"Astronomical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... especially those who deal in the astronomical part, have great faith in judicial astrology, although they are ashamed to own it publicly. But what I chiefly admired, and thought altogether unaccountable, was the strong disposition I observed in them towards news and politics, perpetually inquiring into public affairs, giving their ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... extraordinary invention of Mr Babbage actually substitutes mechanism in the place of man. A problem is given to the machine, and it solves it by computing a long series of numbers following some given law. In this manner it calculates astronomical, logarithmic, and navigation tables, as well as tables of the powers and products of numbers. It can integrate, too, innumerable equations of finite differences; and, in addition to these functions, it does its work cheaply and quickly; it corrects whatever ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... specimens would do more than any description; and De Quincey is too well known to justify quotation. It may be enough to notice that most of his brilliant performances are variations on the same theme. He appeals to our terror of the infinite, to the shrinking of the human mind before astronomical distances and geological periods of time. He paints vast perspectives, opening in long succession, till we grow dizzy in the contemplation. The cadence of his style suggests sounds echoing each other, and growing gradually fainter, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... 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 ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... me sleep. 'My lord,' said I, 'let me now question thee.' 'I am sleepy,' said he, 'but ask on.' 'What subject shall I choose?' I said. 'Any subject,' he replied; 'of all knowledge I know the half.'" Joseph asks him astronomical, musical, logical, arithmetical questions; to all of which Enan replies, "I do not know." "But," protests Joseph, "how couldst thou assert that thou knewest half of every subject, when it is clear thou knowest ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... entirely, upon mechanical and optical aid, every improvement and discovery in these departments changes its position, bringing to light new facts, and modifying the aspect of those which were previously known. The very basis of all astronomical calculations, the standard of time, is now no longer relied upon as invariable. It is suspected of a change resulting from a gradual retardation in the rate of the earth's rotation on its axis, produced by tidal friction. When the binary stars were ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... dahabiyeh which this Pharaoh used upon the 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 Caesar ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... who, 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
... mountains as accurately as possible; but finding ordinary methods of surveying impracticable in the dense forest which covers the whole region, I adopted this simple and apparently rude method, checking the distances whenever possible by astronomical observation. ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... also used for any short space of time; according to Lane It is4 minutes (i.e. the 24 hours or 1,440 minutes of the astronomical day divided into 360 degrees of 4 minutes each), and Bocthor gives it as an equivalent for our instant ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... there has been no central authority recognised throughout Jewry. The Jewish organisation has long been congregational. Since the fourth century there has been no body with any jurisdiction over the mass of Jews. At that date the Calendar was fixed by astronomical calculations. The Patriarch, in Babylon, thereby voluntarily abandoned the hold he had previously had over the scattered Jews, for it was no longer the fiat of the Patriarch that settled the dates of the Festivals. While ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... was stated that the sun had risen in the West and set in the East; i.e. from East to West, then from West to East, then again from East to West, and finally back to East again. This seems to be the meaning attached by Herodotus to something which he was told about astronomical cycles.] ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... here in El-Azhar are no whit out of date. Open, in glass cases, are numerous inestimable Korans, which in olden times had been written fair and illuminated on parchment by pious khedives. And, in a place of honour, a large astronomical glass, through which men watch the rising of the moon of Ramadan. . . . All this savours of the past. And what is being taught to-day to the ten thousand students of El-Azhar scarcely differs from what was taught to their predecessors ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... ambassador from the king, and being desired to acquaint the society with what he had done with respect to the instructions, which he had received from them before his departure from England, related, that he had lodged the astronomical quadrant, which the society had sent to Portugal to make observations with there, with a body of men at Lisbon, who had applied themselves among other kinds of literature to mathematics" (Birch's "History of the Royal Society," ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... reasonable presumption, however, is not even. The most inclusive movements known to us in nature, the astronomical, are calculable, and so are the most minute and pervasive processes, the chemical. These are also, if evolution is to be accepted, the earliest processes upon which all others have supervened and out of which, as it were, they ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... leave of our friends here, and it was with some regret, as it was bidding adieu to civilized life, for a very undetermined space of time. Lieutenant Hayward having finished his astronomical observations on shore, came on board with the time-keeper and instruments, and again proceeded on our voyage, on the morning of January 8, 1791. In running down the coast of the Brazils, saw several spermacaeti whales, and vessels employed on that fishery. Could it have been ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... accidentally started it, but could neither guide nor stop it. Civilization was born with the great inventions of fire, tools, the domestication of [Sidenote: Inventions] animals, writing, and navigation, all of them, together with important astronomical discoveries, made prior to the beginnings of recorded history. On this capital mankind traded for some millenniums, for neither classic times nor the Dark Ages added much to the practical sciences. But, beginning ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... should have something to 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; Congress at last took notice, and a law was passed ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... not forget to thank Canon F.F. Grensted for much help with regard to the astronomical problems ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... he married Sophia Elizabeth, daughter of William Frend, a Unitarian in faith, a mathematician and actuary in occupation, a notice of whose life, written by his son-in-law, will be found in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (vol. v.). They settled in Chelsea (30 Cheyne Row), where in later years Mrs De Morgan had a large circle of intellectual ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... As to eclipses, I have notes upon several of them that did not occur upon scheduled time, though with differences only of seconds—and one delightful lost soul, deep-buried, but buried in the ultra-respectable records of the Royal Astronomical Society, upon an eclipse that did not occur at all. That delightful, ultra-sponsored thing of perdition is too good and malicious to be dismissed with passing notice: we'll ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... gone farther off and become astronomical." The home-like conception of the universe in mediaeval times, when dying was like going out of one room into another, and man entertained a neighborly feeling for the angels, has a tendency to disappear as science unfolds more and more new infinities ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... 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 the intervals ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... priestly astronomers and astrologers, was quite in accordance with the strong mixture of star-worship grafted on the older religion, and with the power ascribed to the heavenly bodies over the acts and destinies of men. These constructions, therefore, were fitted for astronomical uses by being very carefully placed with their corners pointing exactly to the four cardinal points—North, South, East and West. Only two exceptions have been found to this rule, one in Babylon, and the Assyrian Ziggurat at Kalah, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... Nineveh, Babylon— Gone from the earth like vapor from old Nile, When thy noonday beams lick up its waters! Hark! I hear again the vanished voices Of lofty Memnon, where proud pagan priests Syllable the matin hour, uttering Prophecies from Jupiter and Apollo— To devotees deluded, then as now, By astronomical, selfish fakirs, Who pretend claim to heavenly agency And power over human souls divine. Poor bamboozled man; know God never yet Empowered any one of his truant tribe To ride with a creed rod, image of Himself; And thou, oh Sol, giver of light ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... he is said to have been patron, represents a religion distinctly later than that of the body of the epic (completed in the sixth or seventh century, Buehler, Indian Studies, No. ii.). The dramatic and astronomical era was but introductory to Kum[a]rila's reassertion of Brahmanism in the seventh century, when the Northern barbarian was gone, and the Mohammedan was not yet rampant. In the rest of Northern India there were several native dynasties in different quarters, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... name of goodness, Menippus, what are these astronomical sums you are doing under your breath? I have been dogging yon for some time, listening to your suns and moons, queerly mixed up with common ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard, catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls, historically ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... an ancient observatory of more than ordinary interest, erected by a famous Hindoo patron of science, Rajah Manu. Though it is now quite neglected and in partial ruins, a sun-dial, a zodiac, meridian lines, and astronomical appliances are still distinctly traced upon heavy stones arranged for celestial observations. This proves that astronomy was well advanced at Benares hundreds of years before Galileo was born, and it will be remembered that the astronomers of India first settled the fact of the rotation of ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... commission in the twenty-fifth of Xerxes, that the walls were two years and four months in building, and that they were finished on the twenty-eighth of Xerxes, sect. 7, 8. It may also be remarked further, that Josephus hardly ever mentions more than one infallible astronomical character, I mean an eclipse of the moon, and this a little before the death of Herod the Great, Antiq. B. XVII. ch. 6. sect. 4. Now on these two chronological characters in great measure depend some of the most important points belonging to Christianity, viz. the explication ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... traveler found men who could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye. These men have made little advance in civilization, yet they are far superior to us in their accuracy of vision. It is a curious fact that not a single astronomical discovery of importance has been made through a large telescope, the men who have advanced our knowledge of that science the most working with ordinary instruments backed by most accurately trained ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 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 ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... He was quite sure of his little balance, though he had never had any head for figures of that sort. It was an easy affair in his eyes to handle the differential calculus, which will do anything, metaphorically speaking, from smashing a rock as flat and thin as a postage stamp, to regulating an astronomical clock; but to understand the complication of a pass-book and a bank account was a matter of the greatest possible difficulty. Newton would have done it much better, though he could not get to the head of his class in arithmetic. That is the difference ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Terra Australis. Gravity of sea-water tried. Cape Leeuwin, and the coast from thence to King George's Sound. Arrival in the Sound. Examination of the harbours. Excursion inland. Country, soil, and productions. Native inhabitants: Language and anatomical measurement. Astronomical and nautical observations. ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... Egyptian Astronomical Society has just finished constructing a new radio telescope. It's a first-rate instrument from which we expect great things. Your father and I were in at its birth, so to speak. We consulted on the initial designs during a meeting of ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... will be—drawn from such factors as guided missile research activity, balloons, astronomical phenomena. . . . But there are still ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... desired until they knew how to wash them. We had also brought a beautiful magic lantern with a dissolving-view apparatus for our people's amusement and instruction, for some of the slides were painted by Miss Rigaud to illustrate the life of our Lord, and there were many astronomical slides also. All these treasures brought us numerous visitors. The Chinese Christians were all invited to a feast at our house, after which the magic lantern was exhibited, and we were glad to find that our school-children could explain all the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... God has personally revealed to them the new truth in which they believe, and has appointed them as prophets. Erotic images are generally associated with their system. One of them, whose system is astronomical, divides the planets into males and females. Another, a lunatic, describes the pathological sexual sensations by the term of "psycho-sexual contact by action at a distance." These are phenomena which we meet with at each step in psychiatry, and which give the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... largest and most powerful telescopes in the world. Most interesting observations as to the great comet of 1843 were made by Alexander, Anderson, Bartlett, Kendall, Pierce, Walker, Downes, and Loomis, and valuable astronomical instruments have been constructed by Amasa Holcomb, of Massachusetts, and Wm. J. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... geologist, basing his calculations upon the time required for the depositions of the stratified rocks, put the minimum age at thirty-eight million years and the maximum age at ninety-six million years. Sir George Darwin, basing his calculation wholly upon astronomical data, puts the earth's age at a minimum of fifty-six million years. Joly arrived at his estimate by a calculation of the time required to produce the sodium content of the ocean, and concluded that the age of the earth is between eighty million and one hundred million years. Sollas ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... the East, the currents, the trade-winds and monsoons, the harbours, the islands, the 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... case which contained books, the latest astronomical data sheets, and a space computer and scratch board. These were obviously for Rip's personal use. He examined them. There were all the references he would need for computing orbit, speed, and just about anything ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... 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, he ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... Generation To the Muse The Learned Workman The Duty of All A Problem The Peculiar Ideal To Mystics The Key The Observer Wisdom and Prudence The Agreement Political Precept Majestas Populi The Difficult Union To a World-Reformer My Antipathy Astronomical Writings The Best State To Astronomers My Faith Inside and Outside Friend and Foe Light and Color Genius Beauteous Individuality Variety The imitator Geniality The Inquirers Correctness The Three Ages of Nature The Law of Nature Choice ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... magazine, cyclopaedia, and jest-book; was even a spelling-book. It was consulted by every member of the household on every subject, save possibly religion—for that they had the best of all books. The planters learned from it meteorological, astronomical, thaumaturgical, botanical, and agricultural facts—or rather what the editor stated as facts. Social customs and peculiarities and ethics were also touched upon in a manner suited to the requirements and capacity of ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... no date on the title-page, but a notice on the second page indicates 1825. The book is extraordinary, and shows great astronomical and philological attainments, with some startling facts in geology, and bold theories as to the formation of the earth. I have endeavoured to procure the other two works of which Mr. Mackey is said to be the author, and also some account of him, but without success. I ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... of the Yavari river, which forms the boundary between Peru and Brazil. The greatest pains were taken to properly establish this point. On a small island in the middle of the river, and very near its confluence with the Amazon, many astronomical observations were taken, resulting in giving the latitude 4 deg. 18' 45" south, longitude 69 deg. 53' 10" west of Greenwich, the distance from the Atlantic coast by the courses of the Amazon being ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... Versailles, 1886; grand prize, Julian 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 ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... navigators to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar; these accounts 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
