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 657 items.
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Hanks Surveyor's Compass
- Description
- Benjamin Hanks (1755-1824) apprenticed with Thomas Harland, an English clock maker who had recently migrated to Norwich, Conn. By 1777 Hanks was in business on his own in Windham, Conn. Like many American mechanics of that time, Hanks applied his skills in several directions. While specializing in clocks and watches, for instance, he asked the General Assembly to supply funds so that he could construct looms for weaving stockings. Hanks moved to Litchfield in 1780, and advertised surveyor's compasses in 1785. In 1786 he began casting bells. In 1808, now living in Mansfield and working in partnership with his son Julius, Hanks was making vernier compasses or, as he advertised, “surveyor's compasses upon the Rittenhouse improved plan.”
- This compass was probably made early in Hanks's career. The face reads clockwise, and the bar is narrow. The north metal brace bears the inscription “HANKS.” One unusual feature is the clinometer scale at the south end of the face, which could be used to measure vertical angles; the clinometer needle is missing.
- Ref: Penrose R. Hoopes, Connecticut Clockmakers of the Eighteenth Century (Hartford, 1930), pp. 79-83.
- Charles E. Smart, American Surveying Instruments and Their Makers (Troy, 1962), pp. 70-71.
- maker
- Hanks, Benjamin
- ID Number
- 1981.0182.01
- accession number
- 1981.0182
- catalog number
- 1981.0182.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
"American Method in Astronomical Observation"
- 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 here 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
- Date made
- ca 1850
- maker
- William Bond & Son
- ID Number
- 1981.0322.01
- accession number
- 1981.0322
- catalog number
- 1981.0322.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Indenture of William J. Young
- Description
- With this indenture, signed on January 30, 1813, William J. Young (1800-1870) became an apprentice to Thomas Whitney. The indenture details the conditions under which Young would work over the course of the next seven years, as well as Whitney's agreement to teach him "the Trade or Mystery of a Mathematical Instrument Maker." Alfred C. Young donated his great-grandfather's indenture to the Smithsonian in 1981.
- In 1820, having earned his freedom and with $30 in his pocket, Young went into business on his own. His was soon the leading mathematical instrument shop in the United States. Here he introduced improved forms of the railroad compass, the solar compass, and the surveyor’s transit. And here he trained younger men to carry on the tradition.
- Young was the first American to own a dividing engine—a device for mechanically dividing circles into degrees and minutes. He would not have needed such a complex and costly device just to make compasses, but he would need it to graduate the circles of more precise instruments. Not having the money to purchase a dividing engine from England, Young built his own. He had never seen a dividing engine, but worked from a printed description of an English engine. He would later modify this original engine, and build two others.
- Young signed his earliest instruments "W. J. Young Maker Philadelphia [or Philada]." He changed his signature to "Wm. J. Young Maker Philadelphia [or Philada]" around 1840, and began marking serial numbers on his instruments around 1853. These numbers began around 3000, and probably indicate the number of Young instruments to date. Analysis of these serial numbers shows that Young produced some 65 instruments per year in the 1850s, with annual production rising to 120 in the early 1900s.
- While 18th-century American instrument makers tended to work alone, or with an apprentice or two, Young usually had ten or so men in his shop, some apprentices and some journeymen. These men were all highly skilled and commanded relatively high wages. The instruments they produced were substantially more costly than those produced in factories, such as that of W. & L. E. Gurley.
- William J. Young joined with Charles S. Heller and Thomas N. Watson in 1866, and began trading as William J. Young & Co. The partnership disbanded in 1870, Alfred Young, a son of William, operated the firm as Wm. J. Young & Sons, and Heller went on to form Heller & Brightly. Alfred Young's firm began signing its instruments Young & Sons in 1875, and began using this name in advertisements around 1882. Young & Sons was incorporated in 1917. Keuffel & Esser obtained control of the firm in 1918, made it the Y&S department of K&E, and moved the operations to the K&E factory in Hoboken, N. J.
- Ref: Deborah Jean Warner, "William J. Young. From Craft to Industry in a Skilled Trade," Pennsylvania History 52 (1985): 53–68.
- Robert C. Miller, "Dating Young Instruments," Rittenhouse 5 (1990): 21-24.
- ID Number
- 1981.0511.02
- accession number
- 1981.0511
- catalog number
- 1981.0511.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
W. J. Young Surveyor's Vernier Compass
- Description
- This compass is marked "Wm. J. Young Maker Philadelphia." It is not dated, but we know that William J. Young began using this particular signature around 1840, and he began putting serial numbers on his instruments in the early 1850s. The variation arc on the north arm extends 27 degrees either way. The vernier is moved by rack and pinion located on the south arm and hidden under a brass plate, and reads to 5 minutes. A circular level vial is on the south arm and an outkeeper on the north arm. The face is dark, and the needle ring was probably silvered originally.
- Ref.: D. J. Warner, "William J. Young. From Craft to Industry in a Skilled Trade," Pennsylvania History 52 (1985): 53-68.
- maker
- Young, William J.
- ID Number
- 1981.0648.02
- accession number
- 1981.0648
- catalog number
- 1981.0648.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Bowles Surveyor's Compass
- Description
- This is a wooden compass with a paper card, the central circle of which is marked, “T. S. BOWLES*PORTSMOUTH, N. H.*” The signature refers to Thomas Salter Bowles, who was baptized in Portsmouth, N.H., in 1785. An advertisement in the Portsmouth Oracle for May 31, 1806, notes that Bowles was a mathematical instrument maker who had just taken a shop in Daniel Street, and that his wares included “Azimuth and brass Compasses, wood and Hanging Compasses.” Bowles was still in business in 1821. Several Bowles compasses with different cards are known. Unlike most wooden compasses, this one has a brass band around the outside of the box, and a brass needle ring graduated to 1 degree of arc.
