Surveyor's Compass
date: label: date made
content: 1840-1858
name: label: maker
content: King, Charles Gedney
notes: label: Description
content: The “C. G. King Boston” inscription on this compass is that of Charles Gedney King (1808-1858), a mathematical instrument maker who apprenticed with his father, Gedney King, and traded under his own name after his father’s death in 1839. C. G. King showed his instruments at fairs sponsored by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in the 1840s and 1850s, and took home several silver medals.
label: Description
content: King also announced he "Is now manufacturing and has for sale the largest assortment of Mathematical, Nautical, Engineers, Surveyors and Drafting Instruments to be found in the city." Moreover, the engineers’ and surveyors’ instruments manufactured in the King establishment, "are divided upon a new Engine, made expressly for the purpose, the performance of which, for the accuracy of its division, cannot be surpassed, if equalled, by any Engine in the Country."
label: Description
content: The rim of this example is graduated to 30 minutes. There are two level vials on the south arm.
label: Description
content: Ref: "Evidence of the Enterprise," <i>Rittenhouse</i> 1 (1987): 90.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Boston
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: Rittenhouse
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1980.0696.01
label: accession number
content: 1980.0696
label: catalog number
content: 1980.0696.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Surveyor's Compass
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall length: 15 5/8 in; 39.6875 cm
label: Measurements
content: needle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall case: 4 5/16 in x 15 1/2 in x 7 1/2 in; 10.95375 cm x 39.37 cm x 19.05 cm