Images

Manufactured by Buff & Buff, Boston, Massachusetts, serial #12759. Both George Buff and Christian Louis Berger immigrated to this country and became partners of Buff & Berger in the 1870s. The partnership was dissolved in 1898, at which time Berger organized C.L. Berger & Sons, a noted manufacturer of surveying equipment.

The cardinal points are lettered N, W, S and E, graduated to degrees and numbered every ten degrees to 360. The connecting sights fold away for storage. Manufactured by Keuffel & Esser, New York.
Object ID: USGS-000162

Named for co-inventors Ed Helley and Winchell Smith; built in the 1960s by Vigus and Lyle, machinists in the Geology Department of the University of California, Berkeley. This sampler was first used in California and later at several locations around the country.

Manufactured by American Instrument Company. Survey instrument to take measurements from the Sun.
Object ID: USGS-000471

Post WWII instrument manufactured by Zeiss/Keuffel & Esser (K+E), New York and New Jersey.
Luna Leopold was the Director of the Water Resource Discipline at the USGS.
Object ID: USGS-000495

Manufactured by American Instrument Company. Survey instrument to take measurements from the Sun.
Object ID: USGS-000471

The USGS gage house for measuring streamflow on Deep River near Upham, North Dakota.

The storage case has a sliding lid. The compass is marked Troughton & Simms Ltd, London, 1916, No.9214. A trough compass is used with either a plane table or a theodolite. The needle is a long magnetized bar of steel which is pointed at both ends.
Object ID: USGS-000824

NetQuakes strong-motion instruments enable seismologists to collect extensive data in urban areas where installing traditional seismographs is not practical.  This instrument (in blue, to the right of the upended chairs) takes up very little space in a San Francisco Bay Area resident's garage.

Drawing board with mount for a tripod. Used in field survey work. This is a particularly fine example in pristine condition.
Object ID: USGS-Temp47

Bow Compass with Case. Also known as a Drop Bow Pen or Spring Bow, serial #760 C. This instrument was made by Eugene Dietzgen & Company, Chicago and New York and used by the U.S. Geological Survey Topographic Branch after 1945-1960s.
Object ID: USGS-000645

The cardinal points are lettered N, W, S and E, graduated to degrees and numbered every ten degrees to 360. The connecting sights fold away for storage. Manufactured by Keuffel & Esser, New York.
Object ID: USGS-000162

This drum recorder with a weekly paper chart was used to record the levels of water in ground water wells.
Object ID: USGS-000452

Developed in the early 1900s and modified many times prior to 1930. Purchased from the W. & L. E. Gurley Company, Troy, New York.
Object ID: USGS-000458

Drawing board with mount for a tripod. Used in field survey work. This is a particularly fine example in pristine condition.
Object ID: USGS-Temp47

Drawing board with mount for a tripod. Used in field survey work. This is a particularly fine example in pristine condition.
Object ID: USGS-Temp47

Manufactured by American Instrument Company. Survey instrument to take measurements from the Sun.
Object ID: USGS-000471

Manufactured by C.L. Berger & Sons, Boston, Massachusetts, serial #27124. The company was founded by Christian Louis Berger (1842-1922) who was born at Stuttgart, Germany and moved to Boston in 1866. In 1871 he joined with George Louis Buff, and began trading as Buff & Berger.

Manufactured by Precision Radiation Instruments, Los Angeles, California, 1950s. The instrument was used in the Rocky Mountain States, as well as by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey in the 1960s.
Object ID: USGS-000667

Manufactured by Precision Radiation Instruments, Los Angeles, California, 1950s. The instrument was used in the Rocky Mountain States, as well as by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey in the 1960s.
Object ID: USGS-000667

The pointer is a souvenir from the Third Pan-Pacific Science Congress held in Tokyo in 1926. A prominent geologist, Noble (1882-1965) spent his entire career with the U.S. Geological Survey.