"Chronometer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to please; but every ship Captain MacWhirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace. It was, in truth, as impossible for him to take a flight of fancy as it would be for a watchmaker to put together a chronometer with nothing except a two-pound hammer and a whip-saw in the way of tools. Yet the uninteresting lives of men so entirely given to the actuality of the bare existence have their mysterious side. It was impossible in Captain MacWhirr's case, for instance, to understand ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... Within my recollection, it was deemed a necessary qualification for the master and the mate of a merchant-ship, and even for a prime hand, to be able to "work a lunar," as it was called. The improvements in the chronometer have in practice, to a great extent, superseded this laborious operation; but observation remains, and unquestionably will for ever remain, the only dependence for ascertaining the ship's time and deducting the longitude from the comparison of ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... distinct types in about eight out of eleven or twelve successive geological layers. But the story would take too long to tell. However, it is well to start with an example that is primarily geological. For it is the geologist who provides the pre-historic chronometer. Pre-historians have to reckon in geological time—that is to say, not in years, but in ages of indefinite extent corresponding to marked changes in the condition of the earth's surface. It takes ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... centre of the cyclone; the calm might last for forty or fifty minutes, then a renewal of the hurricane was almost certainly to be expected. Without the loss of a moment he gave his orders. The boats were made ready; into one they put arms, ammunition, and tools, together with the ship's papers and chronometer, a compass, and Dr. Thesiger Smith's specimens and diaries; into the other more ammunition, and a portion of what provisions could be collected from above or below water. The boats were lowered, the men dropped into them ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... chronometer! That will delay things," said the odd man with a sigh. "But I suppose there is no hope for it," and he proceeded to open the box, while Tom, Ned, the circus man and Eradicate busied themselves over the hundred and one things to be done before they would be ready ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart, longitude reckoned by lunar observation and by chronometer, driven by steam; and in wildest sea-mountains, at ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... establishment, S.E. corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets, has an immense variety of beautiful and valuable presents for the season. He is the sole agent for a new style of watch lately introduced into this country, approved by the Chronometer Board at the Admiralty, in London, which is warranted. Orders by mail, including a description of the desired ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... quadrant were both unattainable, I did not so quickly renounce all hope of discovering a chronometer, which, if in good order, though at present not ticking, might still be made in some degree serviceable. But no such instrument was to be seen. No: nor to be heard of; Samoa himself ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... his folly, became very modest, and gave his orders quietly. The crew, however, took no notice of him and looked to the mate. He (the captain) ordered me into the first boat, in which were the ship's papers, charts, chronometer, &c. I refused, and said I preferred getting on ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... to Varney, "did she tell me, 'I'll be ready in a minute.' And a ten-minute interval elapsed each time, by my grandfather's trusted chronometer." ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that the wise man should labour to have no passions. It is the advice embodied in Horace's Nil admirari, Talleyrand's "No zeal," Beaconsfield's "Beware of enthusiasm." It would have man to work like a scientific instrument, calm as a chronometer, regulated by reason alone. This was the Stoic teaching, this the perfection that they inculcated, quite a possible goal to make for, if not to attain. And it is worth a wise man's while to consider, whether ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... velvet waistcoats, with richly embroidered cravats, and curious linen. And as she pried about his room, she saw, oh, such a beautiful dressing-case, with silver mountings, and a quantity of lovely rings and jewellery. And he had a new French watch and gold chain, in place of the big old chronometer, with its bunch of jingling seals, which had hung from the fob of John Pendennis. It was but a few months back Pen had longed for this watch, which he thought the most splendid and august time-piece in the ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... again set out on an inland voyage of geographical and commercial discovery, taking with him the requisite astronomical instruments and a chronometer. His course he directed to the west. After travelling one hundred miles on foot, he and his companions embarked on a river, running westward, which conveyed them to an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. Here he observed the rise and fall of