Solar Compass
name: label: maker
content: W. & L. E. Gurley
notes: label: Description
content: W. & L. E. Gurley began advertising solar compasses in 1858, acknowledging that these instruments had "come into general use in the surveys of U.S. public lands, the principal lines of which are required to be run with reference to the true meridian." Gurley went on to state: "The invention, having long since become the property of the public, we have given our attention to the manufacture of these instruments, and are now prepared to furnish them, with important improvements of our own devising, at greatly reduced prices."
label: Description
content: The earliest Gurley solar compasses that have yet come to light are dated 1859, and they differ in a few small ways from the 1858 illustration. Most notably, the tangent screws were moved closer to the arcs. This example, which the University of Georgia purchased shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, is of that type. The horizontal circle is silvered, graduated to 30 minutes, and read by opposite verniers to single minutes. The finish is anodized. The inscription reads: "W. & L.E. Gurley, Troy, N.Y." The words "G. A. Raymond Jan. 1860" are scratched on the underside of the plate. George A. Raymond joined Gurley in 1853. He was given responsibility for assembling and adjusting solar compasses in 1858, and was still with the firm in 1889.
label: Description
content: Ref: W. & L. E. Gurley, <i>Manual of the Principal Instruments used in American Engineering and Surveying</i> (Troy, N. Y., 1858), pp. 64-93.
label: Description
content: William H. Skerritt, "The Solar Surveying Instruments of the W. & L. E. Gurley Company," <i>Rittenhouse</i> 3 (1988): 15-22.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Troy
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
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: W. & L. E. Gurley. Manual of the Prinicipal Instruments Used in American Engineering and Surveying; 1st Edition
label: Related Publication
content: Rittenhouse
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: University of Georgia
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.326306
label: catalog number
content: 326306
label: accession number
content: 258980
objectType: label: Object Name
content: solar compass
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 in; 38.1 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in case: 12 1/2 in x 16 3/16 in x 8 3/8 in; 31.75 cm x 41.11625 cm x 21.2725 cm