Open rectangular frame with wooden handle. Telescope sight. Horizontal glass. Mirror on a pivoting arm. Coarse adjustment drum moves along a screw for close range adjustment. Arm calibrated 50-200 feet every 1 foot with fine adjustment drum divided 200-10000 infinite yards. Index on drum lit by light bulb. Hinged reading lens. Serial number 35794. Edge incised "U.S. NAVY NO. 866."
The stadimeter was a distance measuring device that worked on a principle similar to the sextant. It was limited to small angular separations, and its readout was given in terms of feet rather than degree. To use it, the sailor set the size of a known object--e.g. the height of a ship in his convoy--on one scale. He then turned a micrometer drum until the image of this target was brought into coincidence with another, thereby giving him the distance between them.