the tide, and saw porpoises and sea otters. The claim of the ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... experimenting with timepieces of his own invention. Many years before, Sir Isaac Newton had called the attention of the British Government to the necessity for an accurate portable time-keeper at sea, to determine longitude, and in 1714 Parliament offered a reward of 20,000 pounds sterling for such a chronometer. Thenceforward for fifty years the inventive spirits of England and the Continent were secretly at work to produce a timepiece which would deserve the large reward, amongst them Charles Mason, who labored with such perfect discretion and uncommunicative ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... sometimes his extreme closeness defeated its own object. He once lost seventy thousand dollars by committing a piece of petty injustice toward his best captain. This gallant sailor, being notified by an insurance office of the necessity of having a chronometer on board his ship, spoke to Mr. Astor on the subject, who advised the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... is enabled to find the exact spot of sea on which his ship rides. There may be nothing but water and sky within his view; he may be in the midst of the ocean, or gradually nearing the land; the curvature of the globe baffles the search of his telescope; but if he have a correct chronometer, and can make an astronomical observation, he may readily ascertain his longitude, and know his approximate position—how far he is from home, as well as from his intended destination. He is even enabled, at some special place, to send down his grappling-irons into ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... very soundly; for when I awoke the fire was out, and I saw by the chronometer that it was nearly eleven o'clock. But my sleep had done me great good, and I hurried ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... rented Davenport Hall in Cheshire, where they lived a quiet retired life, spending a good deal of their time with their friends Sir Charles and Lady Holte at Brereton. Edgeworth amused himself by making a clock for the steeple at Brereton, and a chronometer of a singular construction, which, he says,'I intended to present to the King ... to add to His Majesty's collection of uncommon clocks and watches which I ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... disorders must be added elemental dangers of all kinds, such as the tides and shallows of the North Sea—the shallow waters contiguous to the coast being chiefly navigated—dangers against which neither compass nor chronometer was then available. Even buoys and lighthouses were comparatively rare or inadequate at a time when nautical knowledge itself was still extremely defective. It was therefore not astonishing that shipwrecks were of daily occurrence and were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... glancing at the chronometer that hung beside the air-rules. "Time enough to get settled, later. Every second counts, now. We're due to start in seven minutes, you know. Rrisa will attend to all this. We three have got to be getting forward ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... had been about a quarter of an hour on deck, when the sun, which had not shown itself for two days, gleamed through the clouds. Newton, who was officer of the watch, and had been accustomed, when with Mr Berecroft, to work a chronometer, interrupted the captain, who was leaning on the carronade, talking to ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... your nerves," he said, after a pause; "but if you are not better—well, before the end of the week, take my advice, and run down to Brighton over Sunday. Now, you ought to give me a guinea for that," he added, laughing. "I assure you, all the gold-headed cane, all the wonderful chronometer doctors who pocket thousands per annum at the West End, could make no more of your case than ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... character. Among the groups may be noticed a young fellow holding a bull-terrier suspended by its teeth from a handkerchief; a bet depends on the dog's patience and strength of jaw, and an interested companion watches the result, chronometer in hand. The King at Home, represents a scene which is said to have actually taken place when Mathews was giving his entertainment at Carlton House. The performer was imitating Kemble, when the king started up, and to the surprise of every one, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... in a substantial non-magnetic cubicle, with a very thick glass window, in order to protect it from the magnetism and electricity which pervaded our vessel. On looking at the chronometer I found the time was nearly eleven o'clock. We had, therefore, been nearly two hours on our journey and had travelled some three hundred miles, mostly in an upward direction from the earth; so if there were any of the earth's atmosphere around our vessel it must be of the ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... seaman has, for he was trained on a sailing ship and had won many prizes in the regattas at Kiel. "But we had hardly any instruments," he narrated, "we had only one sextant and two chronometers on board, but a chronometer journal was lacking. Luckily I found an old 'Indian Ocean Directory' of 1882 on board; its information went back to the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... tall, stout old man in