... earth was of spherical shape. Tsou Yen himself was ridiculed as a dreamer; but very soon, when the idea of the reciprocal destruction of the elements was applied, perhaps by Tsou Yen himself, to politics, namely when, in connection with the astronomical calculations much cultivated by this school and through the identification of dynasties with the five elements, the attempt was made to explain and to calculate the duration and the supersession of dynasties, strong pressure began to be brought to bear against this school. For hundreds of ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... magnificent aspect of the ocean when Captain Nemo appeared. He did not seem to be aware of my presence, and began a series of astronomical observations. Then, when he had finished, he went and leant on the cage of the watch-light, and gazed abstractedly on the ocean. In the meantime, a number of the sailors of the Nautilus, all strong ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... surprising facts about the physical universe as soon as they are civilized enough to have time to study these things, and to invent instruments and apparatus for research. But what is the consequence? Their discoveries discredit the simple stories of our religion. At first we had no idea of astronomical space. We believed the sky to be only the ceiling of a room as large as the earth, with another room on top of it. Death was to us a going upstairs into that room, or, if we did not obey the priests, going downstairs into the coal cellar. ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... into details, it may be sufficient to say, that many of the applications of steam to locomotion and manufactures, of electricity and magnetism to the production of mechanical motion, the electrical telegraph, the registration of astronomical phenomena, the art of multiplying engravings, the introduction and improvement among us of all the important inventions of the Old World, are striking indications of the progress of this country in the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... and shipcraft. He was a bold rider across country. With a powerful grasp on mathematical truths and principles, he entered with whole-hearted zest into inviting problems, or into practical details of mechanical or hydrostatic or astronomical science. His letters are full of such observations, put in a way which he thought would interest his friends, and marked by his strong habit of getting into touch with what was real and of the substance of questions. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... 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, or, for that matter, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Clarke's Astronomical Lantern. Intended to familiarize students with the constellations by comparing them with facsimiles on the lantern face. With seventeen ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... 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 in a sigh, a shake of the head, and an unbelieving, "there ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... air the stimulus could be anything that is normally seen in the air. Balloons, airplanes, and astronomical bodies are the commoner stimuli. Birds and insects are common also, but usually are seen at such close range that they are nearly always recognized. Infrequently observed things, such as sundogs, mirages, huge fireballs, and a host of other unusual flying objects, ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... in a Tower; HUGO seated at a table covered with maps and charts of the heavens, astronomical instruments, books, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... the compliment. This work, begun in 1671, was not completed till 1677; stone was scarce, and the restoration of London and its Cathedral swallowed up the produce of the quarries. "It was at first used," says Elmes, "by the members of the Royal Society, for astronomical experiments, but was abandoned on account of its vibrations being too great for the nicety required in their observations. This occasioned a report that it was unsafe; but its scientific construction may bid defiance to the attacks of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... 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 between his periodic universal conflagrations. Plato derived the number from predecessors, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... not void of beauty. The moral writings are of a decidedly higher grade. Works of fiction are constructed with considerable skill, and are sometimes not wanting in humor. Some of the hymns are not destitute of merit. It can not be doubted that there were important mathematical writings. Astronomical observations were very early made. In medicine, we have writings which prove that considerable proficiency was attained in this department. But here, as in other branches, the spirit was empirical rather than scientific in the higher sense; and the result was to petrify knowledge in an unalterable ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... 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 only from the end of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... are of the objects we see and touch. The theory "is a necessity to explain the experimental facts of chemical composition." "Through metaphysics first," says Soddy, "then through alchemy and chemistry, through physical and astronomical spectroscopy, lastly through radio-activity, science has slowly groped its way to the atom." The physicists make definite statements about these hypothetical bodies all based upon definite chemical phenomena. Thus Clerk Maxwell assumes that they are spherical, that ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... 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 ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... in one of the palaces of the bey's. A great number of machines, and physical, chemical, and astronomical instruments had been brought from France. They were distributed in the different rooms, which were also successively filled with all the curiosities of the country, whether of the animal, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... out. The rulers of the enemy nations knew, of course, that if a new—say—space-drive had been invented, they would very soon have to change their tune. So there were no more attacks on the Platform. It floated serenely overhead, sending down astronomical observations and solar-constant measurements and weather maps, while about it floated a screen of garbage ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... splendor which appears to us would be invisible, since it contains, as it were, an earth for its central mass, with a circumferential envelope of light and heat, and between the two an atmosphere of water and clouds and of ambient air." After reading that bit of precious astronomical science announced nearly five