"Astronomical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... understand than one—two mysteries are less mysterious than a single mystery. For it requires two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is a Catastrophe. But, just as the recurrence of an eclipse at different periods makes an eclipse no breach of Continuity; just as the fact that the astronomical conditions necessary to cause a Glacial Period will in the remote future again be fulfilled constitutes the Great Ice Age a normal phenomenon; so the recurrence of two periods associated with special phenomena of Life, the second higher, and ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... and with no head for figures and unfortunately he'd never had the schooling to bring him on. But if Drone could get him in at Ottawa, his father truly believed it would be the very place for him. Surely in the Indian Department or in the Astronomical Branch or in the New Canadian Navy there must be any amount of opening for a boy like this? And to all of these requests Drone found himself explaining that he would take the matter under his very earnest consideration and that they must remember that he had to consult his colleagues and not ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... 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
... boundary is a road leading to the new District Jail—a stone structure of great strength, surmounted with a diminutive tower, admirably adapted, one would imagine, for astronomical pursuits. From its glistening cupola, Commander Ashe's Provincial Observatory ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... that the rest of the party listened to this astronomical lecture. The gallant Louis had sought to interest Elsie as well as Cora, but Elsie was too much engrossed with the way-worn hunters and their sad tale to think of anything else. When they had eaten enough to check the fierce cravings of ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... enough not to be grossly ignorant of either. 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 of all is, to know, yourself and others: this knowledge ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to form a national gallery of pictures. The same may be said of patronage bestowed on learned men, of the publication of archives, of the collecting of libraries, menageries, plants, fossils, antiques, of journeys and voyages for purposes of geographical discovery or astronomical observation. It is not for these ends that Government is constituted. But it may well happen that a Government may have at its command resources which will enable it, without any injury to its main end, to pursue these collateral ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to hold some of the most important of the other stuff. But a lot of it is bound to get away from us—and the Lord help anybody who's under it when it comes down! You might yell for help—and say, you might ask somebody to have that astronomical data ready for us as soon as ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... is an instrument for measuring time. Specifically, it is a large and very accurate watch for use in astronomical observations. ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... the subject could be better illustrated, than by separating the wheat from the chaff in Madame Necker's book; place them in two heaps, and then summon the reader to choose; giving him first a near-sighted glass to examine the two;—it might be a Christian, an astronomical, or an artistic glass,—any kind of good glass to obviate acquired defects in the eye. I would lay any ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... used on the ice of the polar sea, as it would be smashed to pieces in the rough going. One might say in general that dead reckoning on the polar ice is the personal estimate of approximate distance, always checked and corrected from time to time by astronomical observations. ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... eminently religious, as if the famous verse, 'Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei' ('The heavens declare the glory OF GOD'), had preserved all its force." And, he adds, in a note, "At present, to minds that have been early familiarized with the true astronomical philosophy, the heavens declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, Kepler, Newton, and all those who have contributed to the establishment of their laws!" The reader of these laws may become illustrious, but the Maker of them must be ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... time; but science in its progress crushes even masterpieces! About 1835, a pamphlet, translated from the New York American, related that Sir John Herschel, sent to the Cape of Good Hope, there to make astronomical observations, had, by means of a telescope, perfected by interior lighting, brought the moon to within a distance of eighty yards. Then he distinctly perceived caverns in which lived hippopotami, green mountains with golden ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... in a collection of articles entitled A Generation of Religious Progress, presumably intended to portray our rationalistic progress, "so far, though they have sounded the depths of the Universe, have found no God." He is speaking of astronomical investigation, and he has just emphasized the reliability of our ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... the 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 ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the Central Park, and they applied to the Legislature for authority to conduct matters in their own way. An act was duly passed, authorizing the Board "to erect, establish, conduct, and maintain, on the Central Park, a Meteorological and Astronomical Observatory, a Museum of Natural History, and a Gallery of Art, and the buildings therefor, and to provide the necessary instruments, furniture, and equipments ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... of events, some of the many plans suggested are even now of curious interest. The establishment of