the overcoat and forage-cap with a cockade—was the police captain, Mihail Makarovitch. And that "consumptive-looking" trim dandy, "who always has such polished boots"—that was the deputy prosecutor. "He has a chronometer worth four hundred roubles; he showed it to me." And that small young man in spectacles.... Mitya forgot his surname though he knew him, had seen him: he was the "investigating lawyer," from the "school of jurisprudence," who had only lately come to the town. And ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... something—perhaps a sentimental attachment, perhaps what his ancestors would have called a "hunch"—compelled him to strap it around his waist. He carefully packed a few essentials in his knapsack, together with one chronometer and a tiny gyroscopic compass. So equipped, they could travel with a fair degree of precision toward the mountains some hundred miles on the other side of a steaming forest, a-crawl with feral life, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... floor near a small metallic box, gently turning knobs, checking the dial reading against a small chronometer on her wrist. "Steady, darling," she said. "Just follow me, carefully, and don't be afraid. We're going back home—to the time-area where we belong. You and I. I know—you don't remember. And you'll be puzzled, and confused, because the memory substitution job was very thorough. ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... antiquated time-piece on the staircase (which never spoke but it dropped pearls and crystals, like the fairy in the story) was lisping the hour, when there came three tremendous knocks at the street door. Mrs. Bilkins, who was dusting the brass-mounted chronometer in the hall, stood transfixed, with arm uplifted. The admirable old lady had for years been carrying on a guerilla warfare with itinerant venders of furniture polish, and pain-killer, and crockery cement and the like. The effrontery of the triple knock convinced her the enemy was ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... His evenings, when pleasant, were spent in observing the heavens, and to the children, accustomed to seeing such observations going on, the important study in the world seemed to be astronomy. One by one, as they became old enough, they were drafted into the service of counting seconds by the chronometer, during ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... were launching her when they were challenged by a sentry. One of them replied that they were going for Mr. Cunningham, and they got away though they were fired upon. They did go for Mr. Cunningham, and robbed him of his chronometer, pistols, tent, and provisions. Then they sailed away, and were picked up by a whaler, which they seized and finally scuttled. The Government refused to compensate Cunningham for his loss, and he had to replace ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... Virtue said; "I shouldn't be surprised if we get a glimpse of the sun between the clouds, presently. Will you get my sextant and the chronometer up, Jack, ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... because I frequently cast them off from my feet in my botanical investigations, without having time to pick them up, when threatened by the approach of lions, men, or hyenas. My excellent watch, owing to the short duration of my movements, was also on these occasions an admirable chronometer. I wanted, besides, a sextant, a few philosophical instruments, and some books. To purchase these things, I made several unwilling journeys to London and Paris, choosing a time when I could be hid by the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... of these walls as of his tree trunks. He came regularly at eleven and again at three in the afternoon, and a barn owl went by with a screech every evening a little after eight. The starlings told the time of the year as accurately as the best chronometer at Whitehall. When I saw the last chimney swallow, November 30, they went by to their sleeping-trees about three o'clock in the afternoon—a long night, a short day for them. So they continued till in January the day had grown thirty minutes longer, when they went to roost so ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... a few days after the great snow, as Miss Abigail was dusting the chronometer in the ball, she beheld Captain Nutter slowly descending the staircase, with a long clay pipe in his mouth. Miss Abigail could hardly credit her ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the world have not been done by men of large means. Ericsson began the construction of the screw propellers in a bathroom. The cotton-gin was first manufactured in a log cabin. John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in the loft of an old barn. Parts of the first steamboat ever run in America were set up in the vestry of a church in Philadelphia by Fitch. McCormick began to make his famous reaper in a grist-mill. The ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... chronometer for the voyage was all that now worried me. In our newfangled notions of navigation it is supposed that a mariner cannot find his way without one; and I had myself drifted into this way of thinking. My old chronometer, a good one, had been long in disuse. It would cost fifteen dollars to clean ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... and walked—or rather flew, so easy and graceful were her movements—over to a portion of the wall and looked long and earnestly into a peculiar instrument, then returning she said: (without the use of words) "according to my chronometer, more than four thousand two hundred and thirty years have elapsed ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... abnormally clear. I saw Captain Malan's eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the Cryptic's commander. And he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and brother officer, I know Panke; you know Panke; we know Panke—good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight, unless you who are a man of ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... had taken a fresh departure from the Western Isles, a thick fog came on, the continuance of which prevented them from ascertaining their situation by the chronometer. The wind, which blew favourably from the south-east, had, by their dead reckoning, driven them as far north as the latitude of Ushant, without their once having had an opportunity of finding out the precise situation of the frigate. The wind now shifted ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... invention of Graham's mercurial pendulum, John Harrison—the same clever mechanician who received L.20,000 from government for making a chronometer that went to Jamaica in one year and returned in another with an accumulated error of only 1 minute and 54 seconds—hit upon another means of gaining the same end. He brought a steel rod down from the point of suspension, turned it up into a copper rod of less ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... planets. Towards the end of the fifteenth century Gaspar Visconti mentions in a sonnet the watch proper (certi orologii piccioli e portativi); and the "animated eggs" of Nurembourg became famous. The earliest English watch (Sir Ashton Lever's) dates from 1541: and in 1544 the portable chronometer became ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... the World War is the closing of the period of the childhood of humanity. This childhood, as any childhood, can be characterized as devoid of any real understanding of values, as is that of a child who uses a priceless chronometer to crack nuts. ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... whether hydrogen, gaseous iron, calcium, or anything else. Prof. C. A. Young saw a jet of hydrogen ascend a distance of 200,000 miles, measured its height, noted its spectrum and timed its ascent by a chronometer all at once, and was astonished to find the velocity one hundred and sixty miles per second—eight times faster than the earth flies on its orbit. By these improvements solar hurricanes, whirlpools, and explosions can be seen from any physical ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... chronometer, which was surmounted by a cheerful brass group of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, tolled five in a heavy cathedral tone, Mr. Osborne pulled the bell at his right hand—violently, and the butler ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "'Ow's your chronometer? Wot's your longitude? 'Ow do you know as your time's correct?" Cardegee persisted, vainly hoping to beat his executioner out of a few minutes. "Is it Barrack's time you 'ave, or is it the Company time? 'Cos if you do it before the stroke o' the bell, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... London award him the Royal Donation of 25 guineas, placed by her Majesty at the disposal of the Council (Silver Chronometer). ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Place document. At about twelve o'clock, midnight, the valet rushed in among the guests, who were discussing the odd circumstances, and said that his master was at the point of death. Lord Lyttelton had kept looking at his watch, and at a quarter past twelve (by his chronometer and his valet's) he remarked, 'This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.' The real hour was then a quarter to twelve. At about half-past twelve, by HIS watch, twelve by the real time, he asked for his physic. The valet went into the dressing- room to prepare it (to fetch a spoon ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... rather bright ones," said Captain Solomon. "My chronometer—my clock, you know—was losing a good deal, and I looked through my sextant at them to find ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... years, Vega in Lyra will shine forth as the brightest of all possible pole stars. These data give us some idea of the extent of the motions which, divided into infinitely small portions of time, proceed without intermission in the great chronometer of the universe. If for a moment we could yield to the power of fancy, and imagine the acuteness of our visual organs to be made equal with the extremest bounds of telescopic vision, and bring together that which is ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... honour by reason of an intrinsic beauty never previously attained to. Through this chamber the dashing crinoline has wheeled the too vast orb of its fate, and left fifty years after (if we may measure the times of Heaven by the ticks of an earthly chronometer) a mark which nothing is likely to erase. Upon the small table, where Hannah the servant deposits the lamp, lies a piece of crochet-work. The fair hands that have been employed on it are folded on a lap of corded silk representing the ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... commune cleanse, purify short, terse short, concise better, ameliorate