Surveyor's Transit
name: label: maker
content: Pfister, Herman
notes: label: Description
content: This is marked "Herm. Pfister for L. M. Prince Cincinnati O." Herman Pfister (1847-1911) was born in Switzerland. By 1870, he was making surveying and engineering instruments in Cincinnati, Ohio. Louis M. Prince (1850-1918) opened a store in Cincinnati in 1873, selling a wide variety of optical and mathematical instruments. In this example of Pfister's work, the horizontal and vertical circles are silvered, graduated every 30 minutes of arc, and read by vernier to single minutes. There are stadia wires in the telescope, and a clamp and tangent to the telescope axis.
label: Description
content: Ref: Charles Smart, <i>The Makers of Surveying Instruments in America Since 1700</i> (Troy, N.Y., 1962), p. 131; and vol. 2 (1967), p. 234.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Ohio, Cincinnati
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: Smart, Charles E.. Makers of Surveying Instruments in America Since 1700
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.334141
label: catalog number
content: 334141
label: accession number
content: 310551
objectType: label: Object Name
content: surveyor's transit
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 1/2 in; 31.75 cm
label: Measurements
content: horizontal circle: 7 in; 17.78 cm
label: Measurements
content: vertical circle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: needle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: telescope: 10 in; 25.4 cm
label: Measurements
content: hanging level: 5 in; 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in case: 17 in x 10 3/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 43.18 cm x 27.305 cm x 26.035 cm