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Comment by Smooth on January 29, 2009 at 9:51am

Dedicated to:
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (February 17, 1740 - January 22, 1799) was a Swiss aristocrat, physicist and Alpine traveller, often considered the founder of alpinism.
He was born in Conches, near Geneva.

His early interest in botanical studies naturally led him to undertake journeys among the Alps, and from 1773 onwards he directed his attention to the geology and physics of that region. This work did much to clear up the topography of the snowy portions of the Alps, and to attract the attention of tourists to spots like Chamonix and Zermatt.

In 1760 he first visited Chamonix, and offered a reward to the first man to reach the summit of Mont Blanc (then unscaled).

The Alps formed the centre of Saussure's investigations. He saw them as the grand key to the true theory of the earth, and they gave him the opportunity for studying geology in a manner never previously attempted. The inclination of the strata, the nature of the rocks, the fossils and the minerals received close attention.

He acquired a thorough knowledge of the chemistry of the day; and he applied it to the study of minerals, water and air. Saussure's geological observations made him a firm believer in the Neptunian theory: he regarded all rocks and minerals as deposited from aqueous solution or suspension, and attached much importance to the study of meteorological conditions.
He invented and improved many kinds of apparatus, including the magnetometer, the cyanometer for estimating the blueness of the sky, the diaphanometer for judging of the clearness of the atmosphere, the anemometer and the mountain eudiometer.

His modifications of the thermometer adapted that instrument to many purposes: for ascertaining the temperature of the air he used one with a fine bulb hung in the shade or whirled by a string, the latter form being converted into an evaporometer by inserting its bulb into a piece of wet sponge and making it revolve in a circle of known radius, at a known rate; for experiments on the earth and in deep water he employed large thermometers wrapped in non-conducting coatings so as to render them extremely sluggish, and capable of long retaining the temperature once they had attained it.

With these instruments he showed that the bottom water of deep lakes is uniformly cold at all seasons, and that the annual heat wave takes six months to penetrate to a depth of 30 ft. in the earth. He recognized the immense advantages to meteorology of high-level observing stations, and whenever it was practicable he arranged for simultaneous observations being made at different altitudes for as long periods as possible.

It is perhaps as a geologist (it is said that he was the first to use the term "geology" - see the "Discours préliminaire" to vol i. of his Voyages, publ. in 1779) that Saussure worked most; and although his ideas on matters of theory were in many cases very erroneous he was instrumental in greatly advancing that science.

He constructed the first known Western solar oven in 1767!!!

Comment by TheLasersShadow on January 26, 2009 at 3:50am

I wanna see the cooked chicken !! ... Does anyone have one of these??