a magnificent national library at the Capital; the founding of a great university; of a normal school; a post graduate school; and astronomical observatory "equal to any in the world," are a few of the plans from time to time proposed ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... sun—idleness fostered and encouraged until it seems one great exertion to call a fly, and another to subside into it—idleness on matchless moonlight nights, on land or on water—idleness with an affectation of astronomical study, just up to speculating on the identity of Aldebaran or Arcturus, but scarcely equal to metaphysics—idleness that lends itself readily to turning tables and automatic writing, and gets some convincing phenomena, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the 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 and healthy men, had come up onto the platform. They ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... of the mountain region can be measured in linear and square miles; it can be bounded roughly by the Pacific Ocean and the fountains of the great rivers which course through the Mississippi valley; it can be placed before the eye in an astronomical position between such and such latitudes and longitudes, but such descriptions convey to the mind only an idea which is quite vague and general. When we say that one hundred and fifty states like Connecticut, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Perth, I occupied my time by drawing in the Government offices, a map, compiled from the various notes and journals I had kept during the prospecting expeditions in which I had been engaged. I also took the opportunity of getting some knowledge of astronomical subjects, likely to be of service in the more extended expedition I had in my mind. My thanks are due to Mr. Barlee, chief draughtsman, and Mr. Higgins, of the Mines Department, for the kindness they showed in helping ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... a plenary verbal inspiration as essential to a real revelation are, according to M. Guizot, equally remote from a truly scientific spirit. Errors in rhetoric and grammar, passages where the writers speak of astronomical and geological matters in consonance with the prevailing, but, in many cases, mistaken theories of their times, being pointed out in the Bible, these cry out, "There can be no real errors in an inspired book,"—and we are at once amazed and disgusted to hear men deny the reality ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... undervalued is the example of popular literature, the vast mass of which we contentedly describe as vulgar. The boy's novelette may be ignorant in a literary sense, which is only like saying that a modern novel is ignorant in the chemical sense, or the economic sense, or the astronomical sense; but it is not vulgar intrinsically—it is the actual centre of ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... about the harmony or discord between this account of Creation, and the facts of Geographical, Astronomical, or Geological science. I do not trouble myself about such matters. To me it is a question of no importance or concern whatever. And I have no trouble about ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... came to England, it was hard to teach her the ways of the so-called civilized. Servants would sometimes be out searching for her after midnight, perhaps to find her strayed beyond the park, out upon the solitary heath. She knew most of the stars, not by their astronomical names indeed, but by names she had herself given them. She had tales of her own, fashioned in part from the wild myths of the aborigines, to account for the special relations of such as made a group. She would weave ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... was a pure Stoic and the purest of Stoics, polishing the lenses of astronomical telescopes in order to gain his living, refusing all pensions and all the professorial positions offered to him, and living well-nigh on nothing, had read Descartes and, to conform to the principle of evidence, had begun by renouncing his religion, which was that of the Jews. His general outlook ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... having been raised within the time specified, the Victorian parliament supplemented it by a vote of L6000, and an expedition was organized under the leadership of Burke, with W.J. Wills as surveyor and astronomical observer. The story of this expedition, which left Melbourne on the 21st of August 1860, furnishes perhaps the most painful episode in Australian annals. Ten Europeans and three Sepoys accompanied the expedition, which was soon torn by internal dissensions. Near Menindie on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Mathematicae; sive Philosophia clarissimi Newtoni Mathematica illustrata, 1710"; wherein he explained the Newtonian philosophy, which now began to grow into vogue. Both Addison and Steele, however, very much befriended Whiston; and after his banishment from Cambridge, promoted a subscription for his astronomical lectures at Button's ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... reached near the point where the north and south fork of the Platte river unite. Lieutenant Fremont wished to explore the south branch, to obtain some astronomical observations, and to determine the mouths of its tributaries as far as St. Vrain's fort. He also hoped to obtain some mules there which he greatly needed. He took with him nine men. The three Cheyenne Indians accompanied him, as their village was upon that stream. The remainder ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... under date of the 8th instant, addressed to me by the Secretary of the Navy, covering a report of Professor Simon Newcomb, United States Navy, on the subject of recent improvements in astronomical observatories, instruments, and methods of observations, as noted during his visit to the principal observatories of Europe in the year 1883, made in pursuance of orders of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... easiest kind of competitive examination is an examination