The Tools of Science 



D 



Philosophical and Practical Instruments 



EVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENCES in the American Colonies was 

 critically dependent upon the available tools — scientific instru- 

 ments — and the men who made and used them. These tools may 

 be separated into two groups. The first group consists of philo- 

 sophical instruments and scientific teaching apparatus produced 

 and employed for experimentation and teaching in educational 

 institutions. The second includes the so-called "mathematical 

 instruments" of practical use, which were employed by mathe- 

 matical practitioners and laymen alike for the mensural and nau- 

 tical needs of the Colonies. It is particularly with this second 

 group that the present study is concerned. 



It has been generally assumed that scientific instruments, as well 

 as the instrument makers, of the first two centuries of American 

 colonization were imported from England, and that the movement 

 declined by the beginning of the 19th century with the development 

 of skilled native craftsmen.^ This assumption is basically true for 

 those instruments grouped under philosophical and scientific appa- 

 ratus for experimentation and teaching. Almost all of these items 

 were in fact imported from England and France until well into the 

 19th century. 



Likewise, the very earliest examples of mathematical instruments 

 for surveying and navigation in the Colonies were imported with 

 the settlers from England. It was not long after the establishment 

 of the first settlements, however, that the settlers, and later the 

 first generation of native Americans, began to produce their own 

 instruments. Records derived from historical archives and from 

 the instruments themselves reveal that a considerable number of 

 the instruments available and used in the Colonies before 1800 

 were of native production. Apparently, relatively few instrument 

 makers immigrated to the American continent before the end of the 



^ Derek J. de Solla Price, Science Since Babylon (New Haven: Yale Uni- 

 versity Press, 1961), pp. 62-64. 



