Nick's first answer has disappeared so I'll come back with my own points on "weather glass".

If the "marins" tapping their "barometers" were as "d'antan" as I imagine, they were NOT tapping hemorrhoid barometers, contrary to alleged marine practice, but tapping "weather glasses", simple tubes, hence the expression below "was the glass rising or was the glass falling", I imagine. "Weather glasses" ARE commonly referred to as "barometers" [SOED dates such usage back to 1695], and while your French text refers to the hemorrhoid barometers hanging in our hallways, with their needles, I get the impression the second part of the sentence uses the broader meaning of "baromètre".

Even then, given the immobilism of mariners - see how little much of their language has changed over the centuries - chances are that if they became accustomed to calling their "weather prognositicator" a "glass" or "weather glass", they continued to do so even when the instrument actually became a hemorrhoid dial barometer.

In 1832, after the death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a pear shaped glass was found in his bedroom. The glass was flat on one side, but convex on the other. Upon examination of Goethe’s scientific recordings, it was discovered that this glass, was meant to be a WEATHERGLASS, which, when half filled with water, was capable of indicating changes in air pressure. THIS EARLY BAROMETER is attractive as well as reliable. If the atmospheric pressure is high, signifying good weather, the fluid in the indicator glass tube is pushed downwards. When bad weather is imminent, the fluid rises up the indicator tube. The more accurate mercury barometer has replaced this early barometer, which was widely used by sailors. An original still hangs in the Goethe Museum in Weimar. It is commonly known as the “GOETHE WEATHER GLASS
[http://www.almosteurope.com/ABavarian/Products/Torka/torka.h...]

The sailing vessels in the olden days had none of these advantages—they just had their barometers. They called it the "GLASS"—was the glass rising or was the glass falling? I am continually amazed at what those sailors accomplished
[http://www.sitesalive.com/ocl/private/04s/qna/ocl4q_040508.h...]

The purpose of weather lore was to instruct early farmers, sailors, herdsmen, ... The “WEATHER GLASS” was an EARLY TERM for a CRUDE BAROMETER. ...
wilstar.com/skywatch.htm

for the sailors were a rough lot of fellows, who cared little for the Bible. ... It’s the WEATHER-GLASS, boy. Shore-goin’ chaps call it a BAROMETER.” ...
www.athelstane.co.uk/ballanty/fitewale/whale02.htm

WEATHER GLASS - barometer WIDOW MAKER - the bowsprit of a sailing vessel, from which many sailors fell carrying the foot of a sail forward WIDOW'S WALK ...
www.nald.ca/CLR/seaandme/7sea.pdf

the GENERAL use of a MARINE BAROMETER being merely that of a WEATHER GLASS, for which ...
www.fullbooks.com/ Discoveries-in-Australia-Volume-28.html





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Note added at 4 hrs 59 mins (2005-03-15 21:03:37 GMT)
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While \"weather glasses\" are still commercially available today, as distinct from \"barometers\" (see next quote), the following excerpts make it clear, to me at least, that there was a time when \"weather glass\" and \"barometer\" were synonymous, if they are not actually synonymous today (though I suspect they are, in fact, only additiion of hemorrhoids making a difference, aneroid barometers being invented only in the mid 1800s, apparently).

Weather Glass
The weather glass accurately forecasts weather changes 4 - 12 hours in advance. The rise and fall of the water level in the curved spout indicates weather conditions.
Price $42.00
[http://www.commodoreuniform.com/yachtclubs/yc_windweather.ht...]

Take care of my Barometer [following paragraphs make it clear this was a mercurial barometer], and as you observe its gentle rise and fall, so imagine your friend’s spirits rising or ebbing down during the daily progress of his enterprize.’(1) So wrote the German scientist and explorer Ludwig Leichhardt to the Rev. W.B. Clarke on 4 December 1847. That evening Leichhardt set out from Sydney on an expedition intended to traverse the continent reaching Swan River in Western Australia early in 1850

Instead of relying on a column of mercury to balance atmospheric pressure the aneroid barometer uses the expansion or contraction of a sealed metal bellows. The idea for such a device dates back to about 1700 but it was Lucien Vidie who developed a practical instrument in the 1840s. A prototype was tested with satisfactory results in an ascent of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1843. The invention was patented in England and France the following year. France was unresponsive to Vidie’s invention and it was through the London chronometer maker Edward Dent that aneroid barometers began to find a market. The instrument was being mentioned in various journals by 1848 and in 1849 was clearly attracting a market with three booklets on its use published in London.(

In practice, the ANEROID BAROMETER was not a substitute for other methods where accurate measurements were required. As Middleton comments on the aneroid barometer, as it had become standardised by the mid 1860s:
It was excellent as a domestic \"WEATHER-GLASS,\" and highly useful as a MARINE BAROMETER under the conditions prevailing at the time. As a scientific instrument of precision, especially for the measurement of heights, it had a long way to go


Take care of my Barometer, and as you observe its gentle rise and fall, so imagine your friend’s spirits rising or ebbing down during the daily progress of his enterprize.’(1) So wrote the German scientist and explorer Ludwig Leichhardt to the Rev. W.B. Clarke on 4 December 1847. That evening Leichhardt set out from Sydney on an expedition intended to traverse the continent reaching Swan River in Western Australia early in 1850
[http://www.usyd.edu.au/su/macleay/dAB.htm]

