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probably made in London

Postcard of Scale.
000-190-004-746-C
© National Museums Scotland

Scale

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.


Record details

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Online ID: 000-190-004-746-C
Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
Project: 0098: National Museums Scotland
Project description | View all records in project
Ref: National Museums Scotland  T.1962.107
Date: 1868
Material: Cast steel
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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