Geodetic Transit
date: label: date made
content: 1914
name: label: maker
content: Bamberg, Carl
notes: label: Description
content: In 1912 the director of the Royal Prussian Geodetic Institute in Potsdam suggested to the superintendent of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey that the two agencies work together to make a direct connection between their respective longitude networks. The observers would use "the Bamberg or broken telescope transit which had been in use in Germany for some time," and they would communicate with each other by means of the transatlantic telegraph cable. The Americans acquired two Bamberg transits for this purpose shortly before the outbreak of war in 1914 and the cutting of the transatlantic cable. These instruments were then used for longitude determinations within the United States, and they remained in use until 1960.
label: Description
content: The Bamberg geodetic transit at the Smithsonian is of this sort. It has a "broken" telescope that is viewed through one end of the horizontal axis, a graduated vertical circle, a cast iron base, and mechanism that is used to lift and reverse the telescope. It is marked "Carl Bamberg Friednau-Berlin No 11948" and may be one of many instruments that American intelligence officers captured from the German geodetic office at the end of World War II. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency transferred it to the Museum in 2000.
label: Description
content: Carl Bamberg (1847-1892) served an apprenticeship with Carl Zeiss at Jena and studied at the Universities of Jena and Berlin before establishing a Werkstätten für Präzisions-Mechanik und Optik in Friedenau, a suburb of Berlin, in 1871. After Bamberg's death, the firm was managed by his widow, and then by his son. The firm displayed a "broken" transit in the German Educational Exhibition at the World's Fair held in St. Louis in 1904. In 1921 Bamberg merged with the Centralwerkstatte Dessau, forming a new company known as Askania Werke.
label: Description
content: Ref: F. M. Feldhaus, <i>Carl Bamberg, Ein Rückblick auf sein Wirken und auf die Feinmechanik</i> (Berlin-Friedenau, 1929), p. 73.
label: Description
content: Carl Bamberg, <i>Astronomische und Astrophysikalische Instrument</i> (Leipzig/Berlin, about 1920).
label: Description
content: Fremont Morse and O. B. French, "Determination of the Difference in Longitude between Each Two of the Stations Washington, Cambridge, and Far Rockaway," <i>United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Special Publication</i> 35 (1916).
label: Description
content: G. D. Cowie and E. A. Eckhardt, "Wireless Longitude," <i>United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Special Publication</i> 109 (1924).
label: Description
content: A. J. Hoskinson and J. A. Duerksen, "Manual of Geodetic Astronomy," <i>United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Special Publication</i> 237 (1952).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Berlin, Berlin
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Surveying and Geodesy
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content: Measuring & Mapping
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Feldhaus, F. M.. Carl Bamberg, Ein Rückblick auf sein Wirken und die Feinmechanik
label: Related Publication
content: Bamberg, Carl. Astronomische und Astrophysikalische Instrument
label: Related Publication
content: United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Special Publication
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2000.0257.01.01
label: catalog number
content: 2000.0257.01.01
label: accession number
content: 2000.0257
objectType: label: Object Name
content: geodetic transit
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 13 in x 34 in x 21 in; 33.02 cm x 86.36 cm x 53.34 cm