The sextant has a black-lacquered brass frame, a wooden handle, and a tube on the back of the frame for placing the instrument in a stand. The double-ended tangent screw is positioned on front of the index arm and the clamping screw is on the back. The sextant has three index shades, in red, green, orange, and two orange horizon shades on the outside of the artificial horizon. Index and horizon glass adjustment is made by square-headed screws and a detached key. The horizon glass is large with a circular opening in the centre of the silvering.

Attached to the sextant is a single lens magnifier on a 70mm swivelling arm with a frosted glass shade. There is also a threaded telescope bracket which is non-adjustable. The telescope is 10 mm in length with an erect image and a wide objective lens (star finder). This is perhaps not original to this instrument. The adjusting key and box are missing.

The artificial horizon consists of an airtight housing containing a gyroscope that can be locked with a lever mechanism. The gyroscope has a glass through the body, with a series of horizontal lines, and is propelled by an air pump, which is now missing. The air gauge is calibrated from 0-76cm of mercury.

The instrument has a polished brass limb with inlaid silver scale from -5° to 130° by 20 arcminutes, measuring to 108°. The sextant has a silver vernier measuring to 10 arcseconds, with zero at the right.

Admiral Georges Ernest Fleuriais (1840-95) first patented this artificial horizon in 1886. An earlier version in the collection is ACO1514.