Measuring & Mapping

Where, how far, and how much? People have invented an astonishing array of devices to answer seemingly simple questions like these. Measuring and mapping objects in the Museum's collections include the instruments of the famous—Thomas Jefferson's thermometer and a pocket compass used by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition across the American West. A timing device was part of the pioneering motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge in the late 1800s. Time measurement is represented in clocks from simple sundials to precise chronometers for mapping, surveying, and finding longitude. Everyday objects tell part of the story, too, from tape measures and electrical meters to more than 300 scales to measure food and drink. Maps of many kinds fill out the collections, from railroad surveys to star charts.

Dry-card nautical compass with a turned wooden bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. The "S. THAXTER MAKER No 27 STATE STREET BOSTON" inscription indicates a date between 1813 when Samuel Thaxter moved to No. 27 State Street, and 1822 when the firm became S. Thaxter & Son.
Description
Dry-card nautical compass with a turned wooden bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. The "S. THAXTER MAKER No 27 STATE STREET BOSTON" inscription indicates a date between 1813 when Samuel Thaxter moved to No. 27 State Street, and 1822 when the firm became S. Thaxter & Son. The donor believed it had belonged to his distant ancestor, Simon Mellon, and was used in a whaling vessel in the Bering Sea.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1813-1822
maker
Thaxter, Samuel
ID Number
1995.0014.01
accession number
1995.0014
catalog number
1995.0014.01
This instrument is a specialized timekeeper originally designed for finding longitude at sea and later used everywhere as a source of portable precise time.
Description
This instrument is a specialized timekeeper originally designed for finding longitude at sea and later used everywhere as a source of portable precise time. It has an English-made chronometer movement, finished by the firm William Bond & Son of Boston and fitted with the Bond break-circuit device, electrical equipment to permit the telegraphing of time signals. The Smithsonian’s Astrophysical Observatory used the instrument. The chronometer’s wooden box fits into a padded basket for extra protection.
Mechanism details:
Escapement: Earnshaw, spring detent, later pattern
Duration: 56-hour
Power source: Spring drive with chain and fuse
Bowl details:
Brass bowl
Brass gimbals
Bezel screwed and milled
Crystal flat and plain
Dial details:
Engraved and silvered brass
Indicates hours, minutes, seconds, winding level up and down, 24-hour dial
Inscription: "WM. BOND & SON, / Boston. No. 586" on dial; "WM. BOND & SON'S, BREAKCIRCUIT. / U. S. A." on silvered inside of bezel
Hands: Gold, spade, with blued seconds and Up & Down hands
Case details:
Box: solid wood, three-part, glazed center section
Brass corners
Mother of pearl key escutcheon
Inscriptions: "WM. BOND & SON. / Boston. No 521 / BREAK CIRCUIT" on nameplate
"BOND / 521" on small oval plate in bottom of box
Carrying case: Basket, with padding
References:
1. Gould, Rupert T. The Marine Chronometer. London: Holland Press, 1960.
2. Whitney, Marvin E. The Ship's Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1870
maker
Wm. Bond & Son
ID Number
ME.314839
catalog number
314839
accession number
210897
This compass has a brass bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. The graduated ring is curved. The needle float is in the form of crossed cylinders, as described in the patent (#38,125) granted to Edward S.
Description
This compass has a brass bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. The graduated ring is curved. The needle float is in the form of crossed cylinders, as described in the patent (#38,125) granted to Edward S. Ritchie on April 7, 1863.
The gimbal ring, which seems to be of a somewhat later date than the compass, identifies several Ritchie patents in addition to that of 1863. The patent of May 12, 1868 (#77,763) describes a paint that would not deteriorate in the liquid in the compass. The patent of July 19, 1870 (#105,492) describes a way to hold the glass in place with a water-tight joint. The patent of November 14, 1876 (#184,300) describes a "fascicular magnet" composed of a series of separate drawn wires of steel laid parallel to one another.
The Ritchie ledgers, now held by Ritchie Navigation, indicate that this compass was produced on March 2, 1880, and sold to S. Thaxter & Son in Boston. Smithsonian records indicate that Thaxter gave it to the Smithsonian, perhaps for use in the International Fishery Exhibition which opened in Berlin on April 20, 1880. The compass was clearly shown in the similar exhibition held in London in 1883.
