A VICTORIAN BRASS KEW-PATTERN MERCURY MARINE STICK BAROMETERADIE, LIVERPOOL AND LONDON, CIRCA 1870The slender cylindrical case with the upper section incorporating vertical slot to reveal the tube and sliding Vernier reading against silvered scale calibrated in barometric inches positioned to the right and signed ADIE Liverpool No. 375. ADIE London to outer margin, set behind a glass sleeve retained by domed cap at the top, the shaft with Vernier adjtment disc and gimbal wall mount over applied mercury tube Fahrenheit scale thermometer, the base with cylindrical cistern.92cm (36ins) high, 5cm (2ins) diameter. Richard Adie was the son of the celebrated Scottish instruments maker Alexander Adie who is recorded in Goodison, Nicholas English BAROMETERS 1680-1860 as born 1774 and apprenticed to his uncle, the eminent Scottish instrument maker John Miller, in 1789. Alexander Adie was particularly noted for his meteorological instruments and is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Sympiesometer in 1818. In recognition of his work he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1819. He was appointed optician to William IV and later Queen Victoria and took one of his sons, John, into partner in 1835. Two of his other sons set up binesses; Richard (the maker of the current lot) in Liverpool form 1837 and Patrick in London from 1846. Unfortunately John Adie was prone to fits of despondency' which resulted in him shooting himself in 1857, Alexander Adie died the following year - no doubt expediated by the stress of his son's demise. Richard Adie subsequently spent a lot of time in Edinburgh looking after the biness of Adie and Son up until his death in 1881.The Kew pattern marine barometer was developed prior to 1855 by John Welsh of the Kew Observatory and Patrick Adie and included refinements such as iron cistern beneath thermometer bulb within the brass tube case (in order for the temperature reading to mirror that of the mercury in the tube), a restriction in the bore of the tube (to dampen the movement of the mercury) and a Bunten air trap.