Minimum Thermometer
date: label: date made
content: 1875-1900
notes: label: Description
content: Rutherford-type alcohol-in-glass thermometer with a cylindrical bulb, black dumbbell index, and double tube. The back of the tube is marked “Patent No. 4434” and [symbol of the Kew Observatory] and “10085” and “No. 84120.” The front of the tube carries a scale that extends from -25 to +130 graduated in degrees Fahrenheit. A milk-white plate inside the tube facilitates reading.
label: Description
content: The referenced British patent, issued to James Webster of London in late 1875, described a clinical thermometer enclosed in a transparent glass tube designed to protect “the divisions, figures, and markings from injury or obliteration.” This example was probably made in Britain, and probably designed for meteorological or chemical use. It came to the Smithsonian from the U.S. Weather Bureau.
label: Description
content: Ref: Great Britain Patent Office, <i>Chronological and Descriptive Index of Patents Applied For</i> (London 1876), p. 926.
label: Description
content: Great Britain Patent Office, <i>Abridgements of Specifications. Class 92</i> (London, 1904), p. 125.
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: Thermometers and Hygrometers
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: U.S. Weather Bureau
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.317469
label: catalog number
content: 317469
label: accession number
content: 230396
objectType: label: Object Name
content: thermometer
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 1/2 in; 31.75 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 1/2 in x 3/8 in; 31.75 cm x .9525 cm