overall: 3 in x 1 3/4 in x 1 in; 7.62 cm x 4.445 cm x 2.54 cm
Object Name:
Range Finder
Place made:
United Kingdom: England, London, City of London
Description:
Francis Weldon (1836-1926), a British Army officer in India, devised this simple and portable range finder in the early 1870s. This example belonged to the U.S. Geological Survey, a federal agency established in 1879. It came to the Smithsonian in 1909. The inscriptions read "Elliott Bros., London” and “U.S. G. S. 1” and “Weldon Range Finder."
Ref: Francis Weldon, “Improvement in Apparatus for Measuring Distances,” U.S. Patent 165,282 (July 6, 1875).
“New Range Finder,” <i>Scientific American Supplement</i> 223 (1880): 3550.
Lieut. A. H. Russell, “A Report on the Weldon Range-Finder,” Appendix 23 in United States Army. Ordnance Department, <i>Annual Report of the Chief of Ordnance</i> (Washington, D.C., 1880).
United States Army. Ordnance Department, <i>Description and Instructions for Use of Weldon Range Finder</i> (Revised ed., Washington, D.C., 1917).