lie, recline new, novel straight, parallel lawful, legitimate law, litigation law, jurisprudence flash, coruscate late, tardy watch, chronometer foretell, prognosticate king, emperor winding, sinuous hint, insinuate burn, incinerate fire, incendiarism bind, constrict crab, crustacean fowls, poultry lean, incline flat, level flat, vapid sharpness, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Plum, solemnly. "By the chronometer I have still seven minutes before the boat and pail sink out of sight forever. However, the pail was there, sitting, like a hen, on the larboard mast, filled with gooseberries, which Pocahontas had picked at dawn, in company with General Grant and King ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... her great-grandfather in her early years, and living to nurse great-grandchildren in her old age. The landlord of the inn informed us, with much pride, that Couvet was the birthplace of the man who invented a clock for telling the time at sea; by which, no doubt, he meant the chronometer, invented by M. Berthoud. At Motiers, the next village, Rousseau wrote his Lettres de la Montagne, and thence it was that he fled from popular violence to the island ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... Greenwich we must not go round by Inverness," he said, "We must not become too complicated with our machinery. Remember the get-at-ability of parts. If we go on as some mechanics are doing, we shall soon be boiling our eggs with a chronometer!" ...] that comes forth from our workshops, and merely show the mastery we possess over materials and mechanical forms. The original of this measuring machine of Maudslay's was exhibited at the Loan Collection at South Kensington in 1878. It is now treasured up, with other relics of ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... discovery, the aberration of the fixed stars, and that of the nutation of the earth's axis; to these two discoveries, Delambre says, we owe the exactness of modern astronomy. It promoted the improvement of the thermometer, the measure of temperature, and in Harrison's watch, the chronometer, the measure of time. Through it the Gregorian Calendar was introduced into England, in 1752, against a violent religious opposition. Some of its Fellows were pursued through the streets by an ignorant and infuriated mob, who believed it had robbed them of eleven days of their ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... it (the island) appeared to be quite level with rocks extending to north-west, with heavy breakers. Made it by observation south latitude 14 degrees 4 minutes; east longitude 123 degrees 31 minutes by good chronometer rated at Roti. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... stand; a prismatic, a luminous, a floating, and two pocket compasses; maximum and minimum thermometers, a case of drawing instruments, protractors, parallel rules, tape rules, a silver water-tight half-chronometer watch and three other watches, section paper in books and in large sheets, Raper's and the Nautical ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... by personal inspection that everything was in perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... faint yellow plain, almost as elevated as ourselves. Can see part of the State of Chiapas pretty distinctly." At 12 o'clock, meridian, he says, "Sr. Hammond is taking the longitude, but finds a difference of several minutes between his excellent watch and chronometer, and fears the latter has been shaken. Both the watch and its owner, however, have been a great deal more shaken, for the chronometer has been all the time in the midst of a thick blanket, and has had no falls. Sr. Huertis, with the glass, sees whole lines and groups ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... punctuality in your engagements, and of the worry and distress to patients and their friends which the want of it occasions? One of my old teachers always carried two watches, to make quite sure of being exact, and not only kept his appointments with the regularity of a chronometer, but took great pains to be at his patient's house at the time when he had reason to believe he was expected, even if no express appointment was made. It is a good rule; if you call too early, my lady's hair may not ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Y'Nor's bird-of-prey profile with detached interest as Y'Nor jerked his head around to glare again at the chronometer on the farther wall ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... was above the horizon. The Nautical Almanack gives the height it would be at noon on that day along every parallel so that a few figures enabled him to ascertain how far north we had sailed. The way to find the longitude, he explained to us, was by means of the chronometer. An observation is then taken of the sun, moon, or a star, which would appear at a certain height above the horizon at that ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... to your sleepy navigator, deacon; but the man who keeps his eyes open has little to fear. Had you given us a chronometer, there would not have been one-half the risk there will be ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... passed quickly, whether measured by the Martian chronometer aboard the Nomad or by Carr's watch, which he was regulating to match the slightly longer day of the red planet. He was becoming proficient in the operation of all mechanisms of the ship and had developed a fondness for its ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... being twelve o'clock. After luncheon, during which Holmes made several more cracks about the possible guilt of others in the diamond robbery, we adjourned to the library, and Holmes settled himself in the best chair, still wearing Luigi Vermicelli's light green livery, consulted his old chronometer again, and yawned. ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... the craft sped on down the bay, Lieutenant Benson glanced at the chronometer beside the ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... had won at a raffle. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his wife's tiara. Why should I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of my poor chronometer for a sum that ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... suddenness, the fog lifted ahead of us. Behind we could not see either the Dartonia or the German steamer. Our own boat, however, went full speed ahead and kept up the pace till the fog shut down again. The captain now, in pacing the bridge, had his chronometer in his hand, and those of us who were at the front frequently looked at our watches, for of course the nautical passenger knew just how late it was possible for ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... o'clock in the morning, I remember, for just then the captain called to me to stand by the chronometer while he took his fore observation. Captain Hackstaff wasn't one of those old skippers who do everything themselves with a pocket watch, and keep the key of the chronometer in their waistcoat pocket, and won't tell the mate how far ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... ago nearly that I would take her at a certain sum per day, subject to divers conditions about being caulked (which is all she wants, I have ascertained), being provided with spare sails, spars, chronometer, boat, &c., and all agreement to be off unless by a certain day (already past) she was in a state satisfactory to Mr. Kerr. But there is, I fear, none other, and I ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dear," her husband corrected her, consulting his celebrated chronometer. "They have one minute in which to demonstrate ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... sailed there is four minutes' difference of clock-time," Scott proceeded. "You know that a chronometer is a timepiece so nicely constructed and cared for, that it practically keeps perfect time. Meridians are imaginary great circles, and we are always on one of them. With our sextants we find when the centre of the sun is on the celestial meridian corresponding to the terrestrial one; and at that ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... saved in the same manner, including the captain's chronometer and sextant, the sad neglect of which had caused the terrible disaster. Towards night a change in the wind "knocked down" the sea, and the waves no longer dashed against the shattered vessel. The galley had been washed away; but the boat on deck, though thrown from the blocks, ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... summer, and every winter had grown green again. The arrow-slit and the electric wire that entered it, like a worm uneasy at being unearthed, were distinctly visible now. So also was the clock, not, as he had supposed, a chronometer coeval with the fortress itself, but new and shining, and bearing the name of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... to have talked without intermission for two hours; before them on the table lay barometer, chronometer, sextant, journal, and half the ship's library. This consisted of Kingo's hymn-book and an old Dutch 'Kaart-Boikje'; [Footnote: Chart-book.] for the skipper could do just as little with the new hymns as the steersman ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the Astronaut an orbit on which 90 deg. would represent 6500 miles. In seven hours I should be carried along that orbit 7000 miles eastward by the impulse my Astronaut had received from the Earth, and driven back 500 miles by the apergy; so that at 1 A.M. by my chronometer I should be exactly in the plane of the midnight meridian, or 6500 miles east of my starting-point in space, provided that I put the eastward apergic current in action exactly at 12 P.M. by the chronometer. At 1 A.M. also I should have generated a westward impulse ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... few moments before noon, ascended to the observatory with sextant and chronometer, and determined the latitude and longitude of "Silver Cloud," as Mrs. Jones had named the aluminum ship. He made the ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... for blast-off," said Tom, and then turned to the logbook and jotted down the time in the ship's journal. The astral chronometer over the control board read ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... modifications of the rifle. The Kentucky[1] [Footnote 1: The technical name for the long, heavy, small-calibred rifle, in which the thickness of the metal outside the bore is about equal to the diameter of the bore.] rifle is to American mechanism what the chronometer is to English, a speciality in which rivalry by any other nation is at this moment out of the question. An English board of ordnance may make a series of experiments, and in a year or two contrive an Enfield rifle, which, to men who know of nothing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... movement. This