re: Interesting
The same numbers are in modern reference books.
How can we verify that these numbers represent the current reality.
Does anyone anywhere have a mercury barometer at sea level?
Was that book printed in 1947 or at a later date.
The reasoning about the 100 year old book is that it would go close to the beginning of the discovery of radioactivity.
From web site:
http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEC/CC/radioactivity.html
In March of 1896, during a time of overcast weather, Becquerel found he couldn't use the sun as an initiating energy source for his experiments. He put his wrapped photographic plates away in a darkened drawer, along with some crystals containing uranium. Much to his Becquerel's surprise, the plates were exposed during storage by invisible emanations from the uranium. The emanations did not require the presence of an initiating energy source--the crystals emitted rays on their own! Although Becquerel did not pursue his discovery of radioactivity, others did and, in so doing, changed the face of both modern medicine and modern science.