in writing. This is entirely appropriate for certain classes of work, for lawyers, stenographers, typewriters, clerks, mathematicians, and assistants in an astronomical observatory, for instance. It is utterly inappropriate for carpenters, detectives, and mounted cattle inspectors along the Rio Grande—to instance three types of employment as to which I had to do battle ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him. To fill up the measure desired, he wanted nothing but a greater familiarity with the technical language of the natural sciences, and readiness in the astronomical observations necessary for the geography of his route. To acquire these he repaired immediately to Philadelphia, and placed himself under the tutorage of the distinguished professors of that place, who with a zeal and emulation, enkindled by an ardent devotion to science, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... of Alfonso must be sufficiently apparent from his actions. It may be added, that his acquirements were of a very superior order. The Astronomical Tables which he composed, and which are called by his name, have been often adduced as proofs of his science. It is, however, certain, that in their construction he was greatly indebted to the Moorish astronomers of Granada, some of whom visited his court for the express ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... attempt to reach Behring's Strait by passing to the north of Russia and Siberia. Lieutenant Palanders, of the Swedish navy, was in command of the vessel, with the instigator of the voyage, and they had also a staff of botanists, geologists, and astronomical doctors. ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... the Christian—"the highest style of man." With all this, our new-made divine is an unmistakable poet. To a clay compounded chiefly of the worldling and the rhetorician, there is added a real spark of Promethean fire. He will one day clothe his apostrophes and objurgations, his astronomical religion and his charnel-house morality, in lasting verse, which will stand, like a Juggernaut made of gold and jewels, at once magnificent and repulsive; for this divine is Edward Young, the future author ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... the work, "Bobs, man! this won't do, we must have at it again;" and then the whole of that was put aside, and a new instrument, begun. By means of such perseverance, he succeeded in bringing various mathematical, philosophical, and astronomical instruments to perfection. The large theodolite for terrestrial measurements, and the equal altitude instrument for astronomy, will always be monuments of his fertile, penetrating, arduous, superior ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... are not astronomers, and therefore either pass over the astronomical allusions of Scripture in silence, or else annotate them in a way which, from a scientific point of view, leaves much to ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... world-cycle. I have omitted details not essential; e.g. that in the first period men were born from the earth and only in the second propagated themselves. The period of 36,000 years, known as the Great Platonic Year, was probably a Babylonian astronomical period, and was in any case based on the Babylonian sexagesimal system and connected with the solar year conceived as consisting of 360 days. Heraclitus seems to have accepted it as the duration of ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... 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
... past. One thinks at once, of course, of the pyramids and sphinx of Egypt, and the rich and varied symbolism of design and decoration of antique structures to be found in Persia and elsewhere in the East. It is highly probable that the Egyptian pyramids were employed for astronomical purposes, and thus subserved physical utility, but it seems no less likely that their shape was suggested by a belief in some system of geometrical symbolism, and was intended to embody certain of their ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... appointed Mr Charles Green, who had long been assistant to Dr Bradley at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, to assist Lieutenant Cook in the astronomical department of the expedition; and in every respect the persons engaged in this celebrated expedition were well fitted to attain the ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... which he reached the 8th of August. It was stated by Dr. Linn, then a Senator from the State of Missouri, that "over the whole course of the road barometrical observations were made by Mr. Fremont to ascertain the elevations both of the plains and of the mountains, astronomical observations were made to ascertain latitudes and longitudes, the face of the country was marked as arable or sterile, the facility of traveling and the practicability of routes noted, the grand features of nature described ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... ceremonial worship of his image. Like the private houses the temples too were never complete without the dome-capped towers, which of course were of corresponding size and magnificence. These were used for astronomical ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... had one of the many opportunities of my life—one which I always enjoyed—of protecting the unfortunate from the stern decree of "justice." The old German custodian came to me one morning in great distress, saying that he had let the "astronomical chronometer" run down, and that the professor would kill him. I went with him to the transit tower, made an observation, and set the chronometer. The professor never knew the difference till I told him, after the lapse of time named in the ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... 