Ref. D. J. Warner, "Compasses and Coils. The Instrument Business of Edward S. Ritchie," Rittenhouse 9 (1994): 1-24.
G. Brown Goode, et. al., Descriptive Catalogues of the Collections Sent from the United States to the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883 (Washington, D.C., 1884), vol. 2, p. 728.
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Ritchie, Edward S.
ID Number
PH.039385
catalog number
039385
accession number
8745
From its infancy, timekeeping has depended on astronomy. The motion of celestial bodies relative to the rotating Earth provided the most precise measure of time until the mid-twentieth century, when quartz and atomic clocks proved more constant.
Description
From its infancy, timekeeping has depended on astronomy. The motion of celestial bodies relative to the rotating Earth provided the most precise measure of time until the mid-twentieth century, when quartz and atomic clocks proved more constant. Until that time, mechanical observatory clocks were set and continuously corrected to agree with astronomical observations.
The application of electricity to observatory timepieces in the late 1840s revolutionized the way American astronomers noted the exact movement of celestial events. U.S. Coast Survey teams devised a method to telegraph clock beats, both within an observatory and over long distances, and to record both the beats and the moment of observation simultaneously. British astronomers dubbed it the "American method of astronomical observation" and promptly adopted it themselves.
Transmitting clock beats by telegraph not only provided astronomers with a means of recording the exact moment of astronomical observations but also gave surveyors a means of determining longitude. Because the Earth rotates on its axis every twenty-four hours, longitude and time are equivalent (fifteen degrees of longitude equals one hour).
In 1849 William Cranch Bond, then director of the Harvard College Observatory, devised an important improvement for clocks employed in the "American method." He constructed several versions of break-circuit devices—electrical contracts and insulators attached to the mechanical clock movement—for telegraphing clock beats once a second. The Bond regulator shown in the forground incorporates such a device. Bond's son Richard designed the accompanying drum chronograph, an instrument that touched a pen to a paper-wrapped cylinder to record both the beats of the clock and the instant of a celestial event, signaled when an observer pressed a telegraph key.
Location
Currently not on view (unidentified components)
Currently not on view (weight (?))
Date made
ca 1868
maker
William Bond & Son
ID Number
ME.318759
catalog number
318759
accession number
230288
This modification of the Fteley-Stearns meter is marked “BUFF & BERGER / BOSTON” and thus was made between 1871 and 1898. The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals in Lowell, Mass., donated it to the Smithsonian in 1956.This was probably designed by Arthur T.
Description
This modification of the Fteley-Stearns meter is marked “BUFF & BERGER / BOSTON” and thus was made between 1871 and 1898. The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals in Lowell, Mass., donated it to the Smithsonian in 1956.
This was probably designed by Arthur T. Safford, a hydraulic engineer who was associated with the Locks and Canals for over fifty years. Safford’s modification of the Fteley-Stearns meter, available by 1911, had fewer vanes than the original (five rather eight), a larger rotor (5 inches diameter rather than 3.5-inch), and a somewhat heavier frame. This example has six vanes, a 5-inch diameter rotor, and a heavier frame. A paper in the box shows that it was rated in 1911.
Ref: Hector Hughes and Arthur T. Safford, A Treatise on Hydraulics (New York, 1911), pp. 254-257.
Arthur H. Frazier, Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1974), p. 60.
“Arthur T. Safford,” Boston Globe (April 4, 1951), p. 25.
"Arthur Truman Safford," Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 38-39 (1951).
Hunter Rouse, Hydraulics in the United States, 1776-1976 (Institute of Hydraulic Research).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1871-1898
inventor
Safford, Arthur T.
maker
Buff & Berger
ID Number
PH.314771
accession number
211155
catalog number
314771
This 56-hour chronometer has a later pattern Earnshaw spring detent escapement, and indications for hours, minutes, seconds, and up and down. It dates from around 1880.
