Charles and his mechanic Robert"
France1864 card2Cachet on special card (different)19831Charles
FranceNoneCancel19831"Charles et Robert"
FranceNoneCancel (different)19831"Charles et Robert"
FranceNoneCancel (different)19831"Charles et Robert"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC81From strip of 2 (C82a (C81-C82 + label))19842"J. Charles" and La Charlière
Guinea-Bissau443 (Mi651)19831La Charlière
Ivory CoastC72 (Mi773)19831La Charlière
Korea (North)2255cOne of MS5 (2255 (a-e + label))19822La Charlière landing at Nesle, 1 December 1783
KyrgyzstanUnknown cOne of MS9 (a-i)2000La Charlière
LatviaCB11
CB11a (imperf.)
1932La Charlière, 1783
Laos45919831La Charlière
Malagasy Republic1390b (Mi2045)From MS9 (1390 (a-i)) (Mi2044-2052)1998Charles and Robert, 1783 and La Charlière
Mauritania52319831La Charlière
NetherlandsNoneCancel on postcard1943La Charlière (at right)
NetherlandsNonePostcard, back1943Charles and Robert's balloon La Charlière landing at Nesle, 1 December 1783
NigerC31919831"1-12-1783 - Ballon à hydrogène" (La Charlière)
NigerC319 dsDeluxe sheet
Nicaragua2300 (Mi4087)SS11999Charles and his flight with Robert in La Charlière
Paraguay2104 label (Mi3704 label)One of three labels from MS6 (2104a (6x 2104 + 3 labels)1983La Charlière
Rwanda1185 (Mi1269)19842"Charles et Robert, 1-12-1783"; La Charlière (at left)
St. Thomas and Prince Islands704aIn (left) margin of MS12 (4x (703a+703b+704))19831"J. A. C. Charles" (at left)
Surinam657 (Mi1054)19831La Charlière
Surinam655-657 fdcOne of three stamps on FDC
Turks and Caicos57319831La Charlière
United StatesNoneCancel1985La Charlière
Upper Volta619 (Mi886)19831Charles; Charles' and Robert's flight, 1783; La Charlière
Upper Volta619a (BL62)SS1 (619)
Upper Volta623 (BL59)In (lower) margin of SS119831"Charles 1783"
Vanuatu35519831"1783 - J.A.C. Charles"; La Charlière
Yemen (PDR)316bOne of MS4 (316 (a-d)), or one of deluxe MS4 (316 ds (a-d))19831La Charlière
Zaire11611984"1783 - Ballon de Charles et Robert"; La Charlière

1All items issued in 1983 commemorate the general theme of the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon. It took place on 21 November 1783. On that date, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes rose in a hot air balloon and flew approximately 9 km from the centre of Paris to the suburbs in about 25 minutes.
2200th anniversary (in 1983) of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon (for items issued in 1982 or 1984)


von Goethe

von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
(1749 - 1832)

Goethe was a German poet and philosopher who also had a wide variety of scientific interests, including meteorology.

Goethe's poetry and philosophy sometimes treated weather-related subjects. For example, he said "Soul of man how equal to water! Fate of man how equal to wind!", thus equating the dynamism of water and air to that of Man. This is reminiscent of Heraclitus, who considered wind, water and life and concluded that "everything flows" (panta rhei).

In 1775 von Goethe entered the court of the Duchy of Weimar, where he worked in various government offices. As a member of the cabinet, he was able to indulge his scientific pursuits. For example, his interest in the weather led him to set up an early weather station in the Duchy. This was the precursor of a weather observing network in the Duchy, which in turn was a precursor of modern state meteorological services in Europe.

During his travels around Europe, Goethe discovered a simple water barometer known as a weather glass and introduced it to the German-speaking countries. His promotion of the instrument linked it to him and it became known in Europe as the Goethe barometer. His personal weather glass is still found in his former home (now the Goethe Museum) in Weimar, Germany.

Goethe had long been fascinated by clouds and their forms, and enthusiastically adopted the cloud classification system introduced by the Englishman Luke Howard in 1803. He used it in his own weather journals as well as in the Weimar observation network. Goethe later included in his meteorological writings the poem Howard's Ehrengedächtnis (To the Honoured Momory of Howard) consisting of four strophes: 'Stratus', 'Cumulus', 'Cirrus' and 'Nimbus'. He also published an essay, Wolkengestalt nach Howard (Cloud Shapes according to Howard), as well as the German language translation of an autobiographical memoir written by Howard at his request. For Goethe, Howard was "the first to hold fast conceptually the airy and always-changing form of clouds, to limit and fasten down the indefinite, the intangible and unattainable and give them appropriate names".

Several books or treatises have been written about von Goethe's work in meteorology, including:

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
AustriaNoneCinderella (poster stamp)Unknown
Antigua and Barbuda2264bOne of MS3 (2264 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Antigua and Barbuda2265SS1
Bulgaria40771999(250th anniv. birth)
Central Africa Republic6431984
Chile1291-1292 fdcCancel and cachet on FDC1999(250th anniv. birth)
Comoro Islands5491982(150th anniv. death)
Comoro Islands550
Congo (People's Republic)6381982(150th anniv. death)
Congo (People's Republic)638Deluxe sheet
Dominica2156bOn one stamp and in (upper-right) margin of MS3 (2156 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Dominica2156 fdcMS3 on FDC
Dominica2157SS1
France8631957
France863 maxiMaxicard
France863 proof1Colour proof
France863 proof2Two-colour proof
France863 proof3Colour proof (red)
France863 proof4Colour proof (green)
Germany3511926
Germany3521927
Germany3581926
Germany365358 overprinted1927
GermanyNoneCinderella1932(100th anniv. death)
GermanyNonePostal card1932100th anniv. death
Germany (West)13691982(150th anniv. death)
Germany20521999(250th anniv. birth)
Germany2052 folderFolder
Germany2052+cancelFirst Day cancel
Germany2123200150th anniv. Goethe Institute
Germany2276MS2 (2276 (a-b))2004150th anniv. première Goethe's Faust
GermanyNoneCancel2007175th anniv. death Goethe
Germany (West)B3061949200th anniv. birth
Germany (West)B307
Germany (West)B308
Germany (West)8331961
Germany (West)833 maxi1Maxicard
Germany (West)833 maxi2Maxicard (different)
Germany (West)833 maxi3Maxicard (different)
Germany (West)NoneCancel and cachet on postcard1983(150th anniv. death)
Germany (West)NoneCancel and cachet (different) on postcard1983(150th anniv. death)
Germany (East)9661967Goethehaus in Weimar
Germany (East)14711973
Germany (East)2245aOne of MS2 (2245 (a-b))1982(150th anniv. death)
Germany (East)28331990Goethe and Schiller
Germany (East)NonePostal card1990Goethe and Schiller
Germany (French)4N111945
Germany (Baden)5NB121949200th anniv. birth
Germany (Baden)5NB13
Germany (Baden)5NB14
Germany (Berlin)9N611949(200th anniv. birth)
Germany (Berlin)9N62
Germany (Berlin)9N63
Germany (Rhine Palatinate)6NB71949200th anniv. birth
Germany (Rhine Palatinate)6NB8
Germany (Rhine Palatinate)6NB9
Germany (Russia)10NB61949200th anniv. birth
Germany (Russia)10NB7
Germany (Russia)10NB8
Germany (Russia)10NB9
Germany (Russia)10NB10
Germany (Russia)10NB11SS1
Germany (Russia)10NB13(200th anniv. birth)
Germany (Wurttemburg)8NB91949200th anniv. birth
Germany (Wurttemburg)8NB10
Germany (Wurttemburg)8NB11
Grenada2858bOne of MS3 (2858 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Grenada2860SS1
Guinea Republic1608bOn one stamp and in (upper-left) margin of MS3 (1608 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Guinea Republic1609SS1
Guyana3413bOne of MS3 (3413 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Guyana3414SS1
HungaryCB5 (Mi1025)1948
Hungary2777SS11982150th anniv. death
Hungary2777 fdcSS1 and cancel and cachet on FDC
HungaryNonePostal card (gold)1982(150th anniv. death)
HungaryNonePostal card (blue)
Italy23041999(250th anniv. birth)
Italy2304 maxiMaxicard
Ivory Coast6261982(150th anniv. death)
Korea (North)2134Stamp-on-stamp: France 8631981
Korea (North)BL121SS11982150th anniv. death
Korea (North)21991982150th anniv. death
Korea (North)2200One of MS9 (2200a (9x 2200))
Korea (North)2201One of MS9 (2201a (9x 2201))
Korea (North)2202One of MS9 (2202a (9x 2202))
Korea (North)2203eFrom MS5 (2203 (a-e + label))
Korea (North)2203 label
Korea (North)2204 (BL121)SS1
Korea (South)19641999250th anniv. birth
Korea (South)1964 maxi1Maxicard
Korea (South)1964 maxi2Maxicard (different)
Korea (South)1965SS1
Korea (South)NoneMeter on cover1999250th anniv. birth
Liechtenstein7231981
Liechtenstein11511999(250th anniv. birth)
Liechtenstein1152
Luxembourg5931977
Luxembourg593 fdcStamp on FDC
Luxembourg593-596 fdcOne of four stamps on FDC
Luxembourg10201999(250th anniv. birth)
Maldive Islands6711977Goethe (at left)
MaliC467
iC467
1982(150th anniv. death)
MaliC467 dsDeluxe sheet
MaliC467 proofDie proof
Moldova322 (Mi326)1999(250th anniv. birth)
Moldova322 fdcStamp and cancel on FDC
MoldovaUnknown2007
MoldovaUnknown fdcOne of four stamps on FDC
Niger578 (Mi788)1982(150th anniv. death)
Paraguay953
i953
Changed colours on imperforate1966
Paraguay953 muestra
i953 muestra
Overprinted "muestra", changed colours on imperforate
Paraguay956
i956
Changed colours on imperforate
Paraguay956 muestra
i956 muestra
Overprinted "muestra", changed colours on imperforate
Paraguay958a
i958a
In (lower-left) margin of SS1, changed colours on imperforate
Paraguay958a muestra
i958a muestra
In (lower-left) margin of SS1, overprinted "muestra", changed colours on imperforate
Paraguay24451993paintings of Goethe
Paraguay2446
Paraguay24512445 overprinted1993
Paraguay24522446 overprinted
Romania3135cOne of MS4 (3135 (a-d))1983
Romania3135c maxiMaxicard
RomaniaNoneCancelSibiu 8/2/1991Oameni de seama - Johann W. Goethe
Romania43041999(250th anniv. birth)
Romania4304 fdcFDC
Romania4304 maxiMaxicard
RomaniaNoneCancel and cachet on cover1999250th anniv. birth
RomaniaNoneCancel on cover (different)1999250th anniv. birth
St. Thomas and Prince Islands612 (Mi695A)
i612 (Mi695B)
1981
St. Thomas and Prince Islands613 (BL57A)
i613 (BL57B)
SS1
St. Thomas and Prince Islands654 (Mi765)
i654
1982150th anniv. death
St. Thomas and Prince Islands655 (BL91A)
i655 (BL91B)
SS1
St. Vincent2709bOn one stamp and in (?) margin of MS3 (2709 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
St. Vincent2710bOn one stamp and in (?) margin of MS3 (2710 (a-c))
St. Vincent2711SS1
St. Vincent2712SS1
Serbian RepublicUnknown (new issue)From MS8 + label2007175th anniv. death
Sierra Leone2229bOne of MS3 (2229 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Sierra Leone2229bOne of MS3 (2230 (2229b + 2230 (a-b))
Sierra Leone2231SS1
Sierra Leone2232SS1
Sierra Leone2794cOne of MS3 (2794 (a-c))2005Statue of Schiller and Goethe
TogoC190
iC190
1972140th anniv. death
TogoC190 dsDeluxe sheet
United StatesNoneCancel1999250th anniv. birth
Uruguay11461983150th anniv. death
Uruguay1146 fdcFDC
Uruguay1147MS4 (1144-1147)
Upper Volta3161973
Upper Volta642 (Mi925)1983150th anniv. death
Zambia794MS3 (794 (a-c))1999(250th anniv. birth)
Zambia795SS1


Berthollet

Berthollet, Claude-Louis
(1748 - 1822)

Berthollet was a French chemist who in the early 1800s wanted to find out how the composition of the atmosphere changed with altitude. Laplace was also interested in this question, and in 1804 proposed that the French Academy of Sciences fund scientific balloon flights that would make the required measurements. The proposal was accepted, and in August of that year Louis-Joseph Gay-Lussac (a student and lab assistant of Berthollet) and Jean-Baptiste Biot rose to some 4000 m in a balloon over Paris. In September of that year, Gay-Lussac made a second flight, this one solo. Air samples collected near the highest level reached, around 7000 m, were later analyzed and found to have the same composition as air at the ground.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
France8721958(210th anniv. birth)
France872 fdc1Cancel and cachet on FDC
France872 fdc2Cancel and cachet (different) on FDC


Laplace

Laplace, Pierre-Simon
(1749 - 1827)

Laplace was a French mathematician and astronomer. His name is used to refer to a particular mathematical function that is now widely used in meteorology: the "Laplacian".

Laplace needed to know how his astronomical observations were affected by the refraction of light caused by the atmosphere. To determine this, he needed vertical profiles of temperature and moisture. Some such measurements had been made outside France, but in 1804 Laplace proposed to the French Academy of Sciences that funds be allotted for balloon flights that would make the necessary measurements within the country. Claude-Louis Berthollet, who wanted to find out how the composition of the atmosphere changes with altitude, supported the proposal. The Academy agreed, and in August 1804, Louis-Joseph Gay-Lussac (Berthollet's student and lab assistant) and Jean-Baptiste Biot rose in a hot air balloon to some 4000 m over Paris while making observations of the atmosphere. Gay-Lussac made another ascent in September of that year. In these flights it was found that the air became drier with height, while the temperature decreased.

As a result of this work, Laplace was able to deduce a hypsometric equation (an equation that relates atmospheric pressure to geometric height, given known profiles of atmospheric temperature and humidity). His formula was later used by other researchers. For example, Angot, Hergesell and Rykatchef showed in a study published in Part 1 of the 1896 Memoirs of the French Central Meteorological Bureau that while a single hypsometric equation valid for a deep layer of the atmosphere would be complex and difficult to derive, such a layer could be divided into thin sub-layers, each of which could then be treated with Laplace's simpler equation. The results for all the layers could then simply be summed to obtain an accurate solution.

Laplace also did some initial work on the laws that govern atmospheric pressure tides. This work was later extended by Kelvin and generalized by Rayleigh and Margules.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceB2981955
FranceB298 maxiMaxicard
MozambiqueUnknown dOne of MS6 (a-f), also imperforate MS6 (a-f)2001
MozambiqueUnknown ss1SS1


Madison

Madison, James
(1751 - 1836)

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States. He and his friend Thomas Jefferson were keenly interested in meteorology, partly from a strict scientific viewpoint and partly because they felt that they had to refute the French naturalist Buffon's published claim that American flora and fauna were somehow inferior to those of Europe, due to a supposedly inferior climate.

Jefferson, who made weather observations at Monticello from 1772 to 1778, encouraged Madison to make his own observations. As a result Madison and his father recorded some 16,000 weather observations at Montpelier (their home) from 1784 to 1802. Before 1787, Madison's thermometer was located inside his house. This was standard practice at the time (following the instructions of the Englishman Dr. James Jurin, secretary of the Royal Society of London, who advocated placing the thermometer "in a room which faces the north, where there is very seldom if ever any fire in the fireplace"). However, Madison came to the conclusion in the winter of 1786-1787 that his observed temperatures could be inconsistent with what was happening outside (for example, the Madison family weather diary for 10 December 1786 noted that trees were covered in ice and that the thermometer dropped from 30 degrees Fahrenheit to 22 when put "on the porch"). As a result, on 16 February 1787 Madison moved his thermometer outdoors to the porch. This action was a bold step forward for the times, representing as it did a break with overseas authority. It of course immediately changed the character of Madison's temperature observations, which then showed much larger diurnal differences than had been the case previously. It can be said that in meteorology as in politics, Madison was among the American founders of measures that represented a revolution against British practices.

Madison's weather observations are far more complete than those of Jefferson, in number and type (Madison regularly observed both temperature and precipitation). Researchers from University of Virginia and the University of Arkansas have recently taken advantage of Madison's work in their development of a history of precipitation over central Virginia during the past two centuries (Druckenbrod, D., M. Mann, D. Stahle, M. Cleaveland, M. Therrell and H. Shugart, 2003: Late Eighteenth-Century Precipitation Reconstructions from James Madison's Montpelier Plantation. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 84(1) (January 2003), 57-71). The authors used tree rings from a Montpelier forest to estimate Virginia precipitation in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and calibrated their tree ring data from the beginning of that period with Madison's actual observations of precipitation. They then connected the resulting reconstruction to modern observations, resulting in a precipitation record over 200 years long. They concluded that from Madison's time there has been a shift in Virginia from May to June in the timing of the main spring precipitation. Madison's temperature observations have also been compared to modern observations, with the conclusion that the climate in Virginia was probably cooler in the late 18th century than it is now, particularly in summer.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Central Africa Republic880 (Mi1306A)
i880 (Mi1306B)
1988
Central Africa RepublicBL430SS11988
United States2621894
United States2771895
United States3121903
United States4791917
United States8081938
United States8431939
United States843 fdc1Stamp and cachet on FDC
United States843 fdc2Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United StatesNoneCancel1942Madison WI
United States2216dOne of MS9 (2216 (a-i))1986(150th anniv. death)
United States2875aMS4 (4x 2875)1994
United States35452001


Blanchard

Blanchard, Jean-Pierre
(1753 - 1809)

Blanchard was a French aeronaut who made some 60 balloon flights during his life. Two of them were made with the American physician and scientist John Jeffries.

In their first flight together on 30 November 1784, they flew about one hour and travelled almost 30 km from London to Dartford. Jeffries made some observations of the atmosphere. He found that the temperature decreased with height, from 11°C at the ground to -2°C at 9000 feet. He also recorded a steady decrease of pressure with height, and noted large variations in humidity as the balloon rose.

In their second flight, on 7 January 1785, Blanchard and Jeffries became the first people to cross the English Channel by air; they flew from Dover to Calais in about 2½ hours. The balloon flew so low that to avoid hitting the water the aeronauts were forced to throw nearly everything overboard, including most of the clothes they were wearing! Jeffries had planned to make additional atmospheric observations during this flight, but unfortunately the instruments were jettisoned along with everything else.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Anguilla54319831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Antigua and Barbuda1713 (Mi1872)19933First airmail in the U.S. via Blanchard's balloon, 1793
Antigua and Barbuda1715 (Mi1873)
Antigua and Barbuda1719 (BL272)SS1
Barbuda580 (Mi661)19831"Blanchard and Jeffries' flight, 7 January 1785"; balloon crossing the English Channel
Belize679SS119831"Blanchard"; (in upper margin) the balloon he used in his first ascent 2 March 1784; (at left) his Chelsea balloon on 2 November 1784
Cambodia41519831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Central Africa Republic609
i609
19831J. P. Blanchard and his balloon crossing the English Channel (with Jeffries)
Chad451 (Mi979)19831Blanchard and Chelsea balloon (1784)
Chad451a (BL66)SS1 (451)
ChadC26419831"J.P. Blanchard, Berlin, 1788"; balloon
Comoro IslandsC124 (Mi683)19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Cook Islands762 (Mi949)Single + label19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Cook Islands765 (BL143)SS119831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Cook Islands766cOne of MS5 (766 (a-e)) (BL144), 762 surcharged19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Dominica1577 (BL244)SS119933Blanchard's balloon, 1793 in the U.S.
FranceNoneCancel1987
France3260fOne of MS6 (3260 (a-f)) (BL65)2006"Blanchard - Ballon à rames" (the balloon he used in his first ascent 2 March 1784)
FujeiraMi6221971Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Gambia1388SS11993Blanchard's balloon used in his first ascent, 2 March 1784
GermanyNonePostcard, also frontUnknown"Blanchard in Nürnberg, 1787"
Great Britain1073j fdcCachet on MS9 (2x 890c + 2x 974 + 4x 1073 + 1084) FDC1985"The Blanchard and Jeffries balloon"
Great BritainNoneCancel1985200th anniv. Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Grenada15221987Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Grenada2285 (Mi2691)1993200th anniv. first hydrogen gas balloon flight in America
Grenada2286 (Mi2692)
Grenada2287 (BL356)SS1
Korea (North)2255dOne of MS5 (2255 (a-e + label))19822Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
KyrgyzstanUnknown iOne of MS9 (a-i)20001785 "Blanchard and Jeffries, 1785" (balloon crossing of the English Channel)
Laos46019831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Libya1144d (Mi1212)One of strip of 6 (1144 (a-f)) (BL80)19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Malagasy Republic1390c (Mi2046)One of MS9 (1390 (a-i)) (Mi2044-2052)19981785 "Blanchard et Jeffries" (balloon crossing of the English Channel)
MongoliaC16519822"1785 - Blanchard - France"; balloon crossing the English Channel (with Jeffries)
NicaraguaBL111In (upper-centre) margin of SS11980Balloon used by Blanchard and Jeffries to cross the English Channel
NicaraguaC1041In (upper-right) margin of SS119831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Nicaragua2298 (Mi4089)SS11999Blanchard and description of Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon flight across the English Channel in January 1785. However the balloon at the upper-right is the one Blanchard used in his first ascent 2 March 1784
ParaguayC383 (BL227)1974Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
ParaguayC532 (BL385)In (lower-right) margin of SS119831Balloon used by Blanchard in his first ascent, 2 March 1784
Poland2434 (Mi2730)1981"J. Blanchard, J. Jeffries, 1785"; balloon crossing the English Channel
Poland2643 (Mi2939)1984Blanchard's balloon flight in Poland in 1790
Rwanda1185 (Mi1269)19842"Blanchard, 2-3-1784" (at right is the balloon Blanchard used in his first ascent 2 March 1784)
Rwanda1186 (Mi1270)Blanchard and his wife in the gondola of their balloon
Rwanda1187 (Mi1271)"Blanchard et Jeffries, 1-7-1785"; balloon crossing the English Channel
St. Thomas and Prince Islands5551979"Blanchard, 1784"; balloon used in his first ascent 2 March 1784
St. Thomas and Prince Islands704aIn (left and lower-right) margin of MS12 (4x (703a+703b+704))19831"Jean-Pierre Blanchard" (at left)
St. Vincent186719933"Jean-Pierre Blanchard - balloonist Blanchard carried a passport of introduction from President Washington"
St. Vincent1867 specimenSpecimen
St. Vincent1874On stamp and in (lower-right) margin of SS1"Blanchard's balloon" (on stamp); "Jean-Pierre Blanchard - 1st Gas Balloon Flight in America - 9 January 1793" (in lower-right margin)
St. Vincent1874 specimenSS1 specimen
Uganda974d (Mi1042)One of MS9 (974 (a-i)) (Mi1039-1047)1992Blanchard's balloon
United StatesNoneCancel1976America's first manned (balloon) flight, 1793 (by Blanchard)
United States2032 fdc1Cachet on FDC19831Jeffries and barometer; Jeffries and Blanchard in cachet text
United States2032 fdc2Cachet (different) on FDCBlanchard and balloon (Philadelphia, 9 January 1793)
United States2032-2033 fdcCachet on FDC (also with C54)Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
United States2035a fdcCachet on FDCBlanchard and balloon (Philadelphia, 9 January 1793)
Upper Volta620 (Mi887)19831Jeffries; Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Upper Volta620a (BL63)SS1 (620)
Vanuatu35619831"1785 - Blanchard and Jeffries"; balloon crossing the English Channel
VietNam (North)126519831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel
Yemen (PDR)316dOne of MS4 (316 (a-d)), or one of deluxe MS4 (316 ds (a-d))19831Blanchard and Jeffries' balloon crossing the English Channel

1All items issued in 1983 commemorate the general theme of the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon. It took place on 21 November 1783. On that date, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes rose in a hot air balloon and flew approximately 9 km from the centre of Paris to the suburbs in about 25 minutes.
2200th anniversary (in 1983) of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon (for items issued in 1982 or 1984)
3200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon the United States, by Jean-Pierre Blanchard (for items issued in 1993).


Forster

Forster, Johann Georg Adam
(1754 - 1794)

Forster was a German naturalist, botanist, ethnographer and writer who, with his father, accompanied Captain James Cook on his second expedition (1772-5).

The expedition visited Australia, whose climate Forster described and compared to that of South Africa in 1786 in his book Neuholland und die brittische Colonie in Botany-Bay (New Holland and the English Colony at Botany Bay): "From the above-mentioned latitudes, it may be seen that this country lies within good climatic zones. Its northern areas, which lie 12 degrees within the Tropics and so are exposed to the direct rays of the sun, suffer occasionally from excessive heat; but beyond the Tropic of Capricorn up to the latitude of 43 degrees South, the climate is temperate and to be compared, for instance, to the Cape of Good Hope. Even the southernmost point of van Diemen's land, which is situated a full 9 degrees farther south than the African Cape, seems to be favoured in the same degree, probably because there are no snowy mountains like those that lie to the north of the Cape, which cool the atmosphere and give a penetrating sharpness to the wind". Forster also commented on the Australian bush fires that he saw, and that still occur in Australia and elsewhere, particularly in areas affected by drought. He wrote that "he who knows the steppe fire in Russia will be able to imagine the terrifying speed with which fire spreads through dry grass in New Holland".

Forster also noted the general climatological principles that the western borders of continents in temperate latitudes are always warmer than corresponding latitudes of their eastern borders, and also that temperatures are milder in the vicinity of the sea than in the interior of continents. Von Humboldt would later (in 1817) include these ideas in his work Des Lignes Isothermes et de la Distribution de la Chaleur sur le Globe (On Isotherms and the Distribution of Heat around the Globe) and would illustrate them with his 'isothermal lines' which he introduced in that work.

The German Democratic Republic (DDR) and then Germany had a research station in Antarctica that was named after Forster. It was closed and removed in 1996.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Falkland Islands Dependency1L981985Johann Georg's father, J. R. Forster
Falkland Islands Dependency1L991985
Falkland Islands Dependency1L97-1L100 fdcTwo of four stamps and cachet on FDC1985Johann Georg Forster and his father, J.R. Forster
Germany (East)1998 (Mi?)1979Forster; Cook's ship Resolution
Germany (East)26671988Georg Forster Antarctic Research Station
Germany (East)2667 maxiMaxicard
Germany (East)1998 cover(Black circular) cancel, (black) cachet, and (name in red) cachet on cover1988Georg Forster antarctic station
Germany (East)None(Black circular) cancel and (purple) cachet on postal card1988Georg Forster antarctic station
Germany (East)/Russia (USSR)None(Black circular) cancel and (black) cachet on cover (with Russian stamp)1989Georg Forster station ozone research
Germany (East)None(Black circular) cancel and (violet) cachet on cover1989Georg Forster station ozone research
Germany (East)2667 cover(Black circular) cancel and (purple) cachet on cover1990Georg Forster antarctic station; and GEOMAUD I
Germany (East)None(Black circular) cancel and (purple) cachet on cover1990Georg Forster station
Germany (East)NoneCancel1990 or 1991Georg Forster station and Polarstern (ship)
GermanyNone(Black circular) cancel and (black) cachet on postcard1990Georg Forster antarctic station
GermanyNone(Black circular) cancel and (black) cachet on cover1991Georg Forster station; and GEOMAUD II
GermanyNone(Black circular) cancel and (blue) cachet on cover1991Georg Forster station
GermanyNone(Upper-middle) and (lower-left) cachets on cover1993Georg Forster station on Antarctic map
IndiaNone(Lower-left black) cachet on cover1994Georg Forster station
RussiaNone(German blue circular) cachet on cover1993Georg Forster station on Antarctic map
South AfricaNone(Upper-left black) cachet on cover1995Georg Forster antarctic station
South AfricaNone(Lower of two purple) cachet on cover1996Georg Forster antarctic station


Staszic

Staszic, Stanislaw
(1755 - 1826)

Staszic was a Polish scientist and priest who became known as the father of Polish geology and mining. He designed the salt graduation towers in Ciechocinek which were built to produce salt from the abundant brine in the area. The first two were constructed in the period 1824-1828, and the third in 1859. The brine was pumped to the tops of the towers and then allowed to trickle down their side walls where it evaporated due to the effects of solar radiation and the wind. The salt from the brine was left behind. Furthermore, the procedure released iodine and moisture into the air. This changed the microclimate of the tower area, making it more like a marine environment than a continental one. People came to Ciechocinek to take advantage of the therapeutic properties of the local air, and the town became a major health resort with many sanatoriums for people with various health problems that could be treated by inhaling the iodine-rich air. This was an early example of a manmade change of the microclimate.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
PolandNoneCachet on postal card1938
Poland5111951
PolandNonePrinted stamp on postal card1965(210th anniv. birth)
PolandNoneCancel on cover1976-03-28150th anniv. death
PolandNoneCancel (different) on postal card1976-07-22"Year of Staszic"; (150th anniv. death)
PolandNoneCancel (different) on postal card1976-10-09"Year of Staszic"; (150th anniv. death)
PolandNoneCancel on cover1978-12-022nd Staszic Philatelic Expo
PolandNoneCancel on postal card1980-12-143rd Staszic Philatelic Expo
PolandNoneCancel and (brown overprinted) cachet on postal card1982-12-044th Staszic Philatelic Expo
PolandNonePostal card1984
PolandNoneCancel on postal card1984-05-125th Staszic Philatelic Expo
PolandNoneCancel and (green overprinted) cachet on postal card1984-05-195th Staszic Philatelic Expo
PolandNoneCancel (different) on cover1984-05-19
PolandNoneCancel (different) on cover1984-10-13
PolandNoneCancel and cachet on cover1985-05-20
PolandNoneCancel and cachet on cover1985-06-01Staszic's salt graduation tower at Ciechocinek
PolandNoneCancel1985-10-05
PolandNoneCancel on postal card1985-12-15
PolandNoneCancel; also detail1986-06-01"Staszicfjellet" or Staszic Mountain; (160th anniv. death)
PolandNoneCachet (exists in blue or brown); see detail1986160th anniv. death; "Staszicfjellet"
PolandNoneCancel on postal card1986-09-20400th anniv. Lyceum "Stanislaw Staszic"
PolandNoneCachet on postal card199475th anniv. Staszic Academy of Mining and Metallurgy
PolandNoneCancel and cachet on postal card1996-04-29Staszic and his salt graduation tower at Ciechocinek
PolandNoneCachet on postal card1999"Stanislawa Staszica" in text


Nelson

Nelson, Horatio
(1758 - 1805)

Nelson was a Royal Navy flag officer. He won a number of significant naval victories, culminating in the defeat of the combined French and Spanish Armada in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. However he was killed in that battle.

Nelson had a keen appreciation of the weather and its effects. While at sea he was known to keep a personal meteorological journal whose entries included the day, date, time, barometer reading, wind speed and wind direction.

On his deathbed aboard his flagship Victory after being grievously wounded by a French sniper at Trafalgar, Nelson still had the presence of mind to notice a growing swell. Despite the fine weather at that time, he concluded that bad weather was imminent and ordered his ships to anchor to avoid being driven ashore by the coming storm. The order was not carried out but the tempest did indeed arrive during the night. It raged for three days during which some British ships were nearly lost and 12 of 16 captured enemy ships were lost.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Antigua2461970Nelson and HMS Boreas
Antigua246aWatermark change
Antigua2501970Nelson and HMS Victory
Antigua371From MS5 (373A (369-373))1975Nelson and HMS Boreas; (170th anniv. death)
Barbados1021905100th anniv. death
Barbados103
Barbados104
Barbados105
Barbados106
Barbados107
Barbados108
Barbados1101905100th anniv. death
Barbados111
Barbados112
British Indian Ocean Territory301From MS6 (302a (297-302))2005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death Nelson)
British Indian Ocean Territory315 (Mi391)2005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death Nelson)
Central Africa Republic14542003
Central Africa Republic1454aSS1 (1454)
Gibraltar394Also booklet cover1980175th anniv. death
Gibraltar395
Gibraltar396
Gibraltar396aSS1 (396)
Gibraltar397
Gibraltar766Also booklet cover1998"Nelson - The Battle of the Nile"
Gibraltar1028MS2, from joint presentation pack with Isle of Man; contains Isle of Man 1127a2005200th anniv. death
Great Britain9931982
Isle of Man1082aFrom strip of 2 (1082 (a-b))2005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death)
Isle of Man1082b
Isle of Man1083aFrom strip of 2 (1083 (a-b))
Isle of Man1083b
Isle of Man1084aFrom strip of 2 (1084 (a-b))
Isle of Man1084b
Isle of Man1085aFrom strip of 2 (1085 (a-b))
Isle of Man1085b
Isle of Man1086MS2 (1086 (a-b))
Isle of Man1127MS2, from joint presentation pack with Gibraltar; contains Gibraltar 1028a2005200th anniv. death
Isle of ManKM12831 crown (coin)2005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death)
Isle of ManKM-unknown1 crown (coin) different
Lesotho1381MS4 (a-d)2005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death)
Lesotho1382SS1
Nauru5452005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death)
Solomon Islands10342005200th anniv. Battle of Trafalgar; (200th anniv. death)


Webster

Webster, Noah
(1758 - 1843)

Webster was an American lexicographer, editor and author.

In his 1799 essay "On the Supposed Change in the Temperature of Winter" Webster criticized the popular opinion of the time, in America and Europe, that the climate, especially in winter, had become warmer. He argued that "we have no reason to suppose that the inclination of the Earth's axis to the plane of its orbit has ever been varied; but strong evidence to the contrary. If this inclination has always been the same, it follows that the quantity of the solar rays, falling annually on the particular country, must have always been the same. Should these data be admitted, we are led to conclude that the general temperature of every climate, from the Creation to this day, has been the same, subject only to small annual variations, from the positions of the planets in regard to the Earth, or the operations of the element of fire in the globe and its atmosphere".

Webster had no way of knowing that variations in the Earth's orbital parameters related to climate changes do in fact occur over various time scales as shown by Milutin Milanković some 130 years later.

Webster did believe, however, that the climate had at least become more variable, and in particular could change in response to agricultural cultivation. In the same 1799 essay he wrote that "it appears that all the alterations in a country, in consequence of clearing and cultivation, result only in making a different distribution of heat and cold, moisture and dry weather, among the several seasons. The clearing of lands opens them to the sun, their moisture is exhaled, they are more heated in summer, but more cold in winter near the surface; the temperature becomes unsteady, and the seasons irregular." These ideas relate to what would be called in modern terms the 'microclimate' and its variations. Webster explained that forests and trees must moderate the summer heat and prevent the ground from being "scorched" by the sun, as well as protecting the land from strong winds. He concluded that cleared land would be hotter in summer and colder in winter than forested land, which would result in larger temperature swings from winter to summer.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
United States11211958(200th anniv. birth)
United States1121 fdc1Stamp and cachet on FDC(200th anniv. birth)
United States1121 fdc2Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC200th anniv. birth
United States1121 fdc3Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC(200th anniv. birth)
United States1121 fdc4Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC200th anniv. birth
United States1121 fdc5Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC200th anniv. birth
United States1121 fdc-cardStamp and cachet (different) on FDC-card200th anniv. birth


Robert

Robert, Marie-Noël Nicolas
(1761 - 1828)

Robert was a French balloon builder who with his brother Anne-Jean constructed (under the supervision of J.A.C. Charles) the balloon that came to be known as La Charlière. On 1 December 1783 near Paris he flew with Charles in La Charlière to a height of about 3000 m. They carried a barometer and a thermometer to measure the pressure and the temperature of the air, making this not only the first manned hydrogen balloon flight but also the first balloon flight to provide meteorological measurements of the atmosphere above the Earth's surface.

Note: This table includes items that mention Robert's name, and those referring to the Robert brothers' balloon flight with Colin Hullin. Other items showing the balloon La Charlière (in which Robert flew with Charles) but without the name "Robert" are found in the Charles table.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Central Africa RepublicC282 (Mi938)19831The Robert brothers' and Colin Hullin's balloon, 19 September 1784
Central Africa RepublicC282 dsDeluxe sheet
ChadC263 (Mi963)19831"Charles et Robert; 1.12.1783"; La Charlière
France1864 (Mi2388)From MS20 (1864a (10x (1863-1864) + 10 labels))19831J. Charles and M-N Robert; La Charlière
France1864 fdcStamp on FDC
France1864 card(Violet) cancel and cachet on special card19831"Jacques Charles" and La Charlière; "first flight in a hydrogent balloon made by Professor Charles and his mechanic Robert"
FranceNoneCancel19831"Charles et Robert"; La Charlière
FranceNoneCancel (different)19831"Bicentenaire de Charles et Robert"; La Charlière
FranceNoneCancel (different)19831"Charles et Robert, 1 Déc 1783"; La Charlière
Malagasy Republic1390b (Mi2045)From MS9 (1390 (a-i)) (Mi2044-2052)1998"1783 Charles et Robert"; La Charlière
NetherlandsNonePostcard, back1943Charles and Robert's balloon La Charlière landing at Nesle, 1 December 1783
Nicaragua2300 (Mi4087)SS11999Charles and his flight with Robert in La Charlière
ParaguayC530 labelLabel from MS5 (C530 (a-e + 4 labels)) (Mi3617)19831The Robert brothers' and Colin Hullin's balloon, 19 September 1784
Rwanda1185 (Mi1269)19831"Charles et Robert; 1.12.1783"; La Charlière (at left)
Upper Volta619 (Mi886)19831Charles' and Robert's flight, 1783; portrait of Charles; La Charlière
Upper Volta619a (BL62)On stamp and in (lower) margin of SS1 (619)19831Charles' and Robert's flight, 1783; portrait of Charles and La Charlière (on stamp); the Robert brothers' and Colin Hullin's balloon, 19 September 1784 (in lower margin)
Zaire11611984"1783 - Ballon de Charles et Robert"; La Charlière

1All items issued in 1983 commemorate the general theme of the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon. It took place on 21 November 1783. On that date, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes rose in a hot air balloon and flew approximately 9 km from the centre of Paris to the suburbs in about 25 minutes.


Dalton

Dalton, John
(1766 - 1844)

Dalton was an English chemist who developed the first useful atomic theory of matter around 1803. He was however fascinated by meteorology from an early age and made weather observations and kept a meteorological journal throughout his life.

Dalton presented papers to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on topics including general meteorology (e.g. rainfall, dew, evaporation, the formation of clouds, the distribution and character of atmospheric moisture, the concept of the dew point), the aurora borealis and meteorological instruments (the barometer, thermometer and hygrometer). One of these papers, presented in March of 1799, bore the title "Experiments and Observations to Determine Whether the Quantity of Rain and Dew is Equal to the Quantity of Water carried off by the Rivers and Raised by Evaporation; with an Enquiry into the Origin of Springs" (Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, Vol 5, Part 2, 1802). In it, Dalton outlined the increasingly common use of rain gauges in England and presented rainfall data for various locations, taking care to separate counties into inland and coastal sections. He concluded that the inland counties have less rain than those near the sea, particularly in western England. He also estimated the yearly amount of water that flows to the sea from the rivers of England and Wales along with the amount of dew being deposited on the ground.

Dalton's interest in meteorology fostered his work on gases. In 1801 he formulated his law of partial pressures which came to be known as 'Dalton's Law': the total pressure exerted by a mixture of gases is equal to them sum of the pressures that would be exerted by individual gases occupying the same volume. He published this result in 1802 in the paper "Experimental Essays on the Constitution of Mixed Gases; on the Force of Steam or Vapour from Water and other Liquids in Different Temperatures, both in a Torricellian Vacuum and in Air; on Evaporation; and on the Expansion of Gasses by Heat". In this article he also established a relationship between vapour pressure and temperature.

From his early days Dalton was fascinated by the aurora borealis, which he first observed as a boy in the Kendal and Keswick areas of England. In a book entitled "Meteorological Observations and Essays" (first published in 1793) he summarized his observations of the aurora made during the period 1786 to 1793, including details of their appearance, brightness and movement. He concluded that there must exist some relation between the aurora and the Earth's magnetic field.

Dalton also considered the trade winds, and concluded that their existence was related to the rotation of the Earth. Essentially, his argument was that the trades must be deflected toward the west, because "in approaching the equator they constantly pass over surfaces of the Earth having a greater and greater velocity of rotation, and so, as it were, tend to lag behind". Dalton arrived at this conclusion independently in 1793, unaware that Hadley had already proposed it in 1735.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
DjiboutiUnknown d
Unknown d (imperf.)
One of MS4 (a-d), also imperforate MS4 (a-d)2006
Malagasy Republic1100cOne of MS16 (1100 (a-p))1993
RedondaNoneCachet on cover1987"Meteorology was the first love of this colour blind chemist"
RomaniaNoneCachet on stamped envelope2003200th anniv. Dalton's atomic theory of matter


Cuvier

Cuvier, Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert
(1769 - 1832)

Cuvier was a French naturalist who established that some past life forms such as the woolly mammoth had indeed become extinct. He then suggested that mass extinctions could occur as a result of "revolutionary" (i.e. catastrophic) changes in environmental conditions. Cuvier suggested that the most recent "revolution" (that others equated with Noah's flood) involved a sudden, intense and widespread rush of water that changed the sea level, killed the mammoths and buried them under a layer of detritus. This was followed according to Cuvier by a sudden severe cooling of the atmosphere that froze the mammoths and began an Ice Age (Louis Agassiz would later propose an alternative theory for the formation of Ice Ages). Cuvier suggested that after such climate-related cataclysms, God would create new organisms to replace the extinct ones.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceB4301969(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB430 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
FranceB430 maxiMaxicard


von Humboldt

von Humboldt, Alexander
(1769 - 1859)

Alexander von Humboldt was a German naturalist, physical scientist and geographer who has been described as the last universal scholar in the field of the natural sciences. Darwin described him as the "greatest scientific traveler who ever lived". Meteorology and climatology were among Humboldt's many scientific interests.

In 1798, von Humboldt and the botanist Aimé Bonpland planned a major scientific expedition to South America. In 1799 they obtained permits to travel in the Spanish colonies from the Spanish king himself. After five months in Madrid spent studying the local climate and flora (the same work they planned to accomplish during their travels) they departed on 5 June. The expedition lasted from 1799 to 1804. They visited Venezuela, Cuba, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru (Lima was the southernmost point of their journey) and Mexico before arriving in the United States on 18 May 1804 as a guest of President Thomas Jefferson, who was greatly interested in Humboldt's research. Although this visit lasted only six weeks, Humboldt made a great impression on America, and his name is still found across the U.S. in, for example, the names of towns and counties.

During the expedition, Humboldt did a variety of work related to meteorology and climatology. He climbed South American mountains to study the relationship between temperature and altitude. He considered the origins and movements of tropical storms (this work provided clues that would later be useful in the studies of mid-latitude storms). He made measurements of the ocean current that flows along the west coast of South America, which became known as the Humboldt Current. He also made measurements of the Earth's magnetic field, and in particular how it varied with latitude. All these studies were in addition to extensive work in other scientific fields including botany.

