"Astronomical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dublin in 1710, and in 1712 visited England. He was befriended by the Duke of Marlborough at Antwerp, and in 1714 was sent by the Duke on a mission to the Court of Hanover. He held office under George I., but devoted most of his attention to astronomical research, until ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... interesting nor beautiful, and we did not visit it further than to inspect the ancient observatory built by Jey Singh, with its huge sundial, whose gnomon stands 80 feet above the ground! What we are pleased to call a superstitious attention to times lucky or unlucky has given to astronomical observations in the East an unscientific importance which they have not had for centuries in Europe.[3] A slight attack of fever prevented me from going to Amber; so I stayed at home, peacefully ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... heliocentric system, which Copernicus, still hampered by tradition, did not quite reach. He was hardly a practical astronomer in the observational sense. His first recorded observation, of an occultation of Aldebaran, was made in 1497, and he is not known to have made as many as fifty astronomical observations, while, of the few he did make and use, at least one was more than half a degree in error, which would have been intolerable to such an observer as Hipparchus. Copernicus in fact seems to have considered accurate observations unattainable with ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... hundreds of yards in the sun. Bandanna handkerchiefs flutter on bushes. Toilet soap, boots, and bear-traps are at our feet. The Fire-Ranger of the district, Mr. Biggs, has his barley and rice spread out on sheeting, and, turning it over, says bravely, "I think it will dry." Mathematical and astronomical instruments consigned to a scientist on the Arctic edge are shaken off centre and already have begun to rust, and there are miles and miles of cordage and nets, with braids and sewing ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... busy people who care very little for ancestral crazes. Latin they have heard of, and some of them know it as a good sort of industrious language, that even, in modern times, has turned out many useful books, astronomical, medical, philosophical, and (as Mrs. Malaprop observes) diabolical; but, as to Greek, they think of it as of an ancient mummy: you spend an infinity of time in unswathing it from its old dusty wrappers, and, when you have come to the end, what do you find for your ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... and clear-headed of such foreign guests was Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain, but at the time of his American tour a young man of twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97 gave him a wide experience of stage, flatboat, and pack-horse travel, and his genial disposition, his observant eye, and his discriminating criticism, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... extent of the mountain region can be measured in linear and square miles; it can be bounded roughly by the Pacific Ocean and the fountains of the great rivers which course through the Mississippi valley; it can be placed before the eye in an astronomical position between such and such latitudes and longitudes, but such descriptions convey to the mind only an idea which is quite vague and general. When we say that one hundred and fifty states like Connecticut, or twenty states like New York or Illinois, spread over ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... he made a verse translation of the astronomical poems of Aratus, ad Att. ii. 1, 2, 'Prognostica mea ... propediem exspecta.' Quotations are given in De ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... that inhabited this continent a couple of thousand years ago were apparently quite unconcerned with what went on in Europe or Asia, say, in the domain of mathematical and astronomical knowledge. But the ultimate effect of that knowledge on navigation and discovery was destined to affect them—and us—profoundly. But the reaction of European thought upon this continent, which originally required twenty, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... dim, cool, shedding little warmth on its many planets. Gresth Gkae, leader of the Mirans, was seeking a better star, one to which his "people" could migrate. That star had to be steady, reliable, with a good planetary system. And in his astronomical searching, ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... antiquity contained in the museums of Mexico, and scattered about in the archaeological collections of Europe and America. The celebrated calendar stone found buried in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico, and now preserved in that city, demonstrates the astronomical advancement of the Aztecs in an incontrovertible manner, and that monument alone ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... and that he established his observatory on the frosty Caucasus. But, even admitting this, why did Prometheus give the stars animal names? Goguet easily explains this by a hypothetical account of the manners of primitive men. 'The earliest peoples,' he says, 'must have used writing for purposes of astronomical science. They would be content to design the constellations of which they wished to speak by the hieroglyphical symbols of their names; hence the constellations have insensibly taken the names of the chief symbols.' Thus, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... his life was a pure Stoic and the purest of Stoics, polishing the lenses of astronomical telescopes in order to gain his living, refusing all pensions and all the professorial positions offered to him, and living well-nigh on nothing, had read Descartes and, to conform to the principle of evidence, ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... toiling night and day the Pyramids were in the course of years raised above the caverns which concealed Egypt's mysteries. Everything was gradually accumulated in these underground store-houses,—the engraved talismans, the slabs of stone on which were deeply carved the geometrical and astronomical sciences; indestructible glass chests containing papyri, on which were written the various discoveries made in beneficial drugs, swift poisons, and other medicines. And among these many things were thirty great jars full of precious stones, ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... senses and to the soul. For the eternal tendencies of all toward happiness make the only point of sane philosophy. Whatever comprehends less than that ... whatever is less than the laws of light and of astronomical motion ... or less than the laws that follow the thief the liar the glutton and the drunkard through this life and doubtless afterward ... or less than vast stretches of time or the slow formation of density or the patient upheaving of strata—is of no ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Diodorus, "consider themselves as the most ancient people of the earth, and assert, that with them originated philosophy and the science of the stars. Their situation, it is true, is infinitely favorable to astronomical observation, and they have a more accurate division of time into mouths and ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... electro-magnetism upon all the circling planets; that solar crater which we now know was, when at its maximum, all of one hundred and fifty thousand miles across; the great sun spot of the summer of 1919—the most enormous ever recorded by astronomical science. ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... sides of its glowing red core. This mammoth star did not look so cold now, as they stared at it in the viewscreen, yet among the family of stars it was a cold, dying giant with only a few moments of life left on the astronomical time scale. From the Lancet's position, no planets at all were visible to the naked eye, but with the telescope Jack soon found two inside the star's envelope of gas and one tiny one outside. They would ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... sciences a construction of the creative reason. From the initiative of scientific astronomy, when the early Greek geometers referred the apparent diurnal movements to geometrical laws, to the creation of the nebular hypothesis, the logical filiation of the leading astronomical conceptions obeys corresponding tidal movements in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... The existence of this astronomical or astrological scheme on which Berossus founded his chronology, was pointed out by Brandis, afterwards by Gutschmid; it is now ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his predecessors." Not only indeed did Bacon fail to anticipate the methods of modern science, but he even rejected the great scientific discoveries of his own day. He set aside with the same scorn the astronomical theory of Copernicus and the magnetic investigations of Gilbert. The contempt seems to have been fully returned by the scientific workers of his day. "The Lord Chancellor wrote on science," said Harvey, ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... some cases it is the traditional original home of the tribe;[129] more often, it would seem, some local or astronomical fact has given the suggestion of the place; one Egyptian view was that the western desert (a wide mysterious region) was the abode of the departed; it was a widespread belief that the dead went to where the sun disappeared beneath the horizon.[130] Tribes ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... criticisms of theology. At this time Galileo could not see that the extravagant words of Bruno were largely forced from him by the violence of the opposition he had encountered. Galileo fully believed that Bruno had been put to death for treason to the Church, and not on account of his astronomical teachings. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set their instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area. But Father Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them useless for astronomical observation, persuaded the Emperor to let them be removed, to make way for several instruments of his own construction. The instruments set aside by the European astronomers are still in a hall adjoining the tower, buried in dust and oblivion; and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... with me, have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was when they hear of his rising so early, and especially when I assure them that he gives light as soon as he rises. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact. One cannot ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Stanford University at Palo Alto; the Spring Valley lakes; La Honda; Del Monte, Carmel and historic Monterey; Santa Cruz and the Big Trees; Santa Rosa, home of Luther Burbank; Saratoga in blossom time; the Petrified Forest; the Geysers; Mare Island Navy Yard; the Lick Astronomical Observatory on Mt. Hamilton; the great Sierra Nevada Range; Mount Whitney and snow-capped Shasta; the Yosemite, Sequoia and General Grant National Parks; Lake Tahoe; Mt. Lassen and the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Information booths ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... kind is of them that deal with matter philosophical; either moral, as Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, Cato, or, natural, as Lucretius, Virgil's Georgics; or astronomical, as Manilius {19} and Pontanus; or historical, as Lucan; which who mislike, the fault is in their judgment, quite out of taste, and not in the sweet food ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... strata, upper, middle, and low. The first class ranks as a sort of nobility and until recent times had slaves, who were kindly treated. The members of the second class have less property, but they are active in blacksmithing, making prahus, determining the seasons by astronomical observations, etc. These well-bred Dayaks are truthful and do not steal. In their conception a thief will have to carry around the stolen goods on his head or back in the next life, forever exposed to scorn and ridicule. Third-class people are descendants of slaves and, according ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... the lunar wonders. It lifts its giant ramparts to upwards of 12,000 feet above the level of the lunar surface. Being quite visible from the Earth and well situated for observation, it is a favorite object for astronomical study; this is particularly the case during the phase existing between Last Quarter and the New Moon, when its vast shadows, projected boldly from the east towards the west, allow its prodigious dimensions ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... had subsided; the wind remained unfavourable, but was mild. The captain now tried to find our bearings by means of his astronomical instruments. He complained of the sky, which had been overcast so many days, swore that he would give much for a single glimpse of the sun or the stars, and did not conceal the uneasiness he felt at not being able to indicate our whereabouts with certainty. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... has this year illustrated his march, or object-glass, with a host of images or spectra—that is, woodcuts of head and tail pieces—to suit all tastes—from the mouldering cloister of other days to the last balloon ascent. The Notices of Saints' Days and Holidays, Chronology and Biography, Astronomical and Naturalist's Notices, are edited with more than usual industry; and the poetry, original and selected, is for the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... to various errors. Thus, for example, since from our earliest years we imagined the stars to be of very small size, we find it highly difficult to rid ourselves of this imagination, although assured by plain astronomical reasons that they are of the greatest,—so prevailing is the ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... Newland declared that the curious astronomical phenomena of the previous November—the new "stars" observed, the two meteors that had fallen with their red and green light-fire—were all evidence of the existence of intelligent life on ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... was the private study of Dr. William Kinney. In itself, it was not at all out of the ordinary. Shelves of books, cases of surgical and psychological instruments, star charts, maps and astronomical apparatus—these told at once both the man's vocation and avocation. With these contents and rather severe furnishings the room was ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... John River in the vicinity of the Grand Falls, being a distance of 81 miles from the monument. The timber has been removed along this line to a width necessary for its accurate prolongation and for the requisite astronomical observations at various points upon it, and a correct profile, or vertical section, has also been obtained by means of the spirit level the whole of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... educational centre. The University of Cincinnati, originally endowed by Charles M'Micken (d. 1858) and opened in 1873, occupies a number of handsome buildings erected since 1895 on a campus of 43 acres in Burnet Woods Park, has an astronomical observatory on the highest point of Mt. Lookout, and is the only strictly municipal university in the United States. The institution embraces a college of liberal arts, a college of engineering, a college of law (united in 1897 with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... be, the position of the planets could be calculated with moderate certainty by them. The very first result of the science, in its most imperfect stage, was a power of foresight; and this was possible before any one true astronomical law ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Newton as a mathematician, and thousands insist that he was his superior; yet he was not a Christian. Euclid, if I remember right, was not a Christian, and yet he had quite a turn for mathematics. As a matter of fact, Christianity got its idea of algebra from the Mohammedans, and, without algebra, astronomical knowledge of to-day would have been impossible. Christianity did not even invent figures. We got those from the Arabs. The very word "algebra" is Arabic. The decimal system, I believe, however, was due to ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... and was glad to think that no one had seen that conference but myself. Such a conjunction of planets prefigured, however, not merely warm spring weather, but sultry gloom, and thunderous clouds to follow; and although I was delighted with my astronomical observation, I could not help growing anxious about ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... shoals, the sunken rocks and dangerous quicksands, and he accompanied his work with various maps and charts, both general and special, of land and water, rarely delineated before his day, as well as by various astronomical and mathematical calculations. Already a countryman of his own, Wagenaar of Zeeland, had laid the mariners of the world under special obligation by a manual which came into such universal use that for centuries afterwards the sailors of England and of other countries called ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... case, the astronomical almanac data in the computer's memory should be more than sufficiently precise for your needs." There was a dry chuckle. ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... enjoining the examiners to give fair awards and to maintain the purity of the service. But several examiners had to be executed and others banished beyond the Wall before matters were placed on a satisfactory basis. He also adopted the astronomical system in force in Europe, and he appointed the priest Adam Schaal head of the Mathematical Board at Pekin. But his most important work was the institution of the Grand Council, which still exists, and which ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... below the Seraphic Dignity; for these are some of the things which the Angels desire to look into, to take a flight thro' all the amazing Systems of the fix'd Suns or Stars, which we see now but at a Distance, and only make Astronomical ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... hazy; and this is caused by the falling of impalpably fine dust, which was found to have slightly injured the astronomical instruments. The morning before we anchored at Porto Praya, I collected a little packet of this brown-coloured fine dust, which appeared to have been filtered from the wind by the gauze of the vane at the mast-head. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... not at all like her usual way, that they were a parcel of malicious young savages, and turned the whole respected body out of the room. Consequently it was entered in the Society's book (kept in astronomical cypher for fear of detection), that all communication with Jane was interdicted: and the President addressed the members on this convincing instance of Old ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... Nile was three hundred and thirty feet long, and was fitted with state rooms and private rooms of considerable size. Another vessel contained, besides the ordinary cabins, large bath-rooms, a library, and an astronomical observatory. It had eight towers, in which there were machines capable of hurling stones weighing three hundred pounds or more, and arrows eighteen feet in length. These huge vessels were built some two centuries before ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... measure of prices with the same universality of application and the same unchangeableness as the measure of length, which is determined by astronomical calculation, we should be able, not only to clearly understand all the data relating to value, that is to say, a not unimportant portion of historical science, but we should, moreover, have a practical means to condition and fix even perpetual annuities, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... leaves of the tobacco-plant. He also became an expert in the art of making candles, and took active part in the other small industries carried on in that frugal and industrious household, and the evenings were spent in poring over maps, geographical and astronomical, which his host happened to possess. Many were the questions put to him, and long the discussions about worlds and suns and planets, while the busy fingers plied and rolled tobacco leaves, but these discussions generally ended ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... structure possesses the newest and most complete astronomical and meteorological instruments, and the accuracy of the scientific results arrived at by the Fathers, has become justly celebrated. They received a manifestation of merit from the Centennial Exposition of '76, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... was. I had noticed that there was no ceremonious changing of bed linen under such circumstances, so I had learned to nip all fastidious notions of individual cleanliness in the bud, and to accept the inevitable. When the time arrived for retiring, the Governor and the brothers went out to make astronomical observations or smoke, as the case might be, while the sisters and I made our evening toilet, and disposed ourselves in the allotted corners. That done, the stalwart sons of Adam made their beds with skins and blankets on the floor. When all was still and ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... to a possible escape from the grimness of the planet's dissolution has been followed up with careful search. The discovery of radioactivity seemed to promise endlessly extended life to our sun, but Sir E. Rutherford, before the Royal Astronomical Society, has roundly denied that the discovery materially lengthens our estimate of the sun's tenure of life and has said that if the sun were made of uranium it would not because of that last five years the longer as a giver of heat.[14] Whether we will or ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... done at the Karlskrona naval dockyard, under the direction of Captain Palander. At the same time attention was given to the scientific equipment, principally in Stockholm, where a large number of instruments for physical, astronomical, and geological researches was obtained from the Royal ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... in the course of several months; his constitution was exhausted, and he was dying of remittent fever and debility. His chief regret was that he could not assist his friend Huertis in his researches and drawings, and determine the place of the city by astronomical observations which his friends were unable to take. The day before he died, he was visited by some of the medical priesthood, who, on seeing numerous light spots upon his skin, where the preparation with which he had stained it had disappeared, they pronounced ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... befall the church when a king should have a weakling for his heir and Wells should receive as its bishop a married man. These predictions were held to be fulfilled when Henry VIII., whose heir was Edward VI., nominated to the see Bishop Barlow. In N. transept note curious astronomical clock, which strikes the hours by a clumsy representation of a tournament. It was originally constructed for Glastonbury Abbey by P. Lightfoot, one of the monks. In S. transept note (1) vigorous grotesques on capitals, (2) font, perhaps ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him. To fill up the measure desired, he wanted nothing but a greater familiarity with the technical language of the natural sciences, and readiness in the astronomical observations necessary for the geography of his route. To acquire these he repaired immediately to Philadelphia, and placed himself under the tutorage of the distinguished professors of that place, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... only 1 p.m., I determined to halt for the remainder of the day, as it was too late to make an attempt to enter the hills without giving the horses the advantage of some hours' feed and rest. It also afforded me leisure to make astronomical observations and work up the plans of our route. A set of lunar distances, very carefully taken, placed the camp in longitude 121 degrees 3 minutes 30 seconds east, while that by account, carried on by triangulation ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... the construction of dials by means of his analemma, an instrument which solved a variety of astronomical problems. The constructions given by him were sufficient for regular dials, that is, horizontal dials, or vertical dials facing east, west, north or south, and these are the only ones he treats of. It is certain, however, that the ancients were able to construct declining ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... daybreak we sighted the mountains near Gondokoro, bearing due south. As yet I have seen no symptoms of hostility in this country. I cannot help, thinking that the conduct of the natives depends much upon that of the traveller. Arrived at Gondokoro. By astronomical observation I determined the latitude, 4 degrees 55 minutes North, Longitude 31 degrees 46 minutes East. Gondokoro is a great improvement upon the interminable marshes; the soil is firm and raised about twenty feet above ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... attentively, conceived the idea of applying it to the measurement of time. Fifty years of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed the invention of his Pendulum—the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overrated. In like manner, Galileo, having casually heard that one Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle-maker, had presented to Count Maurice of Nassau an instrument by means of which distant objects appeared nearer to the beholder, addressed ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... fall in so well with the dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we attribute this emotion to those ideas, and persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts. ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... the present, but in memory quite the reverse: the interval of dull and empty uniformity vanishes in a moment; while that which marks an abundance of varied impressions grows and widens in the same proportion. Our body is subjected to external astronomical time, because the organical operations are regulated by it; but our mind has its own ideal time, which is no other but the consciousness of the progressive development of our beings. In this measure of time ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... (I. 49.) tells, that in the tomb of Osymandyas (palace of Rameses II. at Thebes) there lay a circle of gold, one ell thick and 365 ells in circumference, containing a complete astronomical calendar. The circle of the zodiac from Dendera, which is now in Paris,—an astronomical ceiling painting, which was believed at the time of its discovery to be of great age, is not nearly so ancient as was supposed, dating ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... explodes with a sound resembling a miniature gun. Westwood mentions, on the authority of Burchell, that on one occasion, "whilst resting for the night on the banks of one of the large South American rivers, he went out with a lantern to make an astronomical observation, accompanied by one of his black servant boys; and as they were proceeding, their attention was directed to numerous beetles running about upon the shore, which, when captured, proved to be specimens of a large species of Brachinus. On being seized they immediately ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... meteorological and astronomical instruments—the thermometers of Baudin, Salleron, Fastre, an aneroid, a Fortin barometer, chronometers, a sextant, an astronomical spyglass, a compass glass.... In short, what Duveyrier calls the material that is simplest and easiest ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... means a screw five feet in length, and two inches in diameter, was cut with fifty threads to the inch; the nut to fit on to it being twelve inches long, and containing six hundred threads. This screw was principally used for dividing scales for astronomical purposes; and by its means divisions were produced so minute that they could not be detected without the aid of a magnifier. The screw, which was sent for exhibition to the Society of Arts, is still carefully preserved amongst the specimens of Maudslay's handicraft at the Lambeth Works, and is ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... winged inhabitant of some remote world felt the impulse to traverse space, and, with an astronomical map, to fly round our planetary system, he would at once recognize the earth by the odor of tobacco which it exhales, forasmuch as all known nations smoke the nicotian herb. And thousands and thousands of men, if compelled ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... if you'll sell." The man whipped out a signed, blank check, and quickly filled in astronomical figures. Denver looked at it, whistled, then doubted first his sanity, ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... opening address to the Belfast Nat. Hist. Soc., as given in the Belfast Northern Whig, Nov. 19, 1866. Mr. Murphy here follows the line of argument against my views previously and more cautiously given by the Rev. C. Pritchard, Pres. Royal Astronomical Soc., in his sermon (Appendix, p. 33) preached before the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... the sun and moon, the mean result of them gave 180 deg. 47' W. longitude; but, as all the observations made before exceeded these, I have laid down the coast from the mean of the whole. At noon, I took the sun's meridian altitude with an astronomical quadrant, which was set up at the watering-place, and found the latitude to be 38 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... of rivals. After completely planning his expedition, he made a dash for the Arctic Sea, by way of Mackenzie River, which he—first of white men—descended, and which bears his name. Finding his astronomical knowledge defective, he took a year off, and in his native land learned the use of the instruments needed in exploration. After his return he ascended the Peace River, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and on a rock on the shore of ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... this astronomer, who was a king,—Alphonsus of Portugal,—unable to unravel the loops of the planets, said, in his wrath, that if he had been called on by the Creator to assign the planets their paths, he would have managed the matter a great deal better. The plates of the old astronomical books became more and more confusing, and cost more and more labor, as ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... from my surveys of an area of twelve thousand five hundred square miles in Tibet proper. In Chapter VI. the altitudes of such high peaks in India as Nanda Devi and others are taken from the Trigonometrical Survey, and so are the positions fixed by astronomical observations of the starting and terminating points of my surveys at the places where I entered and ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... The astronomical location of the boundaries of the several States and Territories, as well as of the United States, is a duty frequently required of the engineer officer, and such a survey between this country and Mexico is now in progress. The entire line of the 49th parallel of latitude ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... one had so much as suspected its existence. The most sage and judicious were of opinion that it was a frantic rashness to dare so much as to imagine that it was possible to guess the laws by which the celestial bodies move and the manner how light acts. Galileo, by his astronomical discoveries, Kepler, by his calculation, Descartes (at least, in his dioptrics), and Sir Isaac Newton, in all his works, severally saw the mechanism of the springs of the world. The geometricians have subjected infinity to the laws of calculation. The circulation of the ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... The astronomical apparatus at this place is a splendid one; but the models of architecture, fortifications, &c. are only more numerous; not so exact or elegant I think as those the King of England has for his own private use at the Queen's house in St. James's Park. The specimens ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... politics had subsided, Carleton wrote a series of articles for an educational periodical, The Student and Schoolmate. Inspired by his attendance on the meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he penned a series of astronomical articles for The Congregationalist. He also attended the opening of the Grand Trunk railroad from Montreal to Toronto, celebrated by a grand jubilee at Montreal. During the winter, when Elihu Burritt, the learned blacksmith, failed to appear on ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium, which was dedicated to Pope Paul III., appeared at Nuremberg in 1543, with a preface added to it by the preacher, Andreas Osiander, which calls the heliocentric system merely an hypothesis advanced as a basis for astronomical calculations. Copernicus reached his theory rather by speculation than by observation; its first suggestion came from the Pythagorean doctrine of the motion of the earth. On Copernicus cf. Leop. Prowe, vol. i. Copernicus Leben, vol. ii. (Urkunden), Berlin, 1883-84; and ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... its medium. The disk was, so to speak, the window in heaven through which the unknown God, the "Lord of the Disk," shed a portion of his radiance on the world. Now, given an ignorance of the true astronomical character of the sun, we see how eminently rational a religion this was. In effect, the sun is the source of all life upon this earth, and so Akhunaten caused its rays to be depicted each with a hand holding ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... Arnold leaves too much to chance. It is hardly likely that the similarity that existed between the architecture of the Phoenicians and the Central Americans, as evinced in their arches; in the beginning of the century on the 26th of February; the advancement and interest taken in astronomical science; the coexistence of pyramids in Egypt and Central America; that five Armenian cities should have their namesakes in Central America, should all be a matter of accident. The historiographer of ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... which inhabit it, as the Paracelsians and Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, [3082]full of birds, or a mere vacuum to no purpose? It is much controverted between Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman, the landgrave of Hesse's mathematician, in their astronomical epistles, whether it be the same Diaphanum clearness, matter of air and heavens, or two distinct essences? Christopher Rotman, John Pena, Jordanus Brunus, with many other late mathematicians, contend it is the same and one matter throughout, saving that the higher still the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... two projects. A publisher—the first wise man of his race—I will write an epitaph for him quite different from my universal epitaph—this shrewd and crafty person, determined to rescue at least one mute, inglorious Milton from neglect, has written to me. There! He has read my article on 'The Astronomical Theory with regard to the Early Religions'; he has perceived the profound wisdom, the research, the illuminating genius of that work—by the way, I don't think I ever fully explained to you my notions ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... little variation in the experience of the explorers, and no special incident took place. At the junction of the north and south fork of the Platte, Fremont, who wished to explore the south branch and to secure some astronomical observations, set out with nine men intending to advance to St. Vrain's fort, where he was hopeful of obtaining some mules. The rest of the party followed the north fork to fort Laramie, where it was agreed they would wait for the others to ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... Point observatory I had one of the many opportunities of my life—one which I always enjoyed—of protecting the unfortunate from the stern decree of "justice." The old German custodian came to me one morning in great distress, saying that he had let the "astronomical chronometer" run down, and that the professor would kill him. I went with him to the transit tower, made an observation, and set the chronometer. The professor never knew the difference till I told him, after the lapse of ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... first work, I knew but little of his mind, and lost sight of him altogether till about 1840. Then circumstances connected with my own line of study led me to call on him in Doughty's Hospital, Norwich, an asylum for aged persons. I found him surrounded by astronomical apparatus, books, the tools of his former trade, and all kinds of strange litters. In the conversation that ensued, I learned much of the workings of his mind; though his high self-appreciation could not descend to unreserved converse with a woman. My object was, to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... huge mass of literature which was being added to continually. From the nature of the case this literature enshrined a very considerable number of facts of pure astronomy, and as early as the period of the First Dynasty (about 2000 B.C.), the Babylonians were able to calculate astronomical events with considerable accuracy, and to reconcile the solar and lunar years by the use of epagomenal months. They had by that time formulated the existence of the Zodiac, and fixed the "stations" of the moon, and the places ...
— The Babylonian Legends of the Creation • British Museum
... arrangement, astronomical, meteorological, and philosophical, contains a list of common indigenous field plants in flower, and even the taste of the epicure is consulted in a table of fish in season, at the foot of each month. The Miscellaneous Register includes nearly all the Court, Parliament, and other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... date is reckoned in the old style. The true astronomical date would be October 21st, which is the modern anniversary of ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... a large astronomical map, showing the solar system, and divided with the girdle of the zodiac into ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... course when I came across one of that sort—like Encke's and Halley's comets, for instance—it warn't anything but just a flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly call it a race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE. WE haven't got any such comets—ours don't begin. One night I was swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and the wind in my ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... on its part, appointed Mr Charles Green, who had long been assistant to Dr Bradley at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, to assist Lieutenant Cook in the astronomical department of the expedition; and in every respect the persons engaged in this celebrated expedition were well fitted to attain the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... men and women of my acquaintance there are some (for it is not possible to enumerate all) of whom I should like to make some mention; and, place aux dames, let me speak of the ladies first. In my boyhood I can recollect that astronomical wonder of womankind, Mrs. Mary Somerville, a great friend of my father's; she seemed to me very quiet and thoughtful, and so little self-conscious as to be humbly unregardful of her genius and her fame. Strangely enough I first ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... by Venturi in 1797 and Libri in 1840 of some few passages of Leonardo's astronomical notes, scientific astronomers have frequently expressed the opinion, that they must have been based on very important discoveries, and that the great painter also deserved a conspicuous place in the history ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... student of astronomy, and it cannot for a moment be supposed that he had not participated in the universal welcome of Herschel's discovery. The omission of any allusion to it convinces me that the astronomical episode was printed from a manuscript written before 1781, when Uranus was discovered. Unfamiliar with French in 1793, Paine might not have discovered the erratum in Lanthenas' translation, and, having ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... philosopher asked him if he had seen Abauzit. Little remains of the labours of this intellectual giant, his heirs having, it is said, destroyed the papers that came into their possession, because their own religious opinions were different. A few theological, archaeological abd astronomical articles from his pen appeared in the Journal Helvetique and elsewhere, and he contributed several papers to Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique (1767). He wrote a work throwing doubt on the canonical ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... state of astronomy; and the fourth compares the Mosaic account of creation with the theory advanced in the preceding lecture. The fifth is devoted to the ancient and venerable Book of Job with reference to the astronomical allusions it contains. The sixth is on the astronomical miracles of the Bible; and the seventh is on the language of the Bible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of course, the unity of the world; the laws of the whole visible universe are one order; but the heavens, wonderful as they are to him, are—compared with other things—out of his track of inquiry. He had his astronomical theories; he expounded them in his "Descriptio Globi Intellectualis" and his Thema Coeli He was not altogether ignorant of what was going on in days when Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were at work. But he did not know how to deal with it, and there were men in England, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... of absolute being and of generation, just as the number of population in the Republic is the expression or symbol of the transition from the ideal to the actual state. In some passages we are uncertain whether we are reading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processes of the human mind, or of that divine mind (Phil.) which in Plato is hardly separable from it. The characteristics of man are transferred to the world-animal, as for example ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... and rapid of Nakansalo, of which we had formerly heard, were of no importance, the rapid being but half a mile long, and only on one side of the island. The island Kaluzi marks one of the numerous places where astronomical observations were made; Mozia, a station where a volunteer poet left us; the island Mochenya, and Mpande island, at the mouth of the Zungwe rivulet, where ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... weather was atrocious, and in June building the Astronomical Hut and digging ice-shafts on the glacier absorbed a good many hands. In July, despite the enthusiasm and preparation for sledging, much was done. On August 10 the long looked-for top-mast of the southern ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... gnomon