Water Current Meter
date: label: date made
content: 1845-1855
name: label: maker
content: Lerebours et Secretan
notes: label: Description
content: In 1847, a French hydraulic engineer named André G. A. Baumgarten published an account of his work with a horizontal-axis current meter that was based on the form that had been described by Reinhard Woltmann, a German hydraulic engineer, in 1790. Lerebours et Secretan (fl. 1845-1855), a prominent instrument firm in Paris, began offering a “Moulinet de Woltmann” soon thereafter, noting that this form was used in the hydraulic service of the Ponts et Chausées, the national agency in charge of bridges and roads.
label: Description
content: The “Lerebours et Secretan / à Paris” inscription on this example dates from the period 1845-1855. The instrument came from the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals, the corporation that developed water transportation along the Merrimack River, and water power for the town of Lowell, Massachusetts. James B. Francis probably acquired it shortly after having been named manager of that organization. It came to the Smithsonian in 1956, and was restored by the U.S. Geological Survey.
label: Description
content: Clemens Herschel opined in 1869 that “The best instrument to measure the velocity of the current at any point has generally been thought to be the so-called Woltmann wheel, or tachometer.” James B. Francis did not mention an instrument of this sort in the first (1855) edition of his <i>Lowell Hydraulic Experiments</i>, but in 1868 he noted that “Woltman’s mill, or tachometer, has been much used for this purpose, but to insure correct results, its application is one of much delicacy, and in our large channels would require much time.”
label: Description
content: Ref: A. G. A. Baumgarten, “Sur le moulinet de Woltmann destiné à mesurer les vitesses de l’eau, sur son perfectionment et sur les experiences avec cet instrument,” <i>Annales des Ponts et Chausées, Memoires et Documents</i> (1847): 326-357.
label: Description
content: Lerebours et Secretan, <i>Catalogue et Prix des Instruments</i> (Paris, 1853), p. 138.
label: Description
content: James B. Francis, <Lowell Hydraulic Experiments</i> (New York, 1868), p. 156.
label: Description
content: Clemens Herschel, “Gauging the Flow of Rivers, &c.,” <i>Journal of the Franklin Institute</i> 87 (1869): 305-315.
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. 49-50 and 56-57.
label: Description
content: Paolo Brenni, “Lerebours et Secretan,” <i>Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society</i> 40 (1994): 3-6.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: France: Île-de-France, Département de Ville-de-Paris
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.314769
label: accession number
content: 211155
label: catalog number
content: 314769
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Water Current Meter
label: Object Name
content: water current meter
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 17 1/2 in; 44.45 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 3/4 in x 18 in x 2 1/8 in; 17.145 cm x 45.72 cm x 5.3975 cm