centuries ago, it is easy to understand how Copernicus could have anticipated other phases of our knowledge, as he did in his declarations that the figure of the earth is not a sphere, but is ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... tender bosom through with many sorrows; but these are all exceptions to general rules. And it is according to these common laws that human behaviour ought to be regulated. The eccentric orbit of the comet never influences astronomical calculations respecting the invariable order established in the motion of the principal bodies ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... truth in ALL these explanations; but naturally each school for the time being makes the most of its own contention. Mr. J. M. Robertson (Pagan Christs and Christianity and Mythology), who has done such fine work in this field, (1) relies chiefly on the solar and astronomical origins, though he does not altogether deny the others; Dr. Frazer, on the other hand—whose great work, The Golden Bough, is a monumental collection of primitive customs, and will be an inexhaustible quarry for all future students—is ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... the 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 mast ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... which he was represented by a lawyer straight out of a B-grade gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with an over-zealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols and jackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirsty threats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retain ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... park to the north of the University is open to the public, and is best seen from the rear entrance in Dorotheen Strasse. Its quiet shades seem quite the ideal of an academic grove, if that can be in the middle of a great city. The Astronomical Observatory is upwards of half a mile south, in a park at the end of Charlotten Strasse; and the Medical Colleges are mostly to the northwest, ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... know him when you see him again. You put your mark on him where you can see it, all right!" He chuckled. "I suppose I really ought to have interfered in that, but I decided to do a little astronomical observation, about fifty feet away, for a few minutes. I'm 'way behind in my astronomy, anyhow. Do you ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... and now learned, for the first time, that he had gone round the world on foot, to turn and come back by the same route, when he was only a day's journey from home, Columbus was acquainted with such stories as this, and also had the astronomical knowledge which almost made him know that the world was round, "and, like a ball, goes spinning in the air." The difficulty was to persuade other people that, because of this roundness, it would be possible to attain Asia by sailing ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... ignorant of the universe as they are popularly supposed to have been. Although they believed, like the ancients, that the earth was the center around which the sun and stars revolved, they were familiar with some important astronomical phenomena. They knew that the earth was a sphere and guessed very nearly its real size. They knew that everything that had weight was attracted towards its center, and that there would be no danger of falling off should one get on the opposite side of the globe; they realized ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... aware that the obvious astronomical allegory, which lurks in Chaucer's "Complaint of Mars and Venus," has been pointed out, or that any attempt has been made to explain it. In Tyrwhitt's slight notice of that poem, prefixed to his glossary, there is not the most remote hint that ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... the constellations, and the number of stars composing them in the astronomy of different periods, are known from the astronomical scenes of tombs and temples. The identity of the Haunch with the Chariot, or Great Bear of modern astronomy, was discovered by Lepsius and confirmed by Biot. Mariette pointed out that the Pyramid Arabs applied the name ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... sleep, the whole of the nights were employed in incessant drinking of water, and I was now so glad to get on in the journey and see some of my fellow fever-patients crawling along, that I could not brook the delay, which astronomical observations for accurately determining the geographical position of this most interesting spot ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... as refined and imagery as classic as his? And yet Hall's noblest compositions were sermons. Is it easy, think you, to produce a philosophic poem, the most sublime and expansive of any age or country? And yet such is the true character of the Astronomical Sermons of Chalmers. Or is that spirituality which impresses and sinks into the heart of a people, independently at times of thought of large calibre or the polish of a fine literary taste, a thing easily incorporated into the tissue of a lengthened sermon? Think you, did Maclaurin's ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... who had gone to Talni from Great Britain to represent the British Astronomical Association, and from the Lick Observatory at San Francisco, succeeded in ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 5, February 3, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... said, is a very slightly developed faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy. Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass. Your geologists and biologists may yet find a ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... thirty years of age and first lieutenant in the navy, when I was intrusted with an astronomical expedition to Central India. The English Government provided me with all the necessary means for carrying out my enterprise, and I was soon busied with a few followers in that strange, surprising, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... of numbers in groups expressed by the multiplication table gives rise to what may be termed "numerical conjunctions." These are analogous to astronomical conjunctions: the planets, revolving around the sun at different rates of speed, and in widely separated orbits, at certain times come into line with one another and with the sun. They are then said to be in conjunction. Similarly, numbers, advancing toward infinity singly and ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... while he was busy with an astronomical class, explaining, by means partly of the blackboard, partly of two boys representing the relation of the earth and the moon, how it comes that we see but one half of the latter, the door gently opened and the troubled face of the mad laird peeped slowly in. His body ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... husband did not comply with her wishes. What could poor Ahmed do? He was no astrologer, but he was dotingly fond of his wife, and he could not bear the idea of losing her. He promised to obey, and having sold his little stock, bought an astrolabe, an astronomical almanac, and a table of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Furnished with these, he went to the marketplace, crying, "I am an astrologer! I know the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the twelve signs of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... time at which Queen Tera intended her resurrection to take place! We are in contact with some of the higher astronomical calculations in connection with true orientation. As you know, the stars shift their relative positions in the heavens; but though the real distances traversed are beyond all ordinary comprehension, the effects as we see them are small. Nevertheless, they are susceptible of measurement, not by years, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... before him. It was the Miss Heydinger who had addressed him, the owner of that gilt-edged book in the cover of brown paper. No one else had come all the way up from the ground floor. The rest of the load in the lift had emerged at the "astronomical" and "chemical" floors, but these two had both chosen "zoology" for their third year of study, and zoology lived in the attics. She stepped into the light, with a rare touch of colour springing to her cheeks in spite of herself. Lewisham perceived ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... as the hour struck. The time-piece then had superseded the sun-dial and hour-glass: the mechanical arts had attained no slight degree of perfection. But passing over all ingenious mechanism, making no mention here of astronomical discoveries, some of them surprising enough, it is especially for the Algebraic analysis that we must thank the Moors. A strange fascination, doubtless, these crafty men found in the cabalistic characters and hidden processes of reasoning peculiar to this science. So they established ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... subordinate, we may remember, as M. Arago observes, that man owes the knowledge of it entirely to his own resources, and thereby has raised himself to the most eminent rank in the world of ideas. Indeed, astronomical investigations might not improperly excuse a little ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... other emblems of divinity we find the heads of dogs, cats, apes, and birds, and also rude figures of the boats of Isis, establishing a connection between the Egyptian and Phœnician mythologies. Some exhibit astronomical and astrological symbols. Other images appear to be carrying cakes, a part of the offering made to Astarte, to which Jeremiah alludes:—“The women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... present were to reach Zungomero as soon as possible, as a few days' halt would be required there to fix the longitude of the eastern flank of the East Coast Range by astronomical observation; but on ordering the morning's march, the porters—too well fed and lazy—thought our marching-rate much too severe, and resolutely refused to move. They ought to have made ten miles a-day, but preferred doing five. Argument was useless, and I was reluctant ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... 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 ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... therefore involved the examination and consideration of all the agencies, Material or Spiritual, which have operated on Mankind through past ages. Mathematical questions concerning Number, Form, and Force; Astronomical problems on the relation of our Earth to other Celestial bodies, and the effect thereof on Climate, Soil, and Modes of Life; Physical inquiries into the influence of Heat, Electricity, etc., on individuals and nations; Chemical investigations into the nature of different kinds of Food, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... three terrestrial globes and an astronomical one with constellations standing on a table. A number of very tawdry articles were lying about on the other pieces of furniture; such were a metal dog holding a ten-shilling watch, paper frames, cheap imitation ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... with the astronomical clock are worthy of passing mention—one is that its bell which strikes the hours is probably the oldest thing about the Palace, for it goes back to some years before Wolsey acquired the manor, and is mentioned among the properties at the place ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... he produced a history of Modern Astronomy from the foundation of the Alexandrian School to 1730 (three vols. quarto, Paris, 1779-82): and in 1787 came the History of Indian and Oriental Astronomy from the same pen. All these contain interesting details of the origin and progress of astronomical science, with the lives, writings, and discoveries of astronomers. With regard to our own great mathematician, Sir Isaac Newton, a bibliography of his works has been published by Mr. G. J. Gray; the second edition ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... however, in comparison was the regard which these astronomical wonders attracted on board the Dobryna. All interest there was too much absorbed in terrestrial matters, and in ascertaining what changes had taken place in the configuration of the earth itself, to permit much ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... As they do of being indebted to the Babylonians and the Egyptians for astronomical and ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... are swept by the greater viewpoint. Awed by the mysteries of nature, we realize how very small and unimportant we are in the vast scheme of things. We envisage the infinite reaches of astronomical space overhead. Realms of largeness unfathomable. And at our feet, everywhere, are myriad entrances into the infinitely small. With ourselves in between—with our fatuous human consciousness that we are of some importance ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... is clear to the 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 ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... ever been the lot of the original explorer of nature. Kepler, the greatest astronomical genius of his time, continually struggled with poverty, and earned a scanty subsistence by ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... been very far wrong, or may even claim a sort of prophetic insight into the subject, when we consider that the greater part of astronomy at the present day consists of abstract dynamics, by the help of which most astronomical discoveries have ...
