Accession No
4415
Brief Description
planimeter by Stanley, c.1868-70
Origin
Great Turnstile; Holborn; London; England
Maker
Stanley
Class
calculating; drawing
Earliest Date
1868
Latest Date
1870
Inscription Date
Material
metal (brass, steel); wood; hide (leather); cloth (velvet)
Dimensions
box length 273mm; breadth 50mm; height 34mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Gifted by the University Library, University of Cambridge.
Inscription
‘STANLEY, GREAT TURNSTILE, HOLBORN, LONDON’
Description Notes
Brass instrument; tracing arm engraved ‘1 dcm/0.1f/ 2000 M 1:500/ 10 in / 0.5 dcm / 20,720 / 20,960 / 21,903’. Steel pointer with clamp and circular knob. Beam slides through drum unit; clamp; drum divided 1 - 10 to 0.1 and vernier to 0.01. Brass linking arm pivoted to drum unit. Weight sits on arm.
Fitted box covered in black leather and lined with velvet.
Condition good (box poor); complete.
References
Events
Description
Planimeters are mechanical instruments designed to solve the common problem of computing the area of an irregular closed shape. The first instrument designed to do this was made by J.M. Hermann, a Bavarian engineer in 1814. Tito Gonella of Florence independently invented a similar instrument in 1824 using a wheel and cone arrangement.
FM:44706
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