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Lot 383
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Director of West Point Explains Gyroscopes, Important Manuscript
Director of West Point Explains Gyroscopes, Important Manuscript
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Description:

Director of West Point Explains Gyroscopes, Important Manuscript

New York City publisher David Van Nostrand (1811-1886) reprinted this series of articles by Major John G. Barnard of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a pamphlet in 1858. They had initially appeared in successive issues of the semi-annual Barnard's American Journal of Education in 1857 and 1858. Educator and reformer Henry Barnard (1811-1900) edited and published the journal from 1855 to 1881.

In the 1870s, Barnard authored more than ninety scientific and other articles for Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia, for which Barnard served as an associate editor. Among the entries he prepared for that publication was "Gyroscope."

JOHN G. BARNARD, Printed Document with Handwritten Annotations, Major J. G. Barnard, The Phenomena of the Gyroscope, Analytically Examined with Two Supplements, on The Effects of Initial Gyratory Velocities, and of Retarding Forces on the Motion of the Gyroscope. New York: D. Van Nostrand; Hartford: F. C. Brownell, 1858. 44 pp. +7 pp. of handwritten notes in Barnard's hand; bound in leather with ribbon marker, 5.75" x 9". Spine and boards rubbed; interior toned; scattered foxing.

Excerpts
"No physical phenomenon has ever more highly excited the curiosity of the public generally than that exhibited by the simple instrument known as the 'Gyroscope.' None, based so directly upon the very fundamental laws of mechanics (viz., those which refer to inertia, and to gravitation,) seems, at first sight, to exhibit so utter a violation of them."

"To exhibit the perfect harmony of the phenomenon with laws universally known and understood (so far as the primal laws of matter can be understood) has been the governing idea in my mind in preparing these pages; and auxiliary to this, I desired to set at rest a vexed question, and, while correcting the numerous errors which had been circulated in popular and even scientific journals, to place the analysis of the problem in such a form that all who had so much knowledge of mechanics as may be derived from text-books, could follow it."

"The analysis I shall present, so far as determining the equations of motion is concerned, is mainly derived from the works of [French mathematician and physicist Siméon Denis] Poisson.... Following his steps and arriving at his analytical results, I propose to develop fully their meaning, and to show that they are expressions not merely of a visible phenomenon, but that they contain within themselves the sole clue to its explanation: while they dispel all that is mysterious or paradoxical, and, in reducing it to merely a 'particular case' of the laws of 'rotary motion,' throw much light upon the significance and working of those laws."

"Here then is the result, analytically found, which so surprises the observer, and for which an explanation has been so much sought and so variously given. The revolving body, though solicited by gravity, does not visibly fall."

"If I have been at all successful in making this so often explained subject more intelligible—in giving clearer views of some of the supposed effects of rotation, it has been because I have trusted solely on the only safe guide in the complicated phenomena of nature, analysis."

Historical Background
A gyroscope is essentially a top combined with a pair of gimbals. Although an English ship's captain developed something similar to a gyroscope in 1743, German astronomer Johann Bohnenberger made the first instrument like an actual gyroscope in 1810. Twenty-two years later, American Walter R. Johnson developed a similar device based on a rotating disc. In 1852, French physicist Léon Foucault refined the design as a follow-up experiment to his famed Foucault pendulum to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. He also gave the device its modern name. His gyroscope was able to spin for 8 to 10 minutes before friction slowed the spinning rotor.

In the 1860s, the addition of electric motors to gyroscopes allowed them to spin indefinitely, which led to heading indicators and the gyrocompass for navigation in naval vessels. In 1904, German inventor Hermann Anschütz-Kaempfe and American inventor Elmer Sperry independently developed functional gyrocompasses. Founded in 1910, the Sperry Gyroscope Company manufactured navigational and stabilizer equipment for aircraft and ships.

John G. Barnard (1815-1882) was born in Massachusetts into a large family. His brother Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard was president of Columbia University and the namesake of Barnard College in New York City. John G. Barnard graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1833 and became a 2nd lieutenant with the Army Corps of Engineers, with which he would serve for forty-eight years. He worked with Colonel Joseph G. Totten in the construction of Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island, the first of many fortifications which Barnard helped construct throughout his career. During the Mexican War, he supervised the construction of defensive fortifications at the port of Tampico from which supplies flowed to the American army advancing on Mexico City. From May 1855 to September 1856, Barnard succeeded Robert E. Lee as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy. At the beginning of the Civil War, he served as chief engineer in the creation of fortifications around Washington, D.C., and in northern Virginia. From August 1861 to August 1862, he was an engineer for the Army of the Potomac and constructed fortifications during the Peninsula Campaign, before returning to the Washington defenses as chief engineer until May 1864. He joined General Ulysses S. Grant's staff during the siege of Petersburg until April 1865. He mustered out of the volunteer army with the rank of brevet major general in January 1866. In May 1866, he received the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general in the regular army for his wartime services. He received a promotion to colonel in the regular army in December 1865 and continued his career in the Army Corps of Engineers until January 1881, when he retired from active service. Throughout his career, he wrote several scientific and engineering treatises. He was also one of the incorporators of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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