Solar Compass
name: label: maker
content: Young, William J.
label: inventor
content: Burt, William A.
notes: label: Description
content: This solar compass, one of the earliest instruments of its kind, is marked "Burts patent Made by Wm. J. Young Philada." It belonged to Artemas Curtis, a brother–in–law of the inventor, William Austin Burt. It was made by William J. Young in Philadelphia, probably in 1840, and it nicely illustrates the complex process of developing a successful instrument. Following Burt's instructions, Young produced an instrument in which the vernier for the variation arc was moved by hand. When that design proved inconvenient, a tangent screw was added to move the vernier–and this tangent screw covered the signature. This example is of that type. In later examples, the signature appears where it can be easily read.
label: Description
content: Ref: John S. Burt, <i>They Left Their Mark. A Biography of William Austin Burt</i> (Rancho Cordova, Ca., 1985).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Surveying and Geodesy
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Donald Curtis
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.328793
label: catalog number
content: 328793
label: accession number
content: 277834
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Solar Compass
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 in; 35.56 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall; compass: 9 3/8 in x 14 5/16 in x 6 3/4 in; 23.8125 cm x 36.35375 cm x 17.145 cm