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Re: Troughton device c.1800
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2023 Sep 16, 06:35 -0700
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2023 Sep 16, 06:35 -0700
David C, you wrote:
"After further thought the curved plate may represent the arc of a sextant. The object is a test piece to determine the accuracy of a sextant mechanism and vernier."
Yes, I agree that this is a worthy possibility. :) Something else that I've been considering: maybe it's educational? Troughton had the tooling to make something like this easily enough, so it wouldn't have been a stretch to produce a device that isn't exactly practical... But there are still lots of options, many avenues of speculation open, and it could be something blatantly practical, and I'm just not seeing it!
Frank Reed