Surveying and Navigation January 24, 2010

Several compasses and telescopes are held in this collection as well as other items used to aide navigation. Interesting items in this collection include a French-made light house lens that was used at South Pass at the mouth of the Mississippi River from the 1890s until the 1920s; a transit used by Louis Pilie, surveyor of the City of New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth century; drafting tools of General G. T. Beauregard; and a terrestrial telescope used by Judge A. G. Brice to gaze at ships coming up the Mississippi River.