The pocket watch brought with it fobs, chains, and watch-keys or winders, mostly of brass, which should not be overlooked. In a representative collection there are crank keys similar to large clock winders, but, of course, made in miniature. Then after various developments brass and Pinchbeck fob keys came into vogue, and later still ornamental keys with and without the addition of stones, the majority being made in brass. A number of these little objects can still be collected quite cheaply, and nicely mounted make a very interesting addition to the more ornamental side of brass metal-work. Forecasting the Weather. The weather has found men a subject for discussion and given them opportunities of speaking a pleasant word of comradeship when meeting in the country or in town. To comment upon its fickleness has become as common a mode of salutation as passing the time of day. The topic is an ancient one and the interest in it has been sustained, for to gauge the coming changes has taken the attention of men from the earliest times. To study the fleeting cloud, to note the coming storm by the direction of the wind, or to notice the damp in the air as the mist rises and is wafted over the fields, has always been a favourite occupation. It was so before the day of barometers and scientific instruments, and it is equally so by those who prefer the pronouncement of the weather prophet rather than the barometer gauge. Galileo is said to have invented the thermometer, but it was his pupil Torricelli, who discovered the barometer. His townsmen in Faenza, in the north of Italy, some years ago erected a monument to his memory, putting up the biggest barometer known. In common with other scientific instruments the barometer has afforded opportunities to the worker in metal and to the art designer, for like the clock case it has been made a thing of beauty as well as one of use. The very remarkable barometer illustrated in Fig. 86 is an elaborate work of the brassfounder and exceedingly ornate. It is a very exceptional piece, but there are other barometers of considerable beauty in the hands of collectors of old bronze and metal-work. Some of the old scientific instruments are very clumsy looking when compared with modern workmanship. About them it is true there is a quaint beauty and a silent tribute to the skill and ingenuity of early inventors, those who were but groping, perhaps blindly, in the initial stages of an undeveloped science. Scientists always take a delight in the instruments which their predecessors have used, and when they realize by comparison the difficulties the early pioneers had to contend with on account of the inefficient instruments in their possession they wonder at the advance that particular science made in their day.