Measuring & Mapping - Overview
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.
"Measuring & Mapping - Overview" showing 24 items.
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Astronomical Spectroscope
- Description
- This is a spectroscope, designed to be used with a telescope to study the light of the sun. It was made in Dublin in 1877 by the famous instrument maker Howard Grubb (1844–1931). It was used with the 9 ½ inch Alvan Clark & Sons refractor in the Observatory of Princeton University.
- When the College of New Jersey at Princeton hired the astronomer Charles A. Young in 1877, they also gave him funds to equip the new John C. Green student observatory. One of his first purchases was this instrument. It was custom-made, and Young helped refine the design. (Grubb's company later advertised that this was the first such spectroscope that they had sold.) The most unusual feature of this instrument is the use of a complicated system of multiple prisms to disperse the light and produce a highly detailed view of the solar spectrum.
- In use, the spectroscope was mounted at the eyepiece end of the telescope and light from the sun would be directed through it. As the light passed from one prism into the next, it would be increasing dispersed, or spread out. To make the instrument more compact, the beam of light was directed first through the upper portion of the prisms and then back through the bottom part. Depending on how it was configured, the light could thus be passed through either 2, 4, 6 or 8 prisms. A particular area of the solar spectrum could be viewed by turning a small chain that moved each prism by the same amount. Because of the large number of optical surfaces involved, the light loss in this instrument was almost certainly in the 90 percent range. This was an advantage when viewing the Sun, but it reduced the usefulness of this instrument for other purposes, such as measuring the spectra of stars. The success of this instrument in making precise measurements of the solar spectrum (and thus revealing information about the composition of the sun and its atmosphere) led to its wider adoption as an important astronomical tool.
- Date made
- 1877
- user
- Young, Charles A.
- maker
- Grubb, Howard
- ID Number
- PH*328885
- accession number
- 277637
- catalog number
- 328885
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Non-ductile Tungsten Lamp
- Description
- Thomas Edison and others considered element number 6, carbon, ideal for lamp filaments in part because it has the highest melting point of any element. Element number 74, tungsten, has the next highest melting point but it then existed only as a powder. Attempts to make it into a workable form failed until early in the 1900s when a burst of invention occurred in Europe. A pressing technique called "sintering" (squeezing a material into a dense mass) was adopted by several inventors.
- The most commercially successful design proved to be that of Dr. Alexander Just and Franz Hanaman of Austria. Their work on sintering tungsten was based on a prior sintering process developed by Carl Auer von Welsbach for his filament made of osmium. Just and Hanaman made a tungsten and organic paste, squirted it through a die, baked out the organic material, then sintered the tungsten in a mix of gasses. The resulting filament gave about 8 lumens per watt and lasted 800 hours.
- Another Austrian, Dr. Hans Kutzel, used an electric arc to make a tungsten and water paste. He then pressed, baked, and sintered the tungsten in a manner similar to Just and Hanaman's procedure. Yet another pair of Austrians, Fritz Blau and Hermann Remane, adapted the osmium lamp process (they worked for Welsbach) by making a filament from an osmium and tungsten mix. They soon changed their "Osram" lamp filament to tungsten only. (The German word for tungsten is wolfram.)
- All three filaments were brittle and collectively known as "non-ductile" filaments. Individual filaments could not be made long enough to give the proper electrical resistance, so lamps needed several filaments connected end-to-end. U.S. companies quickly licensed rights to all of the non-ductile patents. This particular lamp was made under license by General Electric and sent to the National Bureau of Standards for use as a standard lamp.
- Lamp characteristics: Medium-screw base with glass insulator. Five single-arch tungsten filaments (in series) with 5 upper and 8 lower support hooks. The stem assembly features soldered connectors, Siemens-type press seal, and a cotton insulator. Tipped, straight-sided envelope with taper at neck.
- Date made
- ca 1908
- date made
- ca. 1908
- maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1992.0342.16
- catalog number
- 1992.0342.16
- accession number
- 1992.0342
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Lenox saws ruler
- Description (Brief)
- An advertising novelty for American Saw & Mfg. Co., maker of Lenox saws. The ruler is a twelve-inch folding ruler made of ivory-grained celluloid. It's marked in inches and centimeters.
- date made
- 1915-1930
- maker
- Whitehead and Hoag Company
- ID Number
- 2006.0098.1700
- catalog number
- 2006.0098.1700
- accession number
- 2006.0098
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Earth Inductor
- Description
- James W. Queen & Co. termed this instrument an "Induction Apparatus. To show the induction arising from the action of the earth." The form was introduced by Charles Delezenne in Lille, France, in 1844, and often referred to as "Delezenne's circle." This example is marked "HAWKINS & WALE MAKERS STEVENS INSTITUTE HOBOKEN, N.J.' It belonged to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and dates from the early 1870s when Hawkins & Wale had a workshop on the campus of the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Ref: James W. Queen & Co., Priced and Illustrated Catalogue of Physical Instruments (Philadelphia, 1888), p. 106.
Charles Delezenne, "Notions élémentaire sur les phénoménes d'induction," Mémoires de la Societé; des Sciences de Lille 23 (1844): 1-132, on 109-120.
Adolphe Ganot, Elementary Treatise on Physics (London, 1867), pp. 701-702.
- maker
- Hawkins & Wale
- ID Number
- PH*316432
- accession number
- 223721
- catalog number
- 316432
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Sterling Metric Converter Slide Rule
- Description
- This ten-inch, one-sided plastic rule has a yellow base, a white slide, and a transparent indicator. Identical logarithmic scales are on the top and the bottom of the base. Both sides of the slide are marked with pairs of metric and conventional units. On one side, the user can read off conversions between: inches and centimeters; meters and feet; meters and yards; miles and kilometers; square inches and square centimeters; square meters and square feet (times ten); square meters and square yards; and square miles and square kilometers. The other side of the slide permits readings of cubic inches and cubic centimeters (times ten); cubic meters and cubic feet (times ten); cubic meters and cubic yards; liters and quarts; ounces and grams (times ten); kilograms and pounds; metric tons and short tons; and gallons and liters.
