Polariscope
name: label: Maker
content: James W. Queen & Co.
notes: label: Description
content: Henry Carvel Lewis (1853-1888) was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, resident of Germantown, and active member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, who sought an inexpensive and accurate polariscope that could be used to measure the optic-axial divergence in minerals. By 1880, James W. Queen & Co. had produced an instrument suitable for his purposes. This project probably led to the reflecting polariscope that Queen introduced to market a few years later. This example of that instrument was used at Mount St. Mary’s College in western Maryland. The inscription on the wooden frame reads "J.W. QUEEN & Co. / PHILA."
label: Description
content: Ref: “A New Polariscope,” <i>Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia</i> 32 (1880): 241.
label: Description
content: James W. Queen & Co., <i>Special List of New Polariscopes and Polarizing Objects for the Use of Schools and Colleges</i> (Philadelphia, 1887).
label: Description
content: James. W. Queen & Co., <i>Catalogue and Price-List of Instruments and Apparatus Used in Physical Optics</i> (Philadelphia, 1892).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Mount St. Mary's College
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.326106
label: catalog number
content: 326106
label: accession number
content: 257245
objectType: label: Object Name
content: polariscope
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 in x 3 3/4 in x 15 in; 22.86 cm x 9.525 cm x 38.1 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 1/2 in x 3 3/4 in x 15 1/8 in; 21.59 cm x 9.525 cm x 38.4175 cm