Automatic Level
name: label: maker
content: Zeiss
notes: label: Description
content: Zeiss introduced the Model Ni2 Automatic Universal Level in 1951, with advertisements and articles in scientific journals and exhibitions at meetings of surveyors and geodesists. Terming the Ni2 a level of "radically new design," Zeiss noted that it was "the first 'automatic' level built in large quantities," and explained that its "ingenious compensating device automatically levels the line of sight with an accuracy of ± 0.3 seconds of arc." The Ni2 was remarkably successful. A Zeiss advertisement of 1970 boasted that the company had produced over 50,000 levels of this sort in the past 20 years.
label: Description
content: This example is marked "Ni2 CARL ZEISS 26056 Germany" and "Keuffel & Esser Co. Sole distributors in the U.S.A. for Carl Zeiss surveying instruments." The Michael Baker Corporation purchased it new in 1961, and gave it to the Smithsonian in 1997. It was made in the Zeiss factory in Oberkochen, in the Federal Republic of Germany.
label: Description
content: Ref: C. L. Peckinpaugh, Jr., "The Zeiss Opton Ni-2 Automatic Level," <i>Surveying and Mapping</i> 14 (1954): 185-191.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany
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: American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. Surveying and Mapping
label: Related Publication
content: Carl Zeiss. Level Ni2
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Michael Baker Corporation, Michael Baker, Jr., INc.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1997.0289.01
label: accession number
content: 1997.0289
label: catalog number
content: 1997.0289.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: level (automatic)
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 1/4 in; 26.035 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in case: 6 1/8 in x 13 in x 7 in; 15.5575 cm x 33.02 cm x 17.78 cm