A cathetometer is an upright ruler equipped with a telescope that is designed to measure the vertical difference between two points with great accuracy. The form A cathetometer is an upright ruler equipped with a telescope that is designed to measure the vertical difference between two points with great accuracy. The form was introduced in Paris around 1815 and the name around 1847.
This example came from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and probably dates from around 1894 when Bowdoin opened its new Science Building. The signature—SOCIÉTÉ GENEVOISE / Pour la Construction / D’Instrumente de Physique / GENÈVE—refers to a Swiss firm that provided many instruments to American colleges and universities in the late 19th century. This large instrument sits on a tri-leg base, and reads by vernier to 1/50 of a millimeter. New it cost 900 Swiss francs.
Ref: D. J. Warner, “Cathetometers and Precision Measurement: The History of an Upright Ruler,” Rittenhouse 7 (1993): 65–75.
Société Genevoise, Illustrated Price List of Physical and Mechanical Instruments (Geneva, 1900), p. 27.
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