ELEPHANTS ON WHITBY BEACH

ELEPHANTS ON WHITBY BEACH

Monday 3 August 2009

THE DR GEORGE MERRYWEATHER APPRECIATION SOCIETY

Dr George Merryweather of Whitby exhibited his legendary Tempest Prognosticator at The Crystal Palace in The Great Exhibition of 1851. Consisting of twelve leeches in bottles within a structure resembling an indian temple, a replica is on show at Whitby Museum. There is a picture of it at the bottom of this page.

Although no pictures of it are available, apparently a fully working replica with live leeches exists at Barometer World in Devon.

The Tempest Prognosticator, or Leech Barometer as it is sometimes known, is athing of great beauty and strangeness. Here are two examples of imaginations that have been fired by this odd construction.

Honeypear is a cartoonist from Glasgow. This is her homage to Dr Merryweather.
(Click on the image to see the full cartoon)


Here are some Japanese youths in a car park dancing to If The Rock Don't Get You The Heavy Metal Will by a band called The Tempest Prognosticators.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

The awful thing about the Whitby Museum replica is that there appear to be dead, dried-up leeches in it. Eeeeeeuuuuuuw. Poor things.

Chris said...

I think the ones in Whitby Museum are models of leeches, aren't they?

Unknown said...

Hmmmm. I guess they could be. I'll have to go have another look.

CC said...

They look a bit like mouldy figs.

Unknown said...

Aha. The plot thickens.

Chris said...

I think Judy should be nominated to go and investigate these controversial leeches, and report back to OUT ON YE! with her findings.

Unknown said...

Well, I might well do that. I might well go armed with a camera, even though cameras are banned in the museum.
But I can be fearless, if fearless is required, in the quest for truth on behalf of Out on Ye. And justice for leeches of course. Or, indeed, figs.
However, I will have to remember to go up there. That is the hard bit.