— The Republic • Plato
... beginning was the only change that we made in the "charter party" throughout the voyage. There was no haphazard sailing on this voyage. Daily observations for determining latitude and longitude were invariably made unless the sun was obscured. The result of these astronomical observations were more reliable than one might suppose, from their being taken on a tittlish canoe. After a few days' practising, a very fair off-hand contact could be made, when the canoe rose on the crest of a wave, where manifestly would be found the best ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... seen to contain a kernel of the truth, when we recall that among Maimon's intimate friends was the rabbi of Kletzk, Lithuania; that in the humble dwelling of his father there were works on historical, astronomical, and philosophical subjects; that the chief rabbi of a neighboring town, Rabbi Samson of Slonim, who, according to Fuenn, "had in his youth lived for a while in Germany, learned the German language there, and made himself acquainted in some measure with the ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... year of the building. At all events, Barth, Stevenson, Gibson, Reeves, and some other scientists, who being Westerns can have none of the prejudices proper to the native Pundits, have formed this conjecture on the basis of some astronomical data. Besides, the conjunction of the planets stated in the inscription leaves no doubt as to the dates, it must be either 453 B.C., or 1734 of our era, or 2640 B.C., which last is impossible, because Buddha and Buddhist monasteries are mentioned in the inscription. I translate some of ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... memory, and, so long as they remain there, they give rise 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 power of ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... mark our progress. The island 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 we left ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... to follow his bent. His scientific tastes led him to adopt the surveying branch of his profession, and in 1836, when appointed to the Terror on her expedition to the North Seas, he had charge of the astronomical and ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... founded,—the first in 1554. The distinguished Spanish botanist Jose Celestino Mutis, in 1762, took the chair of mathematics and astronomy in the Colegio del Rosario, and under him were trained many scientists, including Francisco Jose de Caldas. An astronomical observatory was established, the first in America. In 1777 a public library was organized, and a theater in 1794. And of great influence was the visit of Humboldt in 1801. Among the works published in the second half of the eighteenth century mention ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... the great Almanac man, calculating the signs and wonders in the heavens, and furnishing the astronomical matter with which those very useful annuals abound. In former years it was his custom, in all his almanacs, to utter sage predictions as to the weather, at given periods in the course of the revolving ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... LOCKYER is professor of astronomical physics and director of the solar observatory at the Royal College of Science in South Kensington. Here it is that his chief work has been done for some thirty years past. The foundation-stone of that work is spectroscopic study of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... Idea of Natural Government by Law.—Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological, and Physiological Discoveries.—Illustrations from Kepler's Laws, the Trade-winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... agriculturists laboured on scientific principles; and where, amidst gardens and parks, stood his extensive library, with scribes to multiply his manuscripts:—from Tycho Brahe's, who built a magnificent astronomical house on an island, which he named after the sole objects of his musings Uranienburgh, or the Castle of the Heavens;—to that of Evelyn, who first began to adorn Wotton, by building "a little study," till many years after he dedicated the ancient house to contemplation, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... eternal tendencies of all toward happiness never inconsistent with what is clear to the 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 ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... aesthetic, and economic subjects prove which are delivered especially in the Socialist institutes, and very well attended. I have often heard working-men, whose fustian jackets scarcely held together, speak upon geological, astronomical, and other subjects, with more knowledge than most "cultivated" bourgeois in Germany possess. And in how great a measure the English proletariat has succeeded in attaining independent education is shown especially by the fact that the epoch-making products of modern philosophical, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... foot, on arriving at a well beside a house, ascend the hill by the mule-path. The views are charming. The establishment possesses 1235 acres of land. On the highest part are the various buildings for astronomical purposes. Afew yards below, on the west side of the mountain, is a handsome building 228 ft. long and 46 broad. In the centre is the library, and the wing ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... long ago the moon must have been a part of the