Page:Evolution of the thermometer.djvu/68

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FAHRENHEIT THERMOMETERS.
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he visited glass-works in Berlin and Dresden to supervise the manufacture of the tubes for his instruments, and on this journey he called on Professor von Wolf in Halle, as stated.

Returning to Amsterdam he established himself as a maker of philosophical instruments; at that period three distinguished men of science honored Holland, Dr. Hermann Boerhaave, professor of medicine and chemistry in Leyden, Pieter van Musschenbroek, professor of mathematics and physics in Utrecht, and Willem Jacob van's Gravesande, astronomer and mathematician at the Hague, and these refer in their writings to Fahrenheit and his thermometers. When he visited England some time prior to 1724, he was well received and honored by election to membership in the Royal Society. Fahrenheit died unmarried in the land of his adoption 16th September, 1736, at the age of fifty years; he was buried in the Klosterkirche in the Hague.

Fahrenheit's practical work in thermometry began as early as 1706; at first he used alcohol only, but afterwards became famous for his mercury thermometers. In 1709 he sent his instruments to distant places, Iceland and Lapland, and took them in person to Sweden and