Object Details
- Description
- This modification of the Fteley-Stearns meter is marked “BUFF & BERGER / BOSTON” and thus was made between 1871 and 1898. The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals in Lowell, Mass., donated it to the Smithsonian in 1956.
- This was probably designed by Arthur T. Safford, a hydraulic engineer who was associated with the Locks and Canals for over fifty years. Safford’s modification of the Fteley-Stearns meter, available by 1911, had fewer vanes than the original (five rather eight), a larger rotor (5 inches diameter rather than 3.5-inch), and a somewhat heavier frame. This example has six vanes, a 5-inch diameter rotor, and a heavier frame. A paper in the box shows that it was rated in 1911.
- Ref: Hector Hughes and Arthur T. Safford, A Treatise on Hydraulics (New York, 1911), pp. 254-257.
- Arthur H. Frazier, Water Current Meters in the Smithsonian Collections of the National Museum of History and Technology (Washington, D.C., 1974), p. 60.
- “Arthur T. Safford,” Boston Globe (April 4, 1951), p. 25.
- "Arthur Truman Safford," Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers 38-39 (1951).
- Hunter Rouse, Hydraulics in the United States, 1776-1976 (Institute of Hydraulic Research).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- inventor
- Safford, Arthur T.
- maker
- Buff & Berger
- date made
- 1871-1898
- Credit Line
- Proprietors of the Locks and Canals
- Measurements
- overall: 5 in; 12.7 cm
- overall: 11 1/2 in x 10 in x 7 3/8 in; 29.21 cm x 25.4 cm x 18.7325 cm
- Object Name
- water current meter
