Dividing Engine
notes: label: Description
content: This dividing engine came to the Smithsonian from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1966. According to a letter in the accession file, dated April 22, 1930, it came to the Museum of Science and Industry through purchase from the London instrument firm of C. Baker & Company. The letter offering the sale of the engine is from C. Baker of London to Andrew D. MacMahon, curator of physics at the Museum of Science and Industry. Here Baker suggests that the circular dividing engine had been acquired from Ramsden by his former apprentice William Cary. Other sources indicate that Cary’s firm continued under the supervision of Cary’s relatives, then Henry Gould, then Henry Porter (as Gould & Porter), and then Cary, Porter & Co., before going out of business by the early 1930s. At that time, according to Baker, his firm then acquired the instrument.
label: Description
content: John Brooks has discussed the making of circular dividing engines in England from 1739 to1843. He makes no mention of an engine associated with Cary.
label: Description
content: The object initially was in the Electricity collections at MHT. It was transferred to Mathematics collection in 1977, but not catalogued or photographed. It presently (November, 2019) is unavailable for examination of photography.
label: Description
content: For a related object, see MA.215518.
label: Description
content: References:
label: Description
content: Accession File MA.215518.
label: Description
content: Anita McConnell, <I>Jesse Ramsden (1735-1800) London’s Leading Scientific Instrument Maker</I>, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.
label: Description
content: Webster Signature Database at http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/signatures/.
label: Description
content: Brian Stevenson, “The Cary-Gould-Porter Optical Businesses,” at http://microscopist.net/GouldC.html.
label: Description
content: John Brooks. "The Circular Dividing Engine" Development in England 1795-1843," <I>Annals of Science</I>, ci, 49 (1992), pp. 101-135.
label: Description
content: Joshua Nall, "Certainly Made by Ramsden: The long History of the whipple Museum's dividing Engine," <I>Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society</I>, no. 137, 2018, pp. 40-43. This article describes a different dividing engine associated with Ramsden.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
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 Museum of Science and Industry
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MA.327944
label: catalog number
content: 327944
label: accession number
content: 271855
objectType: label: Object Name
content: dividing engine