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 653 items.
Page 63 of 66
- No Image Available
Worthingon Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter with split case and serial number 1,375,979, made at the Worthington Hydraulic Works in Harrison, New Jersey. Worthington began making disc meters in 1903, and merged with the Gamon Meter Company to form the Worthington-Gamon Meter Company in 1933.
- date made
- ca 1903-ca 1933
- maker
- Worthington Hydraulic Works
- ID Number
- PH*325896
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325896
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Worthington Model R Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter with split case and serial number 1,798,453 that fit a ⅝” pipe, and that was made at the Worthington Hydraulic Works in Harrison, New Jersey. Worthington began making disc meters in 1903, and merged with the Gamon Meter Company in 1933 to form the Worthington-Gamon Meter Company.
- date made
- ca 1903-ca 1933
- ID Number
- PH*325897
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325897
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Trident Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc meter marked “TRIDENT COMPANY 2 INCH” and “NEPTUNE METER COMPANY NEW YORK.” The Trident was based on designs patented by John Thomson, a prolific inventor and member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
- date made
- 1892-1945
- maker
- Neptune Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*329736
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 329736
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger Water Meter
- Description
- This is a turbine compound meter made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
- date made
- ca 1905-ca 1960
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*329737
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 329737
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Watch Dog Compound Water Meter
- Description
- This water meter combines a disc meter and a current meter.
- Ref: Gamon Meter Company ad in American City (1927).
- date made
- probably 1920s
- ID Number
- PH*329738
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 329738
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Trident Style 3 Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter that fit a 2” pipe, and that was made by the Neptune Meter Company in Long Island City, New York. The Trident was based on designs patented by John Thomson, a prolific inventor and member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 1907, Neptune described the Style 3 as the “only meter that can be adjusted for different pressures.” Later trade literature noted that this model was designed for intermediate use, between “the usual house service, requiring but a small volume at moderate rates of flow and that of a manufacturing plant or similar service requiring a larger flow of water.”
- Ref: Neptune Meter Company ad in Journal of the New England Water Works Association 21 (1907): vi.
- Neptune Meter Company, Trident Meter Price List (1942), p. 5.
- date made
- 1907-1965
- maker
- Neptune Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*329739
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 329739
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Empire Water Meter
- Description
- This is an oscillating piston water meter marked “NATIONAL METER CO., N.Y. EMPIRE METER 3-59-B.”
- maker
- National Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*329740
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 329740
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Worthington Water Meter
- Description
- This water meter, with an iron case marked “WORTHINGTON” and serial number 55,542, was probably made in Brooklyn in the late nineteenth century. The signature refers to Henry R. Worthington (1817-1880), a New York inventor and manufacturer who specialized in pumps and other hydraulic machinery, and whose duplex-piston water meter (covered by U.S. Patent 13,320 of July 24, 1855) was the first successful water meter made in the United States. Scientific American reported in 1880 that over 20,000 Worthington water meters were in daily use, the form having “been adopted by all the principal water works in the United States and Canada.” The original form was still on the market at the turn of the century.
- Ref: “American Industries. No. 55. The Manufacture of Pumping Engines and Water Meters,” Scientific American 43 (1880): 149.
- date made
- ca 1890-1900
- maker
- Worthington, Henry R.
- ID Number
- PH*329741
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 329741
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Rockwell Water Meter
- Description
- This is a ⅝” sealed register, magnetic drive disc water meter made by the Rockwell Manufacturing Company. It has a bronze case with a frost proof bottom. Rockwell introduced its sealed register model in 1957, describing it as “the first major advance in water measurement in the past 50 years,” and claiming that the use of a magnetic force to turn the registering mechanisms “eliminates the need for a stuffing box, and makes possible an hermetically sealed register that stays clean, dry, and free from fog.” This example is serial number in 21,000.
- Ref: “Rockwell Report,” Wall Street Journal (Sept. 12, 1958), p. 6.
- date made
- ca 1970
- maker
- Rockwell Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*330606
- accession number
- 295379
- catalog number
- 330606
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Rockwell Water Meter
- Description
- This is a cutaway model of a ⅝” sealed register, magnetic drive disc water meter made by the Rockwell Manufacturing Company. It has a bronze case with a frost proof bottom. Rockwell introduced its sealed register model in 1957, describing it as “the first major advance in water measurement in the past 50 years,” and claiming that the use of a magnetic force to turn the registering mechanisms “eliminates the need for a stuffing box, and makes possible an hermetically sealed register that stays clean, dry, and free from fog.”
- Ref.: “Rockwell Report,” Wall Street Journal (Sept. 12, 1958), p. 6.
- date made
- 1971
- maker
- Rockwell Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*330607
- accession number
- 295379
- catalog number
- 330607
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center