Description
This 56-hour chronometer has a later pattern Earnshaw spring detent escapement, and indications for hours, minutes, seconds, and up and down. It dates from around 1880. The inscriptions read "William Bond & Son, Boston" and "Bond's Break Circuit." The movement, like that of most Bond chronometers, was probably made in England, while the Bond break circuit mechanism was made in the U.S. The Department of Physics at Columbia University donated this instrument to the Smithsonian. The winding key is marked "512" and thus from a different piece.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca. 1880
maker
William Bond & Son
ID Number
2001.0162.01
catalog number
2001.0162.01
accession number
2001.0162
This nautical dry-card compass has a turned wooden bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. It probably dates from the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The inscription reads "C. R. SHERMAN & Co. NEW BEDFORD." Charles R. Sherman (fl.
Description
This nautical dry-card compass has a turned wooden bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. It probably dates from the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The inscription reads "C. R. SHERMAN & Co. NEW BEDFORD." Charles R. Sherman (fl. 1865-1905) sold instruments and other items for nautical use.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1865-1905
maker
Sherman, Charles R.
ID Number
1995.0035.02
accession number
1995.0035
catalog number
1995.0035.02
Nathaniel M. Lowe, the manufacturer of Edson's Hygrodeik, patented a similar but somewhat simpler instrument for showing relative humidity. In this example, the chart is marked "LOWE'S Graphic Hygrometer or Hygrodeik" and "N. M.
Description
Nathaniel M. Lowe, the manufacturer of Edson's Hygrodeik, patented a similar but somewhat simpler instrument for showing relative humidity. In this example, the chart is marked "LOWE'S Graphic Hygrometer or Hygrodeik" and "N. M. LOWE, BOSTON, Mass." and "Patented April 9, 1878."
Ref: N. M. Lowe, "Psychrometers," U.S. Patent 202276 (1878).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
late 19th century
maker
Lowe, Nathaniel M.
ID Number
PH.325390
catalog number
325390
accession number
254284
Nathaniel M. Lowe, the manufacturer of Edson's Hygrodeik, designed a similar but somewhat simpler instrument for showing the dew point and relative humidity. In this example, the chart is on a white enamel plate marked "LOWE'S Graphic hygrometer" and a monogram.
Description
Nathaniel M. Lowe, the manufacturer of Edson's Hygrodeik, designed a similar but somewhat simpler instrument for showing the dew point and relative humidity. In this example, the chart is on a white enamel plate marked "LOWE'S Graphic hygrometer" and a monogram. It came to the Smithsonian from Trenton State University.
Ref: N. M. Lowe, "Psychrometers," U.S. Patent 202276 (1878).
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Lowe, Nathaniel M.
ID Number
1982.0230.11
accession number
1982.0230
catalog number
1982.0230.11
Joseph Winlock, a professor of astronomy at Harvard, and John S. F.
Description
Joseph Winlock, a professor of astronomy at Harvard, and John S. F. Huddleston, a thermometer and barometer maker in Boston, designed this instrument to provide "a simple, efficient, and convenient means of determining the relative humidity of the atmosphere or the dew-point, so called, without calculation."
In this example, the dry bulb thermometer is mounted on a plate that is marked "HYGROPHANT" and "PATENTED MARCH 31, 1874" and and "805" and graduated every degree Fahrenheit from -30 to +125. The wet bulb thermometer is mounted on a plate that is marked "HUDDLESTON BOSTON" and graduated every degree Fahrenheit from -10 to +125. Between the two is a rotating chart that indicates relative humidity, as well as a plate graduated every degree from 0 to +110.
Ref: J. Winlock and J. S. F. Huddleston, "Psychrometer," U.S. Patent 149176 (1874).
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Huddleston, John S. F.
Winlock, Joseph
ID Number
PH.314864
catalog number
314864
accession number
211531
The "THOS H. BALCH Maker State Street NEWBURYPORT" inscription on the paper card on this wooden compass refers to Thomas H. Balch (1771-1817).
Description
The "THOS H. BALCH Maker State Street NEWBURYPORT" inscription on the paper card on this wooden compass refers to Thomas H. Balch (1771-1817). According to an advertisement in the Newburyport [Massachusetts] Herald for August 8, 1806, Balch's shop could be found under the Sign of the Mariner's Compass. Like many artisans, Balch did not make every part of every instrument that carried his name. From research in local records, Martha Fales found that a local cabinet maker named George Short made the boxes for Balch's nautical compasses.
