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This cold steel scale (pictured here in its fitted case with a Bryson thermometer) was made in 1868, probably by L. Casella, a scientific instrument maker based in London. The scale measures six British inches.

The scale is engraved 'STANDARD SCALE OF BRITISH INCHES/at temp 68 degrees Faht./L. Casella. fecit. London. 1868. No. 9/MATERIAL=Cast-steel cut cold from the bar,/heated, hardened, and planed down to this size.'

This is another of the instruments specially-commissioned by C. Piazzi Smyth in connection with his voyage to Egypt where he and his wife Jessica spent four months in 1865 measuring the dimensions of the Great Pyramid at Gizeh in an attempt to discover whether there was a unit of length used by the constructors.

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• Online ID: 000-190-004-746-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  T.1962.107
• Date: 1868
  
• Material: Cast steel
  Standard scale / case / thermometer
  
• Dimensions: 7.00" x 3.50" x 0.50"; case 15.50" x 8.50" x 2.75"
  
• What: Standard scale / case / thermometer
  
• Subject: 19. MATHEMATICS (Departmental Classification)
  
• Who: Bryson (Eponym)
  C. Piazzi Smyth (User)
  Casella, London (Scale maker)
  
• Where: Ancient Egypt, Great Pyramid
  England, London
  
• Event:
• Description: One of a set of metrological instruments used by C. Piazzi Smyth at the Great Pyramid - a standard scale of 6 British inches by Casella, engraved cast steel, in a case with a Bryson thermometer, 1868
  
• References:
  • C. Piazzi Smyth, Life and Work at the Great Pyramid, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1867. 
  • C. Piazzi Smyth, Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid, 4th edition London, 1880, esp. ch. 14, 'Linear and surface measure', pp 290-304. 
  • H.A. Bruck and M.T. Bruck, The Peripatetic Astronomer: the Life of Charles Piazzi Smyth. Bristol, Adam Hilger, 1988, esp. chs. 6 and 7, pp 95-134. 
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