Humboldt returned to Europe in 1804. He lived mostly in Paris until 1827, when he returned permanently to Berlin. He continued to take readings of the magnetic field, and noticed in December 1805 that it exhibited strong variations during the presence of the aurora borealis. This led him to coin the term Magnetischer Sturm (magnetic storm) which is still used today. He would continue to be interested in magnetism throughout his life, and after returning to Berlin continued to use magnetometers to make geomagnetic field measurements. He corresponded with C. F. Gauss who also was doing research into magnetism. Von Humboldt was convinced that simultaneous magnetic measurements at different locations could help determine whether magnetic storms were of terrestrial origin or whether they depended on external factors such as the Sun. The first such experiment was carried out at two locations (Paris and Freiburg in Saxony) in 1828.

The French scientist Arago, through his long friendship with Humboldt, was encouraged by to write articles on meteorology and physical geography (e.g. "Meteorological Essays with an Introduction by Baron Alexander von Humboldt", London, 1855).

Shortly after his return to Berlin, Humboldt was invited to Russia by the tsar, and in 1829 he went on a scientific expedition to Siberia. While there he made meteorological and magnetic measurements and discovered what is now called permafrost. On his return to St. Petersburg, he advocated the creation of a Russian network of magnetic and meteorological observing stations. He based this idea partially on the way meteorological data were published in the American Meteorological Register. To this end, he wrote that "If only, following this fine example [i.e. the Register], there could be similar calibrated thermometer observations at the behest and expense of a mighty monarch in the eastern part of our old continent - in the widespread space, equal to half the lunar surface, between the Vistula and the Lena …; then all of climatology would gain a new and improved stature in a few years". By 1835 such a network was in place across northern Asia. Humboldt was able to use the resulting data to conclude that most of Russia has a "continental" climate (one found in the interiors of continents where the temperature extremes are greater than elsewhere due to the lack of a moderating influence from an ocean). However, Humboldt's larger goal was a worldwide network, and to this end he convinced the British authorities to establish permanent magnetic observatories in British colonies around the world: Canada, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Jamaica and Australia. Sir Edward Sabine, the network director, would later correlate magnetic storms and sunspots, and discovered an 11 year long cycle exhibited by both. The idea of international cooperation through worldwide networks of observing stations taking simultaneous scientific observations is one of Humboldt's legacies. He was the first to formulate such an idea (primarily for magnetic observations) and to see it through to completion. The approach would later be taken up by others (such as Karl Weyprecht, the "father" of the International Polar Years) and applied to multiple geophysical disciplines including meteorology.

Humboldt spent much of the time from 1804 to 1827 in Paris developing and publishing scientific results from his journey to the Americas. This included of course meteorology and climatology. He was a member of the Société d'Arcueil, a group of physical scientists who met regularly from 1806 to 1822 to discuss scientific issues of the time (its members were Arago, Berard, Berthollet, Biot, Chaptal, De Candolle, Dulong, Gay-Lussac, Humboldt, Laplace, Poisson, and Thenard). In the third volume of the Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Société d'Arcueil, he published in 1817 a paper entitled Des Lignes Isothermes et de la Distribution de la Chaleur sur le Globe (On Isotherms and the Distribution of Heat around the Globe). This seminal paper presented Humboldt's ideas on climatology. In it, he showed how the climates of various locations could be compared through the introduction of "isothermal lines": lines on a map joining places having the same mean annual temperature. Humboldt knew that climate was much more than simply a function of latitude. He noted that the early American settlers were unprepared for the harshness of the climate of eastern North America despite having arrived from similar European latitudes. Georg Forster had observed in Australia during Cook's second voyage that the western portion of the continent was warmer than the corresponding latitudes of its eastern side. Other climatic controlling factors pointed out by Humboldt included the altitude and the presence or absence of a nearby large body of water such as an ocean. He also understood in a general sense the effects of the various atmospheric currents, which he compared to oceanic currents. He stated that the atmospheric currents flow in determined directions, and have a strong influence on the climate of each area. In his paper he produced a map of isothermal lines for much of the Northern Hemisphere. The important factors influencing the climate, related to both geographical and atmospheric considerations, were incorporated in Humboldt's map and could be deduced from it. The idea of isothermal lines, singularly original for the time, was nothing less than the introduction of a scientific approach to the study of climatology. Humboldt can therefore be considered as the precursor of modern climatology.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Chile12911999200th anniv. Humboldt's arrival in S. America
Chile1292
Chile1291-1292 fdc1Two stamps on FDC
Chile1291-1292 fdc2Two stamps and cancel and cachet on FDC
Colombia713 (Mi?)1960100th anniv. death
Colombia714 (Mi902)
Colombia715 (Mi?)
ColombiaC357 (Mi?)
ColombiaC358 (Mi?)
ColombiaC359 (Mi?)
ColombiaC411713 overprinted1961100th anniv. death
ColombiaC413715 overprinted
ColombiaC5131969200th anniv. birth
ColombiaC513 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Cuba14331969(200th anniv. birth)
Cuba1434
Cuba1435
Cuba4118 (Mi4322)2000200th anniv. Humboldt's visit to Cuba
Cuba4119 (Mi4323)
EcuadorC341 (Mi995)1959100th anniv. death
Ecuador1571 (Mi2563)2001
Germany (Berlin)9N931953Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of Alexander
Germany (Berlin)9N155 (Mi171)1959(100th anniv. death)
Germany (Berlin)9N281 (Mi346)Common design with Venezuela C10121969200th anniv. birth
Germany (Berlin)9N281 fdc + Venezuela C1012 fdcDual-country FDC
Germany (Berlin)9N4991985Wilhelm von Humboldt, brother of Alexander
Germany (East)59 (Mi261)1950
Germany (East)430 (Mi684)1959(100th anniv. death)
Germany (East)431 (Mi685)
Germany (East)430-431 postcardPicture postcard with stamps and cancel and cachet on back
Germany (East)5221960150th anniv. Humboldt University, Berlin
Germany (East)523
Germany (East)10791969
Germany (East)23631983Humboldt (at left)
Germany (East)25081985175th anniv. Humboldt University, Berlin
Germany (East)NoneCachet on PPO postal card1989
Germany (East)NoneCachet on PPO postal card (different)1989
Germany (West)800 (Mi309)1959(100th anniv. death)
Liechtenstein10221994
Liechtenstein1023
MalawiUnknown b (new issue)One of MS6 (a-f)2008
Mexico9081960100th anniv. death
Mexico2176 (Mi2817)1999200th anniv. Humboldt's arrival in the Americas
Mexico2176 folderFDC folder
ParaguayC383 (BL227)1974
Peru1349Stamp + label2002200th anniv. Humboldt's arrival in Peru
Peru1349aTête-bèche pair (2x 1349)
PeruUnknown (new issue)In (upper-left) margin of MS22008Humboldt (research ship)
Romania3135bOne of MS4 (3135 (a-d))1983
Romania3135b maxi1Maxicard and cancel
Romania3135b maxi2Maxicard (different) and cancel
Romania3135b maxi3Maxicard (different) and cancel
Romania3135b maxi4Maxicard (different) and cancel
RomaniaNoneCancel1991
RomaniaNoneCancel and cachet on cover1999140th anniv. death
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope200350th anniv. Alexander von Humbolt Foundation
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope (different)2003
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope (different)2003
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope (different)2003
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope (different)2003
RomaniaNoneStamped envelope (different)2003
RomaniaNoneCancel and cachet on cover2003Humboldt Foundation symposium
Russia (USSR)2196 (Mi2224)1959100th anniv. death
Saar322 (Mi448)1959(100th anniv. death)
Saar322 maxiMaxicard
SpainUnknownCinderella on cover2004Alexander von Humboldt (sailing ship)
United StatesNoneCancel and cachet on postal card1888Humboldt County IA
United StatesNoneCancel on postcard1906Humboldt AZ
United States567 precancelPrecancel on stamp1923Humboldt TN
United StatesNoneCancel1934Humboldt MI
United StatesNoneMeter on cover1961Humboldt State College, Arcata CA
United StatesNoneCancel and cachet on cover1962Humboldt IA airport dedication
Uruguay1097 (Mi1610)1981
Uruguay1097 fdc1Stamp and cancel on FDC
Uruguay1097 fdc2Stamp and cancel on FDC (different)
Venezuela7431960100th anniv. death
Venezuela744
Venezuela745
VenezuelaC709
VenezuelaC710
VenezuelaC711
VenezuelaC1012 (Mi1800)Common design with Germany (Berlin) 9N2811969200th anniv. birth
VenezuelaC1012 + Germany (Berlin) 9N281 fdcDual-country FDC
Venezuela1016-1027Set of 12197310th anniv. Humboldt Planetarium
Venezuela1030aStrip of 3 (1028-1030)
Venezuela1616gOne of MS10 (1616 (a-j))2000Humboldt Peak


Lewis and Clark

Lewis, Meriwether
(1774 - 1809)

Clark, William
(1770 - 1838)

Lewis and Clark were American explorers who undertook an epic journey of discovery across the northern United States and to the Pacific Ocean from 1804 to 1806. Thomas Jefferson was the force behind the voyage. He hoped it would provide knowledge about "the climate, as characterized by the thermometer; the proportion of rainy, cloudy and clear days; the winds prevailing at different seasons; and the dates at which particular plants put forth or lose their flowers or leaves".

The American West was mostly an unknown land at the time. Lewis and Clark encountered rivers that "shut up with ice," violent winds, flash floods and, in the High Plains of the Dakotas, a day in which there was an abrupt temperature change of 59°F in an eight hour period.

Lewis and Clark were the first to make scientific measurements of the weather of the western U.S. They had three thermometers at the beginning of the expedition, which they carefully calibrated. They measured the temperature each day, at sunrise and again at 4 pm, from 19 September 1804 through 6 September 1805 (when their last thermometer finally broke in the Bitterroot Mountains near what is now the Montana-Idaho border). These temperature measurements were carried out across what are now South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana. Convinced of the scientific value of their work, they made careful records of their observations, in duplicate (in case one copy would be lost or damaged). In what is now Oregon, Lewis noted that "I am confident that the climate here is much warmer than in the same parallel of latitude on the Atlantic Ocean". They described the winter weather on the Oregon coast in their journals as "horrible" and "miserable" because of the constant rain.

Lewis and Clark were truly pioneers, both as explorers and as scientists. Their exploration of the American West was a seminal event in American history.

Reference:

Solomon, S., and J. Daniel, 2004: Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Meteorological Observers in the American West, Bulletin of American Meteorological Society, 85(9), 1273-1288)

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
Items are generally for both Lewis and Clark; a few refer only to one or the other.
Comoro Islands1651976Lewis and Clark expedition
Dominica24302003200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
Dominica2431
Dominica2432
Dominica2433
Dominica2434
Dominica2435
Dominica2436200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition ; "Lewis after the Expedition"
Dominica2437200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
Dominica2438SS1200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition; Lewis
Dominica2439SS1200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition; Clark
Grenada3465aFrom MS3 (3465 (a-c))2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition; Lewis
Grenada3465c200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition; Clark
Marshall Islands833a-cStrip of 3 from MS9 (833d (3x 833a-c))2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
Marshall Islands840a-cStrip of 3 from MS9 (840d (3x 840a-c))
Marshall Islands845a-cStrip of 3 from MS9 (845d (3x 845a-c))
Marshall IslandsUnknownStrip of 22006Lewis and Clark expedition
Sierra LeoneUnknown d (new issue)From MS4 (a-d)2008Lewis and Clark expedition
United StatesNoneCinderella set1905Issued for Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition (Portland, Oregon, June-October, 1905
United States10631954150th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States1063 fdc1Stamp and cachet on FDC
United States1063 fdc2Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States1063 fdc3Stamp and cachet (sifferent) on FDC
United States1063+3854 fdcDual-date fdc1954 and 2004150th (and 200th) anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United StatesUX91Postal card1981Lewis and Clark expedition
United StatesUX91 fdc1Stamp and cachet on postal card FDC
United StatesUX91 fdc2Stamp and cachet (different) on postal card FDC
United StatesUX91 fdc3Stamp and cachet (different) on postal card FDC
United StatesUX91+3854 fdcStamps and cachet on postal card FDC
United StatesNoneCancel and cachet on cover2003Lewis (on cancel); both (on cachet)
United StatesNoneCancel and cachet on cover (different)2003Clark (on cancel); both (on cachet)
United States3782 coverCancel and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States38542004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
United States3854 cover1Stamp and cancel (Atchison KS) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover2Stamp and cancel (Big Timber MT) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover3Stamp and cancel (Chamois MO) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover4Stamp and cancel (Jefferson City MO) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover5Stamp and cancel (Missouri Valley IA) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover6Stamp and cancel (Portage des Sioux MO) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover7Stamp and cancel (State Park Station, Onawa IA) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover8Stamp and cancel (Three Forks MT) and cachet on cover2004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States38552004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition; Lewis
United States3855 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
United States3856aBooklet pane of 10 (5x (3855-3856)) from Bk2972004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States38562004200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition; Clark
United States3856 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
United StatesKM3615 cents (coin) keelboat design2004(200th anniv.) Lewis and Clark expedition
United StatesKM3695 cents (coin) Pacific view design2005(200th anniv.) Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3854 cover9Stamp and cancel (Bison Station, Hazen ND) and cachet on cover2005200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3855 coverStamp and cancel (Sacagewea Station, Richland WA) and cachet on cover2005200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United States3856 coverStamp and cancel (Jefferson City MO) and cachet on cover2006Lewis and Clark Homeward Bound; 200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition
United StatesNoneCancel (Boone National Guard Station KY) and cachet on cover2006200th anniv. Lewis and Clark expedition


de Caldas

de Caldas, Francisco José
(1770 - 1816)

De Caldas, trained as a lawyer, developed an interest in science in the late 1700s. He mastered the rudiments of astronomy and meteorology through independent study even though he had no books to guide him. He then constructed a barometer and used it to make pressure measurements.

The 'hypsometer' (or 'hypsometric thermometer') is an instrument that can measure altitude indirectly, through the use of a thermometer to measure the temperature of boiling water at that altitude followed by the application of relationships between the boiling point of water and atmospheric pressure and between atmospheric pressure and altitude. The instrument can be traced back to Fahrenheit in 1724. De Caldas was unaware of that earlier work, and independently invented the hypsometer some time before the visit of Alexander von Humboldt to Colombia in 1801.

Von Humboldt tutored de Caldas in meteorology and astronomy and computational techniques, and perhaps also influenced him to expand his scientific interests to include botany and geography.

De Caldas was appointed Director of the Bogota Observatory in 1805. He instituted programs of astronomical and meteorological observation, taught local students and published a weekly scientific journal.

His politics were radical for the time. He advocated independence from Spain and as a result was executed by the Spanish military in 1816.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Colombia3351910(140th anniv. birth)
Colombia3391917(100th anniv. death, in 1916)
Colombia339 proof1Die proof (black)
Colombia339 proof2Die proof (orange)
Colombia4021926(110th anniv. death)
Colombia402 proofDie proof (olive)1926(110th anniv. death)
Colombia410402 overprinted1932
Colombia410a402 inverted overprint1932
Colombia410b402 double overprint1932
Colombia4731939(170th anniv. birth, in 1940)
Colombia5181944
Colombia518aImperforate pair (517-518)1944
ColombiaC1461947(130th anniv. death, in 1946)
Colombia680 (Mi827)1958
ColombiaC309 (Mi828)
Colombia680+C309 fdcTwo stamps and cancel and cachet on FDC
ColombiaC310 (Mi829)
ColombiaP40120 pesos (banknote)1953-1965
ColombiaP409d20 pesos (banknote)1983
Colombia1243MS22005100th anniv. Departmento de Caldas; (190th anniv. death, in 2006)


Howard

Howard, Luke
(1772 - 1864)

Howard was an English chemist and pharmacist with a passion for the weather. His weather observations led to the publication in 1818 of his book The Climate of London (the first book to present the climatology of an urban setting). His Seven Lectures on Meteorology (1837) was the first modern textbook on weather. He also published A cycle of eighteen years in the seasons of Britain in 1842, and Barometrographia in 1847.

The United Kingdom's earliest meteorological society, the Meteorological Society of London, came into being in 1823, and Howard was present at its inaugural meeting in the London Coffee House on 15 October of that year (he was not a member of a subsequent society of the same name formed in 1848). The British Meteorological Society was founded on 3 April 1850, and Howard became one of its vice-presidents approximately one month later.

Howard's major contribution to the science of meteorology was his introduction of the cloud classification system that lies at the heart of the modern cloud classification system. He became known as the "man who named the clouds".

Howard loved nature, weather and clouds from an early age. Between May and August of 1783, the skies of Europe were filled with the "Great Fogg", a haze composed of dust and ash from volcanic eruptions of Eldeyjar and Laki-Skaptar in Iceland, and Asama Yama in Japan. Howard was fascinated by this event, and he became a devoted observer of the atmosphere, combining his visual observations with information from a thermometer and barometer for over 30 years in London. (That same "Great Fogg" led Benjamin Franklin to hypothesize that large amounts dust and ash in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions could be related to subsequent long periods of cold weather). In the course of his observations, Howard noted certain common characteristics of clouds, and developed a cloud classification system based on them. In December 1802, he presented his system to the Askesian Society in London. He proposed descriptive categories with Latin names, in an approach similar to that of Linnaeus in the plant and animal kingdoms. Howard's three basic categories were Cumulus ("heap"), Stratus ("layer") and Cirrus ("curl of hair"). A fourth category, Nimbus ("rain"), denoted "a cloud in the act of condensation into rain, hail or snow". According to Howard, "while any of the clouds, except the nimbus, retain their primitive forms, no rain can take place; it is by observing the changes and transitions of cloud form that weather may be predicted". Howard summarized his work in 1803 in his Essay on the Modifications (i.e. "Classification") of Clouds.

The French botanist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had proposed his own cloud classification system in 1802. However, it was Howard's system that quickly gained wide acceptance both in Britain and abroad. One of its biggest supporters was the German poet, philosopher and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He used Howard's classification in his weather journals, and also in the Duchy's weather observing network, and also dedicated poems and an essay to Howard and his clouds.

Howard wondered whether or not it might be possible to document changes in climate through human memory, but concluded that such memories were too unreliable to lead to convincing conclusions. To this end, he wrote in The Climate of London:

"The result of my experience is, on the whole, unfavourable to the opinion of a permanent change having taken place of latter times, either for the better or the worse, in the climate of this country; our recollection of the weather, even at the distance of a few years, being very imperfect, we are apt to suppose that the seasons are not what they formerly were; while in fact, they are only going through a series of changes such as we may have heretofore already witnessed and forgotten".

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content
United States3878
3878 back
MS152004Howard and his work are briefly described on the back of this sheet
United StatesUX421-UX435 booklet
UX421-UX435 back
Postal card booklet of 20, 15 different (UX421-UX435)2004The description of Howard and his work are repeated on the back of the booklet


Beaufort

Beaufort, Sir Francis
(1774 - 1857)

Beaufort was an English naval officer who became Admiral of the Navy and later Hydrographer of the Navy. Early in his career at sea, he began to keep a meteorological journal in the form of brief comments on the general weather scene. He would continue this practice until his death. Beaufort's name is familiar to all mariners for the Beaufort wind force scale, which he devised around 1805. He based his scale on his observations of the effects of the wind. In 1838, the British Admiralty officially made the use of the scale mandatory for all ships' log entries. The Beaufort scale is the oldest organized method of judging wind force and speed and is still in use today by mariners around the world.

The Beaufort Wind Force Scale

Beaufort wind forceWind speed (knots)WMO descriptive termWave height (feet)Wind effect on the sea
01Calm0Sea like a mirror
11-3Light air0.25Ripples with appearance of scales; no foam crests
24-6Light breeze0.5 - 1Small wavelets; crests of glassy appearance, not breaking
37-10Gentle breeze1 - 3Large wavelets; crests begin to break; scattered whitecaps
411-16Moderate breeze3 - 5Small waves, becoming longer; numerous whitecaps
517-21Fresh breeze6 - 8Moderate waves, taking longer form; many whitecaps; some spray
622-27Strong breeze9 - 13Larger waves forming; whitecaps everywhere; more spray
728-33Near gale13 - 19Sea heaps up; white foam from breaking waves begins to be blown in streaks
834-40Gale18 - 25Moderately high waves of greater length; edges of crests begin to break into spindrift; foam is blown in well-marked streaks
941-47Strong gale23 - 32High waves; sea begins to roll; dense streaks of foam; spray may begin to reduce visibility
1048-55Storm29 - 41Very high waves with overhanging crests; sea takes white appearance as foam is blown in very dense streaks; rolling is heavy and visibility is reduced
1156-63Violent storm37 - 52Exceptionally high waves; sea covered with white foam patches; visibility further reduced
1264+Hurricane45+Air filled with foam; sea completely white with driving spray; visibility greatly reduced

Beaufort's weather journal entries became a regular part of his daily routine, ultimately increasing in frequency to observations at two-hour intervals. To describe the state of wind and weather accurately but briefly, he devised a system of notation that was to become the forerunner for modern weather observation codes.

One part of this observation notation was the wind force number from his wind force scale. The second part of the code was a series of alphabetic symbols of one to three characters which described the state of the sky and weather, differentiating between types of precipitation and cloud conditions. With slight alterations, this Beaufort weather notation was adopted by the British Navy in 1833. Nearly a century later, the British Meteorological Office adopted the code for use, again with only slight alterations. An international meeting in Warsaw, Poland in 1935 then officially approved a form of the Beaufort notation for international exchange of weather observations.

Postal items showing the Beaufort scale in use are available in the weather symbols section of the weather maps page.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Cayman Islands404aOne of MS6 (404 (2x (a-c)))1978"Yale of Beaufort"1
Great Britain17981998"Yale of Beaufort"1
LuxembourgNoneCancelUnknown"Beaufort"
Tristan da Cunha2841980

1Note: the mythical animal known as the Yale is used in English heraldry, particularly by the Beaufort family.


Turner

Turner, Joseph M. W.
(1775 - 1851)

Turner was an English painter. He and other Romantic era painters were influenced by Luke Howard's work on cloud classification. They used Howard's descriptions to depict clouds with more detail and accuracy than previous painters. Turner first learned of Howard's work in 1821 and was as a result inspired to paint a series of cloud studies. One, entitled Heavy Dark Clouds, shows an approaching heavy rain shower. The painting is realistic in its overall presentation and in the details of the storm, but at the same time has an emotional impact: there is a touch of apprehension at the approach of the storm.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Central Africa Republic1439eFrom MS6 (1439 (a-f))2002(150th anniv. death, in 2001)
Central Africa Republic1439f(150th anniv. death, in 2001); "Mornings Amongst the Conniston Falls, Cumberland"
Great Britain7361975(200th anniv. birth); "Peace - Burial at Sea"
Great Britain737(200th anniv. birth); "Snowstorm - Steamer off a Harbour's Mouth"
Great Britain738(200th anniv. birth); "Arsenal, Venice"
Great Britain739(200th anniv. birth); "View of St. Laurent"
Great Britain736-739 fdc1Four stamps and cachet on FDC(200th anniv. birth)
Great Britain736-739 fdc2Four stamps and cachet (different) on FDC(200th anniv. birth)
Great Britain736-739 fdc3Four stamps and cachet (different) on FDC(200th anniv. birth)
Great Britain736-739 fdc4Four stamps and cachet (different) on FDC(200th anniv. birth)
Great Britain736-739 fdc5Four stamps and cachet (different) on FDC200th anniv. birth
Great BritainNoneCancel on cover1975Turner Royal Academy; (200th anniv. birth)
Great BritainNoneCachet on cover1981(130th anniv. death)
Grenada Grenadines4221981"The Fighting Temeraire"
Guinea RepublicUnknown (new issue)SS12007
Luxembourg5941977
Luxembourg593-596 fdcOne of four stamps on FDC
Malagasy1148dFrom 1148 MS161993
Serbia-KrajinaUnknown2002


Avogadro

Avogadro, Amedeo
(1776 - 1856)

Avogadro was an Italian chemist who also worked in physics and mathematics. He is mainly remembered for Avogadro's Law (equal volumes of different gases, at the same temperature and pressure, contain equal numbers of molecules) and Avogadro's number (the number of molecules in one mole of a substance).

During his teaching career in Turin, he held posts in statistics, meteorology and weights and measures.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Italy7141956100th anniv. death
ItalyNoneCancel2006(150th anniv. death)


Gauss

Gauss, Karl Friedrich
(1777 - 1855)

Gauss was a German mathematician and physicist. One of his interests was the Earth's geomagnetic field. In 1838 he proved that the vast majority of the Earth's magnetic field was internal, originating inside the Earth. However, in 1839 he conjectured that electric currents in a conductive layer of the upper atmosphere cause small variations in the overall magnetic field, which he in turn related to the aurora borealis. He wrote that "our ignorance gives us no right absolutely to deny the possibility of such [electric] currents; we are forbidden to do so by the enigmatic phenomenon of the aurora borealis, in which there is every appearance that electricity in motion performs a principal part".

An earlier hint of this conclusion had been provided by Ørsted in 1819. Alexander von Humboldt also did work on geomagnetism in the 1830s. However, the upper conductive layer was named "ionosphere" only in 1926 by Robert Watson-Watt.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoryC84 (Mi195)Single + label1984Gauss (ship)
French Southern and Antarctic Territory307 (Mi491)2002Gauss (ship)
Germany (East)18111977(200th anniv. birth)
Germany (East)1811 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
Germany (West)7251955(100th anniv. death)
Germany (West)12461977(200th anniv. birth)
Germany (West)1246 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on cover1977200th anniv. birth
GermanyP3810 mark (banknote)1991
Germany2143aFrom MS2 (2143 (a-b))2001Gauss (ship)
GermanyNoneCancel2001Gauss (ship)
GermanyNoneCancel2005(150th anniv. death)
GermanyNoneCancel2006(150th anniv. death, in 2005)
Nicaragua1984iFrom MS16 (1984 (a-p))1994
RomaniaNoneCancel2005(150th anniv. death)


Ørsted

Ørsted, Hans Christian
(1777 - 1851)

Ørsted was a Danish physicist. In 1819 he discovered that electric currents cause a deflection of a compass needle. Other researchers had already noted compass needle fluctuations in the presence of the aurora. Ørsted's discovery was a hint that there are electrical effects during auroral displays. This hypothesis about the aurora would later be confirmed by others.

A Danish satellite named Ørsted was launched in 1999. It carried instruments to make measurements in the ionosphere, the area of the atmosphere where the aurora occur.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Denmark3291951(100th anniv. death)
Denmark4711970"H. C. Ørsted"; (120th anniv. death, in 1971)
DenmarkP46100 kroner (banknote)1970(120th anniv. death, in 1971)
Denmark11431999"Ørsted satellite"


Ross

Ross, Sir John
(1777 - 1856)

Ross was a Scottish naval commander and Arctic explorer. He made three expeditions to what is now the Canadian Arctic. In the first, in 1818, he reached Lancaster Sound (the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage) but was fooled by a mirage into believing that mountains blocked any farther westward passage. During this expedition, following instructions from the British Admiralty and the Royal Society, he carried out geomagnetic, meteorological and oceanographic observations. Ross's second expedition lasted from 1829 to1833. The ship was lost in the ice in 1832 and the crew were stranded and struggled to survive the winter at Felix Harbour on the Boothia Peninsula before being rescued the following year. During that voyage Ross made magnetic observatioins and located the magnetic North Pole. He also made meteorological observations. Ross's third Arctic voyage in 1850-1851 was an attempt to find the missing Franklin expedition.

Ross became an honorary member of the British Meteorological Society, probably some time in the late 1840s. The Society's membership list of 31 December 1850 lists his address as the 'North Pole', presumably because he was away in the Arctic at the time! The same was true of Charles Phillips who commanded the second ship of the 1850-1851 expedition. Ross and Phillips made meteorological observations during that voyage. In the Society's Annual General Meeting of 25 May 1852 it was reported that the Society had received seven months of "hourly thermometrical observations taken in the Arctic seas by Admiral Sir J. Ross and Commander Phillips".

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Isle of ManUnknown (Mi1391)2007(230th anniv. birth); (150th anniv. death, in 2006)


Gay-Lussac

Gay-Lussac, Joseph-Louis
(1778 - 1850)

Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac was a French chemist, physicist and aeronaut.

In 1802, after referring to work done by J. A. C. Charles, Gay-Lussac re-derived and published the relationship between the volume of a gas and its temperature (at a constant volume the pressure of a gas is proportional to its temperature in kelvins). The relationship is generally known as Charles' Law (Charles derived it in 1787 but did not publish it). It has also, however, been referred to Gay-Lussac's law. In fact, in 1783 Volta had already published a similar result, but his work was ignored or forgotten.

