Grantville Gazette, Volume 73

by Bjorn Hasseler

  When a wind vane is not available, the wind direction may be estimated by comparing the movement of drifting smoke or a flag on a flagstaff with the compass.

  The pre-RoF wind vane may be improved upon in several respects. First, if the tail vane is given an airfoil shape—a "vertical wing"—it will follow the wind better (MiddletonMI, 137). Second, one can make it possible to read the wind direction from indoors, or better yet, to record changes in wind direction with time. In 1695, the shaft of the wind vane at Wallingford House was coupled through a system of rods and cams to a large wall dial. Wallingford House was later integrated into the Admiralty building, with the dial being a prominent feature of their Lordships' board room (Pope 22). There was also a wind vane repeater in the ceiling of the east portico of Jefferson's Monticello (Peterson 393).

  Mechanical connections are fine when the wind vane is mounted on the roof above the observer's room, but for more remote connections, an electrical system is desirable. Either AC or DC transmission is possible. In the AC form, you have two small motors. The rotor on the transmitter is attached to the wind vane shaft and that of the repeater to the pointer of the readout dial. The stator field windings (forming an equilateral triangle) of the transmitter are connected to the corresponding windings of the repeater, and they are both fed the same AC source. The result is that the rotor on the repeater motor will tend to assume the same angular position as the rotor on the transmitter motor. (Srivastava 188).

  Wind directions are reported as the direction the wind is coming from. Prior to the twentieth century, the points of the compass were used. In modern practice, the direction is given in degrees from true north, to the nearest ten degrees, with an accuracy of five degrees (WMO2008).

  A wind vane used on shipboard (or any moving vehicle) indicates the direction of the apparent wind, not the true wind. However, if the ship's true speed is known, the true wind may be calculated. For logging ship speed, see Cooper, "Soundings and Sextants, Part One, Navigational Instruments Old and New" (Grantville Gazette 14).

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  Wind Speed

  Wind Scale. Without a device for measuring wind, the strength of the wind can only be described consistently by different observers (or the same observer at different times) if there is some sort of objective scale. As of RoF, the down-timers lacked such a scale.

  The Brahe wind scale (1582) ran from dead calm, through two categories of light winds, five of strong winds, and finally three of storms (De Villiers 61). However, the descriptions of his categories lacked any objective standard (Huler 82).

  Captain John Smith, in his Sea Grammar (1627) defined the customary sailors' terms for the winds. Most of these definitions weren't that helpful, but his "Loome Gale" was one in which the ship could carry all its sails, and the "Stiff Gale" one that was the most that the topsails could endure to bear (Huler 85). Keep those terms in mind.

  The first objectively defined numerical scale was perhaps that of James Jurin (1723). It began well with zero as "perfect calm" and one as "the gentlest motion of the wind, which scarcely shakes the leaves on the trees" and culminated in four, "the most violent wind." I do not know the definition of the intermediate levels. In 1780, the Palatine Society (Mannheim, Germany) adopted a similar five-point scale, defining two as "small boughs move," three as "large boughs move," and four as "boughs are torn off." Anders Celsius also devised a five-point scale, though his required that grade two "move a heavy weathervane," and grade four cause the trunk to "sway vehemently." A 1779 Swedish scale distinguished among several different degrees of "topsail gales," and it is suspected that the intent was to correlate with how much the topsail needed to be reefed (single, double or triple) (84). Beaufort took this a step further, characterizing the lighter breezes (forces 2-4) by the speed in knots of a man-of-war with all sails set, and the stronger winds (forces 5-12) by which sails had to be taken down or reefed (Huler 121).

  The displacement of sailing ships by steamships rendered obsolete the definitions based on sail carried, and Simpson proposed (1906) a scale based on the sea state. (Explicit wave heights were added in 1960.) And of course, sea state isn't useful for land observers, so Simpson also proposed one that categorized the effect of the wind on smoke and trees (NMLA).

  Strictly speaking, the Beaufort wind scale categorizes wind force, not wind speed, and the force is theoretically proportional to the square of the speed. The International Commission for Weather Telegraphy's empirical equivalent wind speed formula (1946) is v = 0.836 B1.5 m/s; B, scale number (Wikipedia). Yes, I know the exponent is 1.5, not 2.

  The wind scale may be used to estimate the wind speed if the anemometer fails.

  Anemometer. A deflection anemometer was invented by Leonardo da Vinci. "The flat plate, hinged at the top, is blown up along the curved scale in proportion to the speed of the wind" (Keele 135). (In proportion, but not linear proportion. Strictly speaking, wind pressure-based anemometers measure wind force, not wind speed, and even then, the scale of a deflection anemometer is not linear because the force on the inclined plate is proportional to the square of the cosine of the angle of deviation of wind incidence from the perpendicular.) A deflection anemometer was used on a Swedish warship in the late 1700s to take wind readings (Huler 89).

  The four-cup (Robinson) anemometer (1846) is essentially a miniature windmill with a vertical axis. Robinson erroneously assumed that the cup speed would be one-third the wind speed, but the ratio is dependent on the dimensions of the cups and arms (EB11/anemometer). But at least there is a mostly linear relationship between wind speed and the rotation speed of the cup center (Pindado). Unfortunately, cup anemometers accelerate faster than they decelerate, so they tend to overshoot.

