Trippensee Planetarium Company, A School Tellurium, Detroit, Michigan. ca. 1830’s

Trippensee Planetarium Company
A School Tellurium

The tellurium based around a turned wooden pilk, surmounted by an inch brass ball (representing the sun), with a small plaster planet (Mars) on a wire. Extending out from the pillar, an arm with metal tag with maker’s name. At the end of the arm is a 3-inch Rand McNally globe, and plaster moon ball, the planets all connected by chain gearing so that as the arm moves the planets rotate.

Detroit, Michigan. ca. 1830’s
Height 14 in.; Length 21 in.

An attractive American school tellurium built to show the relative movements of the inner planets around the sun. Before World War II, most classrooms had similar models to educate.