Ref: Martha G. Fales, "Makers of Mariners' Compasses in Newburyport," American Neptune 28 (1968): 144-145.
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Balch, Thomas H.
Short, George
ID Number
PH.337209
catalog number
337209
accession number
1979.0260
Alphonse Fteley was a French engineer who came to the United States in 1865 abdm in 1873, took charge of the Sudbury River Waterworks that would bring potable water from the Sudbury River to customers in Boston.
Description
Alphonse Fteley was a French engineer who came to the United States in 1865 abdm in 1873, took charge of the Sudbury River Waterworks that would bring potable water from the Sudbury River to customers in Boston. To gauge the water flow in the Sudbury River, Fteley borrowed a Baumgarten current meter from General Theodore G. Ellis. Then, working with Buff & Berger, a mathematical instrument firm in Boston, Fteley and his assistant, Frederick P. Stearns, devised a meter with a larger rotor, eight blades with a longer pitch, and a different mechanism for the counting wheels.
Buff & Berger was offering Fteley-Stearns direct-reading water current meters by the early 1880s. Following the dissolution of that firm in 1898, instruments of this sort could be had from Buff & Buff and from C. L. Berger & Sons. A Fteley-Stearns meter with ordinary registering apparatus cost $160 in 1899. The same, with an electric register, cost $220.
This example is marked “C. L. Berger & Sons / Boston, U.S.A. / 5969.” The additional “U.S.G.S. / 781 / HYDRO” mark indicates that it was used by the Hydrologic Department of the U.S. Geological Survey. Arthur Frazier donated it to the Smithsonian in 1970.
Ref: Alphonse Fteley and Frederick P. Stearns, “Description of some Experiments on the Flow of Water, made during the Construction of Works for Conveying the Water of Sudbury River to Boston,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 12 (1883): 1-118.
Frederick P. Stearns, “On the Current Meter, Together with a Reason Why the Maximum Velocity of the Water Flowing in Open Channels is Below the Surface,” Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers 12 (1883): 301-388.
C. L. Berger & Sons, Hand-Book and Illustrated Catalogue of the Engineers’ and Surveyors’ Instruments (Boston, 1899), pp. 196-199.
“Alphonse Fteley,” Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies 31 (1903): 213-215.
Arthur H. Frazier, Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1974), pp. 59-60.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
after 1898
maker
C. L. Berger and Sons
ID Number
PH.330410
accession number
289788
catalog number
330410
Eugene Elwin Haskell graduated from Cornell University in 1879 and spent a few years with the U.S. Lake Survey. He then joined the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and was assigned the task of plotting the currents in New York Harbor. Working with Edward S.
Description
Eugene Elwin Haskell graduated from Cornell University in 1879 and spent a few years with the U.S. Lake Survey. He then joined the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and was assigned the task of plotting the currents in New York Harbor. Working with Edward S. Ritchie, a leading navigational instrument maker in Massachusetts, Haskell developed a horizontal-axis, screw-type current meter with a direction-indicating facility, the results of which could be read electrically. By 1888, the Survey was favoring the Ritchie-Haskell form, noting that these new meters “combine, in one instrument, a means of registering by electricity the velocity of a current and the direction of its flow” and that the “registration is made on the vessels deck without removing the instrument from the water.”
This example is marked “E.S. Ritchie & Sons, Brookline, Mass. U.S.A.” The National Bureau of Standards, the organization that calibrated current meters for federal agencies and engineers in private practice, transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1959.
Ref: E. E. Haskell, “Ship’s Log,” U.S. Patent 384362 (1888).
Report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for the Fiscal Year Ending June 1888 (Washington, D.C., 1889), p. 37.
“The Ritchie-Haskell Direction-Current Meter,” Engineering News 33 (1895): 27-28.
Arthur H. Frazier, Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1974), pp. 64-67.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
after 1888
maker
E. S. Ritchie & Sons
ID Number
PH.316590
accession number
225869
catalog number
316590
During the Civil War Army physician Dr. G. D. O'Farrell received this watch as a gift from grateful patients.In the 1850s watchmakers at what would become the American Watch Company of Waltham, Massachusetts, developed the world's first machine-made watches.
Description
During the Civil War Army physician Dr. G. D. O'Farrell received this watch as a gift from grateful patients.
In the 1850s watchmakers at what would become the American Watch Company of Waltham, Massachusetts, developed the world's first machine-made watches. They completely redesigned the watch so that its movement could be assembled from interchangeable parts made on specialized machines invented just for that purpose. They also developed a highly organized factory-based work system to speed production and cut costs.
In its first decade, the firm's work was largely experimental and the firm's finances were unsteady. The name of the company changed repeatedly as investors came and went. Operations moved from Roxbury to Waltham in 1854, and the Panic of 1857 brought bankruptcy and a new owner, Royal Robbins. Reorganization and recovery began, and output reached fourteen thousand watches in 1858.
Renamed the American Watch Company the next year, the firm was on the brink of success from an unexpected quarter. During the Civil War, Waltham's watch factory designed and mass-produced a low-cost watch, the William Ellery model. Selling for an unbelievable $13.00, these watches became a fad with Union soldiers. Just as itinerant peddlers had aroused the desire for inexpensive clocks, roving merchants sold thousands of cheap watches to eager customers in wartime encampments. By 1865, the year the war ended, William Ellery movements represented almost 45 per cent of Waltham's unit sales.
This William Ellery model watch was a gift to Army surgeon G. D. O'Farrell from his patients at White Hall, a Civil War hospital near Philadelphia. The inscription on the dust cover of O'Farrell's watch reads: "White Hall USA Gen'l Hospital, Feb. 15, 1865 Presented to Dr. G. D. O'Farrell, USA by the patients of Ward C as a token of regard & respect for his ability as a surgeon and unswerving integrity as a man."
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1864
presentation
1865
maker
American Waltham Watch Co.
ID Number
1987.0853.01
catalog number
1987.0853.01
accession number
1987.0853
In the 19th century, portable marine timekeepers called chronometers became indispensable instruments for determining longitude at sea.
Description
In the 19th century, portable marine timekeepers called chronometers became indispensable instruments for determining longitude at sea. To use a marine chronometer, outbound sailors would set their timepieces to the time of a known port's longitude—say Greenwich, England, or Boston. Once at sea, mariners calculated their position east or west of that place by converting the difference in time on the chronometer and local ship time into distance, 15 degrees of longitude for every hour.
Tradition says this timekeeper was the first seagoing chronometer made in America. Twenty-three-year-old Boston clockmaker William Cranch Bond constructed it during the War of 1812. When Bond made his instrument, no chronometer industry existed in the United States, and British makers dominated the world market.
Bond's instrument went to sea only once, on a voyage to Sumatra in 1818 aboard the U.S. Navy vessel Cyrus. Chronometers were uncommon aboard American ships at the time, and the Cyrus's captain warned Bond to read the record of the instrument's performance with a critical eye.
Invented half a century earlier by John Harrison in England and Pierre LeRoy and Ferdinand Berthoud in France, the chronometer by Bond's time had already assumed standard features. Most of the chronometers ran from the force of an unwinding spring and had a special feature—the detent escapement. Suspended from gimbals in a wooden box, the instrument remained horizontal even on a heaving ship. Bond's timekeeper was different. Unable or unwilling to get British spring steel in wartime, he borrowed an 18th-century Berthoud design and built his timekeeper to run with power from a falling weight.
William Bond & Son, a family firm begun by William Cranch Bond's father in 1793, became one of America's best-known chronometer dealers. As the business flourished, the younger Bond pursued his passion for astronomy. In 1839 he became the first director of the Harvard College Observatory.
Location
Currently not on view (case; sign)
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1812-1815
maker
Bond, William C.
ID Number
ME.318981
catalog number
318981
accession number
230288
This watch, made about 1870, was manufactured at what eventually became known as the Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Mass. The movement bears the serial number 520977 and “Crescent Street,” a grade named for the firm’s address.
