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4th Dec. Bräker discusses the difference of temperature between high and low ground, noting that well-off people choose to live on slopes facing the warm south wind, only to find themselves suffering cold winds and deep snow in winter. [Chronik, p 114]

7th Dec. Bräker compares the cold north wind to selfishness, which brings strife between man and wife, parents and children, which drives out the warm winds of love. [Chronik, p 115]
[These two entries show that Bräker's scientific interests and his habit of moralising could work on the same subject at nearly the same time.]

28th Dec. Bräker repents of sins committed during the year and good deeds neglected through selfishness. He then concludes with some verses asking pardon for faults of content, style and spelling in his writings. [Chronik, p 115]


1775 aged 39

The diaries for 1775 to 1778 are lost, but some extracts survive because they were later included in the extracts published by Füssli. They were "redaktionell stark überarbeitet"
[much worked over in the editorial process]
. These extracts are noted below as "From Füssli".

This year marks the first appearance of Bräker's "Witterungsbüchlein" [weather notebook], but it is possible that he was already taking notes of the weather before this year. Bräker's attitude to the weather changed considerably over his lifetime. In his younger days he held the traditional belief that unusual weather was a heavenly portent, later he writes of it in a romantic anthropomorphical style (see entry for 7th Jan 1790) but his outlook on it becomes more scientific as he grows older. It is important also to remember that in Bräker's time people were far more dependent on the weather than now, it could be a matter of life and death. The contents of the weather notebook have only occasionally been included here. They are of some interest in showing how very changeable the Alpine weather was from day to day and also year to year, this must have often made for difficulties not only in growing food but in travelling.

8th May At this date the Chronik [pp 120-121] includes a note of a meeting of the Moral Society, at which it was resolved that for the following year's meeting papers should be invited on subjects relating to household and agricultural economy. A committee was set up to choose more precise subjects and conditions of entry. They met the next day and chose:


        1. Is the foreign credit which our country enjoys, beneficial or harmful to our fatherland?
        2. Is it advantageous to our country that the manufacture of cotton is pursued so vigorously, to the neglect of the linen trade?
        3. Which is the best and most advantageous method, in the conditions of this country, of growing flax?
        4. How can a poor household of eight to ten persons, which is thereby constrained to keep itself by hand work, most easily feed itself?

The conditions of entry mention that non-members were eligible, and that the papers were entered anonymously, also that the prizes were given by Landschreiber [clerk to the magistrates] Elias Stadler: two ducats for the best essay on question 1, and one ducat for the best essay on the others. Bräker wrote essays on the first two subjects and won the prize for the second. The essays have not survived. Bräker was elected to membership in the following year by a majority vote when only sixteen of the members were present, and was the first member whose election was not unanimous. [Voellmy, v 1 p 50]



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