Octant
name: label: maker
content: Patten, Richard
notes: label: Description
content: Octant with an ebony frame and reinforced brass index arm. The brass scale is graduated every 20 minutes from -2° to +100° and read by vernier and tangent screw to single minutes of arc. The "Richard Patten New York" inscription refers to Richard Patten (1792-1865), an instrument maker who began in business in New York City in 1813 and was soon the proprietor of a Navigation Warehouse. By 1820 he was advertising that he was a "manufacturer of mathematical instruments . . . equal to any in the City of London." Elsewhere he claimed to be the "only manufacturer of Sextans [sic] and Quadrants in New York," and that "All instruments in the above line [are] made to order & warranted, being divided on an engine after the Plan of Ramsden’s."
label: Description
content: Ref: Deborah J. Warner, "Richard Patten (1792-1865)," <i>Rittenhouse</i> 6 (1989): 57-63.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Navigation
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content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1993.0187.01
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0187.01
label: accession number
content: 1993.0187
objectType: label: Object Name
content: octant
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: ebony (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: average spatial: 8.2 cm x 25.4 cm x 30.5 cm; 3 1/4 in x 10 in x 12 in
label: Measurements
content: overall in case: 4 in x 10 1/8 in x 12 5/8 in; 10.16 cm x 25.7175 cm x 32.0675 cm