  There has been experimentation with respect to the number of cups, the cup shape (cone, hemisphere, combination), the length of the arms, the means used to minimize friction (ball, tapered, and roller bearings), and the manner of reading the number of rotations (Choon). Patterson found that a "two-cup rotor runs very unevenly, while a three-cup rotor in this respect is actually superior to a four-cup rotor and also has a more linear calibration . . . and gives a larger torque . . . ." (Kristensen). More recently, a six-cup rotor (two tiers of three) was developed, and increasing the drag coefficient of the reverse side of the cups dealt with the overshoot problem. (Frenzen). Designers should also consider that a short shaft or large, sharp-edged body will create flow disturbances (Hunter).

  One can instead use a horizontal axis, but then a wind vane must be used to keep the axis parallel to the direction of the wind. Also, instead of cups, one may use a propeller.

  No anemometers are mentioned in canon. Anemometers are described in EB11, and in an Amateur Scientist column of Scientific American (1972 Jun, 122). Crude four-cup anemometers are featured in several pre-RoF books on science fair experiments (e.g., Janice VanCleave's Weather, 1995). Even without that guidance, the cup anemometer is something that some of the up-timers have surely seen, and a good mechanic can surely come up with a practical design. There may even be an exemplar at the high school science department.

  The anemometer will have to be calibrated (so we know the relationship between rotational speed and wind speed), and the simplest way to do it is to mount it on a car and drive the car at a set speed on a day the air is still. In modern practice, anemometers are sometimes calibrated in a wind tunnel. The performance of an anemometer can degrade with time as a result of wind damage, corrosion, dust infiltration, etc.

  It is possible to read the anemometer remotely if an electrical generator is connected to its axis. Rotation of the axis creates an electric current which can be measured at the observer end of the wire with an ammeter. The electrical readout also facilitates recording the wind speed as a continuous graph by an electromechanical linkage that moves a pen across a scrolling paper in response to the change in current.

  The cup or propeller anemometer is not accurate for measuring low wind speeds. For this purpose, one can use a hot-wire an
emometer (measures how ventilation cools an electrically heated wire).

  Operation. In modern practice, the wind vane and anemometer are supposed to be mounted at a point well exposed to the wind from all directions (distance from any obstruction should be at least ten times its height), and at a height of ten meters. An anemometer on top of a building should be raised at least one building width above the top. For ship-based measurements, good exposure is considered more important than fixing it at a height of ten meters, and a correction is made for height (WMO2008).

  Reporting. The anemometer reports, with a short time lag, the instantaneous wind speed. Usually, what consumers are interested in are the average wind speed and the maximum gust speed over a set time interval. This can be estimated by study of the recorded wind trace from an anemograph, or by taking a series of observations manually from an anemometer over the course of ten minutes. In modern practice, the desired accuracy is 0.5 m/s for speeds under 5 m/s, and 10% for higher wind speeds (WMO2008).

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  Now that we know how the basic meteorological instruments can be made in the new time line, we are ready to talk about the development of an observer network, the propagation of weather maps, and weather forecasting. Stay tuned to this channel . . . .

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  Almost since the beginning of the Ring of Fire Universe, readers (and writers) have speculated about potential activities by social and fraternal organizations in Grantville and how they might continue to operate in the seventeenth century. In particular, the Masonic Fraternity could have made the journey back in time and sought to function in the down-time environment.

  There are a number of obstacles to fraternal activity in the form in which it would have existed up-time, and these place significant constraints on stories set down-time. I have been a writer in the universe for a few years and have had the benefit of excellent advice and editorial direction regarding a large number of subjects; now, as an active Freemason who serves as Grand Historian for the oldest Grand Lodge in North America and as librarian at its library, I have the opportunity to provide my own exposition which I hope will be useful for any writers seeking to work Freemasonry into stories set in the world of 1632.

  Freemasonry in Up-time Grantville

  Grantville, West Virginia is closely based on an actual town, Mannington, which up-time had a local lodge—Mannington #31, originally chartered (brought into existence) under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of Virginia; it was inactive during the Civil War and was reformed and chartered in 1867. While not among the lodges that helped create the Grand Lodge of West Virginia in Fairmont in 1865, Mannington Lodge was still one of the earliest lodges created in the new state, and is still on West Virginia's rolls today.

  Lodges and Grand Lodges

  Since the early eighteenth century, a distinct geographical area—a country or region or, in the United States, a state or territory—will have a supernumerary body called a grand lodge. This organization, governed by a grand master, performs the following functions exclusively within its territorial jurisdiction:

  It issues and controls charters: official documents that permit a lodge to perform Masonic functions and admit new members

  It directs the performance of Masonic rituals and determines official protocols under which lodges operate

  It collects fees for new and existing members of lodges.

  Though they have done so in the past, Grand Lodges in the United States do not generally confer membership ("the degrees") on applicants; this is generally reserved to the lodges.

