Nicolaas Kruik
Niklaas Samuel Cruquius ( Latinized: Nicolaus Samuel Cruquius or Kruikius, actually Nicolaas Kruik; * December 2, 1678, Vlieland, Friesland, † February 5, 1754 in Spaarndam, North Holland ) was a Dutch hydraulic engineer, surveyor and cartographer. Like many of his contemporaries, he gave himself a Latin name.
Cruquius is famous for its temperature measurements, which are still used in historical weather investigations. The Netherlands was one of the first countries where weather records have been made and so one has measurements of over 300 years.
The meteorologist Cruquius
On December 19, 1705 Cruquius started three times daily temperature to measure air pressure and precipitation. He used simple instruments, so a bowl for precipitation measurement and an air thermometer. He devised also has its own graduated scale, as there were no universal temperature scale. From 1727 the Amsterdam-based instrument maker Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit experimented with mercury thermometers and introduced the Fahrenheit scale. Cruquius thereupon his old measurements are converted into degrees Fahrenheit. The records still exist today.
1717 Cruquius went to Leiden to study at Herman Boerhaave medicine. He was a member of the British Royal Society through him.
He maintained close contacts with a British meteorological organization that dictated how measurements had to be performed. Therefore, you know how Cruquius had measured, and so could the royal - Dutch Meteorological Institute ( KNMI ) reconstruct his measurements from 1706 to 1734. As of 1734 records were made also in other places in the Netherlands.
Cruquius recorded air pressure, rainfall and humidity. Little is known about his barometer. The humidity he ascertained with the help of a sponge soaked in ammonium chloride and a scale. The wind speed he derived from the revolutions of a windmill.
Cruquius was so convinced of the benefits of his weather observations for the protection of the Netherlands against the rising powers of storm, sea and rain, that he auditioned for the then government, the Staten van Holland in 1725 and asked for financial support for his weather observations. He already foresaw the problems of rising sea levels and the silting up of the IJ. He also worked out plans, einzupoldern the Haarlemmermeer, since it was getting bigger and the cities of Haarlem and Leiden threatened more and more. With these considerations, he was ahead of his time.
His request for a Central Institute for Meteorology was rejected, partly because he was not taken seriously, partly for political reasons, because the individual provinces would retain their autonomy. The Rijkswaterstaat, founded in 1798 ( construction and maintenance of waterways and roads) can be seen as the result of his reflections. About a hundred years later, Christoph Buys- Ballot came up with a similar request, and then the KNMI was founded. Whether Ballot was based on the ideas of Cruquius is unknown.
Disappointed by the rejection of his request drew Cruquius back and was in his last years Chairman of the Hoogheemradschap Rijnland, who worked with the construction and maintenance of dikes in the area of Wassenaar to Amsterdam and IJmuiden to Gouda.
As Cruquius died in 1754, the perfectionist his funeral, his legacy and even the inscription had settled on his grave stone in detail. In his honor, got a pumping station on the ring channel around the Harlemmermeerpolder the name pumping station Cruquius and also the town where it was built.
Source
- Website of the KNMI