- The top left of the base is marked with the letters SP in a circle and the word STERLING. The top middle of the base is marked: METRIC CONVERTER. The bottom left of the base is marked: MADE IN U.S.A. The rule was received with its original packaging, a clear plastic cover on a blue paper backing. The packaging is marked at the top: SP STERLING #651 (/) metric (/) converter. At the bottom, it is marked: BORDEN ® (/) © 1972 STERLING PLASTICS (/) DIVISION OF BORDEN CHEMICAL, BORDEN INC. (/) MOUNTAINSIDE, N.J. 07092 (/) MADE IN U.S.A.
- Sterling Plastics, a 20th-century manufacturer of drawing instruments for schools, was purchased by Borden Chemical in 1970. Since Sterling stopped making slide rules in 1972, this example of model number 651 was probably one of the last rules produced by the company. The five braces holding together the base of the instrument are also consistent with this date; early Sterling slide rules had only two braces. For instructions, see 1990.0689.03. For a Sterling slide rule with standard scales, see 1988.0807.01.
- Reference: Mike Konshak, "Sterling Plastics," http://sliderulemuseum.com/Sterling.htm.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1972
- maker
- Sterling Plastics
- ID Number
- 1990.0689.01
- accession number
- 1990.0689
- catalog number
- 1990.0689.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Instructions for Sterling Metric Converter Slide Rule
- Description
- This one-page, two-sided flyer was received with 1990.0689.01. At the top of the front, it is marked with the Sterling Plastics logo and the words: STERLING metric converter (/) BASED ON THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF UNITS (SI). The instructions explain how to read off the sixteen conversions between metric and English units that are found on the Metric Converter slide rule. Tables of metric prefixes and of common equivalents and conversions are also provided. At the bottom of the back, the flyer is marked: STERLING PLASTICS DIVISION OF BORDEN CHEMICAL, BORDEN INC. • SHEFFIELD ST., MOUNTAINSIDE, N.J. 07092 (/) PRINTED IN U.S.A. The Borden logo appears to the right of the mark.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1972
- maker
- Sterling Plastics
- ID Number
- 1990.0689.03
- accession number
- 1990.0689
- catalog number
- 1990.0689.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Rudolph Polarimeter
- Description
- This instrument–marked “O. C. Rudolph & Sons, Inc. / Caldwell, N.J. U.S.A. / Model 70 / No. 1062”–was “an intermediate model suitable for macro, or macro and micro work in research and general polarimetry.” The polarizer unit consists of a Lippich half-shade prism and a large Glan-Thompson polarizer prism, the angle of which can be changed through 20°. The observation trough holds tubes up to 400 mm in length. The rotatable analyzer has a graduated circular scale with two verniers that were guaranteed to read directly to 0.01° of arc. The base is of cast aluminum. This model was introduced in 1951 and cost $1500 at that time.
- O. C. Rudolph & Sons began in business in 1948. By 1961 the firm was trading as Rudolph Instruments Engineering Co., Inc. It is still in business as Rudolph Instruments in 2012.
- Ref: Scientific Glass Apparatus Co., Inc., What’s New for the Laboratory 12 (1951): 27.
- Scientific Glass Apparatus Co., Inc., General Catalog (Bloomfield, N.J., 1952), p. 747.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1950s
- maker
- O.C. Rudolph & Sons, Inc.
- ID Number
- 2001.0308.01
- catalog number
- 2001.0308.01
- accession number
- 2001.0308
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Dod Surveyor's Compass
- Description
- Lebbeus Dod (1739–1816) made clocks and mathematical instruments in Mendham, New Jersey. During the Revolution he established an armory for the manufacture and repair of muskets. Various design features—the face reads clockwise, the bar is narrow, and the vertical sights are held in place with dovetails—indicate that this compass dates from early in Dod's career. The signature reads "Lebbeus Dod, Mendham."
- This compass was owned by King's College, which had been established by royal charter as the College of the Province of New–York in the City of New–York in America in 1754. An advertisement of that date mentions instruction in such subjects as numbering, measuring, surveying, and navigation. King's College was renamed Columbia College after the Revolution.
- Ref: Silvio A. Bedini, Thinkers and Tinkers. Early American Men of Science (New York, 1973), p. 241.
- William E. Drost, Clocks and Watches of New Jersey (Elizabeth, N.J., 1966), pp. 98–104.
- maker
- Dod, Lebbeus
- ID Number
- PH*335207
- catalog number
- 335207
- accession number
- 317998
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Worthington-Gamon Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter, serial number 3,783,592, made by the Worthington-Gamon Meter Company in Newark, N. J. It has been cut away to show the operating parts. It was made after 1941 when the firm boasted that 3,650,000 of its meters were then serving thousands of communities.
- Ref: Worthington-Gamon ad in Journal of the American Water Works Association 33 (Nov. 1941), ad section, p. 5.
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Worthington-Gamon Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*315359
- accession number
- 219306
- catalog number
- 315359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Worthington-Gamon Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter, serial number 3,786,593, made by the Worthington-Gamon Meter Company in Newark, N. J. It has been cut away to show the operating parts. It was made after 1941 when the firm boasted that 3,650,000 of its meters were then serving thousands of communities.
- Ref: Worthington-Gamon ad in Journal of the American Water Works Association 33 (Nov. 1941), ad section, p. 5.
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Worthington-Gamon Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*315360
- accession number
- 219306
- catalog number
- 315360
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center