earth, at a time when the earth was much larger and softer than she now is; to put it in the correct way, we should say when she was less dense. There is no need to explain the word 'dense,' for in its ordinary sense we use it every day, but in an astronomical sense it does not mean exactly the same thing. Everything is made up of minute particles or atoms, and when these atoms are not very close together the body they compose is loose in texture, while if they ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... approximation. Now if we use a system of co-ordinates which is rigidly attached to the earth, then, relative to this system, every fixed star describes a circle of immense radius in the course of an astronomical day, a result which is opposed to the statement of the law of inertia. So that if we adhere to this law we must refer these motions only to systems of coordinates relative to which the fixed stars do not move in a circle. A system ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... The Astronomical New Year soon follows, when the images of Buddha are sprinkled with water, while the priests hold a festival at the royal palace. Priests and aged ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... the window, were all intact; only the glass being broken. There was no glazier in the village, which broke few windows, and was content to wait the coming round of a peripatetic plumber, who came at irregular intervals, like Easter, but without astronomical checks. So, as a temporary expedient to keep the dust out, Widow Thrale pasted a piece of paper over the breakage, and the mill was hidden from the human eye. Toby showed penitence, and had sugar in his bread-and-milk, but the balance ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... discoveries, DON HENRY. All other discoveries, whether nautical or by land, dwindle into mere ordinary events, when compared with his absolutely solitary exertion of previous scientific views. The sagacious and almost prophetic induction, persevering ardour, cosmographical, nautical, and astronomical skill, which centered in COLUMBUS, from the first conception to the perfect completion of this great and important enterprize, the discovery of a large portion of the globe which had lain hid for thousands ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... has been thought by some to be the sundial. Actually these devices represent two different approaches to the problem of time-keeping. True ancestor of the clock is to be found among the highly complex astronomical machines which man has been building since Hellenic times to illustrate the relative motions of the ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... in the Year. Astronomical Memoranda. Number of Trees, Plants, etc., required to Set an Acre. Hardy and Tender Vegetables. Postage on Horticultural Matter. Tables of Quantities of Seed. The Retinisporas—By JOSIAH HOOPES. Selecting and Saving ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... gaze at the sun and sky; this pleasure is denied residents in modern Pittsburgh. The only knowledge they have that there are sun, moon and stars, is that which Professor John Brashears (from Brownsville) supplies with his astronomical instruments. Hurrah ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... 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
... and the chiming of the responsive bell. Both were silent now, and there was room enough for a prisoner's cot in that lonely and dismantled turret as there once had been for a telescope and its rest, used for astronomical purposes at long intervals by my father and a few of his scientific friends, but finally ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... preserving the Health of Mariners, which was delivered by you at the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society, on the 30th of November last might, with Captain Cook's Paper therein referred to, be printed, and annexed to the Account of the Astronomical and Philosophical Observations made in the course of the said Captain Cook's late voyages which account is preparing for the press, under their direction; and it having been since thought more proper that the said Discourse and Paper ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... I have of late been a sort of 'astronome malgre moi', by bringing in last Monday into the House of Lords a bill for reforming our present Calendar and taking the New Style. Upon which occasion I was obliged to talk some astronomical jargon, of which I did not understand one word, but got it by heart, and spoke it by rote from a master. I wished that I had known a little more of it myself; and so much I would have you know. But the great and necessary knowledge ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... mention that by its 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 ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... ceremonial. We must never forget that what is natural in one place is natural in other places also, and we may sum up without fear of serious contradiction, that no case has been made out in favor of a foreign origin of the elementary astronomical notions of the Hindus as found or ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... 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 Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... astronomical telescope has a very long focus object-glass at one end of the tube, and a very short focus eye-piece at the other. To see an object clearly one merely has to push in or pull out the eye-piece until its focus exactly corresponds with that of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... centre. Yet how? That sounded well and metaphysical; but what did it mean if acted upon? What was the centre of London for any purpose whatever, latitudinarian or longitudinarian, literary, social, or mercantile, geographical, astronomical, or (as Mrs. Malaprop kindly suggests) diabolical? Apparently that we should stay at our inn; for in that way we seemed best to distribute our presence equally amongst all, viz., by going ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... in his astronomical meditations, and thinking more about the celestial than the terrestrial world, when a distant sound aroused him from his reverie. He listened attentively, and to his great amaze, fancied he heard the sounds of ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne |
