Sextant
date: label: date made
content: 19th century
notes: label: Description
content: This unsigned sextant belonged to Oberlin College, and may date from the time of the founding of that school in 1833. The frame is brass. The silvered scale is graduated every 15 minutes from -5° to +160° and read by vernier with tangent screw and swinging magnifier to single minutes of arc. One trade card in the box is that of Thomas Hemsley (either father or son) who were in business in London throughout the first half of the 19th century, offering a wide variety of instruments and other items for navigational use.
label: Description
content: Ref: Gloria Clifton, <i>Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851</i> (London, 1995), p. 132.
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: Navigation
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Oberlin College
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1980.0075.02
label: accession number
content: 1980.0075
label: catalog number
content: 1980.0075.02
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sextant
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: radius: 7 1/2 in; 19.05 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 5/8 in x 13 in x 10 3/4 in; 11.7475 cm x 33.02 cm x 27.305 cm