The Dynamometer is a device used to measure force and mechanical power. The dynamometer invented by Edmund Regnier and described by him in 1798, appears to have been used for measuring force. The oval spring at the bottom could be compressed across its short dimension or elongated across its long dimension. The scale mechanism was connected to one side of the spring and the body of the device to the other side. This apparatus, in the Millington/Barnard Collection at the University of Mississippi, is shown in its original padded case, along with various attachments. It was probably purchased by Prof. F.A.P. Barnard for Mississippi in the second half of the 1950s from Lerebours et Secretan of Paris, and cost 250 francs, or about $50.
The dynamometer below is at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
This is Poncelot's dynamometer, and is listed at 75 marks (about $17) in
the 1900 Max Kohl apparatus catalogue.
REF: Thomas Wright, "Dynamometer" in Robert Bud and Deborah Jean Warner, Instruments
of Science, and Historical Encyclopedia (Garland Publishing, New York,
1998), pp 195-196