Stadimeter
notes: label: Description
content: This stadimeter marked "LIEUT. FISKE'S STADIMETER PATENTED WESTERN ELECTRIC CO. NEW YORK" came to the Smithsonian from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The form was developed in the 1890s by Bradley Allen Fiske (1854–1942), a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy who had access to a laboratory in New York City that was backed by the Western Electric Manufacturing Co.
label: Description
content: The range finder was designed to determine the distance to an enemy warship, the masthead height of which was easily found in the naval literature. Like a sextant, the stadimeter uses a system of mirrors to measure the angular distance between two distant objects. If the distance to the objects is known, the stadimeter reads the actual distance between the two. If the distance between the objects is known, the stadimeter reads the distance to the objects.
label: Description
content: Ref: B. A. Fiske, "Method of and Apparatus for Range Finding," U.S. patent #523,721.
label: Description
content: <i>Instructions for the Use and Care of the Fiske Ship–Telegraphs and Stadimeter</i> (Published by Authority of the Bureau of Ordnance, Navy Department, 1896).
label: Description
content: Paolo E. Coletta, <i>Admiral Bradley A. Fiske and the American Navy</i> (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1979), pp. 38–40.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
label: See more items in
content: Surveying and Geodesy
label: See more items in
content: Measuring & Mapping
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Coletta, Paolo E.. Admiral Bradley A. Fiske and the American Navy
label: Related Publication
content: Instructions for the Use and Care of the Fiske Ship-Telegraphs and Stadimeter
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.327901
label: catalog number
content: 327901
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Range Finder
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/4 in x 5 in x 11 in; 10.795 cm x 12.7 cm x 27.94 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall in box: 5 in x 12 1/2 in x 6 3/4 in; 12.7 cm x 31.75 cm x 17.145 cm