Colorado Water Current Meter
date: label: date made
content: late 19th century
notes: label: Description
content: Edwin S. Nettleton, the State Engineer of Colorado, designed this type of direct-reading meter in the early 1880s for use in “the rough torrents, filled with drift of all sorts” found in Western waters. It has a five-cup rotor mounted on a vertical axis. John Wesley Powell, the first director of U.S. Irrigation Survey, a project of the U.S. Geological Survey, explained that the Colorado meter was light, simple and compact. To use it, a gauger would mount it on a rod, hold it in the water at the desired point, and allow it to register for a certain number of seconds. He would then draw it up and read the result on the dials. Powell went on to say that the instrument “can be quickly unpacked, there are no annoying electric wires, batters or connections, and it can be carried with ease.”
label: Description
content: The U.S. Geological Survey transferred this example of the Colorado water current meter to the Smithsonian in 1916. The “W. E. Scott, Maker, Denver, Col.” signature refers to the machinist, William E. Scott.
label: Description
content: Ref: E. S. Nettleton, <i>Report of the State Engineer to the Governor of Colorado for Years 1883 and 1884</i> (Denver, 1885).
label: Description
content: J. W. Powell, “Irrigation Survey—Second Annual Report,” in <i>Report of the Secretary of the Interior</i> (Washington, D.C., 1890), vol. 4, part 2, pp. 6-8.
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. 76-78.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Colorado, Denver
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Water Currents
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: U.S. Geological Survey
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.289641
label: accession number
content: 59263
label: catalog number
content: 289641
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Water Current Meter
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 in x 6 5/8 in x 8 in; 12.7 cm x 16.8275 cm x 20.32 cm