Surveyor's Transit
name: label: maker
content: Knox & Shain
notes: label: Description
content: The "Knox & Shain Makers Philadelphia" signature refers to Joseph Knox (1805-1877) and Charles J. Shain (1822-1891) who opened their own shop in 1850 and soon thereafter acquired the circular dividing engine that Jesse Ramsden had built in 1774. Although the firm remained in business until 1929, this instrument must have been made before 1880 when the Ramsden dividing engine was sold to Henry Morton, professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Morton, in turn, gave this historic engine to the Smithsonian Institution.
label: Description
content: If this transit instrument resembles those made by William J. Young, it is because Knox had been Young's foreman and Shain had apprenticed with and then worked for Young. The horizontal circle is inside the compass face, graduated to 30 minutes of arc, and read by vernier to single minutes. The face is dark, and the needle ring is silvered. There are level vials outside the compass, at south and east.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Surveying and Geodesy
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content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0775.01
label: accession number
content: 1983.0775
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0775.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: surveyor's transit
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall (without leveling head): 10 5/8 in; 26.9875 cm
label: Measurements
content: horizontal circle: 5 7/8 in; 14.9225 cm
label: Measurements
content: needle: 5 in; 12.7 cm
label: Measurements
content: telescope: 10 5/8 in; 26.9875 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 13 3/4 in x 9 1/8 in x 13 in; 34.925 cm x 23.1775 cm x 33.02 cm