Natural Resources - Overview
The natural resources collections offer centuries of evidence about how Americans have used the bounty of the American continent and coastal waters. Artifacts related to flood control, dam construction, and irrigation illustrate the nation's attempts to manage the natural world. Oil-drilling, iron-mining, and steel-making artifacts show the connection between natural resources and industrial strength.
Forestry is represented by saws, axes, a smokejumper's suit, and many other objects. Hooks, nets, and other gear from New England fisheries of the late 1800s are among the fishing artifacts, as well as more recent acquisitions from the Pacific Northwest and Chesapeake Bay. Whaling artifacts include harpoons, lances, scrimshaw etchings in whalebone, and several paintings of a whaler's work at sea. The modern environmental movement has contributed buttons and other protest artifacts on issues from scenic rivers to biodiversity.
"Natural Resources - Overview" showing 10 items.
Solar Oven
- Description
- Charles Greeley Abbot (1872–1973), the second director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the fifth secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, spent his scientific career measuring the intensity of solar radiation and seeking to correlate solar changes with weather conditions on the earth. He was also interested in the practical use of solar radiation. This cooker, which he built in 1940, uses a cylindrical aluminum mirror that is mounted parallel to the earth's axis to collect solar energy and focus it on a pyrex tube that is filled with a chlorinated benzene ("arochlor"); the energy is then transmitted to a square oven in which cakes and cookies could be baked. Abbot obtained a patent (#2,247,830) on this cooker in 1941.
- Date made
- 1940
- user
- Abbot, Charles Greeley
- maker
- Abbot, Charles Greeley
- ID Number
- PH*334632
- catalog number
- 334632
- patent number
- 2,247,830
- accession number
- 312088
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Bryan Gravimeter
- Description
- Gravimeters (gravity meters) are extremely precise instruments that measure the earth’s gravity at a specific location. Gravimeters are often used by prospectors to locate subterranean deposits of valuable natural resources (mainly petroleum) as well as by geodesists to study the shape of the earth and its gravitational field. Differences in topography, latitude, or elevation—as well as differences in subterranean density—all affect the force of gravity. Commonly, gravimeters are composed of a weight hanging on a zero-length spring inside a metal housing to negate the influence of temperature and wind. Gravity is then measured by how much the weight stretches the spring.
- This gravimeter was built in 1940 under the direction of Andrew Bonnell Bryan (1897 1989), a Ph.D. physicist who served for many years as Director of the Geophysics Division of the Carter Oil Co., in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is similar to the other Carter gravimeter in the collection. The Carter Oil Co. donated this instrument to the Smithsonian in 1959.
- Ref: F. G. Boucher to P. W. Bishop, August 6, 1959, in NMAH accession file. Boucher was at this time Senior Research Associate at Jersey Production Research Co.
- Notes prepared by D. G. Gardner, August 19, 1959, in NMAH accession file 230,370.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1940
- maker
- Carter Oil Company
- ID Number
- AG*MHI-P-7659
- accession number
- 230569
- catalog number
- MHI-P-7659
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger A-SOT Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It has a frost-proof bottom, fits a ⅝” pipe, and has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute. The gear train operated in oil (SOT stood for sealed oil train). The serial number (2,342,998) dates from 1943. Due to wartime materials restrictions, the body is made of cast iron.
- date made
- ca 1943
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325802
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325802
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Badger SC-SOT Water Meter
- Description
- This disc water meter was made by the Badger Meter Manufacturing Company in Milwaukee, Wisc. It has a split case and so could be used in warmer climates where there was no danger of freezing. It fits a ⅝” pipe, has a capacity of 26 gallons per minute, and was designed for use with corrosive waters. Due to wartime materials restrictions, the case is made of cast iron. The serial number (2,358,003) dates from 1943. SC-SOT stands for split case, sealed oil gear train.
- date made
- ca 1943
- maker
- Badger Meter Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325805
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325805
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Arctic Ironside Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter with frost-proof bottom and serial number 3,609,508, made by the Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company in the early 1940s. Pittsburgh Equitable explained that “Months of preparation by Pittsburgh-National Research men, preceding the limitation order on the manufacture of bronze meters by the War Production Board, now makes possible the presentation of the Pittsburgh Ironside Meter.” This is “a top quality disc meter in the construction of which over 70% of the bronze normally used in meters of this size has been eliminated. Rust-proofed cast iron and molded glass have been ingeniously substituted for bronze in the outer shell, register box and register lid.” “To meet the conditions in sections of the country where damage from freezing is likely to occur, this meter is equipped with a cast iron bottom plate especially designed so that should the water in the meter freeze, the pressure exerted by the expanding ice with break one or more of the lugs from the cast iron plate, thus allowing the vital working parts . . . to move freely with the expanding ice.”
- Ref: Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company, Ironside Water Meter, Bulletin W-535 (1942).
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Pittsburgh Equitable Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*325815
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325815
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Calmet Model B-C Water Meter
- Description
- This oscillating piston water meter with split case and no serial number fit a ¾” pipe. It was made by the Well Machinery & Supply Company in Fort Worth, Texas. It has a cast-iron body and so was probably made during the materials restrictions of World War II.The city of Fort Worth agreed, in 1930, to purchase 8,000 oscillating piston meters from the California Meter Company of Los Angeles. The Well Machinery & Supply Company acquired California Meter soon thereafter, and advertised Calmet water meters as “A Texas Made Product.”
- Ref: “Water Meter Concern Cites Accepted Bid,” Los Angeles Times (Aug. 30, 1930), p. E1.
- Well Machinery & Supply Company, Calmet. The Precision Built Water Meter (Fort Worth, n.d.).
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Well Machinery & Supply Company
- ID Number
- PH*325825
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325828
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Hersey I.C.H.F. Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter of the sort that the Hersey Manufacturing Company introduced in the early 1940s. Its working parts are similar to those of the Model H.F. but, due to wartime material restrictions, the case is of cast iron rather than bronze. With a capacity of 20 gallons per minute, this example was the smallest of several sizes made. The bottom is marked “Hersey anti-frost.”
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Hersey Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325845
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325845
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Hersey I.C.F. Water Meter
- Description
- This is a disc water meter of the sort that the Hersey Manufacturing Company introduced in the early 1940s. Its working parts are similar to those of the Model F but, due to wartime material restrictions, the case is of cast iron rather than bronze. With a capacity of 20 gallons per minute, this example was the smallest of several sizes made. The bottom is marked “Iron Antifrost.” The serial number (2,022,580) dates from 1944.
- date made
- ca 1944
- maker
- Hersey Manufacturing Company
- ID Number
- PH*325847
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325847
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Sparling Water Meter
- Description
- This is a 4” water meter with a fan blade impeller and serial number 10,239. The markings--“Sparling K-473” and “Sparling – K 473”—refer to the Sparling Meter Company. This firm was formed in Los Angeles in 1912, and began manufacturing propeller meters in 1919. The cast iron body suggests that it was made during the materials restrictions of World War II.
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Sparling Water Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*325871
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325871
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
- No Image Available
Watch Dog Water Meter
- Description
- This ⅝” disc water meter was made by the Worthington-Gamon Meter Company in Newark, New Jersey. It has a cast iron body and no serial number, and so was probably made during materials restrictions of World War II.
- date made
- early 1940s
- maker
- Worthington-Gamon Meter Company
- ID Number
- PH*325892
- accession number
- 245003
- catalog number
- 325892
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center