Sextant
name: label: maker
content: Davis Instruments Corporation
notes: label: Description
content: William A. Davis was an Englishman who settled in San Leandro, California, and offered a range of inexpensive plastic nautical instruments for boating enthusiasts. He introduced the Mark III sextant in 1963, and the instrument is still in production. Like the sextant that Cruver made for the U.S. Maritime Commission during the war, the Mark III is made of polystyrene. It has a simple eye tube, and a scale that is graduated every degree from -35° to +100° and read by vernier to 2 minutes of arc. The original Mark III cost $9.95. This example was probably made in the late 1960s. The sextant's arm is inscribed "DAVIS INSTRUMENTS CORP. / 857 THORNTON STREET / SAN LEANDRO / CALIF. 94577 / U.S.A."
label: Description
content: Ref: William A. Davis, <i>How to Find Your Position with a Sextant</i> (San Leandro, 1966 and 1968).
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: Navigation
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Roger Sherman
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2003.0331.01
label: catalog number
content: 2003.0331.01
label: accession number
content: 2003.0331
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sextant
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: radius: 7 in; 17.78 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/16 in x 8 7/8 in x 8 1/4 in; 7.77875 cm x 22.5425 cm x 20.955 cm