Titchener's Photo Album - continued...

G. Hasler, Berne, Switzerland

Gustav Adolf Hasler (1830-1900) was a Swiss Feinmechaniker who entered the Federal Telegraph Factory in Bern in 1855 as an assistant to the director of that institution, Matthäus Hipp (1813-1893). In the early 1860s, Hipp left the Federal Telegraph Factory and moved to Neuchâtel to found his own, private telegraphy factory. Shortly later, Hasler succeded Hipp as head of the Federal Telegraph Factory in Berne. Already during the 1850s, this factory did not only produce telegraphy equipment, but offered a wide range of scientific instruments, among them the famous Hipp chronoscope. Hasler pursued this policy. In 1861 he started the production of meteorological instruments according to Heinrich Wild (1833-1902), professor of physics in Berne and director of the Berne observatory.

Hasler's model of Du Bois-Reymond's Inductorium

In 1864 the Federal Telegraph Factory was privatized and re-emerged as the firm "Hasler & Escher". In the late 1870s, this factory ventured into the production of telephones – a branch that proved to be very successful in the following years. In 1879, Hasler's partner, A. Escher, died and the firm became Hasler's own property. With support form his son, Gustav Hasler (1877-1952), the Hasler factory expanded rapidly so that in 1909 it organized itself as a society of stock holders. In 1927, Gustav Hasler founded the FAVAG in Neuchâtel in order to incorporate the bankrupt firm Favager & Co., which under the former name of "Peyer & Favager" had been the successor of Hipp's private telegraphy factory (for catalogs of Hipp and Peyer & Favager, see, e.g., Prix-courant Illustré de la Fabrique de Télégraphes et appareils électriques à Neuchâtel , 1869, and Prix-Courant de la Fabrique de Télégraphes & Appareils électriques. Fondée par M. Hipp, en 1860. Peyer, Favarger & Compagnie, Catalogue B: Appareils scientifiques, 1902)

Titchener's album includes the following blueprint photographs of Hasler instruments:

• Inductorium (see also above),
• Electromagnetic time marker for a kymograph using Marey's tambours

Max Kohl, Chemnitz, Germany

Kohl was a major manufacturer and seller of instruments and his catalogues were well illustrated (see Kohl's price list No. 100, vol. I: Unterrichts- und Laboratorien-Möbel für physikalische, chemische und biologische Lehrräume und Laboratorien, vol. II: Physikalische Apparate aus den Gebieten der Mechanik fester, flüssiger und gasförmiger Körper, der Wellenlehre, Akustik und Optik, vol. III: Physikalische Apparate aus den Gebieten der Wärme, Metereologie, Kosmologie, des Magnetismus und der Elektrizität).

Front page of Kohl's catalog, showing his factory at Chemnitz (Germany)

Titchener included one illustration apparently sent to him from Kohl in his album. It shows a Stern tonvariator with wind chest.

Unknown

The following devices and their descriptions bear no indication of the maker:

• 2 Hipp Chronoscopes (first , second)
• Kymograph (left)
• Complication instrument
• Bergstrom's pendulum chronoscope
• Wundt's control hammer to calibrate a Hipp chronoscope

The author wishes to thank Dr. Henning Schmidgen for his help in supplying information about some of the instrument makers and in editing the piece for this form of presentation.

Rand B. Evans is professor at the Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, USA