Cathetometer
name: label: maker
content: Societe Genevoise d’Instruments de Physique
notes: label: Description
content: A cathetometer is an upright ruler equipped with a telescope that is designed to measure the vertical difference between two points with great accuracy. The form A cathetometer is an upright ruler equipped with a telescope that is designed to measure the vertical difference between two points with great accuracy. The form was introduced in Paris around 1815 and the name around 1847.
label: Description
content: This example came from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and probably dates from around 1894 when Bowdoin opened its new Science Building. The signature—SOCIÉTÉ GENEVOISE / Pour la Construction / D’Instrumente de Physique / GENÈVE—refers to a Swiss firm that provided many instruments to American colleges and universities in the late 19th century. This large instrument sits on a tri-leg base, and reads by vernier to 1/50 of a millimeter. New it cost 900 Swiss francs.
label: Description
content: Ref: D. J. Warner, “Cathetometers and Precision Measurement: The History of an Upright Ruler,” <i>Rittenhouse</i> 7 (1993): 65–75.
label: Description
content: Société Genevoise, <i>Illustrated Price List of Physical and Mechanical Instruments</i> (Geneva, 1900), p. 27.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Switzerland
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Science & Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Bowdoin College
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1993.0398.01
label: accession number
content: 1993.0398
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0398.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cathetometer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: brass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: iron (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 33 in x 16 in x 13 3/4 in; 83.82 cm x 40.64 cm x 34.925 cm