"Sextant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... third report; the first, as far as I can ascertain, was never published. This last was accompanied by many observations taken with the sextant and other instruments, requiring long experience to understand and handle correctly. Brahe, a German, had been instructed by my son in their use, and had made some progress. Notwithstanding his fatal error in leaving the depot contrary to orders, ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... them riding on sea-horses and simpering sadly; while in the great panels around the sides of the room other nymphs, painted at full length in lively colors, are bearing aloft various symbols of the sea—this one a sextant, that a chart, another a compass, a fourth a bannerol, sufficiently prosaic in idea, though not ungraceful in fact, as witness the floating damsel who carries a barometer lightly as a mermaid carries her glass, or the figure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... went below to get his medicine-chest. He threw away the medicine, and put his log and the ship's papers in it. He took up his chronometer to bring it, when a wave like that which got the cook and the boy knocked the skipper over and lost the chronometer. All he got away with was his sextant and compass and his watch, which was ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... A sextant and astrolabe were brought him from France, of whose use no one could inform him, though he asked all whom he met. At length a Dutch merchant, Franz Timmermann by name, was brought him, who measured with the instrument the distance to a ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... "My father had no such clock, in point of fact. He put his money in a bag, his bag in his chest, and his chest in the hold, and it came as safe as the captain's sextant." ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... a revolver, a hunting knife, and some fishing tackle; one three and a quarter by four and a quarter folding pocket kodak, one panorama kodak, a sextant and artificial horizon, a barometer, a thermometer. I wore a short skirt over knickerbockers, a short sweater, and a belt to which were attached my cartridge pouch, revolver, and hunting knife. My hat was ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... tale of five hundred, and the cooking-pot, now in a museum at Cape Town, was magnified into a cannon; "I had myself confessed to the loan." Where the five hundred guns came from, it was easy to divine; for, knowing that I used a sextant, my connection with government was a thing of course; and, as I must know all her majesty's counsels, I was questioned on the subject of the indistinct rumors which had reached them of Lord Rosse's telescope. "What right has your government ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Using the sextant and other apparatus, some of which Tom had invented himself, the exact position of the submarine was calculated. As the last figure was set down and compared with their previous location, one of the men who had been doing the computing ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... need give only the names: (2) Equinoxial Sphere, 6 feet diameter. (3) Azimuthal Horizon, same diam. (4) Great Quadrant, of 6 feet radius. (5) Sextant of about 8 feet radius. (6) Celestial ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... seminary for the training of theoretical and practical navigators. He summoned thither astronomers and cartographers and skilled seamen, while he caused stouter and larger vessels to be built for the express purpose of exploration. He perfected the astrolabe (the clumsy predecessor of the modern sextant) by which the latitude could be with some accuracy determined; and he equipped all his ships with the compass, by which their steering was entirely determined. He brought from Majorca (which, as we have seen, was the centre of practical map-making in the ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... and there were many round balls of ironstone, like marbles or round shot, strewed about. A red ferruginous crust projected from the highest part, and, on this summit, the magnetic needle was greatly affected by local attraction, and quite useless. Fortunately, I had also my pocket sextant, and with it took some valuable angles. On descending, I heartily enjoyed a breakfast, and named the hill which gave us the water, Mount Aquarius. Returning towards Mount Owen, by a more direct route, I arrived at the head of a gully which led tolerably ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... extraordinary indulgence. On my visit to the ship, I could not help remarking the great economy of all its arrangements: no such thing, for instance, as a looking-glass was to be seen, except the one kept for measuring the angle of the sextant, and that, small as it was, assisted the whole crew in ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... words. That is a sure test; I must obey my daemon. I wish I could give you what you want for what you have given me; but when do we get what we want in exchange for what we give? Our trafficking is a clumsy barter. A man sells me a sheep, and I pay him in return with my grandfather's old sextant. This is not quite true for you and me. Love is given and love is returned. A Dieu—not adieu. Remember that the world is very big, and that there may be room in it for ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... may have been the barometer, for I know he had them both," resumed the aunt. "Barometer, or thermometer, it do n't make any great difference; or quadrant, or sextant. They are all instruments, and sometimes he used one, and sometimes another. Sailors take on board the sun, too, and have an instrument for that, as well as one to weigh the weather with. Sometimes they take on board the stars, and the moon, and 'fill their ships ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper |
