Surveyor's Transit
Surveyor's Transit
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- Description
- This is marked "Herm. Pfister for L. M. Prince Cincinnati O." Herman Pfister (1847-1911) was born in Switzerland. By 1870, he was making surveying and engineering instruments in Cincinnati, Ohio. Louis M. Prince (1850-1918) opened a store in Cincinnati in 1873, selling a wide variety of optical and mathematical instruments. In this example of Pfister's work, the horizontal and vertical circles are silvered, graduated every 30 minutes of arc, and read by vernier to single minutes. There are stadia wires in the telescope, and a clamp and tangent to the telescope axis.
- Ref: Charles Smart, The Makers of Surveying Instruments in America Since 1700 (Troy, N.Y., 1962), p. 131; and vol. 2 (1967), p. 234.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- surveyor's transit
- maker
- Pfister, Herman
- place made
- United States: Ohio, Cincinnati
- Measurements
- overall: 12 1/2 in; 31.75 cm
- horizontal circle: 7 in; 17.78 cm
- vertical circle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
- needle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
- telescope: 10 in; 25.4 cm
- hanging level: 5 in; 12.7 cm
- overall in case: 17 in x 10 3/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 43.18 cm x 27.305 cm x 26.035 cm
- ID Number
- PH.334141
- catalog number
- 334141
- accession number
- 310551
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
- Measuring & Mapping
- Surveying and Geodesy
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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