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 7 items.
Peters Saccharimeter
- Description
- This half-shadow polariscope is marked "Julius Peters - Berlin NW 21" and "No. 696” and “NBS 3985." It has a Lippich polarizer, double quartz compensation, trestle stand, and thermometer. The National Bureau of Standards transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1960. The Bureau was established in 1901 and given responsibility for standardizing the saccharimeters and other apparatus that customs agents used to assess the saccharine quality of sugar coming into the United States.
- Julius Peters displayed instruments of this sort at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904, and Bausch & Lomb imported them into the United States. G. W. Rolfe, an instructor in sugar analysis at M.I.T., described the special features: the mounting was designed for stability and rigidity, the wedges of the analyzer were enclosed in a dust-proof box, the pinion that moved the wedges was lengthened so that the observer could move it with his hand resting on the table, and the scales were made of an alloy named “nickelin” that was not affected by moisture and but little affected by temperature.
- Ref: German Educational Exhibition. Worlds’s Fair, St. Louis, 1904, Scientific Instruments (Berlin, 1904), pp.103-104.
- Bausch & Lomb Optical Co., Apparatus and Supplies for Chemical and Biological Laboratories (Rochester, N.Y., 1904), pp. 322-323.
- G. W. Rolfe, The Polariscope in the Chemical Laboratory (New York, 1905), pp. 36-38.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Peters, Julius
- ID Number
- PH*318108
- catalog number
- 318108
- accession number
- 231765
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Franz Schmidt & Haensch Saccharimeter
- Description
- This is a half shadow saccharimeter marked “Franz Schmidt & Haensch, Berlin S. No. 4645” and “D.R.P. No. 82523.” This firm began in business in Berlin in 1864 making saccharimeters and other optical instruments. It trades today as Schmidt & Haensch.
- The two screws below the eyepiece indicate that this instrument has a double-quartz wedge compensation, a feature that relieves the observer from the necessity of checking the instrument against a standard solution or quartz plate. The German patent 82523, granted in 1895, describes the polarizer that enables the observer to equalize the darkness (rather than the color) of the various parts of the image.
- The graduated scale, viewing scope, and 400 mm observation tube are missing. The additional inscription–“BS 482”–refers to the National Bureau of Standards, the organization that purchased this instrument in the early 1900s and transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1960. For many years the Bureau standardized the saccharimeters and other apparatus that customs agents used to assess the saccharine quality of sugar coming into the United States.
- Ref: Franz Schmidt & Haensch, “Halbschatten-Polarisationsapparat,” German patent 82523 (1895).
- Eimer & Amend, Illustrated Catalogue with Prices Current of Chemical & Physical Apparatus (New York, 1895), p. 392.
- Geo. Stade, “Modern Polariscopes,” International Sugar Journal 1 (1899): 65-72.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1895
- maker
- Franz Schmidt & Haensch
- ID Number
- PH*318124
- catalog number
- 318124
- accession number
- 231765
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Franz Schmidt & Haensch Saccharimeter
- Description
- This is a Soleil-Scheibler saccharimeter marked "Franz Schmidt & Haensch BERLIN Newe Schönhauser Str No. 882." The address indicates that it was made between 1869 and 1877.
- Jean Baptiste François Soleil, an optical instrument maker in Paris, described the saccharimeter in 1845. Carl Scheibler, director of the research institute of the Association of the German Beet Sugar Industry, modified Soleil’s design in 1869. He added a second tube for reading the scale, and a rod with wheel and pinion for rotating the polarizer.
- Scheibler also replaced the arbitrary scale used on French instruments with the scale devised by the German sugar chemist, Carl Ventzke. Each degree of the Ventzke scale is one-hundredth part of the rotation produced in the plane of polarization of white light in a column 200 millimeters long, by a solution of pure sucrose at 17.5 degrees C.
- In this example, the scale is ivory, linear, graduated every degree from -30 to 0 to +100, and read by vernier to .5 degrees. Also present are two glass observation tubes suitable for carrying 100 and 200 mm of liquid, a brass cylinder 200 mm long, and a wooden box. The base is missing.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Franz Schmidt & Haensch
- ID Number
- PH*328767
- catalog number
- 328767
- accession number
- 308252
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Heele Saccharimeter
- Description
- This half-shadow saccharimeter is marked “HEELE, BERLIN.” The signature refers to Hans Heele, a German artisan who made a wide range of precision optical and mechanical instruments. Heele worked closely with the Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt in Charlottenburg, and won prize medals at the international exhibitions held in Chicago (1893), Paris (1900), St. Louis (1904), and Brussels (1910). The instrument was probably made before 1923, when Heele’s firm was acquired by Bamberg. Bowdoin College donated it to the Smithsonian in 1969.
- The circle of this instrument is about eight inches diameter, finely graduated, and read by vernier and microscope. There are four glass observation tubes: one marked “100”; two marked “200”; and one, 200 mm long, with fitting for thermometer. An additional glass tube is marked “FRANZ SCHMIDT & HAENSCH / BERLIN” and “D.R.G.M. 60239.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Heele, Hans
- ID Number
- PH*329722
- accession number
- 278336
- catalog number
- 329722
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Franz Schmidt & Haensch Saccharimeter
- Description
- This instrument is marked "Franz Schmidt & Haensch. Berlin, S." and "No. 6883" and "D.R. Pat. No 82523." It is a half-shadow polariscope on a trestle stand that was probably made shortly before World War I. The referenced German patent, dated 1905, describes the polarizer which enables the observer to equalize the darkness (rather than the color) of the various parts of the image. A dust-proof housing encloses the quartz wedge compensator (which is moved by the vertical rod with milled head) and the linear scale (which reads from -25 to +100 degrees Ventzke). The (missing) observation tube is 400 mm long. This was used at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
- Ref: Franz Schmidt & Haensch, “Halbschatten-Polarisationsapparat,” German patent 82523 (1895).
- Arthur H. Thomas Co., Laboratory Apparatus (Philadelphia, 1906), p. 320.
- Arthur H. Thomas Co., Laboratory Apparatus and Reagents (Philadelphia, 1914), p. 430.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Franz Schmidt & Haensch
- ID Number
- PH*330534
- catalog number
- 330534
- accession number
- 293490
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Zeiss Dipping Refractometer
- Description
- The dipping (or immersion) refractometer was designed by Carl Pulfrich, director of the Instrument Division of the Carl Zeiss Works in Jena. It consists of a telescope with a scale and micrometer screw, a prism that can be dipped into a liquid, and a compensator located between the prism and the objective lens.
- Zeiss began marketing these instruments in 1899. Eimer & Amend was selling them by 1910, noting that they were used to examine milk serum and various aqueous, alcoholic, and ethereal liquids of a low refractive index. Records in the Carl Zeiss Archiv indicate that this example was delivered to a customer in Köln, Germany, in 1917. Zeiss continued manufacturing instruments of this sort until the factory was destroyed during World War II. This example is marked "CARL ZEISS JENA" and "Nr 12829" and "Germany."
- Location
- Currently not on view
- maker
- Zeiss
- ID Number
- 1982.0001.03
- catalog number
- 1982.0001.03
- accession number
- 1982.0001
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Abbé Refractometer
- Description
- A refractometer measures the refractive index of stuff. Ernst Abbé built his first one in 1869 and used it in his work designing lenses for the Carl Zeiss Optical Works in Jena, Germany. Zeiss began advertising Abbé refractometers in 1881. This example is marked “N˚ 148 Carl Zeiss Jena” and “Germany.” Zeiss records indicate that it was delivered to J. W. Queen & Co., an important instrument dealer in Philadelphia on July 2, 1890. It was then acquired soonafter by the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, and came to the Smithsonian in 1961.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- after 1890-07-02
- maker
- Carl Zeiss
- ID Number
- PH*319718
- accession number
- 239025
- catalog number
- 319718
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center