Surveyor's Vernier Compass
name: label: maker
content: Eugene Dietzgen Company
notes: label: Description
content: The inscription on this compass reads "Dietzgen Made in U.S.A." Dietzgen introduced the form in the 1930s, describing it as a Surveying and Timber Cruisers’ Compass of an "improved type as made by us for the U.S. Government." It was designed to make "the entrance of moisture or dust practically impossible." The needle ring is graduated to degrees, and numbered in quadrants from N and S. A pinion with capstan head, located outside the box at W and marked "Declination," is used to offset the compass for magnetic variation. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency transferred this example to the Smithsonian in 2000.
label: Description
content: Ref: Dietzgen, <i>Catalogue</i> (Chicago, 1938), p. 617.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
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
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: U.S. Department of Defense, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Geodesy and Geophysics Department
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2000.0257.15
label: accession number
content: 2000.0257
label: catalog number
content: 2000.0257.15
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Surveyor's Compass
label: Object Name
content: compass
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/2 in; 11.43 cm
label: Measurements
content: needle: 3 in; 7.62 cm