Recently I purchased something I had never seen before - a Gurley theodolite. At first blush it appears to be the equivalent of a Wild T2. The serial number would tend to indicate it was made in 1944, but it appears to be too new for that. Also, because of the letters "U.S." with the serial number it appears that it might have been produced for the military.
So a couple of questions. Has any one ever seen one of these? Have you ever used one of these? Do you know where any others might be? Do you have any old manuals for one of these?
At any rate, here's a picture of what I speak.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Wow!
Is it incremented in DMS (or mils)?
(no I know nothing about it).
Gurley theodolite - COE type
I thought I'd seen a theodolite like that before. That is shown on Page 128 of the 1955 3rd Edition of "Elementary Plane Surveying" by Davis. The caption reads: "Gurley one-second theodolite. U.S. Corps of Engineers type".
Graduated in DMS.
Gurley theodolite - COE type
Thanks Kent - I'll look that up.
1944 might be right. Found a bit more information here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1945TrAGU..26...19L
Click on full record info for a few more details.
Appears to be abstract for article appearing in American Geophysical Union. Tried looking for it on AGU web site but couldn't find it.
Gurley is still in business but departed surveying long ago. Didn't see any reference to theodolites in the brief history on their web site. No mention in a 1968 catalog either.
Thanks for finding this, but I can't get past the abstract. Is this something I am supposed to be signed in to in order to be able to use it? Perhaps you might download it and email it to me? Thanks. Email is
ingram AT cfw DOT com
Is that the one with a split bubble for the vertical angle?
Yes - very similar to Wild.
It certainly looks like the wild right down to the can you carry it in. I didn't see the split-bubble from this angle. I wonder if it's possible that "Gurly" could have spec'ed it out and contracted Wild to manufacture it for them and put their name on it. You certainly see that kind of thing these days with different manufacturers.
Thank you - that's a great find!
I don't think there's anything except the abstract on the web. Clicking on the other links takes me to a page with a not found message. Probably have to find the journal in a bricks and mortar library or contact the AGU for a copy.
Did you notice the author is the same name, Harold Larsen, as one of the patent holders mentioned in the post below? Patent is assigned to Gurley. Even though Switzerland was neutral during WWII, exports had to go through territory controlled by Germany. There was probably a real fear this type of instrument was not going to be available if the war continued so there was a push to make an equivalent product in the U.S. Zeiss was also making theodolites by this time too but we surely weren't going to get them from Nazi Germany. Don't know what Japan was doing but there were surveying instrument manufacturers there too, Sokkisha and Topcon (Tokyo Optical Corp) were both established prior to WWII.
There was a show on PBS a few years back about the role aerial photography and photogrammetry played in WWII. The "key" according to show was the aerial photo analyzer it called the "Wild Machine" that was smuggled out of Switzerland.
Update
Thanks to help and information received here as well as additional information received from a "lurker", I now know a fair amount about this equipment.
During WWII the gov't was concerned about the lack of precision instruments from Europe (mainly Wild) and worked with K&E and Gurley to develope our own instruments so that we didn't have to rely on European sources. Gurley got to the point in their design and development that they made a prototype in 1944 (my instrument) and a contract to make up to 25 more.
Mine, according to an article I read, based on the serial number, was made with steel circles rather than glass circles because neither Gurley, K&E, or the government could figure out how to make glass circles. They eventually figured out how to do it but the final conclusion was that the Gurley 1 second gun was not good enough and after the war Wild was accepted as the standard.
The history involved here makes the history of Wild all the more impressive because they perfected glass circles early on and we were not able to catch up even with a major effort backed by the government during the war. We could make the a-bomb, but not glass circles. Amazing.
I think maybe I should get together with Mr. Penry and do an article.
Update
> I think maybe I should get together with Mr. Penry and do an article.
:good:
Update
:good:
Update
:good: