Surveyor's Cross
name: label: maker
content: Lutz, Edouard
notes: label: Description
content: A surveyor’s cross is a simple instrument used to lay out straight lines and lines at right angles to one another. There are two forms. The open form has four arms set at right angles to one another, with an open sight at each end. The closed form is solid, with four slits at right angles to one another; this seems to have been introduced around 1803 by William Jones, an instrument maker in London.
label: Description
content: This example, closed and octagonal, has slits on each side, and a magnetic compass on top. The "E. LUTZ PARIS" inscription is that of Edouard Lutz, an instrument maker in Paris in the second half of the 19th century.
label: Description
content: Ref: <i>The Cyclopaedia; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature</i>, ed. Abraham Rees (London, 1819), vol. x, art. "Cross, in Surveying."
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Paris
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Surveying and Geodesy
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content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.261041
label: catalog number
content: 261041
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Surveyor's Cross
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 in x 2 19/32 in; 15.24 cm x 6.604 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 7/8 in x 4 1/2 in x 4 1/2 in; 17.4625 cm x 11.43 cm x 11.43 cm