Water Current Meter
date: label: date made
content: 1850-1854
name: label: inventor
content: Saxton, Joseph
notes: label: Description
content: Joseph Saxton, an ingenious American who spent several years in London, designed a current meter at the behest of the British engineer, Joseph Cubitt, and tested it at the Adelaide Gallery in 1832.
label: Description
content: This example belonged to the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals in Lowell, Mass., and was probably used by James B. Francis, the chief engineer of that organization. The “ELLIOTT & SONS London” inscription indicates that it was made between 1850 and 1854. Several features—including the vane and the rotor—resemble those in the Woltman-type current meter made by Lerebours et Secretan (see PH*314769). It came to the Smithsonian in 1956.
label: Description
content: William Davis Haskoll included an image of “Elliott’s Current Meter” in his engineering text of 1858, and described it as “a most useful instrument for ascertaining velocities, either a few inches below the surface, or at the bottom, or at any depth between.” An Elliott price list bound with this book indicates that current meters cost between £3. 3s and £5. 5s. Similar instruments were available from other London firms such as Watkins & Hill, James J. Hicks, Louis Casella, and Adie.
label: Description
content: William Elliott began in business in London in the early 1800s, making and selling mathematical instruments. The firm became Elliott & Sons in 1850 and Elliott Brothers in 1854. It was absorbed into what became BAE Systems in 1988. Its archives are now in the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford.
label: Description
content: Ref: “Description of the Current-Meter as Recently Improved by Mr. Saxton,” <i>The Magazine of Popular Science and Journal of the Useful Arts</i> 1 (1836): 108-112.
label: Description
content: W. Davis Haskoll, <i>The Practice of Engineering Field Work</i> (London, 1858), pp. 261-262.
label: Description
content: Elliott Brothers, <i>General Illustrated Catalogue</i> (London, [1867]), p. 9.
label: Description
content: Arthur H. Frazier, <i>Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology</i> (Washington, D.C., 1974), pp. 51-56.
label: Description
content: T. N. Clarke, A. D. Morrison-Low, and A. D. C. Simpson, <i>Brass & Glass. Scientific Instrument Making Workshops in Scotland as illustrated by Instruments from the Arthur Frank Collection at the Royal Museum of Scotland</i> (Edinburgh, 1989), p. 83.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Water Currents
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Proprietors of the Locks and Canals
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.314772
label: accession number
content: 211155
label: catalog number
content: 314772
objectType: label: Object Name
content: water current meter
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 in; 27.94 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 3/4 in x 11 1/4 in x 1 in; 14.605 cm x 28.575 cm x 2.54 cm