- Ref: Silvio A. Bedini, Early American Scientific Instruments and Their Makers (Washington, D.C., 1964), pp. 124-126.
- maker
- Bowles, Thomas Salter
- ID Number
- 1981.0708.01
- catalog number
- 1981.0708.01
- accession number
- 1987.0706
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Gurley Surveyor's Compass
- Description
- This compass was made between 1853 and 1859, and came from Gettysburg College. The "Jas. W. Queen, Philada. Warranted" signature indicates that James W. Queen sold the compass and guaranteed its quality. The style, however, indicates that it was made by W. & L. E. Gurley, the Troy, N. Y., firm that was rapidly becoming the largest producer of complex mathematical instruments in the United States. The Queen Catalogue of 1859 offered several compasses, levels, and transits, with illustrations and descriptions copied from the Gurley Manual of 1855. A compass of this sort, with 6-inch needle, two straight levels, outkeeper, and mounting for use on a Jacob staff, cost $30. A paper label inside the box reads “James W. Queen 264 Chestnut St., near 10th, Philadelphia.”
- Ref: James W. Queen & Co., Illustrated Catalogue of Mathematical, Optical, and Philosophical Instruments and School Apparatus (Philadelphia, 1859), p. 14.
- date made
- 1853-1859
- maker
- W. & L. E. Gurley
- ID Number
- 1982.0104.04
- accession number
- 1982.0104
- catalog number
- 1982.0104.04
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Harland Surveyor's Compass
- Description
- Thomas Harland (1735–1807) was an English clockmaker who settled in Norwich, Conn., in 1773. By 1790 he had a dozen or so apprentices and was producing some 40 clocks and 200 watches a year. An advertisement in the Norwich Courier of February 10, 1802, notes that Harland made and sold "Surveyors' Compasses, with agate centre needles."
- With its narrow bar holding the vertical sights, this example resembles an English instrument of much earlier date. Since the face of the compass has no direction letters, it could be read either clockwise or counterclockwise. The "I.W.B. 1800" signature on the bottom of this compass may refer to an owner.
- Ref: Silvio A. Bedini, "Thomas Harland of Norwich, Connecticut," Professional Surveyor (July/August 1991): 60, 67.
- maker
- Harland, Thomas
- ID Number
- 1983.0146.01
- accession number
- 1983.0146
- catalog number
- 1983.0146.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
David Rittenhouse Surveyor's Vernier Compass
- Description
- The magnetic compasses that Americans used to determine property boundaries were inexpensive and expeditious but affected by magnetic variation—the fact that magnetic north seldom coincides with true north, and the relation between the two changes over time. The vernier compass solved this problem. This example is marked "David Rittenhouse PHILADELPHIA." It dates from around 1785, and is probably the first American instrument of its kind; similar instruments were made in Ireland. David Rittenhouse (1732–1796) was a skilled clock and instrument maker, man of science, and master of the American mint.
- Ref: D. J. Warner, "True North—And Why It Mattered in Eighteenth Century America," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 149 (2005): 372–385.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1785
- maker
- Rittenhouse, David
- ID Number
- 1983.0498.01
- accession number
- 1983.0498
- catalog number
- 1983.0498.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Brandis Wye Level
- Description
- This "Engineers' Wye Level" is marked "BRANDIS MANUFACTURING CO. NEW YORK NO 1065." It was made around 1890 when the firm was trading as the Brandis Manufacturing Co. It incorporates the center spindle attachment described in Brandis's patent (#201,155) of 1878. New, it cost $140. A card in the box identifies its owner: "George C. Ham, C. E., Sanitary Inspector Connecticut State Board of Health."
- Ref: F. E. Brandis, Sons & Co., Illustrated and Descriptive Catalogue and Hand-Book of Instruments of Precision for Civil Engineers, Surveyors and Astronomers (New York, 1902), pp. 72-74.
- maker
- Brandis Manufacturing Co.
- ID Number
- 1983.0548.07
- accession number
- 1983.0548
- catalog number
- 1983.0548.07
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Bracket Clock
- Description
- Bracket clock, Dutch, last quarter of the 17th century
- Johannes Van Ceulen made this clock in The Hague, Holland, in collaboration with Christiaan Huygens. Huygens (1629-1693) patented the design for the first practical pendulum clock in 1657.
- In common with other so-called “Hague clocks,” which were made in several Dutch cities and by other clockmakers in Huygens’ time, this Van Ceulen clock has a single spring that drives both time and strike trains, a pendulum suspended between curved “cycloidal cheeks” (designed to correct the oscillation period of the pendulum for variations in its swing’s amplitude) and an ebonized fruitwood case reminiscent of classical architecture. The pediment of the case, with its gilt floral pattern, serves not only a decorative function, but also conceals the clock’s externally mounted bell. Also typical are the velvet-covered brass dial plate and the prominent figure of Chronos, or Father Time. The figure supports the chapter ring and rests on two signature plaques inscribed “Johannes Van/Ceulen Haghe.” The backplate is also marked “Johannes Van Ceulen/Fecit Haghe.” This clock has a two-day movement, verge and crown wheel escapement with crutch, silk thread suspension for the pendulum and count wheel striking. The alarm work is missing.
- References:
- 1. Mahoney, Michael S. “Christian Huygens: The Measurement of Time and of Longitude at Sea,” in Studies on Christiaan Huygens, Edited by H.J.M. Bos et al. (Lisse: Swets, 1980), 234-270.
- 2. Plomp, R. Spring-Driven Dutch Pendulum Clocks, 1657-1710. Schiedam: Interbook International B.V., 1979.
- date made
- late 17th century
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.004
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.004
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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