in Europe, that raised on the dome of the metropolitan church of Florence, was erected by the famous Toscanelli, - for the purpose of determining the solstices, and regulating the festivals of the Church, - about the year 1468; perhaps at no very distant date from that of the similar astronomical contrivance of the American Indian. See Tiraboschi, Historia della Letteratura Italiana, tom. VI. lib. 2, cap. 2, sec. 38.] This meagre account embraces nearly all that has come down to us of Peruvian astronomy. It may seem strange that a ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... spirit, been sometimes described as Druidical amulets and talismen; ornamented rings and bosses from the ancient rich Celtic horse-harness, discovered in sepulchral barrows, have been published as Druidical astronomical instruments; and in the last century some columnar rock arrangement in Orkney was gravely adduced by Toland as a Druidical pavement. It is this craving after the mysterious, this reprehensible irrationalism, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... necessaries of life. He who wishes for a grand piano will enter the association of musical instrument makers. And by giving the association part of his half-days' leisure, he will soon possess the piano of his dreams. If he is fond of astronomical studies he will join the association of astronomers, with its philosophers, its observers, its calculators, with its artists in astronomical instruments, its scientists and amateurs, and he will have the telescope he desires by taking his share ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... this magnificent ocean view when Captain Nemo appeared. He didn't seem to notice my presence and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, his operations finished, he went and leaned his elbows on the beacon housing, his eyes straying over ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... students of natural events. The winds have their specific titles, and they catalogue all the brighter and more conspicuous stars and planets, while their astronomical legends are quaint ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... several. Certainly, never was a bold theory built upon a narrower basis. It is due, however, to the two Herschels, the chief supporters of this theory, to say, that they have always spoken of it only as a hypothesis, and by no means as an established fact in astronomical science. And, as a hypothesis, it labors under this peculiar difficulty, that it evidently never can be verified. It must ever remain a mere guess, directly opposed by an obvious induction from those nebulae which are resolvable ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... helmets, like paladins of bygone centuries; enormous cases that were serving as cages for the aeronautic condors; strings of cannon, long and narrow, painted grey and protected, by metal screens, more like astronomical instruments than mouths of death; masses and masses of red kepis (military caps) moving in marching rhythm, rows and rows of muskets, some black and stark like reed plantations, others ending in bayonets like shining spikes. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... discovery of letters, the facts of Astronomy and Chemistry became recorded in written language, though the antient hieroglyphic characters for the planets and metals continue in use at this day. The antiquity of the invention of music, of astronomical observations, and the manufacture of Gold and Iron, ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... one of the four symphony orchestras in America. She has given many famous men to science, literature, and art. Her astronomical observatory is known throughout the world. Her rich men are often liberal beyond their own needs, particularly so William Thaw, who spent great sums for education and benevolence; Mrs. Mary Schenley, who has given the city a great park, over ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... occupied my time by drawing in the Government offices, a map, compiled from the various notes and journals I had kept during the prospecting expeditions in which I had been engaged. I also took the opportunity of getting some knowledge of astronomical subjects, likely to be of service in the more extended expedition I had in my mind. My thanks are due to Mr. Barlee, chief draughtsman, and Mr. Higgins, of the Mines Department, for the kindness they showed in helping ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... culture to the vast united realms—vast yet still too small and partial—of the present time." Mr. Wells hoped by changing the time perspective on our present problems to change the moral perspective. Yet the astronomical measure of time, the geological, the biological, any telescopic measure which minimizes the present is not "more true" than a microscopic. Mr. Simeon Strunsky is right when he insists that "if Mr. Wells is thinking of his subtitle, The Probable Future of Mankind, he is entitled to ask for any ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... 1833, came the wondrous celestial exhibition of falling stars, which is listed as one of the most remarkable phenomena of the astronomical story. ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... doubt whether an eclipse expedition is likely to provide non-astronomical tourists with incidents of travel, pleasant, profitable, and even amusing, perhaps the doubt will be removed by a perusal of the accounts of Sir F. Galton's trip to Spain in 1860 (Vacation Tourists in 1860, p. 422), or of Professor ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... the King of the Reverend Dr. Kennedy's Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding the Scriptures, Quarto ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... billeted at Olivencia — Curious astronomical conjunction — Lawrence exemplifies the truth of an old proverb at the expense of his hosts, and draws down the wrath of the church on himself — Succeeds more satisfactorily in the case of his comrade — The army shifted to the valley of ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... apparatus. This could not possibly be used on the ice of the polar sea, as it would be smashed to pieces in the rough going. One might say in general that dead reckoning on the polar ice is the personal estimate of approximate distance, always checked and corrected from time to time by astronomical observations. ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... lessons of his study of Galileo's Dialogo, which he may have been reading even as he wrote.[2] Indeed, More tries to harmonize the two poems—his habit was always to look for unity. But even though Democritus Platonissans explores an astronomical subject, just as the third part of Psychathanasia also does, its attitude and theme are quite different; for More had ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... Happily they are all promising; but if G—— should disappoint us, I never will believe in youthful talent, industry, or goodness more. Our days pass swiftly, because busily. The regular business of the ship, the school, astronomical observations, study of history and modern languages, and nothing permitted to pass without observation, fill ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... Weather in the Neighbourhood of the Equator. Position of the Coast of Brazil. Arrival at the Cape of Good Hope. Transactions there. Junction of the Discovery. Mr Anderson's Journey up the Country. Astronomical Observations. Nautical Remarks on the Passage from England to the Cape, with regard to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... had also carried off his mother. Tom has been taken into the house and law business of an uncle, but he does not seem to be getting on well there. Another uncle visits, and takes Tom back with him, giving him a much pleasanter and more interesting life. Together they convert an old windmill into an astronomical observatory, which means grinding the glass lenses and mirrors, as well as bringing the structure of the building up to the required standard. In this they are encouraged by the daily visits of the vicar, while the housekeeper, Mrs Fidler, and the old gardener, make various ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... fragment of the ship carrying the salt; and we'll be able to hold some of the most important of the other stuff. But a lot of it is bound to get away from us—and the Lord help anybody who's under it when it comes down! You might yell for help—and say, you might ask somebody to have that astronomical data ready for us as ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... familiar with the structure of an ordinary astronomical observatory. The building is usually cylindrical in shape, with a very light hemispherical roof capable of being turned round from the interior. The telescope is supported upon a stone pillar in the centre, and a clockwork arrangement compensates for the earth's rotation, and allows a star once ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the north of Russia and Siberia. Lieutenant Palanders, of the Swedish navy, was in command of the vessel, with the instigator of the voyage, and they had also a staff of botanists, geologists, and astronomical doctors. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... on the Teneriffe Astronomical Experiment of 1856. Humboldt makes the elevation 12,090 feet. A beautiful model of the Peak was constructed by Mr. J. Nasmyth from Piazzi Smyth's plans, of which photographs ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... whole intellectual fabric of Christianity rests. For without a Fall there is no redemption, and the whole theory and meaning of the Pauline system is vain. In conjunction with the wide vistas opened by geological and astronomical discovery, the nineteenth century has indeed lost the very habit of thought from which the belief in a Fall arose. It is as if a hand had been put upon the head of the thoughtful man and had turned his eyes about from the past to the future. In matters of intelligence, at least, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Pyrenees from the Saracens, in the eleventh century, the Ptolemaic theory of a flat earth located at the center of the heavenly bodies and around which they all revolved, while a very pleasing theological conception, was absolutely fatal to any instruction in astronomy worth while and to any astronomical advance. All mediaeval astronomy, too, was saturated with astrology, as the selection on the motion of the heavenly bodies reproduced from Bartholomew Anglicus shows (R. 77 b), and the supernatural was invoked to explain ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... I have done in astronomical research? I am sorry to say I have been able to do little except to gratify my own curiosity; and even then, as I say, I have been much tantalised. I have watched the spots on the sun from day to day through obscured glasses, since the year 1878, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... miner's hut, though displaying great originality of design, and ingenious artistic effects, becomes after a time rather a tiresome object of contemplation. The colonel found it so, and he relieved his strained eyes by an occasional amateur astronomical observation. On turning his head, with a yawn, from one of these, he saw inside the hut a state of affairs which caused him to ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... eclipse of 601, all the other eclipses, so far as days of the moon and month go, are as consistent with each other as are modern Chinese dates with European (Julian) dates. As regards the year, Oppolzer's dates are the "astronomical" dates, that is, the astronomical year—x is the same as the year (x 1) B.C.; or, in other words, the year of Christ's birth is, for certain astronomical exactitude purposes, interpolated between the years 1 B.C. and A.D. 1, as we vulgarly ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... its reference to Aristotle, would have given him the meaning of "Nature taught art," which seems to puzzle him. A study of Dante and of his earlier commentators would also have been of great service in the astronomical notes. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... CONTINUED.— GLACIAL CONDITIONS. (As to the former excess of cold, whether brought about by modifications in the height and distribution of the land or by altered astronomical conditions, see Principles volume 1 10th edition 1867 chapters 12 and 13 ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... a Hottentot and a Newton. The first should no more be condemned to astronomical calculations and discoveries, than the last should be required to follow a plough. Such differences, however, are overlooked by much of the reasoning of the abolitionist. In regard to the question of fact, whether a man is really a man and not a mere ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... of a gentleman eminent for astronomical skill, what made the day long in summer, and short in winter; and was told that nature protracted the days in summer, lest ladies should want time to walk in the park; and the nights in winter, lest they should not have hours sufficient to spend ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... "the former doctrine is supported by their own Bible, not less than by our Koran." These sentiments are repeated whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the telescopes and astronomical apparatus, "though, owing to the state of the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told, however, that on looking through these instruments at the moon, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... The north star is elevated as in Paria to five degrees above the horizon, and all the coasts of that newly discovered country are on the same parallel. He likewise reports details concerning the differences he observed in the heavens, which are so contradictory to astronomical theories that I wish to make some comments. It is proven, Most Illustrious Prince, that the polar star, which our sailors call Tramontane, is not the point of the arctic pole upon which the axis of the heavens turns. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... accompanied him. She was somewhat piqued because at the last moment he had not absolutely insisted on carrying her off, or offered, if necessary, to displace his presidential and Doctor-of-Laws friends in order to make room. "You will have an ideal trip," she said, looking over some astronomical star-charts and photographic maps of Jupiter and Saturn that lay on the table, with a pair of compasses, "and I hope you won't lose your way." "I shall need no compass to find my way back," replied Ayrault, "if I ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... hardly keep back their tears, the way Noel said those lines. There were eight four-line stanzas in the first end of the poem—the end about the rose, the horticultural end, as you may say, if that is not too large a name for such a little poem—and eight in the astronomical end—sixteen stanzas altogether, and I could have made it a hundred and fifty if I had wanted to, I was so inspired and so all swelled up with beautiful thoughts and fancies; but that would have been too many to sing or recite before ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the chronometers ashore Pennell, Rennick, and I myself took astronomical observations to determine independently the position of the observation spot on the beach at Cape Evans. The preliminary position gave us latitude 77 degrees 38 minutes 23 seconds S. longitude 166 degrees 33 minutes 24 seconds E., a more accurate determination was arrived ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... to get upon a platform and dispute with ardent Radicals or Conservatives who know nothing about even the rudiments of history, political economy, or political philosophy, without which it is as absurd to have an opinion upon what are called politics as it would be to have an opinion upon an astronomical ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... do in the choice of public servants was effectively confirmed by the scientific departments of the government. The most shameless Senator would not dare to propose his brother's widow to lead an astronomical expedition, or to urge the appointment of the ward Boss of his city as Chairman of the Coast Survey. So the American people perceived that there were cases in which the Spoils System did not apply. The reformers pushed ahead; ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... of their countries were cities like Samarkand, Bokhara, and Herat. Tamerlane's grandson—Ulugh Beg—built at Samarkand the chief astronomical observatory of the world, a century and a half before Tycho Brahe (1576) erected Uranibourg in Denmark. The town was filled with noble buildings,—mosques, tombs, and colleges. Its walls were ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... ceaseless motions of the planets, have set up some system of the heavens, in which the sense of wonder and the desire for knowledge were no less concerned than the practical necessities of life. The measurement of time and the needs of navigation have always stimulated astronomical research, but the intellectual demand has been keen from the first. Hipparchus and the Greek astronomers of the Alexandrian school, shaking off the vagaries of magic and divination, placed astronomy on a scientific basis, though the reaction of the Middle Ages caused even such a ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... Academy, 1889; Temple gold medal, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1889; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1889. Member of the Copley Society, Boston; of the Society of Baron Taylor, Paris; and of the Paris Astronomical Society. Born in San Francisco. Pupil of the Julian Academy, under Robert-Fleury, and Jules Lefebvre, where she received, in 1888, the prize of the silver medal and one hundred francs—the highest award given at the annual Portrait Concours, between the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... decades of the seventeenth century, the men of the Renaissance could show that they had already put out to good interest the treasure bequeathed to them by the Greeks. They had produced the astronomical system of Copernicus, with Kepler's great additions; the astronomical discoveries and the physical investigations of Galileo; the mechanics of Stevinus and the 'De Magnete' of Gilbert; the anatomy of the great French and Italian schools and ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... reading that must please all tastes. It has, moreover, to meet the exigencies of the day, a pretty sprinkling of cuts and plates, respecting the number of which we do not quarrel; in the choice of some of them we must, however, dissent from the editor. The Astronomical portion, by Mr. Barker, is unusually copious, and the cometary plates are well ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... been led to a theory respecting the pyramids which will be touched on towards the close of the present paper. Here, however, I intend to deal only with one special part of the problem, that part to which alone the method I propose to employ is applicable—the question of the astronomical purpose which the pyramids were intended to subserve. It will be understood, therefore, why I have spoken of applying a somewhat similar method, and not a precisely similar method; to the problem of the pyramids. For whereas in dealing with the origin of the week, I could from the ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... instrument is in use, the thermograph, that utilizes the heat rays from the sun, instead of the light. It takes pictures by heat; in other words, it sees in the dark; brings invisible things to the eye of man, and is used in astronomical and physical researches wherein undulations and radiations are concerned. And now comes the magnetometer, to measure the amount of magnetism that reaches the earth from the sun. It points to zero when the magnetic forces of the earth are in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... mountain experiment which indicated a weight 4-3/4 times that of water. The ball experiment, which is the most reliable, indicated 5-1/2 times the weight of water, thus coinciding with Newton's astronomical ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, October 1887 - Volume 1, Number 9 • Various
... almanac. The meridian of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, near London, is the prime meridian for reckoning the longitude of the world. The nautical almanac is a publication containing astronomical data for the use of navigators and astronomers. What is the name of the corresponding publication of the U.S. ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... went to sleep the sun was what you may call six feet above the horizon; now it is twelve feet if it is an inch, so that if it be still setting, it must be setting upwards—a phenomenon of which the records of astronomical research make ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... But to record geographical knowledge, the first thing that is necessary is a map, and accordingly it is a Greek philosopher named ANAXIMANDER of Miletus, of the sixth century B.C., to whom we owe the invention of map-drawing. Now, in order to make a map of one's own country, little astronomical knowledge is required. As we have seen, savages are able to draw such maps; but when it comes to describing the relative positions of countries divided from one another by seas, the problem is not so easy. An Athenian would know roughly that Byzantium (now called Constantinople) was somewhat to ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... of Babel, and both had the same common design; while, according to others, they were built with the spoils of Solomon's temple and the riches of the queen of Sheba. They have been regarded as temples of Venus, as reservoirs for purifying the waters of the Nile, as erected for astronomical or mathematical purposes, or intended to protect the valley of the Nile from the encroachments of the sands of the desert (this notable theory, too, is quite recent); in short, for every conceivable and inconceivable purpose that could be imagined by superstitious awe, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... world-cycle. I have omitted details not essential; e.g. that in the first period men were born from the earth and only in the second propagated themselves. The period of 36,000 years, known as the Great Platonic Year, was probably a Babylonian astronomical period, and was in any case based on the Babylonian sexagesimal system and connected with the solar year conceived as consisting of 360 days. Heraclitus seems to have accepted it as the duration of the world ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... velocities, and relative distances of the planets, in a manner corresponding to the proportion of the notes in a musical scale. Hence the "music of the spheres." From what can be gathered of the astronomical doctrine of Pythagoras, it has been inferred that he was possessed of the true idea of the solar system, which was revived by Coper'nicus and fully established by Newton. With respect to God, Pythagoras appears to have taught that he is the universal, ever-existent ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... will spell out (with the assistance of card-board letters) a number of interesting astronomical facts at the instigation of his mirth-provoking master and proprietor. This talented performer ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... being probably based on imperfect descriptions of Atlas or Teneriffe, or both confused together. Its summit is exactly at the Antipodes of Jerusalem, a point which must be carefully borne in mind if the various astronomical indications of time given in the course of the journey are to be ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... first-class honours in the Cambridge Natural Science Tripos in 1870, and is likewise a Fellow of the Royal Society, in recognition of his original botanical investigations. The fourth, Leonard, an officer in the Royal Engineers, has done valuable astronomical work. The fifth, Horace, has devoted himself to mechanical science, and has largely aided in developing the Cambridge Scientific ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... square, painted a dark red, its roof on a level with the height of the outer parapet. The bishop opened the door with another key and threw the windows wide, disclosing a canvas-hooded telescope in the centre, chairs and tables bearing astronomical instruments, and sidereal maps upon the walls. Then, as he pressed a lever, the roof was cleft asunder ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... of the monuments still extant, the specimens of their artistic attainments in drawing and sculpture which have reached us in the bas-reliefs, statues and mural paintings of Uxmal and Chichen-Itza; by their knowledge in mathematical and astronomical sciences, as manifested in the construction of the gnomon found by me in the ruins of Mayapan; by the complexity of the grammatical form and syntaxis of their language, still spoken to-day by the majority of the inhabitants of Yucatan; by their mode of expressing ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... does not represent anything besides this piece of wood or iron. But if we take the MENTAL value of an inch, this unit of one of the measures of space, and use it, with other quantities, in the contemplation of the skies for the solving of an astronomical problem, it gives a prophetic answer that, in a certain place there is a star; this star, may be for years looked for in vain. Was it that the calculation was wrong? No, for after further search with telescopes ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... more likely to both these subjects. It has not been far opened; but will probably prove of the utmost interest, if, as it is expected, it contains any account of the system of the heavens as known to or acknowledged by the Egyptians and Chaldeans, the authors of astronomical science. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various |