He selected a glass tube about a quarter of an inch in diameter and 4ft. long, and hermetically sealed one of its ends; he then filled it with MERCURY and, applying his finger to the open end, inverted it in a basin containing mercury. … this experiment is sometimes known as the Torricellian experiment. Torricellis views rapidly, gained ground, notwithstanding the objections of certain philosophers. Valuable confirmation was afforded by the variation of the BAROMETRIC~COLUMN at different elevations. Ren Descartes and Blaise Pascal predicted a fall in the height when the BAROMETER was carried to the top of a mountain, since, the pressure of the atmosphere being diminished, it necessarily followed that the column of MERCURY sustained by the atmosphere would be diminished also. This was experimentally observed by Pascals brother-in-law, Florin Prier (1605-1672), who measured the height of the MERCURY COLUMN at various altitudes on the Puy de Dome. Pascal himself tried the experiment at several towers in Paris,Notre Dame, St Jacques de la Boucherie, &c. The results of his researches were embodied in his treatises De lquilibre des liqueurs and De la pesanteur de la masse dair, which were written before 1651, but were not published till 1663 after his death. Corroborationwasalso affordedby Mann Mersenne and Christiaan Huygens. It was not long before it was discovered that the HEIGHT OF THE COLUMN varied at the same place, and that a rise, or fall was accompanied by meteorological changes. The instrument thus came to be used as a means of predicting the weather, and IT WAS FREQUENTLY KNOWN. AS THE WEATHER-GLASS. The relation of the barometric pressure to the weather is mentioned by Robert Boyle, who expressed the opinion that it is exceedingly difficult to draw any correct conclusions
[http://97.1911encyclopedia.org/B/BA/BAROMETER.htm]


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Note added at 5 hrs 29 mins (2005-03-15 21:33:13 GMT) Post-grading
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There\'s no stopping me once I get the bit between my teeth. Turns out mercury barometers CAN have dials!

What is a mercury stick barometer?
The earliest types of barometers using mercury were invented in 1643 by Evangalista Torricelli. Robert Boyle, during his travels to Europe brought back this \"new idea\" to England in around1660. The first barometers normally found will be around 1680 as before that this new invention would have to be made for you, after you had described it to a maker, probably a clock maker or someone who could obtain cabinet work and engraved plates, as well as glass tubes and mercury. These early ones were of what is known as an open cistern type; this is a glass tube filled with mercury when positioned in the house and inverted into a container of mercury. They were not at all transportable!. However, by 1695 Daniel Quare had invented and received a Royal patent for a more transportable type of barometer, which enclosed the end of the tube and made matters a lot easier. Some barometers have boxwood reservoirs on the end and are normally transportable; others have a turned up glass tube, called ball pediment tubes. Some later barometers, such as the Admiral Fitzroy, have a patented plugging device. All these types of barometers read directly from the top of the level of mercury in the top part of the tube against some type of register plate; early ones often in silvered brass, later ones in ivory, paper, enamel or glass. We can also include Admiral Fitzroy barometers amongst the stick barometers. Admiral Fitzroy barometers are often in rectangular glass fronted cases as well as POLYTECHNIC BAROMETERS, WHICH HAVE A DIAL AT THE TOP, through use of a little adjusting key predictions for summer & winter can often be made. A true Admiral Fitzroy barometer is actually the Storm barometer, which is normally an oak case with Admiral Fitzroy Storm Barometer written at the top and his weather words, which he personally introduced & organised the sending around the country, the first 13 of which produced the first synoptic charts when the information was telegraphed back to his London headquarters at the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade.
[http://www.antiquebarometers.org.uk/whatisstick.htm]

What is a mercury wheel barometer?
The MERCURY WHEEL BAROMETER was first invented in 1663 by Robert Hooke, (1635-1703) who was working as an assistant to Robert Boyle. The first published illustration of this was in Micrographia of 1665. The idea was to bend a tube into a U shape and using the mercury level in the shorter limb to record air pressure changes by aranging a steel bullet to rest on the mercury as a float, which was connected by a silk cord over a pulley to another counter balanced steel bullet. The pulley wheel was connected to a POINTER THAT TURNED AROUND OVER A DIAL. The column of mercury in the lower limb rising and falling moved the steel bullet up and down, which in turn turned the hand left and right over the dial. This type of barometer was an attempt to magnify the movement of mercury, which in a stick barometer is relatively small, perhaps a three-inch variation in Great Britain. With the larger size needle and dial three inches can be expanded to move ten times more, so changes are more readily noticeable. The design however did not take off very easily and whilst a number of wheel barometers were made in the mid 1700s the normal wheel barometer that one sees today are those of traditional banjo shape from around 1780 onwards. They are enclosed in a cabinet made case and the siphon tube is enclosed behind a door. Whilst there design is almost the same as Robert Hookes’ the cases vary in wood, inlay and decoration. These type stopped being made when the aneroid barometer took over around 1910.
[http://www.antiquebarometers.org.uk/whatismercury.htm]