Surveyor's Transit
date: label: date made
content: 1904-1910
name: label: maker
content: Weiss and Heitzler
notes: label: Description
content: Paul Weiss (1864-1943) was born in Switzerland, and moved to the United States in 1881. By 1891 he was working as an optician in Denver, Colorado. From 1904 to 1910 he worked in partnership with Frank Heitzler, whose patent (#891,733), dated June 23, 1908, described a telescope with two prisms in the optical train, making it substantially shorter than telescopes ordinarily used with surveying instruments. The telescope of this transit is of that type. The horizontal and vertical circles of this transit are silvered, graduated to 30 minutes of arc, and read by verniers to single minutes. There is a clamp and tangent to the telescope axis. The inscription on the telescope reads "Weiss & Heitzler Makers No. 32 Denver, Colo Patent June, 1908."
label: Description
content: Ref: Charles Smart, <i>The Makers of Surveying Instruments in America Since 1700</i>, vol. 2 (Troy, N.Y., 1967), pp. 207 and 257.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Colorado, Denver
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
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Smart, Charles E.. Makers of Surveying Instruments in America Since 1700
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: LaVerne Watkins
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1989.0403.08
label: accession number
content: 1989.0403
label: catalog number
content: 1989.0403.08
objectType: label: Object Name
content: engineer's transit
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 7/8 in; 30.1625 cm
label: Measurements
content: horizontal circle: 5 1/4 in; 13.335 cm
label: Measurements
content: needle: 3 1/2 in; 8.89 cm
label: Measurements
content: vertical circle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: telescope: 8 in; 20.32 cm
label: Measurements
content: hanging level: 4 in; 10.16 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in case: 15 1/4 in x 9 1/2 in x 7 1/2 in; 38.735 cm x 24.13 cm x 19.05 cm