  Lodge Organization

  Lodges in the United States vary somewhat in their exact organization, but every lodge—the local, constituent body that actually performs the Masonic ritual—will have a number of officers, either elected by the membership or appointed by the governing officer, who is universally called the Master (or "Worshipful Master"). The next two officers are called Wardens, Senior and Junior; that is the minimum number of officers absolutely required to conduct a meeting. There are varying numbers and types of other officers depending on jurisdiction—Deacons and Stewards to help perform the Masonic rituals, a Marshal (or Master of Ceremonies) to conduct processions, a Chaplain to offer prayers; a Secretary and Treasurer to manage the business of the lodge, a Tyler (who generally remains outside the room to receive visitors and "guard the door"), and even an Organist, if the lodge has an organ or piano, as music has been a part of Masonic meetings for centuries.

  The primary function ("work") of a Masonic lodge is to confer the "degrees"—a series of presentations that teach moral lessons and impose obligations upon candidates. Each degree includes an oath, generally sworn on bended knee at an altar, which includes the obligation to keep secret the "modes of recognition"—signs and handshakes ("grips") that permit Masons to "recognize" each other. (In modern times, Masons tend to recognize each other by lapel pins, belt buckles, and baseball caps, but that's beside the point.) It is worth noting that all presentations in lodges are done from memory, and in West Virginia (as in many other jurisdictions) the "work" is taught from mouth to ear, that is, without any sort of textbook. Officers learn their words sentence by sentence from a teacher. This is aided (in West Virginia) by "schools of instruction," where a teacher might have a printed text of the ritual, but it is not permitted to copy it for personal use. However, much of the "secret work" has been available in one form or another, particularly with the advance of the Internet; it is unclear what might have been available in that form in 2000.

  Meetings

  West Virginia lodges generally meet once or twice a month on the same night ("First and Third"); if multiple times they would meet once for business and once to confer degrees. According to the current West Virginia Grand Lodge list, a few lodges meet according to the phase of the moon; this practice was much more common when members needed to find their way home from meetings at night by moonlight.

  Most lodges in West Virginia hold special meetings on one or both "Saint John's Days"—June 24 (Baptist) and December 27 (Evangelist).

  Secrecy

  While the exact conduct of Masonic meetings might be kept somewhat secret, the Mannington lodge met—and still meets—in a publicly identifiable location at a well-known time; in this case, at 107½ Clarksburg Street on the first and third Tuesdays.

  Effects of the Ring of Fire

  The single most important effect of the event would be to isolate the Grantville lodge from the rest of the up-time Masonic fraternity. For all intents and purposes, the only Masonic lodge—in the up-time sense—that would exist would be Grantville Lodge. There would be no Grand Lodge to govern it, no neighbor lodges to share duties. It would be effectively alone.

  There would be additional complications, not the least of which would be that the first year or two might leave little time to keep up meetings of the lodge.

  But there would be an even greater obstacle to conducting Masonic work if some – or most—of the active officers were not in Grantville when the Ring of Fire took it away. If the Master and Wardens lived a few towns away, they would simply be absent and unable to give the memorized lectures that are essential to the conferral of degrees. This might be ameliorated if some of the people who happened to be there on the day of the event—say, one or more male members of the wedding party—happened to be Masons, but if they belonged to a lodge in another jurisdiction, even if they were officers they might be familiar with a completely different version of the lectures. Modes of recognition are fairly universal within the United States, but protocols and practices might be completely different.

  For convenience, it might be assumed that at least one of Grantville Lodge's senior officers came through the Ring of Fire, and if we decide to be generous, that one of the members of the lodge—perhaps a past Master (one who had previously been the presiding officer)—served as a lecturer or instructor and happened to have a copy of the ritual text book. Given those modest assumptions, Grantville Lodge might be able to return to
operation a few years after the Ring of Fire. It would effectively be its own Grand Lodge, but depending on the temperament and judgment of its members, it might face insuperable challenges in continuing to function. It could make its own rules—but while that dispenses with many problems, it creates almost as many more.

  Freemasonry Outside the Ring of Fire

  Here we reach the heart of the difficulty regarding the future of Masonic activity and stories that might be written about it. Well-defined history of the Fraternity dates from the year 1717, when the first Grand Lodge (the "Grand Lodge of London and Westminster," which ultimately became the Grand Lodge of England, the ancestor of all "regular" Freemasonry in the world) was organized by four lodges in London. The oldest Grand Lodge in the New World, Massachusetts, was created by this Grand Lodge in 1733, with many others not far behind.

  However, it is well-known—just not well-documented—that there was considerable Masonic activity, with at least some of the forms and ceremonies resembling the modern ones, well before 1717. This took place all during the seventeenth century, and possibly during the sixteenth century as well. Anecdotal accounts freely mix with legend, and what you believe has a lot to do with what you believe about the origin of the fraternity itself.

  Most traditional histories suggest that the "speculative" form of Masonry—the philosophical and benevolent society that doesn't actually work in stone—grew out of the medieval stonemasons' guilds, which had codes of behavior, modes of recognition, traditions of charity, and a strong predilection for keeping secrets, including in some cases the identity of its members. At some point these guilds began to admit non-operative members, particularly those who would give the society a cachet.