Reading the skies : a cultural history of English weather, 1650-1820
From the time of Aristotle until the late eighteenth century, meteorology meant the study of "meteors"--Spectacular objects in the skies beneath the moon, which included everything from shooting stars to hailstorms. In Reading the Skies, Vladimir Jankovic traces the history of this meteorological tradition in Enlightenment Britain, examining its scientific and cultural significance. Jankovic interweaves classical traditions, folk/popular beliefs and practices, and the increasingly quantitative approaches of urban university men to understanding the wonders of the skies. He places special emphasis on the role that detailed meteorological observations played in natural history and chorography, or local geography; in religious and political debates; and in agriculture. Drawing on a number of archival sources, including correspondence and weather diaries, as well as contemporary pamphlets, tracts, and other printed sources reporting prodigious phenomena in the skies, this book will interest historians of science, Britain, and the environment
History
xiv, 272 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780226392158, 9780226392165, 9780719059889, 9780719059896, 0226392155, 0226392163, 0719059887, 0719059895
45320494
Classical meteorology in seventeenth-century England; the meteoric tradition; prodigious meteors in science and theology; extraordinary meteorology; the meteorological provinces; meteorology - a science of weather; laboratory weather and the end of "meteorologia".