Water Current Meter
date: label: date made
content: ca 1890
notes: label: Description
content: This is a direct-reading instrument with a vertical axis and a five-bucket rotor that was said to be particularly suited for use in “the rough torrents, filled with drift of all sorts” found in Western waters. Known variously as a Bailey or a Colorado water current meter, it was designed in the late 1880s by Howard Safford Bailey, a draughtsman who worked for the Western Mathematical Instrument Co. in Denver. It resembles the form developed in the early 1880s by Edwin Nettleton, the State Engineer of Colorado.
label: Description
content: The U.S. Irrigation Survey, a project of the U.S. Geological Survey, used several meters of this sort. The Geological Survey transferred this example to the Smithsonian in 1908. The frame is nickel-plated.
label: Description
content: Ref: J. W. Powell, “Irrigation Survey—Second Annual Report,” in <i>Report of the Secretary of the Interior</i> (Washington, D.C., 1890), vol. 4, part 2, pp. 6-8.
label: Description
content: Arthur H. Frazier, <i>Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology</i> (Washington, D.C., 1974), pp. 75-78.
label: Description
content: Arthur H. Frazier and Wilbur Heckler, <i>Embudo, New Mexico, Birthplace of Systematic Stream Gauging</i> (Washington, D.C., 1972).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Water Currents
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: U. S. Geological Survey
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.248696
label: accession number
content: 48341
label: catalog number
content: 248696
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Water Current Meter
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 15/16 in x 6 5/8 in; 17.62125 cm x 16.8275 cm