6 Meter Bar
date: label: date made
content: 1847
notes: label: Description
content: The Bache-Wurdemann distance measuring apparatus consists of an iron bar and a brass bar conjoined so as to reduce errors caused by thermal expansion and contraction. Alexander Dallas Bache (1806-1867), an American physicist who was familiar with European efforts along this line, and who was then serving as the second Director of the U.S. Coast Survey, devised the plans in 1845. William Wurdemann (1811-1900), a talented German instrument maker who arrived in Washington, D.C. in the 1830s and served at times as Chief Mechanician of the Coast Survey, built several sets of apparatus under Bache’s direction.
label: Description
content: The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey transferred this “Six Meter Iron Standard Bar” to the Smithsonian in 1914, adding that this “Six-meter bar No. 1 was cut to length at the Coast and Geodetic Survey office in March, 1847, for the purpose of furnishing a standard comparison in connection with the 6 meter Bache Wurdemann compensation base apparatus, the length of which entirely depends upon this bar.”
label: Description
content: Ref: E. B. Hunt, “Description of the United States Coast Survey Apparatus for Measuring Base Line,” Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey Showing the Progress of the Survey During the Year 1854 (Washington, D.C., 1855), pp. 103-108.
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.285226
label: catalog number
content: 285226
label: accession number
content: 57456
objectType: label: Object Name
content: 6 meter bar