DREBBEL, CORNELIUS VAN, was born at Alkmaar, in Holland, in 1572. He is chiefly distinguished by being the inventor of the thermometer ; or, at least, by sharing that honour with Santorio. His instrument, which is said to have been first used in Germany in 1621, consisted of a tubo of glass containing water and connected with a bulb containing air : by the expansion and contraction of the air, In consequence of the variations of temperature, the column of water was allowed to rise or fall in the tube; and thus the height of the column, being measured by a scale, served as an indication of the temperature.
Drebbel also discovered the means of producing a bright scarlet dye for woollens and silks; and, according to Beckmann, he communicated the discovery to Kuffler, a dyer at Leyden, who had married his daughter. The process was afterwards introduced into France by the persons who established the Oobelines manufacture, the objects of which were celebrated for the brilliancy of their starlets. It has been asserted that he was the inventor of the telescope and microscope ; but it is more probable that he may have made some improvements on those instruments.
The reputation which Drobbel acquired during his life is less duo to his useful discoveries than to a pretended knowledge of the causes of many natural phenomena; few persons, in an ago of ignorance respecting physical science, being able to impugn his claim to such knowledge. Many of his pretended inventions are palpably fabulous,
or have been absurdly exaggerated by the ignorance and credulity of the narrators. The emperor Rudolph IL granted him a pensiou, and Ferdinand II. made him the tutor of his son ; but a revolution taking place in Austria, he was imprisoned in that country, and, but for the interference of the king of England, James I., he would have been executed. Drebbel spent the rest of his life in this country ; and it is said that, on his arrival, he presented to the king a glass globe which exhibited the phenomena of the tides, thunder, and rain, with the sun and planets in perpetual motion ; he is also said to have con trived a boat which could be rowed under the surface of water, and in which a person might read without artificial light. Ile died in London in the year 1634.
Drebbel wrote, in Dutch, two works which were afterwards trans lated into Latin and French : one of these is on the 'Nature of the Elements, the Winds, Rain,' &c.;-and the other on the 'Quintessence,' with the manner of obtaining it from minerals, vegetables, &c.