In 1804 Laplace, supported by Berthollet, proposed that the French Academy of Sciences fund a scientific balloon flight that would make atmospheric measurements to determine how the composition of the atmosphere changes with altitude. The proposal was accepted, and on 24 August of that year Gay-Lussac (who was then a student and lab assistant of Berthollet) and Jean-Baptiste Biot rose to some 4000 m in a balloon over Paris. The main object of this ascent was to determine whether the Earth's magnetic field decreases with height. They found that there were no obvious changes in the magnetic field as the balloon rose. They also found that the air became drier as they ascended, while the temperature decreased. On 6 September of that year, Gay-Lussac flew alone to nearly 7000 m. Air samples collected near that level were later analyzed and found to have the same percentage of oxygen as air at the surface. The temperature at the surface was 82°F while at 7000 m it was only 14°F. Gay-Lussac remarked that at the highest point of the flight there were still clouds above him.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Central Africa Republic61019831200th anniv. first manned balloon ascent
FranceB260 (Mi911)1951(100th anniv. death, in 1950)
Upper Volta623 (BL59)In (lower) margin of SS119831Gay-Lussac name; 200th anniv. first manned balloon ascent

1All items issued in 1983 commemorate the general theme of the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon. It took place on 21 November 1783. On that date, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes rose in a hot air balloon and flew approximately 9 km from the centre of Paris to the suburbs in about 25 minutes.


Berzelius

Berzelius, Jons Jakob
(1779 - 1848)

Berzelius was a Swedish chemist who developed a method of measuring the dew point and the relative humidity of the air. In the Traité de Chimie (Vol VIII, #6, p254) he proposed that the temperature of a wet bulb thermometer should be the arithmetic mean of the actual air temperature and the dew point temperature. Given that the wet bulb temperature could be measured, and the air temperature as well (through the use of an ordinary dry bulb thermometer) then this relationship could be used to calculate the dew point. With this information he could then estimate the relative humidity of the air. John Dalton, a contemporary of Berzelius, had also worked in the area of hygrometry, and Johann Döbereiner put forth the principles of the dewpoint hygrometer or condensation hygrometer in or around 1822. The invention of the dew point hygrometer, however, is generally credited to John Frederic Daniell, who developed in 1820 an instrument that would become a standard for humidity measurement.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Grenada15361987(140th anniv. death, in 1988); "Jons" spelled "John"
Sweden293From coil strip of 5 (293a (5x 293))1939(160th anniv. birth)
Sweden295From coil strip of 5 (295a (5x 295))
Sweden297
Sweden297aBrom booklet pane of 20 (297b), contained in booklet of 10 (297c)
Sweden12931979(200th anniv. birth)


Döbereiner

Döbereiner, Johann Wolfgang
(1780 - 1849)

Döbereiner was a German chemist. He proposed the principles of operation of the dewpoint hygrometer or condensation hygrometer in or around 1822. Berzelius, Dalton and Daniell also worked in the area of hygrometry in the early 1800s. In 1845, Victor Regnault built a dewpoint hygrometer based on Döbereiner's principles.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany (East)20881980(200th anniv. birth)


Hansteen

Hansteen, Christopher(1784 - 1873)

Hansteen was a Norwegian astronomer, physicist and pioneer researcher in terrestrial magnetism and auroral studies. In an expedition to Siberia around 1830, he searched for a region of maximum magnetic intensity. He eventually found that the aurora occur in a ring of maximum frequency around the northern magnetic pole. This conclusion was consistent with the reports of John Franklin, who observed in his 1819-1822 journey to what is now the Canadian Arctic that "the occurrence of the aurora did not increase all the way to the pole".

Hansteen's work provided the basis for the more extensive research into geomagnetism of von Humboldt and Gauss. He established several geomagnetic observing stations, and arranged with sea captains to observe and record the magnetic field throughout the world. The data he collected allowed him to draw one of the first magnetic charts of the Earth (Halley had created a magnetic chart over the region of the Atlantic).

Hansteen made observations in Norway of the aurora during an intense magnetic storm that occurred from 28 August to 2 September 1859. He concluded that "the effect of this aurora upon the telegraph lines in Norway was much greater than in France and Germany". It is now known that strong magnetic storms can affect electrical power grids and wireless communications as well as telegraph communications.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Norway8391984(200th anniv. birth)
Norway840


Bessel

Bessel, Friedrich Wilhelm
(1784 - 1846)

Bessel was a German astronomer. He was one of the first to realize that various sources of error in astronomical observations had to be eliminated before those observations could be trusted. For example, he knew that atmospheric effects such as refraction could have a significant effect on his observations. Bessel believed in the quality of Bradley's and Maskelyne's observations from Greenwich because their work included analyses of factors that could affect their meaurements, including the temperature and pressure of the atmosphere. Bessel used Bradley's observations to create tables of refraction. For this work he was awarded the Prix Lalande by the Institut de France. In his own observations, Bessel worked to eliminate all sources of error (optical, mechanical and meteorological) to obtain data that were much more reliable than those obtained in earlier work that had ignored the sources of error.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany (West)14221984(200th anniv. birth)
Germany (West)1422 fdcStamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
Germany (West)1422 maxiMaxicard
Nicaragua1984jFrom MS16 (1984 (a-p))1994(210th anniv. birth)


Green

Green, Charles
(1785 - 1870)

Green was an English aeronaut who made approximately 500 ascents in various balloons. In the early 1830s during some of these flights he noticed what appeared to be a consistent westerly wind blowing at an altitude of around 10,000 feet. He realized that such a wind could carry a balloon to mainland Europe, and to test this idea took off from London in his balloon Royal Vauxhall with two passengers on 7 November 1836. The flight was successful: it covered some 770 km and ended in Nassau-Weilburg, Germany after 18 hours. This was a record balloon flight for the time. The Royal Vauxhall became known as the Nassau balloon after this flight. John Wise would later draw a similar conclusion about westerly upper winds in America, and would dream of crossing the Atlantic in a balloon borne by those winds.

In 1852 the directors of the Kew Observatory decided to investigate the meteorology and physical characteristics of the upper atmosphere through balloon flights that would carry observers and instruments aloft. Green agreed to pilot his balloon Nassau for this project, and John Welsh of the Observatory was chosen as the observer. The meteorological instruments used during these flights were a barometer, dry and wet bulb thermometers (aspirated and free) and a Regnault hygrometer (the aspirated thermometers were of Welsh's own design and were among the earliest of this type of instrument). Green and Welsh made four ascents (two in August, one in October and one in November of 1852). The flights attained estimated maximum altitudes of 19,510, 19,100, 12,640 and 22,930 feet, respectively, with minimum observed temperatures of 8.7°F, 12.4°F, 16.4°F and 10.5°F. Air samples were collected from the upper levels and were later compared with air from near the ground. It was found that the relative amounts of nitrogen and oxygen in the air was unchanged from the surface to the upper levels. A general decrease of temperature with height was noted, though in some cases the temperature was found to be constant or even to increase with height in a relatively thin layer (2000 to 3000 feet thick). Green and Welsh may have passed through a frontal zone on those occasions during weather conditions that may have been difficult, but it appears that Green had experience with flights in bad weather from earlier in his career. For example, in one stormy ascent he had witnessed a thunderstorm below him, and observed in that case that 'at every discharge of thunder all the detached pillars of clouds within the distance of a mile around became attracted'.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Belize678SS119831Green and John Welsh in Green's balloon Nassau/Royal Vauxhall
Cambodia41419831Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall
ChadC26519831"Charles Green, Londres, 1837"; Royal Vauxhall balloon
Cuba258119831Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall
Guinea-Bissau44419831Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall
Laos46119831Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall
MongoliaC16619831Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall
Nicaragua2295 (Mi4083-4085)In (upper) margin of MS3 (2295 a-c))1993Green and his balloon Royal Vauxhall
Seychelles51919831Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall (1836)
United StatesC64 fdcCachet on FDC1962Green's balloon Royal Vauxhall

1All items issued in 1983 commemorate the general theme of the 200th anniversary of the first manned balloon ascent in an untethered balloon. It took place on 21 November 1783. On that date, Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes rose in a hot air balloon and flew approximately 9 km from the centre of Paris to the suburbs in about 25 minutes.


Arago

Arago, Dominique François Jean
(1786 - 1853)

Arago was a French physicist, astronomer and politician. His long friendship with Alexander von Humboldt encouraged him to write popular articles on meteorology and physical geography, including discussions of the atmosphere, the Earth's temperature and its magnetic variations. He also helped to popularize Humboldt's concept of isothermal lines in the field of climatology. Many of his meteorological works were published in his "Meteorological Essays with an Introduction by Baron Alexander von Humboldt" (London, 1855).

Arago was elected a member of the French Board of Longitude in 1821. For 22 years thereafter he contributed scientific notes on astronomy, meteorology and civil engineering to the Board's Annual Reports.

Arago did work in the field of light and optics. He constructed an instrument known as a polariscope, which allowed him to conduct experiments on the polarization of skylight. He also built an instrument to measure solar radiation which came to be known as the Arago-Davy actinometer, and an early cyanometer designed to measure the blueness of the sky.

In 1838 Arago published a survey of reports of ball lightning. Then in a work in 1854 entitled Le Tonnerre he presented his ideas about this strange phenomenon. Arago also studied the aurora borealis and the Earth's magnetic field and the relationship between the two (Dalton and Humboldt had also done work in this area).

Arago also considered meteorological instrumentation and scientific balloon ascents. He insisted that during such ascents ground observations at various points be taken, to compare with the balloon measurements. He also pointed out potential errors of observation of meteorological instruments used in balloon ascents, and in particular the fact that an ordinary thermometer attached to the nacelle could not give the true air temperature because of the lack of relative wind and the possibility of direct solar radiation that would heat the thermometer. Arago therefore recommended that instruments and methods of observation be developed that would provide representative data during balloon flights. In 1852 John Welsh did exactly that. In four scientific balloon flights with Green he used aspirated thermometers of his own design to obtain his temperatures. Unfortunately Glaisher, in his flights in the 1860s, did not use any such special thermometers, and as a result his temperature measurements were later called into question.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
France6261949Arago (at left) and Ampère
France625-628+C28 proofCompound deluxe proof1949
FranceB5751986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575 fdc1Cancel and cachet on FDC1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575 fdc2Cancel and cachet (different) on FDC1986200th anniv. birth (indicated on cachet)
FranceB575 maxi1Maxicard1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575 maxi2Maxicard (different)1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575 sc1Souvenir card1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575 sc2Souvenir card (different)1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575-B579 scSouvenir card, also back1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575-B579 folderFDC-folder1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB579aBooklet pane of 5 (B575-B579 + 3 labels)1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB579a fdcFDC1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575-B579+B579a fdcFDC1986(200th anniv. birth)
FranceB575-B579+B579a scSouvenir card1986(200th anniv. birth)
New CaledoniaC2531993François Arago (ship)


Franklin J.

Franklin, Sir John
(1786 - 1847)

Franklin was a British polar explorer and naval commander. His third and last expedition to the Arctic disappeared in 1847.

During his first voyage to the Arctic in 1819-1822, Franklin found that "the occurrence of aurora does not increase all the way to the pole". Hansteen would later confirm the existence of a ring around the magnetic pole of maximum frequency of occurrence of the aurora. It is now known that in the northern hemisphere this ring of maximum occurrence falls roughly in the latitude band 60-70°N, depending on the longitude. Farther north, the auroral frequency drops off, as observed by Franklin.

During his second voyage to the Arctic in 1825-1827, he explored by land parts of what is now the western NWT and made meteorological observations at Fort Franklin on Great Bear Lake.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Canada12341989"Finding Franklin's relics"
Grenada Grenadines2327fFrom MS6 (2327 (a-f))2001Franklin and HMS Erebus
SeychellesUnknown (new issue)2009


Becquerel AC

Becquerel, Antoine César
(1788 - 1878)

Becquerel was a French physicist and chemist, the first of four generations of physicists in the Becquerel family. Antoine Henri Becquerel, who won a Nobel Prize in physics, was Antoine César's grandson

Antoine César Becquerel studied thermoelectricity and constructed an electric thermometer with which he measured the body temperature of animals, the soil temperature at different depths and the atmospheric temperature at different heights. In addition to his basic research in electrochemistry he had a general interest in questions related to meteorology, climate and agriculture.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Wallace and Futuna3781988(200th anniv. birth)


Dumont d'Urville

Dumont d'Urville, Jules S.
(1790 - 1842)

