Measuring & Mapping

Vernier Compass

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.

Date: 1920s

Capt. Field's Improved Hinged Parallel Rule Signed Henry Hughes & Son

This 21" German silver hinged parallel rule has two knobs for positioning the instrument. Brass round pieces cover the screws securing the two hinges.
Description
This 21" German silver hinged parallel rule has two knobs for positioning the instrument. Brass round pieces cover the screws securing the two hinges. The edges of the top blade are marked as a rectangular protractor, and the edges of the bottom blade are marked for nautical compass points.
The right end of the upper blade is marked: CAPT. FIELD'S IMPD. The center of the lower blade is marked: U. S. C. & G. S. NO. H. 398. The left end has the firm's "HUSUN" logo for the London instrument maker H. Hughes & Son, with a sun above the letters and waves below the letters. A circle around the logo is marked: REGISTERED TRADE MARK (/) GT BRITAIN.
Capt. William Andrew Field (about 1796–1871) of Britain added a protractor and compass scales to hinged parallel rules in 1854. This made it easier for ship navigators to move the rule without losing track of the ship's course. Henry Hughes & Son made marine and aeronautical navigational instruments in London from 1828 to 1947 and incorporated in 1903. According to the accession file, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey acquired this rule on November 6, 1923, and last issued it on February 16, 1924. Compare to MA.309661 and MA.309663.
References: "Field's Parallel Rule," The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle 23, no. 5 (May 1854): 280; Peggy A. Kidwell, "American Parallel Rules: Invention on the Fringes of Industry," Rittenhouse 10, no. 39 (1996): 90–96; National Maritime Museum, "Captain Field's Improved Parallel Rule," Object ID NAV0602, http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/42814.html; Science Museum Group, "Henry Hughes and Son Limited," Collections Online – People, http://collectionsonline.nmsi.ac.uk/detail.php?type=related&kv=58792&t=people.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1923
maker
H. Hughes & Son, Ltd.
ID Number
MA.309662
catalog number
309662
accession number
106954

Thermometer

This mercury-in-glass thermometer marked "Etabl. Poulenc Fréres" has a cylindrical bulb. The scale on the stem ranges from -10 to +60 degrees Centigrade. It was used by the Meteorological Service of the U.S. Army in France during World War I.Currently not on view
Description
This mercury-in-glass thermometer marked "Etabl. Poulenc Fréres" has a cylindrical bulb. The scale on the stem ranges from -10 to +60 degrees Centigrade. It was used by the Meteorological Service of the U.S. Army in France during World War I.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900-1923
maker
Poulenc Freres
ID Number
PH.308196
catalog number
308196
accession number
70852

Minimum Thermometer

This is a Rutherford-type alcohol-in-glass minimum thermometer marked "Verre vert. minima de Rutherford. Etabl. Poulenc Fréres, a Paris." It was used by the Meteorological Service of the U.S. Army in France during World War I.Currently not on view
Description
This is a Rutherford-type alcohol-in-glass minimum thermometer marked "Verre vert. minima de Rutherford. Etabl. Poulenc Fréres, a Paris." It was used by the Meteorological Service of the U.S. Army in France during World War I.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900-1923
maker
Poulenc Freres
ID Number
PH.308195
catalog number
308195
accession number
70852

Spinthariscope

Background on spinthariscopes by United States Radium Corp, Objects ID 1994.0125.18 & .19A spinthariscope is a device for observing individual nuclear disintegrations caused by the interaction of ionizing radiation with a phosphor or scintillator.
Description
Background on spinthariscopes by United States Radium Corp, Objects ID 1994.0125.18 & .19
A spinthariscope is a device for observing individual nuclear disintegrations caused by the interaction of ionizing radiation with a phosphor or scintillator. Typically, an eyepiece and a radiation source are located at opposite ends of the cylindrical device.
Two types of spinthariscope are shown in the accompanying multi-object image; a Crookes spinthariscope, .17.1, appears on the right, and two spinthariscopes by United States Radium Corp., .18 and .19, appear on the left. (Photograph provided by donor, Prof. Herbert Clark, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.)
For general background on the spinthariscope go to:
http://skullsinthestars.com/2011/04/25/the-spinthariscope-see-atoms-decay-before-your-eyes/
Description of objects ID 1994.0125.18 & .19
Object .18 and .19 are the same. A cylinder, probably brass, wrapped with finely-grained black leather stamped in gold, “United States Radium Corp. / New York. The cylinder is 1 15/16” diam. x 1 5/8” long. There is a 3/8” diam. eye lens in the 1 cm long, top end cap (see accompanying image with top oblique view of Object .19).
Object .18 is in better condition than .19. Object .19 has more deterioration of surfaces of end caps than .18, and the edges of the leather wrapping are slightly separated. Object .19 is slightly radioactive.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1920s
maker
United States Radium Corporation
ID Number
1994.0125.19
accession number
1994.0125
catalog number
1994.0125.19

Navigational Bell Buoy

Unlike car drivers on land, navigators at sea have no road signs to indicate speed limits, dangers, or routes. Navigational buoys are floating objects anchored to the bottom that serve as aids to navigation.
Description
Unlike car drivers on land, navigators at sea have no road signs to indicate speed limits, dangers, or routes. Navigational buoys are floating objects anchored to the bottom that serve as aids to navigation. Their distinctive shapes, colors, and other markings provide information indicating their purpose and how to navigate around them.
The placement and maintenance of navigational buoys are essential to shipping, since they often provide the only guidance for channel locations, shoals, reefs, and other hazards. If damaged by collisions, extinguished, or broken loose from their moorings, the Coast Guard will repair, replace, refuel, or relocate the failed buoy.
Designated an 8X20 LBR, this particular type of buoy was used by the U.S. Coast Guard Lighthouse Service on the East Coast from around 1930 until the early 1950s. It measures 8 feet in width and 20 feet high, and the letters mean Lighted, Bell, and Radar Reflector. It originally weighed ca. 15,600 pounds, including the 225-lb bell. The bottom of this example was removed to fit into the gallery.
It was designed to be deployed in shallow, protected coastal waters and could be seen about two miles away in daylight. The light on the top was powered by batteries stored under the round hatches in the large bottom compartment. The bell was rung by the rocking of the buoy in the waves.
ID Number
TR.336771
accession number
1978.2285
catalog number
336771

Master Clock

For a single building or a whole industrial complex, this spring-driven master clock, fitted with electrical contacts and placed in a central location, could send electrical signals to remote secondary time dials, bells, whistles and time stamps for marking paperwork.
Description
For a single building or a whole industrial complex, this spring-driven master clock, fitted with electrical contacts and placed in a central location, could send electrical signals to remote secondary time dials, bells, whistles and time stamps for marking paperwork. All would be synchronized to the same time. At the beginning of the twentieth century many factories, schools, and other public buildings installed such integrated electrical systems.
This clock was made by International Time Recording Company, Endicott, N.Y. Formed in 1900 from the merger of several firms that pioneered automatic machines for recording employee time and task time, ITRC then absorbed its competitors. By about 1920 ITRC claimed they made over 260 different styles of time and cost recorders, both electrical and spring-driven. After 1933, in combination with the Tabulating Machine Company and Computing Scale Company, ITRC would be known as International Business Machines (IBM).
Location
Currently not on view
Currently not on view (clock weight)
date made
ca 1915-1920
ID Number
1984.0807.01
catalog number
1984.0807.01
accession number
1984.0807

Engine Room From Coast Guard Buoy Tender Oak

This engine room is from the U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender Oak. The Oak was built for the U.S. Light House Bureau in 1921 by Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation of Bronx, New York, and measured 160 feet long and 875 tons displacement. It was transferred to the U. S.
Description
This engine room is from the U.S. Coast Guard buoy tender Oak. The Oak was built for the U.S. Light House Bureau in 1921 by Consolidated Shipbuilding Corporation of Bronx, New York, and measured 160 feet long and 875 tons displacement. It was transferred to the U. S. Coast Guard in 1939, when that agency succeeded the Light House Bureau.
Buoy tenders are known as the “Black Fleet” within the Coast Guard. Their hulls are painted black to hide the unavoidable scrapes and bumps from hauling buoys and channel markers. The spacious deck in the forward part of the ship was designed to carry buoys, concrete sinkers or anchors for buoys, mooring chain to attach the buoy to the concrete sinker, and other heavy material. The deck also provides work space for repair and maintenance of buoys.
The engine that powered the Oak is a 750-horsepower, triple expansion, three-cylinder steam engine, capable of moving the vessel at a maximum speed of nine knots with a cruising range of 1,300 nautical miles. It drove a single propeller approximately 8 feet 6 inches in diameter. The engine is 18 feet in length, 6 feet wide, and 16 feet high, and weighs approximately 25 tons. It is representative of engines used in small, coastal vessels from approximately 1890 to 1930.
For more than 40 years, in all kinds of weather, the Oak, its four officers and 23-man crew were responsible for setting, inspecting, repairing, and replacing hundreds of buoys, like the one in On The Water, that marked channels and shoals in and around New York Harbor, one of the world’s most important ports. In 1963, the Oak was transferred from the U. S. Coast Guard to the Smithsonian. The engine and radio room were removed from the Oak in 1971 and installed in the Museum in 1974.
date made
1921
ID Number
1979.0518.01
accession number
1979.0518
catalog number
1979.0518.01

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