Thermometers, Box of
date: label: date made
content: 1881
name: label: maker
content: J. & H. J. Green
notes: label: Description
content: The Lady Franklin Bay Expedition was one of two scientific expeditions that the U.S. Government sent to the Arctic as part of the first International Polar Year. The Expedition spent two years at Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island and then, after the supply and rescue ships failed to get through, another harrowing year struggling to get home. Of the 25 men who set sail from Newfoundland in 1881, only 6 survived.
label: Description
content: Adolphus Washington Greely, the leader of the Expedition, was an officer with the U.S. Signal Service, a branch of the army that had established a national weather service in 1870. He was named Chief Signal Officer in 1887, and received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1935. In his book, <i>Three Years of Arctic Service</i> (1886), Greely noted that "Some excellent standard thermometers, of bisulphide of carbon, pure spirits of wine, and ether, were made for the expedition, under the careful supervision of Professor [Leonard] Waldo of Yale College Observatory. They were graduated in millimetres arbitrarily. . ."
label: Description
content: The U.S. Weather Bureau, a successor to the Signal Service, transferred this set of thermometers to the Smithsonian in 1959. Six are Rutherford-type minimum thermometers with glass tubes, brass backings, and fitted wooden cases; each is marked "J. &. H. J. GREEN N.Y." and "YALE MIN. STD. MAY 1881. CORNING GLASS SQUIBBS" and "SIGNAL SERVICE U.S. ARMY." No. 2 and No. 4 are marked "ETHER." No. 6 and No. 8 are marked "CARBON DISULPHIDE." No. 10 and No. 12 are marked "ALCOHOL." Three other thermometers, Nos. 152, 708, and 1010, are marked simply "J. & H. J. GREEN N.Y. SIGNAL SERVICE U.S. ARMY." A handwritten note in the lid of the box, dated May 27, 1881, identifies the "Approximate value in degrees Fahrenheit of the scale readings Ether, Bisulph Carbon, Alcohol."
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, New York City
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Thermometers and Hygrometers
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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.316155
label: catalog number
content: 316155
label: accession number
content: 224002
objectType: label: Object Name
content: box of thermometers
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall in box: 16 in x 9 in x 7 1/2 in; 40.64 cm x 22.86 cm x 19.05 cm