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 48 items.
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Thomas Earnshaw Box Chronometer
- Description
- This instrument is a specialized timekeeper for finding longitude at sea. Thomas Earnshaw made this chronometer in England about 1798. It became part of the James Arthur Collection at New York University, and the university donated a portion of the collection, including this chronometer, to the Smithsonian in 1984.
- To find longitude at sea, a chronometer was set to the time of a place of known longitude, like Greenwich, England. That time, carried to a remote location, could be compared to local time. Because one hour of difference in time equals 15 degrees difference in longitude, the difference in time between the chronometer and local time would yield local longitude. The instruments require careful handling to keep precise time. Although the original box for this instrument has not survived, most chronometers are fitted in a wooden box in a gimbal to remain level and compensate for the movement of a ship at sea.
- Thomas Earnshaw (1749-1829) was a pioneer in chronometer development. He is credited with introducing to chronometer design two important features that became standard parts of the timekeeper in the 19th century—the detached detent escapement and, independently of his rival John Arnold, the bimetallic compensation balance. His simplifications permitted others to undertake batch production of chronometers, and his work received an award of £2500 from Britain’s Longitude Board in 1805.
- Mechanism details:
- Escapement: Earnshaw spring detent
- Duration: 1 day
- Power source: Spring drive with chain and fuse
- Balance spring: helical, blued steel
- Balance: Earnshaw, two-arm
- Inscription: “Thos. Earnshaw / Inv. Et Fecit No. 451” on back plate
- Barrel bridge possibly a replacement
- Dial details:
- Engraved and silvered brass
- Indicates hours, minutes, seconds
- Inscription: “Thos. Earnshaw / INVT. ET FACIT /No. 451” on dial
- Blued steel lunette hands (minute hand is a replacement)
- Brass bowl; screwed and milled bezel; convex and chamfered crystal
- No box
- No winding key
- References:
- 1. Mercer, Tony. Chronometer Makers of the World. Essex: NAG Press and Tony Mercer, 1991.
- 2. Thompson, David. Clocks. London: British Museum Press, 2005.
- 3. Whitney, Marvin E. The Ship’s Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
- date made
- ca 1798
- maker
- Earnshaw, Thomas
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.013
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.013
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
John Roger Arnold Box Chronometer
- Description
- This instrument, made by John Roger Arnold about 1825, is a specialized timekeeper for finding longitude at sea. The chronometer was part of the James Arthur Collection at New York University, and the university donated a portion of the collection, including the chronometer, to the Smithsonian in 1984.
- To find longitude at sea, a chronometer was set to the time of a place of known longitude, like Greenwich, England. That time, carried to a remote location, could be compared to local time. Because one hour of difference in time equals 15 degrees difference in longitude, the difference in time between the chronometer and local time would yield local longitude. The instruments require careful handling to keep precise time. Although the original box for this instrument has not survived, most chronometers are fitted in a wooden box in a gimbal to remain level and compensate for the movement of a ship at sea.
- John Roger Arnold (1769-1843) learned watchmaking from his father, chronometer pioneer John Arnold, and Abraham Louis Breguet. The Arnolds were in business as Arnold & Son between 1787 and 1799, when the father died. In 1805 John Roger Arnold accepted the English Board of Longitude’s posthumous award to his father for improvements to the marine chronometer, which included simplifications that permitted others to undertake batch production of chronometers—a detached escapement, a helical balance spring and a temperature-compensated balance. The younger Arnold continued the business and between 1830 and 1840 took in partner Edward John Dent. In that decade, the firm made about 600 chronometers.
- Mechanism details:
- Escapement: Arnold, spring detent
- Duration: 8-day
- Power source: Spring drive with chain and fusee
- Balance spring: helical, blued steel
- Balance: J. R. Arnold with built-in aux. comp. Patented in 1821 (#4531)
- Inscription: "Jn. R. Arnold _ London. Invt et Fecit No 491" on backplate
- Dial details:
- Engraved and silvered brass
- Indicates hours, minutes, seconds
- Inscription: “ARNOLD. / London / No 491" on dial
- Blued steel spade hands
- Brass bowl; bayonet-fitted bezel; convex, plain crystal
- No box
- No winding key, sprung dust cover over winding work
- References:
- 1. Gould, Rupert T. The Marine Chronometer. London: Holland Press, 1960.
- 2. Mercer, Tony. Chronometer Makers of the World. Essex: NAG Press, 1991.
- 3. Mercer, Vaudrey. John Arnold & Son, Chronometer Makers, 1762-1843. London: The Antiquarian Horological Society, 1972.
- 4. Mercer, Vaudrey. The Life and Letters of Edward John Dent, Chronometer Maker and some account of his Successors. London: The Antiquarian Horological Society, 1977.
- 5. Whitney, Marvin E. The Ship's Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
- date made
- ca 1825
- maker
- John Roger Arnold
- ID Number
- 1984.0416.014
- accession number
- 1984.0416
- catalog number
- 1984.0416.014
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Sir Sandford Fleming's Pocketwatch
- Description
- This watch belonged to Sir Sandford Fleming, chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway. About 1880, Fleming devised a plan for worldwide time zones and had a complicated watch made to reflect both zoned time and local time.
- The maker of Fleming's watch is the London firm of Nicole, Nielsen & Co. Successor to a business founded by Swiss immigrants Adolphe Nicole and Jules Capt in the late 1830s, the firm made high-quality timepieces. Fleming ordered the watch through retailer E. White, also of London.
- Fleming's first notions about time reform emerged on a trip to Ireland in 1876, when he missed a train because he misread a timetable. His initial plan concentrated on replacing the two twelve-hour designations of the day, A.M. and P.M., with a twenty-four hour system. Almost immediately, though, he expanded his ideas about time reform to propose a system he called variously "Terrestrial Time," "Cosmopolitan Time," and "Cosmic Time"-a division of the globe into twenty-four zones, each one hour apart and identified by letters of the alphabet.
- As the 1880s began there was no binding international agreement about how to keep time for the world. Traditionally, each country used its own capital city or main observatory for measuring time and designating lines of longitude on national maps. After publication of the British Nautical Almanac began in 1767, many nations came to use Greenwich time for navigation and some scientific observations. Local mean time served for all other activities.
- Added emphasis on Greenwich had come from North America when the railroads there voluntarily adopted a standard zoned time in 1883. In that system, the zones were based on meridians counted west from Greenwich, England, at zero degree of longitude.
- Fleming was not the first or only proponent of world standard time. Quirico Filopanti, an Italian mathematics and engineering professor, for example, published a scheme based on twenty-four zones counted from Rome as prime meridian in 1858.
- Organized international support emerged slowly for fixing a common prime meridian. Not until October 1884 did diplomats and technical specialists gather to act on scientific proposals. The International Meridian Conference, held in Washington, DC, recommended that the nations of the world establish a prime meridian at Greenwich, count longitude east and west from the prime meridian up to 180 degrees in each direction, and adopt a universal day beginning at Greenwich at midnight. Although the International Meridian Conference had no authority to enforce its suggestions, the meeting resulted in the gradual worldwide adoption of a time-zone based system with Greenwich as zero degrees.
- The military and some civilian science, aviation and navigation efforts still use alphabet identifiers for time zones. The time of day in Zone Z is known as "Zulu Time." The zone is governed by the zero degree of longitude that runs through Greenwich.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1880
- maker
- Nicole, Nielsen & Co.
- ID Number
- 1990.0659.01
- catalog number
- 1990.0659.01
- accession number
- 1990.0659
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Railroad Watch
- Description
- This English watch was a part of a technical fix applied to U.S. railroads following accidents in the middle of the 19th century.
- Back then timetables governed train arrivals and departures, established train priorities, and ensured that trains did not collide on single-track lines. Clocks in railroad stations and watches held by conductors and engineers helped to enforce the timetables.
- But in the middle of the 19th century, timepieces in use on the railroads varied wildly in quality and availability to employees of the line. There was no single standard of quality for railroad timekeepers. After a horrific fatal accident on the Providence & Worcester Railroad in August 1853, caused in part by the inaccuracy of a conductor's watch, some railroads in New England responded to public criticism of their industry by tightening up running rules and ordering top-quality clocks and watches for their employees.
- This is one such high-quality railroad watch.
- An official representing the Vermont Central Railroad and three other New England lines, William Raymond Lee, ordered watches and clocks in late 1853 from William Bond & Sons, Boston, the American agent for Barraud & Lund of London. The English firm delivered the first of the timepieces in January 1855. The Vermont Central purchased fifteen watches for $150 each and one clock for $300.
- Barraud & Lund, founded in 1750 by Huguenot watchmaker Francis-Gabriel Barraud, had a long-standing reputation for high-quality timepieces, including marine chronometers, clocks and watches. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the firm had extensive foreign markets and added John Richard Lund, a chronometer maker, to their business.
- William Bond & Son, the firm named on the watch's dust cap, was one of the principal timepiece purveyors of nineteenth-century America. Intimately connected to navigation and commercial shipping, the firm rated and repaired marine chronometers for the busy port of Boston and supplied instruments of all sorts to agencies of the federal government-specifically, the coast survey, the topographical engineers, and the navy. The firm, whose original business provided time for navigating at sea, branched out with the railroad business to perform the same service on land.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1853
- maker
- Barraud & Lund
- ID Number
- 1999.0278.01
- catalog number
- 1999.0278.01
- accession number
- 1999.0278
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Molyneux & Sons Box Chronometer
- Description
- This instrument is a specialized timekeeper for finding longitude at sea. It was made by the firm Robert Molyneux & Sons of London, England, between 1832 and 1845. The U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1953.
- To find longitude at sea, a chronometer would be set to the time of a place of known longitude, like Greenwich, England, the prime meridian. That time, carried to a remote location, could be compared to local time. Because one hour of difference in time equals 15 degrees difference in longitude, the difference in time between the chronometer and local time would yield local longitude. The instruments require careful handling to keep precise time. Although the original box for this instrument has not survived, most chronometers are fitted in a wooden box in a gimbal to remain level and compensate for the movement of a ship at sea.
- Robert Molyneux was a maker of chronometers and precision clocks in England. He was trained by Thomas Earnshaw and went into business for himself in the 1820s. In 1832 he moved his London business from 44 Devonshire Street to 30 Southampton Row and partnered with his son Henry in 1835. In 1842 the chronometer firm Birchall & Appleton moved to that address.
- Mechanism details:
- Escapement: Earnshaw spring detent
- Duration: 56-hour
- Power source: Spring drive with chain and fuse
- Balance spring: helical, blued steel
- Dial details:
- Engraved and silvered brass
- Indicates hours, minutes, seconds, and winding level up and down
- Inscription: “Molyneux & Sons / 30 Southampton Row, London / No 1436 / U.S. Army.”
- Blued steel spade hands
- Brass bowl with fittings to insert in gimbal
- No box
- No winding key
- References:
- 1. Britten, Frederick James. Old Clocks and Watches & Their Makers. London: E. & N. Spon Limited, 1922.
- 2. Gould, Rupert T. The Marine Chronometer. London: Holland Press, 1960.
- 3. Mercer, Tony. Chronometer Makers of the World. Essex: N.A.G. Press, 1991.
- 4. Whitney, Marvin. The Ship’s Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
- 5. Wood, Christopher. “Robert Molyneux's Astronomical Clocks and Chronometers,” Antiquarian Horology 9 no. 4 (1975).
- date made
- 1835-1842
- maker
- Molyneaux & Sons
- ID Number
- ME*314266
- catalog number
- 314266
- accession number
- 198140
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Charles Frodsham Box Chronometer
- Description
- This instrument is a specialized timekeeper designed for finding longitude at sea. Its form is that of the standardized 19th-century marine chronometer. It was transferred to the Smithsonian from the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Ships. The chronometer’s finisher, the firm of Charles Frodsham, traded in high-quality chronometers, clocks and watches. Frodsham (1810-71), was the son of William James Frodsham, co-founder of Parkinson & Frodsham. The younger Frodsham’s firm underwent many name and address changes, but continued in business from roughly 1837 until it became a subsidiary of Devon Instruments in 1977.
- Mechanism details:
- Escapement: Earnshaw, spring detent
- Duration: 56-hour
- Power source: Spring drive with chain and fusee
- Balance spring: helical, blued steel
- Key missing
- Bowl details:
- Brass bowl, fitted with a sprung cylindrical inner bowl as a dust cover (original work)
- Brass fittings for gimbal, gimbal missing
- Bezel screwed and milled
- Crystal flat, small unpolished chamfer
- Dial details:
- Engraved and silvered brass
- Indicates hours, minutes, seconds, winding level up and down
- Hands: blued steel, fleur-de-lys
- Inscription: "CHARLES FRODSHAM / 7 Pavement Finsbury Squr, / London No.1909”
- References:
- 1. Gould, Rupert T. The Marine Chronometer. London: Holland Press, 1960.
- 2. Mercer, Tony. Chronometer Makers of the World. Essex: NAG Press, 1991.
- 3. Mercer, R. Vaudry. The Frodshams. The Story of a Family of Chronometer Makers. London: Antiquarian Horological Society monograph 21, 1981.
- 4. Whitney, Marvin E. The Ship's Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
- date made
- 1838-1843
- maker
- Charles Frodsham
- ID Number
- ME*314267
- catalog number
- 314267
- accession number
- 198140
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Arnold & Dent Box Chronometer
- Description
- This instrument is a specialized timekeeper designed for finding longitude at sea. Its form is that of the standardized 19th-century marine chronometer. It was transferred to the Smithsonian from the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey. John Roger Arnold, son of chronometer maker John Arnold, and Edward John Dent (1790-1853) were in business together from 1830-1840 at 84 Strand, London. Charles Frodsham took over Arnold’s business after Arnold’s death in 1843. E. J. Dent, who had started making chronometers in 1814, continued in business until his death, when others continued the firm under various names and at various addresses. The business continues today.
- Mechanism details:
- Escapement: Earnshaw, spring detent
- Duration: 48-hour
- Power source: Spring drive with chain and fusee
- Balance spring: helical, blued steel
- Winding key, stamped "1131"
- Bowl details:
- Brass bowl, fitted with a sprung cylindrical inner bowl as a dust cover (original work); "1131" stamped on bottom inside of bowl
- Dimensions: 4.17" dia. across bezel x 2.7"
- Brass fittings, brass gimbal
- Bezel screwed and milled
- Crystal convex, plain
- Dial details:
- Engraved and silvered brass
- Indicates hours, minutes, seconds, winding level up and down
- Inscription: "ARNOLD & DENT, / 84. Strand, London No 1131”
- Hands: Gold, spade, with blued steel seconds hand
- Case details:
- Mahogany
- Three-part, glazed center section
- Brass side handles and escutcheon
- Bone roundel at front
- Inscriptions: "1131" engraved on roundel on case. "U.S.C.S." engraved on case lid
- References:
- 1. Gould, Rupert T. The Marine Chronometer. London: Holland Press, 1960.
- 2. Mercer, Tony. Chronometer Makers of the World. Essex: NAG Press, 1991.
- 3. Mercer, Vaudrey. John Arnold & Son. London: Antiquarian Horological Society, 1972.
- 4. Mercer, Vaudrey. Edward John Dent and His Successors. London: Antiquarian Horological Society, 1977.
- 5. Whitney, Marvin E. The Ship's Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
- date made
- 1839
- manufacturer
- Arnold & Dent
- ID Number
- ME*314612
- catalog number
- 314612
- accession number
- 206050
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Howells, Barraud & Jamison Marine Chronometer
- Description
- In the 18th century, inventing a practical way to determine time and place was so important to the security of seafaring imperial nations of Western Europe that a number of governments established lucrative prizes to inspire a solution.
- John Harrison received England's prize for inventing a timepiece accurate enough for determining longitude at sea. Harrison's timekeepers were ingenious, intricate and difficult to reproduce accurately and affordably. Nevertheless, they paved the way for the work of later inventor watchmakers, all of whom would help to revolutionize the maritime world by producing the timepieces that came to be known as marine chronometers.
- Thomas Mudge, one of the watchmakers following Harrison, designed this instrument. Like Harrison's timepieces, Mudge's were extremely inventive and complex. And like Harrison, Mudge won an English government prize he had a struggle to receive.
- Mudge's son, Thomas Mudge Jr., engaged a number of craftsmen to make copies of his father's work for public sale. The venture was a financial failure. The copies never accomplished the superior accuracy of the senior Mudge's own work, although their performance was adequate for maritime purposes.
- Of the twenty-six copies of his father's design commissioned by the younger Mudge, this one is number fourteen. It is the product of a collaboration of three craftsmen: William Howells of Kennington in southeast London, Paul Philip Barraud also of London and George Jamison of Portsea, a town adjacent to the naval base of Portsmouth on the southern English coast. Marks on the timekeeper's movement indicate they completed it in London in 1802.
- A plain wood box protects the instrument, which hangs in a framework of partial gimbals to keep it level on a rolling ship.
- date made
- 1802
- maker
- Jamison, George
- Barraud, Paul Philip
- Howells, William
- ID Number
- ME*322384
- accession number
- 247659
- catalog number
- 322384
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Parkinson & Frodsham Box Chronometer
- Description
- This instrument is a specialized timekeeper designed for finding longitude at sea. Its form is that of the standardized 19th-century marine chronometer. Parkinson & Frodsham, a firm trading in high-quality chronometers, clocks and watches, was established in 1801 by William James Frodsham (1778-1850) and William Parkinson (d. about 1842). From 1801 to 1890, the firm’s business address was 4 Change Alley, and thereafter at other addresses until 1947.
- Mechanism details:
- Escapement: Earnshaw, spring detent
- Duration: 56-hour
- Power source: Spring drive with chain and fusee
- Balance spring: Helical, blued steel, Earnshaw type
- Inscription: "Parkinson & Frodsham." on backplate, "Change Alley / London" on barrel bridge
- Bowl details:
- Brass bowl
- Brass gimbals
- Bezel screwed and milled
- Crystal convex and chamfered
- Dial details:
- Engraved and silvered brass
- Indicates hours, minutes, seconds, winding level up and down
- Hands: blued steel, early spade
- Inscription: "Parkinson & Frodsham / Change Alley London. 2349"
- Case details:
- Box: solid wood, three-part, glazed center section
- Brass corners, cartouche and key escutcheon
- Roundel in bone
- Inscriptions: none
- References:
- 1. Gould, Rupert T. The Marine Chronometer. Essex: Holland Press, 1960.
- 2. Mercer, Tony. Chronometer Makers of the World. London: NAG Press, 1991.
- 3. Mercer, R. Vaudry. The Frodshams. The Story of a Family of Chronometer Makers. London: Antiquarian Horological Society monograph 21, 1981.
- 4. Whitney, Marvin,E. The Ship's Chronometer. Cincinnati: American Watchmakers Institute Press, 1985.
- date made
- ca 1840
- maker
- Parkinson & Frodsham
- ID Number
- ME*336641
- catalog number
- 336641
- accession number
- 1978.0161
- catalog number
- 1978.0161.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Casella Photo Theodolite
- Description
- Photogrammetry (surveying by photographic means) came into use in the middle years of the 19th century, especially in French, German and Italian lands. The Bridges-Lee photo-theodolite represents British work in the field. John Bridges-Lee (1867-1917), a scientist and lawyer in London, filed two British patent applications describing this instrument in 1894. He filed a third in 1896, and licenced Casella to bring it to the market. The Casella firm was still offering instruments of this sort in the 1930s. The U. S. Geological Survey transferred this example to the Smithsonian in 1909.The signature reads "BRIDGES-LEE’S PATENT PHOTO THEODOLITE L.Casella, LONDON No 8."
- The instrument consists of a photographic camera with an internal compass card, housed in an aluminum box; there is a horizontal circle below, and a transit-mounted telescope with vertical arc above. The horizontal circle is graduated to 30 minutes, and read by vernier to single minutes. The vertical arc extends 90 degrees either way, and is graduated to 30 minutes and read by vernier and small telescope to single minutes. The whole instrument sits on a tribrach base, suitable for mounting on a tripod.
- Ref: L. Casella, Description of the Bridges-Lee New Patent Photo-Theodolite (London, 2nd ed., 1899).
- Anita McConnell, King of the Clinicals. The Life and Times of J. J. Hicks (1837-1916) (York, England, 1998), pp. 98-99. This discussion of the photo-theodolite is based in large part on the Bridges-Lee papers, Science Museum Library Archives, London.
- "The Bridges-Lee Photo-Theodolite," Engineering (Sept. 10, 1897): 312, 314-315.
- C. F. Casella & Co., Ltd., Catalogue No. 564. Surveying and Drawing Instruments and Appliances (London [about 1937]), pp. 35-36.
- "Phototopography as Practiced in Italy under the Auspices of the Royal Military Geographical Institute, and as Practiced in the "Dominion of Canada under the Auspices of the Department of the Interior. Also a Short Historical Review of Other Photographic Surveys and Publications on the Subject," Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1893 (Washington, D.C., 1895), Appendix 3.
- maker
- Casella
- ID Number
- PH*252972
- catalog number
- 252972
- accession number
- 49676
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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