instrument has been examined by the academy of music here, who were so well satisfied of its utility, that they have ordered all music which shall be printed here, in future, to have the movements numbered in correspondence with this plexi-chronometer. I need not tell you that the numbers between two movements, as between 22 and 36, give the quicker or slower degrees of the movements, such as the quick andante, or moderate allegro. The instrument is useful, but still it may be greatly simplified. I got him to make me one, and having fixed ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the inventor has no rights under the patent. Only contracts or assignments give to the employer, or to anyone else, a license or a partial or entire ownership in the patent. The equity of this may be appreciated by examples. A journeyman carpenter invents an improvement in chronometer escapements and patents it. The man who owns the carpenter shop has no shadow of claim on or under this patent. Again, the carpenter invents and patents an improvement in jack planes. The shop owner has no rights in or under the patent. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... it does," said the mate, walking aft and consulting his chronometer for the last time, after which he put his head down the hatchway and shouted, "Up lights!" in a deep ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... allows himself twenty minutes for shaving and dressing; fifteen for breakfasting, in which time he eats two slices of toast, drinks two cups of coffee, and swallows two eggs boiled for two and a half minutes by an infallible chronometer. After breakfast he reads the newspaper, but lays it down in the very heart and pith of a clever article on his own side of the question, the moment his time is up. He has even been known to leave the theatre at the very moment of the denouement of a deeply-interesting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... introduced to Captain Owen and to Mr. Lander, the value of whose experience in planning their operations was obvious. And the expedition being brought under the notice of his majesty's government, the loan of a chronometer was obtained for it, with strong letters of introduction and recommendation to the officers commanding the naval and military forces of the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the knob of the door, was 'Mis' Titcomb, the Lord will find ways to bring you thro' the dark valley.' Well, she sunk away about three o'clock in the morning. I remember the time, 'cause the Cap'n's chronometer watch that he left with her lay on the stand for her to take her drops by. I heard her kind o' restless, and I went up, and I saw she was struck with death, and she looked sort o' anxious ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Barometers, or a boiling water apparatus, to ascertain the elevation of the country and ranges we had to travel over. The only instruments which I carried, were a Sextant and Artificial Horizon, a Chronometer, a hand Kater's Compass, a small Thermometer, and Arrowsmith's Map of the Continent ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... parted with her cargo to a homeward bound ship, and was going to refit, and take in provisions and water at one of the Milanesian islands, before returning for further captures. The master was a man of the shrewd, hard money-making cast; but, at the price of Mr. Ernescliffe's chronometer, and of the services of the sailors, he undertook to convey them where they might fall in with packets ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... only use my chronometer," replied Captain Nemo. "If to-morrow, the 21st of March, the disc of the sun, allowing for refraction, is exactly cut by the northern horizon, it will show that I am ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... the measurement of time]; clock, wall clock, pendulum clock, grandfather's clock, cuckoo clock, alarm clock, clock radio; watch, wristwatch, pocket watch, stopwatch, Swiss watch; atomic clock, digital clock, analog clock, quartz watch, water clock; chronometer, chronoscope[obs3], chronograph; repeater; timekeeper, timepiece; dial, sundial, gnomon, horologe, pendulum, hourglass, clepsydra[obs3]; ghurry[obs3]. chronographer[obs3], chronologer, chronologist, timekeeper; annalist. calendar year, leap year, Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship's chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... her with absolute confidence that it was neither the one nor the other, but a sort of epicurean selfishness with perhaps a little dash of swagger away down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from my chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when the fellow brought me the pawn ticket and told me that the thirty ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... the observer. The figures marked on the quadrant give the latitude of the ship at the moment of meridian. The ship's time is then made to correspond, that is to say, it must indicate 12 o'clock, M., after which it is compared with the chronometer's Greenwich time, and the difference enables the observer to determine the longitude. As fifteen miles are allowed to the minute, there will be nine hundred miles to the hour. The importance of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the chronometer. It was two-thirty in the morning, Greenwich time. Jeffers held the bridge from midnight till noon, while