Description
This watch, made about 1870, was manufactured at what eventually became known as the Waltham Watch Company, Waltham, Mass. The movement bears the serial number 520977 and “Crescent Street,” a grade named for the firm’s address. The Crescent Street was advertised as a railroad watch, “specially recommended to railway engineers and constant travelers.” [advertisement, The Missionary Herald 67(June 1871), n.p.]
In the 1850s, watchmakers at the firm began to develop the world's first mass-produced watches. They completely redesigned the watch so that its movement could be assembled from interchangeable parts made on special machines. They also developed a highly organized factory-based work system to speed production and cut costs of watches. Although it would be well into the 20th century before the watch industry achieved a very high level of interchangeability, the Waltham designers started the innovations that would eventually lead there.
Launched in 1849 in a corner of the Howard & Davis clock factory in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the company’s early years were financially unsteady. The company name changed repeatedly as investors came and went. Operations moved from Roxbury to Waltham in 1854, where the company settled, optimistically poised for expansion, on a tract of land with nearly 100 acres. The watchmakers at Waltham helped spawn an American industry that by 1880 had ten firms making nearly three million watches a year.
Details:
Movement: factory identification--model 1870, spring going-barrel, full plate, gilt finish, 18 size, key wind and set from the back, bimetallic compensation balance, C.V. Woerd patent regulator (US 110614); marked: American Watch Co/Crescent Street/Patent Pinion/No 520977/WALTHAM, MASS.”
Dial: white enamel, Roman numerals, blued hands (hour hand missing), separate sunk seconds at 6; marked: “American Watch Co”
References:
Henry G. Abbott, History of the American Waltham Watch Company (Chicago: American Jeweler Print, 1905).
Charles Moore, Timing a Century: History of the Waltham Watch Company (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945).
Donald Hoke, Ingenious Yankees: The Rise of the American System of Manufactures in the Private Sector (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1867
maker
American Waltham Watch Co.
ID Number
ME.271558
serial number
520977
catalog number
271558
accession number
53268
This surveyor's vernier compass marked "H.M. Pool, EASTON, MASS." has a variation arc on the south arm that extends 15 degrees either way. The vernier is moved by a tangent screw, also on the south arm, and reads to 4 minutes.
Description
This surveyor's vernier compass marked "H.M. Pool, EASTON, MASS." has a variation arc on the south arm that extends 15 degrees either way. The vernier is moved by a tangent screw, also on the south arm, and reads to 4 minutes. Two two level vials are on the north arm.
Horace Minot Pool (1803-1878) began working with his older brother John in the mid-1820s, making a variety of mathematical instruments. In 1841, when John withdrew from the firm, H. M. Pool continued on his own. The 1860 Federal Census of Industry reports that, with the help of six male hands, Pool had an annual production rate of 55 compasses worth $1,650, 18 transits worth $1800, 2 theodolites worth $550, and miscellaneous items worth another $500. Pool showed two "circumferentors" at the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association fair of 1850, and his surveying instruments won a silver medal at that association's fair in 1874.
Ref: Donald and Anne Wing, "The Pool Family of Easton, Massachusetts," Rittenhouse 4 (1990): 118-126.
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Pool, Horace Minot
ID Number
PH.329686
catalog number
329686
accession number
273104
This alidade belonged to Columbia University. Its vertical arc, which extends 35 degrees either way, is graduated to 30 minutes and read by vernier to 2 minutes. The base has a skeletal structure, making it light and stiff. There is a separate striding level and trough compass.
Description
This alidade belonged to Columbia University. Its vertical arc, which extends 35 degrees either way, is graduated to 30 minutes and read by vernier to 2 minutes. The base has a skeletal structure, making it light and stiff. There is a separate striding level and trough compass. The "BUFF & BERGER BOSTON 2157" inscription refers to a firm that traded, as such, from 1871 to 1898.
Ref: Buff & Berger, Hand-Book and Illustrated Catalogue of the Engineers' and Surveyors' Instruments (Boston, 1890), p. 104b.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1871-1898
maker
Buff & Berger
ID Number
PH.335213
catalog number
335213
accession number
317998
John Locke, a scientist in Cincinnati, Ohio, described a reflecting level at a meeting of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists in 1842, and obtained a patent (#7,477) in 1850.
Description
John Locke, a scientist in Cincinnati, Ohio, described a reflecting level at a meeting of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists in 1842, and obtained a patent (#7,477) in 1850. Locke's instrument consisted of a small spirit level on a brass sighting tube, with a small diagonal reflector so arranged that the user can see the bubble and a distant sight at the same time.
The "SWIFT INSTRUMENTS INC. BOSTON 25, MASS." inscription on this example indicates a date between 1943, when the U.S. Post Office began using the numbers of the postal substations in various cities, and 1963, when it introduced five-digit zip codes.
The firm of Swift & Anderson was formed in Boston in 1926 with the aim of importing optical and other instruments. It became Swift Instruments following the death of its founder in 1950.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
circa 1960
user
Vogel, Robert M.
maker
Swift Instruments, Inc.
ID Number
2007.0214.3
catalog number
2007.0214.3
accession number
2007.0214
This compass has a brass bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. A label on the box reads: "BRASS COMPASS, MANUFACTURED BY S. THAXTER & SON, 125 STATE STREET, BOSTON. Dealers in Nautical Instruments, Charts, Nautical Books, &c. N.B. Nautical Instruments Repaired." S.
Description
This compass has a brass bowl gimbal mounted in a wooden box. A label on the box reads: "BRASS COMPASS, MANUFACTURED BY S. THAXTER & SON, 125 STATE STREET, BOSTON. Dealers in Nautical Instruments, Charts, Nautical Books, &c. N.B. Nautical Instruments Repaired." S. Thaxter & Sons sent this instrument to the Smithsonian in 1880, perhaps for use in the International Fishery Exhibition which opened in Berlin on April 20 of that year. The compass was clearly shown in the similar exhibition held in London in 1883.
Ref: G. Brown Goode, et. al., Descriptive Catalogues of the Collections Sent from the United States to the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883 (Washington, D.C., 1884), vol. 2, p. 725.
Location
Currently not on view
maker
S. Thaxter & Son
ID Number
PH.039384
catalog number
39384
accession number
8745
This is the model that Joseph Winlock, a professor of astronomy at Harvard College, and John S. F. Huddleston, a thermometer and barometer maker in Boston, submitted along with their patent application in 1873.
Description
This is the model that Joseph Winlock, a professor of astronomy at Harvard College, and John S. F. Huddleston, a thermometer and barometer maker in Boston, submitted along with their patent application in 1873. The wet bulb thermometer is mounted on a brass plate that is marked "HUDDLESTON BOSTON" and graduated every degree Fahrenheit from +10 to +115. The dry bulb thermometer is missing.
The wooden tower holds a rotating chart that indicates relative humidity, and carries a brass plate graduated every degree from +6 to +113. The patent described "a simple, efficient, and convenient means of determining the relative humidity of the atmosphere or the dew-point, so called, without calculation."
Ref: J. Winlock and J. S F. Huddleston, "Psychrometer," U.S. Patent 149176 (issued 1874).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1873
maker
Huddleston, John S. F.
Winlock, Joseph
ID Number
PH.309319
catalog number
309319
accession number
89797
patent number
149,176
After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, General Theodore Grenville Ellis resumed work as an engineer in Hartford, Conn. In 1867 he was placed in charge of the U.S. Corps of Engineers navigation-improvement study of the Connecticut River.
Description
After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, General Theodore Grenville Ellis resumed work as an engineer in Hartford, Conn. In 1867 he was placed in charge of the U.S. Corps of Engineers navigation-improvement study of the Connecticut River. For that task, in 1874, he built a current meter with four revolving cups and a four-blade rudder. This was similar to, but smaller than, the current meter designed by Daniel F. Henry.
This example is a slightly improved version of Ellis’ original meter. The U.S. Geological Survey transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1916. The “Buff & Berger, Boston, 2154” inscription refers to a firm that was in business from 1871 to 1898.
Ref: Buff & Berger, Hand-Book and Illustrated Catalogue of the Engineers’ and Surveyors Instruments (Boston, 1890), pp. 61-62 and 135-137.
