Warner & Swasey Circular Dividing Engine
date: label: date made
content: 1895-1896
name: label: maker
content: Warner & Swasey Company
notes: label: Description
content: Dividing engines scribed the fine scales traced along the edges of mathematical, navigational, and astronomical instruments. From the time of Englishman Jesse Ramsden in the late eighteenth century, free-standing dividing engines with the advance or the tracer driven by a carefully controlled screw were used by scientific instrument makers (for an example of Ramden's dividing engine, see MA.215518).
label: Description
content: In 1893, the U.S. Naval Observatory ordered a new meridian circle from the Cleveland firm of Warner &Swasey. The instrument required metal circles, 26 1/2" inches diameter, divided to two minutes of arc (10,800 divisions). To create scales of sufficient precision, Ambrose Swasey designed this circular dividing engine. It would be used at Warner & Swasey at least into the 1950s, and was given to the Smithsonian in 1974 along with documentation (see record MA.313774.02 and MA.313774.03) and a box of parts (MA> 313774.22)
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Accession file 313774.
label: Description
content: C. Evans,<I>Precision Engineering: An Evolutionary View</I>, Bedford: Cranfield, 1987.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Ohio, Cleveland
topic: label: Subject
content: Ruling and Dividing Engines
label: Subject
content: Mathematics
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Mathematics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Warner & Swasey Company
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.334398
label: catalog number
content: 334398
label: accession number
content: 313774
objectType: label: Object Name
content: dividing engine
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 64 in x 54 in x 54 in; 162.56 cm x 137.16 cm x 137.16 cm