Black Bart had the noon to ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the scheme. I did not attempt any rhetoric. But I did not make any apologies. I told them simply of the dangers of lee-shores. I told them when they were most dangerous,— when seamen came upon them unawares. I explained to them that, though the costly chronometer, frequently adjusted, made a delusive guide to the voyager who often made a harbor, still the adjustment was treacherous, the instrument beyond the use of the poor, and that, once astray, its error ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... below. At 6.30 a.m. I thought I heard the sound of a steam-whistle. I dared not be certain, but I knew that the men at the whaling-station would be called from their beds about that time. Descending to the camp I told the others, and in intense excitement we watched the chronometer for seven o'clock, when the whalers would be summoned to work. Right to the minute the steam-whistle came to us, borne clearly on the wind across the intervening miles of rock and snow. Never had any one of us heard sweeter music. It was the first sound created by outside human agency ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... than "raining cats and dogs"? Hailing omnibuses. When is butter like Irish children? When it is made into little pats. Why is a chronometer like ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... Sunday, May 27, Latitude 16 degrees 0 minutes 5 seconds; longitude, by chronometer, 117 degrees 22 minutes. Our fourth Sunday! When we left the ship we reckoned on having about ten days' supplies, and now we hope to be able, by rigid economy, to make them last another week if possible.[1] Last night the sea was comparatively ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cabin, and that of the lieutenant, one on the port, the other on the starboard side, were fitted up with a narrow berth, a cupboard anything but capacious, an arm-chair, a fixed table, a lamp hung from the ceiling, various nautical instruments, a barometer, a thermometer, a chronometer, and a sextant in its oaken box. One of the two other cabins was prepared to receive me. It was eight feet in length, five in breadth. I was accustomed to the exigencies of sea life, and could do with its narrow proportions, also with its furniture—a ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... day of April we were obliged to lay to in lat. 38 deg. 26' south, and longitude 45 deg. 34' 47'' east, by chronometer, and on parts of the first, third, and fourth days of May had to undergo the same operation. This was by no means pleasant, as, owing to the weight of our battery, we rolled very much; and as we could not close ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... observer might have seen right overhead. How upon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle his latitude, is more than I can tell. The longitude he must either have obtained by the Rule of Three, or else by special revelation. Not that the chronometer in the cabin was seldom to be relied on, or was any ways fidgety; quite the contrary; it stood stock-still; and by that means, no doubt, the true Greenwich time—at the period of stopping, at ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... observed that he surrounds the subject with a degree of mystery, through the names which he gives to the gentlemen whom he interviewed. Thus the Chevalier is Sir Walter Scott; M. is Mr. Lockhart; X. is Mr. Canning; O. is the political Puck (could this be himself?); and Chronometer is Mr. Barrow. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... the chronometer. "About eleven minutes. And of course I don't need to ask you to ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... life, preserve my character: as the captain said, we are a queer kind of beasts. Breakfast-time came, and I made shift to swallow some hot tea. Then I must stagger below to take the time, reading the chronometer with dizzy eyes, and marvelling the while what value there could be in observations taken in a ship launched (as ours then was) like a missile among flying seas. The forenoon dragged on in a grinding monotony of peril; every spoke of the wheel a rash but an obliged ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... July 15th This evening I discovered that my Chronometer had stoped, nor can I assign any cause for this accedent; she had been wound up the preceding noon as usual. This is the third instance in which this instrument has stopt in a similar manner since she nas been in my possession, tho ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... for a while, planning and erasing, till at last Edward, who was getting on the worst, asked what o'clock it was. And then it appeared that the Captain had forgotten, for the first time for many years, to wind up his chronometer; and they seemed, if not to feel, at least to have a dim perception, that time was beginning to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... The march may be about two and a half miles (direct geographical) from Axim, and five along the native path. During the night my companion took a good observation of Castor and Pollux, and with the aid of his chronometer laid down the position of the Apatim village at N. lat. 4 55' and W. long. (G.) 2 14' 2". Consequently the nearest point from Central Axim is 2,200 yards, and 200 from the shore. The north-western angle ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron |
