This instrument was made by Stackpole & Brother in the 1860s, and sold to Benjamin S. Olmsted, an engineer in Rye, N.Y. A. J. Kirby of Westchester County, New York, acquired it around 1870 and used it for many years. His son gave it to the Smithsonian in 1930.
The instrument is unusual in several ways: the telescope is transit-mounted but too long to transit, and an adjustable strut at the objective end holds the telescope at a fixed angle of elevation. The horizontal circle is silvered, graduated to 20 minutes, and read by opposite verniers to 20 seconds. A magnetic compass in the center of the circle is suitable only for rough orientation, and a hanging level is below the telescope. The inscription reads "Stackpole & Brother, New York 939."
F. E. Brandis, who was working for Stackpole at the time this instrument was made, later incorporated some of its features--most notably the long transit mounted telescope and the adjustable strut--in what he called his Improved City Transit.
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