Arthur H. Frazier, Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1974), pp. 62-63 and 74-75.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1874-1898
maker
Buff & Berger
ID Number
PH.289637
accession number
59263
catalog number
289637
William Edson, a civil engineer in Boston, designed a "Hygrometrical Index" that, when connected to a common wet and dry bulb hydrometer, "will enable any one, by simple inspection of the instrument, to ascertain the relative humidity and dew-point of the air, also the absolute a
Description
William Edson, a civil engineer in Boston, designed a "Hygrometrical Index" that, when connected to a common wet and dry bulb hydrometer, "will enable any one, by simple inspection of the instrument, to ascertain the relative humidity and dew-point of the air, also the absolute amount of moisture in the air, without the aid of tables or calculation." In this example, which came from Cornell College, the paper chart is marked "EDSON'S HYGRODEIK MANUFACTURED BY N.M. LOWE, BOSTON." Nathaniel M. Lowe is known to have manufactured Edson's Hygrodeik from 1866 until the early 1890s.
Ref: William Edson, "Hydrometer," U.S. Patent 48620 (1865), as well as similar patents in England and France.
William Edson, The Use of Edson's Hygrodeik (1865).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1866-1895
maker
Lowe, Nathaniel M.
ID Number
PH.329004
catalog number
329004
accession number
278100
The first firm to mass-produce watches by machine was the American Watch Company of Massachusetts. Oliver B.
Description
The first firm to mass-produce watches by machine was the American Watch Company of Massachusetts. Oliver B. Marsh, one of the firm's earliest watchmakers, designed and made this watch as a prototype.
The appetite for watches in the United States in the early part of the 19th century was huge; about $46 million worth were imported between 1825 and 1858, especially from England Switzerland. To tap into this market, a few Americans attempted to develop watches domestically, but probably no more than two thousand watches were made in the United States before the 1850s.
In that decade, watchmakers at what would become the American Watch Company of Waltham, Massachusetts, developed the world's first machine-made watches. They completely redesigned the watch so that its movement could be assembled from interchangeable parts made on specialized machines they invented just for that purpose. They also developed a highly organized factory-based work system to speed production and cut costs.
The firm was launched in 1849 in a corner of the Howard & Davis clock factory in Roxbury, near Boston, where Edward Howard and Aaron Dennison experimented with completely new designs for watches and the machines to make them. With expert help from a cadre of experienced mechanicians and funding from Howard's father-in-law, the Boston mirror maker Samuel Curtis, the enterprise got under way.
Dennison had absorbed techniques for the mass production of firearms with interchangeable parts during a visit at the Springfield Armory. The primary measures the new firm adopted from arms making were a tight organization, a critically important machine shop, and a manufacturing system that relied on models. Waltham designers made a model watch and a master set of gauges to fit it, and every watch part made thereafter was measured against the corresponding model part.
In its first decade, the firm's work was largely experimental, but by late in 1852, Howard and Dennison finally had products-seventeen watches, made mostly by hand by brothers Oliver and David Marsh. One of these prototypes, a watch made by Oliver Marsh, survives in the collections of the museum.
O. B. Marsh's watch was large compared to other pocket watches of the time. The white- enamel dial indicated minutes around the rim and featured four smaller dials indicating hours (at 6:00) seconds (at 12:00), days of the week (at 9:00) and date (at 3:00).
The design of these first watches, eight-day movements with two mainsprings, gave way to a simpler one, a watch that ran on one mainspring for a little more than a day. Although superficially similar to English watches of the time, the new American watch featured a mainspring in a "going barrel." This meant a watch without the traditional fusee and chain to equalize the force of the unwinding spring. This was a watch with fewer parts to make.
The next hundred Waltham watches, built on the new model, took until the fall of 1853. The third batch of nine hundred sold for just $40 each, cased. An imported movement of the same quality cost twice as much.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1849-1851
Date made
ca 1852
manufacturer
Waltham Watch Company
maker
American Waltham Watch Co.
Oliver B. Marsh
Oliver B. Marsh, for American Watch Co.
ID Number
ME.334625
accession number
310796
catalog number
334625

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