Dumont d'Urville was a French naval commander and explorer of the South Seas and the Antarctic. His first grand voyage was as lieutenant aboard the vessel Coquille in a circumnavigation of the world from 1822 to 1825. Shortly after returning from that trip, he and Commander Louis Duperrey proposed another voyage to the Marquis de Clermont Tonnerre, the Minister of the Marine Department. They had ambitious scientific goals (including studies of terrestrial magnetism and meteorology, hydrographic measurements, mapping, ethnography, zoology and botany). The proposal was accepted and from 1826 to 1829 the Coquille (renamed Astrolabe) under the command of Dumont d'Urville again circumnavigated the globe. That expedition brought back a mass of hydrographic, navigational, zoological, botanical and meteorological information. Dumont d'Urville would command one more voyage of discovery aboard the Astrolabe (but this time accompanied by a second ship, Zelée). The trip lasted from 1837 to 1840 and explored both the South Seas and the Antarctic. In 1840 his ships arrived close to the south magnetic pole, near a part of the Antarctic coast that he dubbed Adélie Land (after his wife Adèle). The French Antarctic research station Dumont d'Urville, in Adélie Land, was opened in 1956 as the centre of French scientific activities during the IGY (International Geophysical Year) of 1957-1958. It has remained active as a research base and meteorological observing station ever since. It launches a daily radiosonde balloon, and since 1990 has carried out about 40 balloon soundings each year for the measurement of ozone profiles.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
British Antarctic Territory49aWatermarked 3141973with ship Astrolabe
British Antarctic Territory49Watermarked 3731979with ship Astrolabe
Falkland Islands Dependencies1L971985
Falkland Islands Dependencies1L97-1L100 fdcOne of four stamps on FDC1985
FranceB598From booklet pane of 6 (5x B598)1988
FranceB593-B598 folderOne of six stamps on FDC folder cover1988
FranceNoneMeter1990200th anniv. birth
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC71965"Découverte de Terre Adélie par Dumont d'Urville, 20 janvier 1840"
French Southern and Antarctic Territories301968
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesNone(Round) cachet on cover1970"Station Dumont d'Urville, Terre Adélie"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesNone(Round) cachet (different) on cover1970"Station Dumont d'Urville, Terre Adélie"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesNone(Round, violet) cachet and (rectangular) cachet on cover1970"Station Dumont d'Urville, Terre Adélie" and "Terre Adélie, Base Dumont d'Urville"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC301973"Dumont d'Urville, Terre Adélie"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC45aStrip of 2 (C44-C45 + label)197620th anniv. Dumont d'Urville base
French Southern and Antarctic Territories711977d'Urvillea algae
French Southern and Antarctic Territories80 coverCancel and cachet on cover1979
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC641981"Glaces de pression dans la mer Dumont d'Urville"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC661981"Adèle Dumont d'Urville"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC68 fdcCancel and cachet on FDC198125th anniv. Dumont dèUrville and Charcot bases; also latitude-longitude cachet for Dumont d'Urville station
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesNone(Green) cachet on cover1984"Dumont d'Urville, Station météorologique"
French Southern and Antarctic Territories1541990(200th anniv. birth)
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC1101990(150th anniv. death); and "Découverte de la Terre Adélie, 150ième Anniversaire"
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC112a fdcCancel and cachets on FDC1990Base Dumont d'Urville; (200th anniv. birth)
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesC1231992Dumont d'Urville base, Adélie Land; (150th anniv. death)
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesNoneCachet on cover1992Dumont d'Urville météorologie; (150th anniv. death)
French Southern and Antarctic Territories232One of strip of 3 (232a (230-232))1997"Dumont d'Urville [base] 1956"
French Southern and Antarctic Territories224 coverThree cachets on cover1997"Station météorologique Dumont d'Urville 89642" and "Base Dumont d'Urville" and Dumont d'Urville base latitude-longitude
French Southern and Antarctic Territories270From booklet pane of 5 (273a (5x 270 + 2 labels)), contained in booklet (273b)2000
French Southern and Antarctic Territories294bOn stamp and in (upper) margin of SS12001bust of Dumont d'Urville at Dumont d'Urville base
French Southern and Antarctic Territories314 coverCancels and cachets on cover2002
French Southern and Antarctic Territories342In (lower-left) margin of MS42004Dumont d'Urville [base] with latitude-longitude
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesUnknownDeluxe booklet cover, also back2005#270 and Dumont d'Urville base latitude-longitude cachet (reproduced on booklet cover)
French Southern and Antarctic Territories356 fdcStamp and (circular) cancel and cachet on FDC2005"Dumont d'Urville, T. Adélie"; also latitude-longitude cachet for Dumont d'Urville station
French Southern and Antarctic Territories367200650th anniv. Dumont d'Urville base, 1956-2006
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesUnknown (new issue)2007The Sun's path, Dumont d'Urville base, June 21
French Southern and Antarctic TerritoriesUnknown fdc (new issue)Stamp and cancel and cachet on FDC2007Dumont d'Urville base and the Sun's path on June 21
Malagasy RepublicC54C52 overprinted1949overprint reads "Terre Adélie, Dumont d'Urville, 1840"
Malagasy RepublicC54 cover(Round, black) cachet on cover1949
Malagasy RepublicNoneProof of unissued stamp1995
Micronesia81984
Micronesia161984
New Caledonia2981953
New CaledoniaC1181974
New CaledoniaC118 proofsTrial colour proofs
New Zealand14171997
RomaniaNoneCancel and cachet on cover1992150th anniv. death
St. Helena4741986
Tonga6461987"Dumont d'Urville's second voyage"
Tonga647
Tonga648
Tonga649
Vanuatu737One of strip of 3 (737a (735-737))1999
Wallace and Futuna IslandsC441973
Wallace and Futuna IslandsC44 proofstrial colour proofs


Babbage

Babbage, Charles
(1791 - 1871)

Babbage was an English scientist who originated many of the concepts that underly modern computers. With John Herschel, he did some work on magnetism around 1825. He and Herschel also experimented with barometers.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Great Britain13611991(200th anniv. birth)
MalawiUnknown a (new issue)One of MS2 (a-b)2008


Morse

Morse, Samuel
(1791 - 1872)

Samuel Morse was an American artist and inventor, best known for his invention of the electric telegraph and the Morse code. He first realized in the early 1830s that an electric telegraph might be possible, in part due to Joseph Henry's description of the relevant scientific principles. Morse experimented with prototypes in the mid-1830s. The first public demonstration of his apparatus took place in 1837. The U.S. Congress eventually granted him the necessary financial support so that a demonstation telegraph line could be constructed, from Washington to Baltimore (a distance of 61 km). The line was successfully inaugurated 24 May 1844 when Morse sent the phrase "What hath God wrought?".

Morse received a Turkish patent for the telegraph in 1847. His invention was officially accepted as the standard for European telegraphy in 1851 (except in Britain where the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph was preferred). Morse's American patents were contested because he claimed to be the sole inventor of the device. Henry disagreed. He and Morse had been friends, but the protracted legal battle over the telegraph patent turned them into bitter enemies. Finally in 1853 the Supreme Court ruled in Morse's favour.

Although Morse never worked directly in meteorology, his telegraph would bring about a revolution in the science because it made possible the speedy transmission of weather data, which permitted the creation of weather maps, which in turn could be used to study weather systems and to prepare weather forecasts. The forerunners of centralized national weather services in many countries including France (under LeVerrier), Britain (under Fitzroy) and the U.S. (under Henry) all began to develop once weather telegraphy became available in the late 1840s and the 1850s.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
This list is an incomplete sample of the numerous postal items that contain this person.
ArgentinaB11944
Burkina Faso9101991(200th anniv. birth)
Cambodia12201992(200th anniv. birth, in 1991)
Cambodia20542001(210th anniv. birth)
Central Africa Republic1358 (Mi2572)2000
Congo (People's Republic)80719881987: 150th anniv. Morse's first test of the telegraph
Congo (People's Republic)808
Denmark352 fdcCachet on FDC1954
DjiboutiC234 (Mi499)1987150th anniv. invention of telegraph
DjiboutiC234a (BL142)SS1 (C234)
Gabon1801965Morse telegraph; 100th anniv. ITU (International Telecommunication Union)
Gabon180 proofDie proof
Germany (West)NoneCachet on cover1969"Von Morse bis Telstar" (From Morse to Telstar); 125th anniv. invention telegraph (from inauguration of first telegraph line Washington-Baltimore, 24 May 1844)
GuatemalaC7991985
Mali1731972(100th anniv. death)
Mauritania2941972(100th anniv. death); 4th World Telecommunications Day
Monaco6111965100th anniv. ITU (International Telecommunication Union)
Monaco9071974"Morse" (in text)
Monaco16021987150th anniv. invention of telegraph
Monaco1602 maxiMaxicard
Niger7531987150th anniv. invention of telegraph
Palau538lOne of MS17 (538 (a-q))2000
Peru407 (Mi436)1944100th anniv. invention telegraph (from inauguration of first telegraph line Washington-Baltimore, 24 May 1844)
Peru408 (Mi437)
Tonga730eOne of MS12 (730 (a-l))1989
United StatesP336 back2 dollars (banknote), also front1896Morse (at right)
United States8901940
United States890 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC
United States890 fdc2Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC
United States890 fdc3Stamp and cachet (different) on FDC


Coriolis

Coriolis, Gaspard Gustav
(1792 - 1843)

Coriolis was a French engineer and mathematician.

The Earth is not a stationary frame of reference: it rotates. The equations of motion of the atmosphere must account for this rotation. In a paper published in 1835 (Sur les équations du mouvement relatif des systèmes de corps) Coriolis showed how to account for the Earth's rotation through the addition of an extra force that has come to be known as the Coriolis force. It is the Coriolis force that explains why the winds do not blow directly from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. Ignoring frictional effects, in the northern (southern) hemisphere the Coriolis force deviates the air motion to the right (left) so that the winds blow parallel to the isobars, with lower pressure to the left (right). This behaviour, generally referred to as the Coriolis effect, is a key concept in meteorology.

The name Coriolis was given to a scientific satellite launched 6 January 2003. Coriolis (also referred to as Coriolis/WindSat for the Navy WindSat microwave polarimetric radiometer that it carries) has two primary missions:

  1. to provide data on wind speed and direction at or near the surface of the ocean, and
  2. to provide early warning of coronal mass ejections from the Sun.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceNoneCachet (return address) on cover1992"42, avenue G. Coriolis"; (200th anniv. birth)
FranceNoneCachet (return address) on cover1997"42, Avenue Coriolis"


Herschel, John

Herschel, Sir John F. W.
(1792 - 1871)

Sir John Herschel was an English astronomer. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel.

John Herschel was deeply interested in meteorology. With Charles Babbage he did some experiments on magnetism and tinkered with barometers. In his work Preliminary Discourse (1830), Herschel wrote that meteorology is "one of the most complicated but important branches of science" in which "any person who will attend to plain rules might do effectual service". He wrote in 1843 that the atmosphere might be considered "a vehicle for wavelike movements which may embrace in their single swell and fall a whole quadrant of the globe". Herschel published in London in 1840 a book entitled Meteorology. He served as the chairman of the Royal Society's Committee for Physics and Meteorology in 1840 and later years. The Committee's reports treated many meteorological topics. For example, the 1840 report contained the following sections relating to meteorology:

PHYSICS AND METEOROLOGY (section and page)
1. Terrestrial Magnetism 1
2. Figure of the Earth 38
3. Tides 39
4. Meteorology 44
5. Distribution of Temperature in the Sea and Land 48
6. Currents of the Ocean 49
7. Depth of the Sea 51
8. Variable Stars 51
9. Refraction 52
10. Eclipses 52
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS (section and page)
1. Barometers 53
2. Thermometers 58
3. Actinometers 61
4. Radiating Thermometers 69
5. Hygrometers 69
6. Vanes, Anemometers, and Rain-gauges 71
7. Clouds and Meteors 73
8. Electrometers 74
9. Registers 76
APPENDIX
Table I. - Correction to be added to Barometers for Capillary Action 81
Table II. - Reduction of Thermometer to 32° Fahrenheit 82
Table III. - Reduction for Barometers 88
Table IV. - Force of Wind 88
Table V. - Force of Aqueous Vapour 89

Herschel wrote in 1851 in the British Admiralty's Manual of Scientific Inquiry that "there is no branch of physical science which can be advanced more materially by observations made during sea voyages than meteorology". In 1854 the Crown decided to form a department that would oversee the collection and analysis of weather data at sea, and by May of 1855 such a program had been implemented by the new Meteorological Department of the British Board of Trade (the forerunner of the UK Meteorological Office) under Robert Fitzroy.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Canada14791993Herschel Island, named in 1826 by John Franklin for his friend John Herschel (the son of William Herschel); (200th anniv. birth, in 1992)
Great Britain6161970(100th anniv. death, in 1971); John Herschel (at right); William Herschel, John Herschel's father (at left)


von Baer

von Baer, Karl Ernst
(1792 - 1876)

Von Baer was an Estonian physician, anatomist, zoologist and naturalist. He was the president of the Estonian Naturalists' Society from 1869 to 1876. He also conducted meteorological and climatological studies and made significant contributions to the understanding of the climate of the Russian polar regions.

His interest in the Arctic was evident as early as his student years in Tartu from 1810 to 1814. While living in Königsberg in the 1820s he concentrated on his primary biological research but also studied meteorology and mathematical methods and was influenced by scholars such as Friedrich Bessel, Heinrich Dove and Alexander von Humboldt. Von Humboldt was in fact invited to Russia by the tsar and in 1829 went on a scientific expedition to Siberia. On his return to St. Petersburg he proposed the creation of a Russian network of magnetic and meteorological observing stations. A. Kupfer of the St. Petersburg Academy was also working toward such a network. Von Baer was inspired by this idea and moved to Russia in 1834, just in time to see the establishment of the first Russion observing network of 9 stations in 1835. He then began a systematic collection of Russian meteorological data from various other sources. He was also one of the first to popularize meteorology as a scientific field in its own right and authored the first Russian newspaper article which treated the science of meteorology in a popular manner.

Von Baer used the Russian weather data he collected to draw conclusions about the climate. He related the existence of the permafrost in Siberia to the Russian continental climate. He published a set of continuous meteorological observations taken from 1832 to 1835 in Novaya Zemlya and calculated from them the mean daily, monthly and yearly temperatures. His comparisons of these data with those of other Arctic regions allowed him to conclude that the mean annual temperature in Novaya Zemlya was lower than those of Yakutsk, Spitzbergen and the coastal areas of Greenland and Labrador. Von Baer was even able to conclude that the mean temperature on the east side of Novaya Zemlya was about one degree colder than on the west side. He related the difference to the mountain range that bisects the area and tends to block cold air over the east from moving farther west. He also found that March was the coldest month in Novaya Zemlya, while August was the warmest, and related the August maximum temperatures to the presence of the Kara sea which tends to be ice-free in August.

Von Baer was the first to apply Russian meteorological data to agriculture. For example, he suggested that "goosefood" (a high altitude plant from South America) might grow where traditional cereal grains would not. Unfortunately, attempts to grow this plant in Russia proved unsuccessful.

Von Baer is remembered for his major contributions to the understanding of climate and meteorology in Russia. Von Humboldt said that in Russia there were three pre-eminent meteorologists who would be the envy of any European country: Adolf Kupfer, Ludwig Kämtz and von Baer.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
EstoniaEesti Post #17Printed stamp on postal card2003(210th anniv. birth, in 2002); also 150th anniv. Estonian Naturalists' Society


Biscoe

Biscoe, John
(1794 - 1843)

Biscoe was an English sea captain and explorer. In April 1832 he became the third person to circumnavigate Antarctica. After that trip he informed the admiralty hydrographer in London that the headlands he had seen were those of a continent (Antarctica). Concerning the weather he had encountered, he advised that future voyagers expect the prevailing winds in the very high Antarctic latitudes to blow east to west (rather than the west to east direction of the Roaring Forties mid-latitude belt farther north).

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
British Antarctic Territory61963"RRS John Biscoe" (ship)
British Antarctic Territory306 surcharged and overprinted1971"RRS John Biscoe" (ship)
British Antarctic Territory48a1973(130th anniv. death)
British Antarctic Territory48Changed watermark1975
British Antarctic TerritoryNoneCachets on cover1981"RRS John Biscoe" (ship)
British Antarctic TerritoryNoneCachet on cover1990"RRS John Biscoe" (ship)
British Antarctic Territory2061993"RRS John Biscoe I" (ship)
British Antarctic Territory2101993"RRS John Biscoe II and RRS Shackleton" (ships)
British Antarctic Territory210aSS11997"RRS John Biscoe II and RRS Shackleton" (ships)
Falkland Islands1131952"MSS John Biscoe" (ship)
Falkland Islands1251955"MSS John Biscoe" (ship)
Falkland Islands Dependencies1L191954"John Biscoe 1947-52" (ship)
Falkland Islands Dependencies1L501980"RRS John Biscoe in Cumberland Bay" (ship)
Falkland Islands Dependencies1L50 reissue1984"RRS John Biscoe in Cumberland Bay" (ship)
Falkland Islands Dependencies1L50aChanged watermark (384)1985"RRS John Biscoe in Cumberland Bay" (ship)
RomaniaNonePostal card2006175th anniv. discovery of Enderby Land by Biscoe


Carnot

Carnot, Nicolas Léonard Sadi
(1796 - 1832)

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (usually referred to simply as Sadi Carnot) was a French engineer who in 1824 pubished a short book that is considered to be the origin of the science of thermodynamics, which can be defined as the study of the conversions between heat energy and other forms of energy. Thermodynamics is an integral component of broader disciplines such as engineering, physics, chemistry and meteorology and so Carnot's work found application in all these areas.

