Object Details
- Description
- 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.
- 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.
- Ref: B. A. Fiske, "Method of and Apparatus for Range Finding," U.S. patent #523,721.
- Instructions for the Use and Care of the Fiske Ship–Telegraphs and Stadimeter (Published by Authority of the Bureau of Ordnance, Navy Department, 1896).
- Paolo E. Coletta, Admiral Bradley A. Fiske and the American Navy (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1979), pp. 38–40.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- ID Number
- PH.327901
- catalog number
- 327901
- Object Name
- Range Finder
- Measurements
- overall: 4 1/4 in x 5 in x 11 in; 10.795 cm x 12.7 cm x 27.94 cm
- 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
- place made
- United States: New York
- Related Publication
- Coletta, Paolo E.. Admiral Bradley A. Fiske and the American Navy
- Instructions for the Use and Care of the Fiske Ship-Telegraphs and Stadimeter
- See more items in
- Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
- Surveying and Geodesy
- Measuring & Mapping
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_761617
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a5-a099-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
