Range Finder
Range Finder
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- Description
- Francis Weldon (1836-1926), a British Army officer in India, devised this simple and portable range finder in the early 1870s. This example belonged to the U.S. Geological Survey, a federal agency established in 1879. It came to the Smithsonian in 1909. The inscriptions read "Elliott Bros., London” and “U.S. G. S. 1” and “Weldon Range Finder."
- Ref: Francis Weldon, “Improvement in Apparatus for Measuring Distances,” U.S. Patent 165,282 (July 6, 1875).
- “New Range Finder,” Scientific American Supplement 223 (1880): 3550.
- Lieut. A. H. Russell, “A Report on the Weldon Range-Finder,” Appendix 23 in United States Army. Ordnance Department, Annual Report of the Chief of Ordnance (Washington, D.C., 1880).
- United States Army. Ordnance Department, Description and Instructions for Use of Weldon Range Finder (Revised ed., Washington, D.C., 1917).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- Range Finder
- maker
- Elliott Brothers
- place made
- United Kingdom: England, London, City of London
- Measurements
- overall: 3 in x 1 3/4 in x 1 in; 7.62 cm x 4.445 cm x 2.54 cm
- ID Number
- PH.252982
- catalog number
- 252982
- accession number
- 49676
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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