Carnot described a process now known as the Carnot cycle or the Carnot heat engine in which a system gains energy at a relatively high temperature and loses it at a lower temperature. The Hadley cell (important in meteorological studies of the general circulation) and the hurricane can both be thought of in the broadest sense as Carnot heat engines: energy is lost to frictional and turbulent dissipation at relatively low temperatures and is gained through sensible and latent heat from the warm ocean surface. This is analagous to the situation in which falling water in a waterfall can drive a turbine to produce electricity. The incoming water at the top has more energy (the potential energy due to its greater height) than the outgoing water at the bottom. Part of the difference goes to making the turbines rotate, and part is lost to various frictional and mechanical effects. In the atmospheric case, the difference between the energy input at higher temperatures and the energy loss at lower temperatures is available to make the system rotate (i.e. intensify its circulation). As the circulation strengthens, the frictional effects also increase, so that eventually a balance is attained, so that in the absence of other effects the system no longer intensifies. The balance can go the other way as well. If a hurricane moves over land or over cold water, then its energy source at warm temperatures is cut off. The system as a whole loses energy, and the circulation decreases, i.e. the hurricane weakens.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
FranceB2511950Lazare Carnot, father of Sadi
FranceB2871954Marie-François Sadi Carnot, grandson of Lazare Carnot and nephew of Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot
FranceNoneCancel and cachets on cover1984"Centenaire du lycée Sadi Carnot"; "Sadi Carnot, l'Inventeur de la Thermodynamique"


Quetelet

Quetelet, Adolphe
(1796 - 1874)

Quetelet was a Belgian astronomer, statistician and meteorologist. In 1828 he founded the Belgian Royal Observatory and became its first Director. The Observatory would become the base for his extensive magnetic and meteorological observations. He devoted himself to the application of statistical techniques to meteorological data and described the climate of Belgium in his work Sur le Climat de Belgique. The Royal Observatory was the precursor of the modern Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute and Quetelet can be considered the "Father" of the meteorological service in Belgium.

As Director of the Royal Observatory, Quetelet was one of the Belgian representatives at the International Marine Conference in Brussels in1853. The goal of the conference was to create a uniform international system of meteorological observations at sea. This was in fact the earliest formal meeting in which significant international cooperation in the area of meteorology was both planned for and realized. In this sense it can be considered as the first international meteorological conference. Its success pointed the way to the establishment, 20 years later, of the International Meteorological Organization (IMO), the predecessor of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Quetelet was elected President of the International Marine Conference by unanimous vote.

Quetelet also made some observations of the aurora borealis, including those that occurred during the solar storm of 28 August - 2 September 1859.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Belgium885 (Mi1794)1974(100th anniv. death)


Siebold

von Siebold, Philipp Franz
(1796 - 1866)

Von Siebold was a German physician, scientist, explorer and diplomat. His works include studies of the flora, fauna, geology and meteorology of Japan.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Germany19181996(200th anniv. birth)


Henry

Henry, Joseph
(1797 - 1878)

Henry was an American physicist, meteorologist and scientific administrator. He is generally considered to be the "father" of the U.S. National Weather Service. He also discovered electromagnetic induction independently of Faraday. As a result of that discovery, Henry's name was given to the SI (International System of Units) unit of inductance.

Henry developed an interest in meteorology during the time he spent as a professor at Albany Academy in Albany, New York. While there he collected statewide weather observations for the University of the State of New York. Later, he was a professor at the College of New Jersey in Princeton where he conducted research on lightning and studied storm patterns and atmospheric physics.

Henry became first secretary of the newly-formed Smithsonian Institution in 1846. He would serve in that capacity until his death in 1878. He immediately set up a meteorological program at the Institution and in 1847 called for "a system of extended meteorological observations for solving the problem of American storms". He clearly understood that the electric telegraph would play a key part in such a system. Henry himself had described the basic scientific principles of the telegraph in the early 1830s, but Samuel Morse is credited with the actual development of the telegraph. Henry knew that storms in the United States generally moved from west to east (Benjamin Franklin was the first to realize this) and wrote in the Smithsonian's 1847 annual report that "the extended lines of the telegraph will furnish a ready means of warning the more northern and eastern observers to be on the watch for the first appearance of an advancing storm".

By 1849 Henry had established a network of some 150 volunteer weather observers linked by telegraph. He convinced several telegraph companies to transmit weather data to the Smithsonian free of charge. The Institution served as the administrative and scientific centre of the weather telegraphy network. It provided instructions, standardized forms and in some cases instruments to the observers, who were expected to make several observations each day of temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind, cloud conditions and precipitation amounts. They were also instructed to note "casual phenomena" such as thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, meteors and the aurora. All this information was summarized in monthly reports submitted to the Smithsonian, where Henry used it to create a large daily weather map whose purpose was, as he wrote, to "show at one view the meteorological condition of the atmosphere over the whole country". The map was displayed for the first time in 1856 in the Castle (the original building of the Smithsonian Institution). It used a system of coloured disks to indicate the type of weather observed (blue for snow, black for rain, brown for cloudy conditions and white for fair weather) with arrows showing the prevailing wind direction. The public was fascinated by this map. Henry noted that tourists who viewed it "all appear to be specially interested in knowing the condition of weather to which their friends at home are subjected at the time". Henry also experimented with using the map for weather forecasting. He noted, for example, that "if a black card [disk] is seen in the morning on the station at Cincinnati, indicating rain at that city, a rain storm may confidently be expected at Washington at about seven o'clock in the evening". Henry had enough confidence in this rule that he would postpone evening lectures at the Smithsonian on days when Cincinnati had rain in the morning.

Henry also provided weather observations to the Washington Evening Star which began publishing daily weather conditions at nearly twenty different cities in May 1857. This was one of the earliest examples of the popular newspaper weather page.

Henry also advocated a system of storm warnings and wrote in his annual report for 1857 that he hoped to arrange with telegraph companies "to give warning on the eastern coast of the approach of storms".

By around 1860 the meteorological network had grown to include more than 600 volunteer observers in Canada, Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean as well as the United States. The mass of weather observations received at the Smithsonian during the 1850s formed a large data base that had to be checked and interpreted. Henry hired Professor James H. Coffin of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania to carry out this work. In 1861 Coffin published the first of two volumes of climatic data and storm observations based on the reports for 1854 through 1859.

The American Civil War almost derailed Henry's meteorological work. He wrote in 1861 that the project "suffered more from the disturbed condition of the country than any other part of the operations of the Smithsonian establishment." Weather reports had to compete for telegraph time with public war-related traffic. All reports from the South were cut off. After the war, in his annual report for 1865, Henry called on the federal government to establish a national weather service capable of issuing storm warnings and other weather predictions. At roughly the same time other countries were also moving toward their own national weather services (e.g England under Fitzroy and France under LeVerrier). In 1870 Congress transferred the responsibility for storm warnings and weather predictions to the U.S. Army's Signal Service. By 1874, Henry had convinced the Signal Service to take over the volunteer observer system as well. In 1891, the newly-formed U.S. Weather Bureau took over all the weather-related work of the Signal Service. It later became the National Weather Service, in which Henry's vision and leadership live on today.

In addition to the table below, another list of Henry items is available on the SI-metric unit names page.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
United States943Also detail1946100th anniv. Smithsonian Institution; the building shown, known as the Castle, in Washington DC, has a statue of Henry in front of it, barely seen in this stamp.
United States30591996150th anniv. Smithsonian Institution; Henry was the secretary of the Smithsonian from 1846 until his death in 1878; the Castle is depicted on this stamp, but no trace of Henry's statue is seen.


Comte

Comte, Auguste
(1798 - 1857)

Comte was a French philosopher, who wrote of what he called "positive science". He used meteorology as one example in his reasoning. He wrote that:

"Positive science may deal either with objects themselves as they exist, or with the separate phenomena that the objects exhibit. Of course we can only judge of an object by the sum of its phenomena; but it is open to us either to examine a special class of phenomena abstracted from all the beings that exhibit it, or to take some special object and examine the whole concrete group of phenomena. In the latter case we shall be studying different systems of existence; in the former, different modes of activity. As good an example as can be given of the distinction is that, already mentioned, of Meteorology. The facts of weather are evidently combinations of astronomical, physical, chemical, biological, and even social phenomena; each of these classes requiring its own separate theories. Were these abstract laws sufficiently well-known to us, then the whole difficulty of the concrete problem would be so to combine them, as to deduce the order in which each composite effect would follow. This, however, is a process which seems to me so far beyond our feeble powers of deduction, that, even supposing our knowledge of the abstract laws perfect, we should still be obliged to have recourse to the inductive method".

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Brazil8541957100th anniv. death
Bulgaria10011957100th anniv. death
France8481957(100th anniv. death)
France848 fdc1Stamp and cancel and cachet on FDC
France848 fdc2Stamp and cancel and cachet (different) on FDC
France848 fdc3Stamp and cancel (different) and cachet (diferent) on FDC
France848 maxi1Maxicard
France848 maxi2Maxicard (different)
France848 maxi3Maxicard (different)
France848 maxi4Maxicard (different)
Romania12191958(100th anniv. death, in 1957)


Kupfer

Kupfer, Adolf Yakovlevich
(1799 - 1865)

Kupfer was a Russian physicist and academician who organized meteorological and magnetic observations in Russia.

After his university education in Germany, Kupfer obtained in 1823 a position as professor of chemistry at Kazan University in Russia. He traveled to Paris in that year to purchase equipment for his department. There he met Arago and von Humboldt who encouraged his interest in terrestrial magnetism and meteorology. In 1828 Kupfer became an academician at the Imperial Academy of Sciences and moved to St. Petersburg where be began to organize a network of meteorological observation stations in Russia. Von Humbolt also contributed to this effort. He was invited to Russia by the tsar and went on a scientific expedition to Siberia in 1829. On his return to St. Petersburg he proposed the creation of a Russian network of magnetic and meteorological observing stations. These combined efforts bore fruit in 1835 with the establishment of the first Russian network (of 9 stations across the country). Kupfer and von Baer continued these efforts and by 1837 had established 11 more observing stations. Eventually Kupfer and others realized that there should be a central bureau to supervise the operation of the overall network and collect all the observations. This bureau, named the Main Geophysical Observatory, was established in St. Petersburg in 1849. It would serve through the remainder of the 19th and the first part of the 20th centuries as the administrative and scientific centre of Russian hydrometeorological activities. Kupfer was its first director, a position he would retain until his death in 1865.

Kupfer was interested in international sharing of data. For example, he implemented twice-weekly reporting to Hamburg of weather and ice conditions in the Gulf of Finland. He established in 1864 the first Russian telegraphic reporting system with a network of 9 domestic and two foreign stations

Kupfer said that "the science of meteorology has a highly extensive field for research; it considers all terrestrial atmosphere which from different directions touches the surface of the Earth and which renders huge influence on all elements of human life". He believed that there were meteorological questions that "without the assistance of Russian observers will forever remain riddles".

Kupfer also said that "in due course to explain the relationships between the pressure of the atmosphere, the humidity of the air and the formation of clouds and their interactions during rain and snow and between the directions of winds; it may be that there will be a way to calculate beforehand the time of their continuation as are calculated the ways of the planets". This was one of the earliest statements of the idea of numerical weather prediction (NWP). This idea was well ahead of its time. L. F. Richardson would eventually pioneer the development of the earliest numerical techniques in weather forecasting in the early 1920s.

For the scope of his contributions to Russian meteorology, Kupfer has been called the "Father" of the Russian Weather Service.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
RussiaNoneCachet on envelope1999(200th anniv. birth); also 150th anniv. Main Geophysical Observatory, St. Petersburg
RussiaUnknown (Mi1548)From MS82009(210th anniv. birth)
RussiaUnknown fdc (new issue)One of two stamps on FDC


Schönbein

Schönbein, C. F.
(1799 - 1868)

Christian Friedrich Schönbein was a German-Swiss chemist.

In 1785, Dutch chemist Martinus van Marum (1750 - 1837) noted an unusual smell during his experiments with electrical sparking above water, and attributed it to the electrical reactions. He had in fact created ozone, but did not identify it as a particular form of oxygen. During similar experiments in the late 1830s, Schönbein detected the same pungent odour and realized that it was the smell that often follows a strong stroke of lightning. In 1839 he succeeded in isolating the gas and named it ozone, from the Greek "ozein" (to smell). For this reason, Schönbein is credited with the discovery of ozone. He described this discovery in a letter entitled "Research on the nature of the odour in certain chemical reactions" presented to the Académie des Sciences in Paris in 1840.

For philatelic items related to ozone, please consult the ozone page of this Website.

CountryCatalog Number*Type of Item**Year of IssueNotes on Content***
Switzerland1060 (Mi1696)1999
Switzerland1060 fdcStamp and cachet on FDC


Airy

Airy, G. B.
(1801 - 1892)

Sir George Airy was a British astronomer who was appointed Astronomer Royal in 1835. He immediately expanded the range of science carried out at the Greenwich Observatory by establishing a Magnetic and Meteorological Department within the Observatory with James Glaisher as superintendent. Not only did Airy want to know the temperature and how it affected astronomical observing, but also he wanted to establish a more general program of meteorological study. Some magnetic and meteorological measurements had already been made at the Observatory under Airy's predecessor, but Airy introduced systematic daily readings of temperature and other variables.

Airy also experimented with barometers and barometer scales. As a result of this work, a barometer known as "Airy's altitude barometer" that incorporated a scale he designed ("Airy's altitude scale") was manufactured by the Short and Mason company.

Airy was involved in the establishment of the Greenwich meridian as a base longitude from which other longitudes are measured. The time zone at Greenwich, originally referred to as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and now referred to as UTC (Universal Time, Coordinated), is a standard time which is used as an international reference. In meteorology, synoptic observations are made at 00 UTC, 06 UTC, 12 UTC and 18 UTC at all observing statio