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 possession of the ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... all other accessories necessary for the collection of natural-history specimens. There were in my outfit three sets of photographic cameras, and a dozen dry plates, as well as all adjuncts for the developing, fixing, printing, etc., of the negatives. I had two complete sets of instruments for astronomical observations and for use in surveying. One set had been given to me by the Royal Geographical Society of London. The other was my own. Each set consisted of the following instruments. A six-inch sextant. The hypsometrical apparatus, a device used for measuring heights ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... during the late troubles.' Thus far is chiefly collected from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge, that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and its neighbourhood, his principal retreat, that, in the course of his shepherd-life, he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject of those numerous and noble feudal Edifices, spoken of in the Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... what's the use of spending one's best years succeeding in everything except the things that are worth while? I'll be thirty sooner than I care to say, and—oh, well, you won't understand. You'll sit down there, with the Southern Cross and the rest of the infernal astronomical galaxy looking down on you, and the Indians chanting in the village, and you will think I have grown sentimental. I have not. You and I down there have been looking at the world through the reverse end of the glass. It's a bully old world, Hal, and ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... sun. Bandanna handkerchiefs flutter on bushes. Toilet soap, boots, and bear-traps are at our feet. The Fire-Ranger of the district, Mr. Biggs, has his barley and rice spread out on sheeting, and, turning it over, says bravely, "I think it will dry." Mathematical and astronomical instruments consigned to a scientist on the Arctic edge are shaken off centre and already have begun to rust, and there are miles and miles of cordage and nets, with braids and sewing silks and ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... coal), which did little more than 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
... He is the same as Nabonassar, from whose reign began the famous astronomical epocha at Babylon, called from his name the AEra of Nabonassar. In the holy Scriptures he is called Baladan. He reigned but twelve years, and was succeeded ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... rapidly of data which he had derived from the study of the photograph as from plumb line, level, compass, and tape, astronomical triangle, vertices, zenith, pole, and sun, declination, azimuth, solar time, parallactic angles, refraction, and a dozen ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... applied, and was fortunate enough to have a capable teacher in Dr. William Holder, the husband of a sister, in whose house his father took refuge and died after his ejection from Windsor. At the age of thirteen he was sent for a short period to Westminster, and about the same time invented a new astronomical instrument. The next year he was admitted as a gentleman commoner at Wadham College, Oxford. Both the Warden, Dr. John Wilkins, and the Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Seth Ward, observed his early promise, and gave him every encouragement in the pursuit of his favourite studies, and he ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... which the whole intellectual fabric of Christianity rests. For without a Fall there is no redemption, and the whole theory and meaning of the Pauline system is vain. In conjunction with the wide vistas opened by geological and astronomical discovery, the nineteenth century has indeed lost the very habit of thought from which the belief in a Fall arose. It is as if a hand had been put upon the head of the thoughtful man and had turned his eyes about from the past to the future. In matters ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... Certainly everything is possible, as Professor Flournoy says, but this theory is somewhat astonishing, for it seems to make the inhabitants of the next world gravitate round our miserable earth, and is like the old astronomical theory that placed our little globe in the centre of the universe. If there be another world, it is hard to believe that its inhabitants spend the greater part of their time in attending to us, some of them to harm us and the rest ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... former will spell out (with the assistance of card-board letters) a number of interesting astronomical facts at the instigation of his mirth-provoking master and proprietor. This talented performer will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... is famous for its immense fortifications, its Minster, or Cathedral, and the Astronomical Clock of ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... says Wallace, "in the light of accepted astronomical theories (which regard our earth as uttterly insignificant compared with the rest of the universe) have pointed out the irrationality and absurdity of supposing that the Creator of all this unimaginable ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... Institute was established 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 ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... studies—German, Greek, science especially—were the saving of him. Among some foreign books, for instance, which he had ordered for a customer he came upon a copy of some scientific essays by Littre. Among them was a survey of the state of astronomical knowledge written somewhere about 1835, with all the luminous charm which the great Positivist had at command. David was captured by it, by the flight of the scientific imagination through time and space, amid ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Introduction to the Study of Nature. With 13 Maps and 295 Illustrations. With Appendix on Astronomical Instruments and Measurements. Crown ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... culture, endeavoured at least to make the Roman calendar more generally known. Gaius Sulpicius Gallus (consul in 588), who not only predicted the eclipse of the moon in 586 but also calculated the distance of the moon from the earth, and who appears to have come forward even as an astronomical writer, was regarded on this account by his contemporaries as a prodigy ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... world. I had followed all these things and many kindred things by dissection and in embryology—I had checked the whole theory of development again in a year's course of palaeontology, and I had taken the dimensions of the whole process, by the scale of the stars, in a course of astronomical physics. And all that amount of objective elucidation came before I had reached the beginnings of any philosophical or metaphysical inquiry, any inquiry as to why I believed, how I believed, what I believed, or what the fundamental stuff ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... the result. For a mind not previously versed in the meaning and right use of the various kinds of words, to attempt the study of methods of philosophizing, would be as if some one should attempt to become an astronomical observer, having never learned to adjust the focal distance of his optical instruments so as ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... intricate instrument is in use, the thermograph, that utilizes the heat rays from the sun, instead of the light. It takes pictures by heat; in other words, it sees in the dark; brings invisible things to the eye of man, and is used in astronomical and physical researches wherein undulations and radiations are concerned. And now comes the magnetometer, to measure the amount of magnetism that reaches the earth from the sun. It points to zero when the magnetic ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... saint only twenty-six years old when he founded Clonmacnois, which is perhaps improbable. We may suggest another way of reconciling the traditions, taking the orthodox date for the foundation of Clonmacnois (548) but postponing the death of the saint to 556, in accordance with the astronomical indications. Some one noticed that if his life were retrenched to the year of the foundation of the monastery, it would be brought into conformity in length ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... confess that he has shown occasional marks of inattention even while the Master was discoursing in a way that I found agreeable enough. I am quite sure it is no intentional disrespect to the old Master. It seems to me rather that he has become interested in the astronomical lessons he has been giving the Young Girl. He has studied so much alone, that it is naturally a pleasure to him to impart some of his knowledge. As for his young pupil, she has often thought of being a teacher herself, ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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
... workshop devoted to the production of a particular kind of article. Moreover, I should say that as a matter of prudence, you had better keep clear of the word "experimental." Would not "Biological Observatory" serve the turn? Of course it does not exclude experiment any more than "Astronomical Observatory" excludes ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... connected 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 where he purchased it; ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... cases, kept on the surface, and the sextant, circle, and the long, black box of the telescope, were in view at once. For a moment, I felt somewhat disheartened. All our books—almost every record of the journey—our journals and registers of astronomical and barometrical observations—had been lost in a moment, But it was no time to indulge in regrets; and I immediately set about endeavoring to save something from the wreck. Making ourselves understood as well as possible by signs, (for nothing could be heard in ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... the complete sequence nearly twenty-five years later), it may be best to traverse it at this stage. Though called a full series of sonnets, there is no intimation that it is not fragmentary as to design; the title is an astronomical, not an architectural figure. The work is at once Shakspearean and Dantesque. Whilst electively akin to the Vita Nuova, it is broader in range, the life involved being life idealised in all phases. What Rossetti's ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... so little to the hopes of the astronomical fraternity that they immediately said within themselves: "This is not he; we seek another." So they continued the search, and in a little more than a year Olbers himself was rewarded with the discovery of the second of the planetoid group. On the twenty-eighth of ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... it, and ten times as much as the one next below it, the Latin and Greek numerals being prefixed as we have already described with reference to the meter. In conformity with this decimal law, the quadrant was divided, for astronomical purposes, into 100 degrees instead of 90; and the thermometer likewise into 100 degrees from the boiling to the freezing point. At the same time, a system of reckoning money by tens was introduced; and it must be owned, that the whole system of computation in weights, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... and he made almost constant sallies into the fields of science, literature and art. He was a natural mathematician and was the most profound and original arithmetician in the Southwest. He frequently computed the astronomical tables for the almanacs of New Orleans, Pensacola and Mobile, and calculated eclipse, transit and observations with ease and perfect accuracy. He was also deeply read in metaphysics, and wrote and published, in the old Democratic Review for ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... supervision of Dr. Meldrum, is chiefly devoted to meteorological and astronomical investigations. In addition to these subjects, observations of the solar spots are taken daily, and transmitted monthly to the Solar Physics Committee in London. The transit of the moon has been observed with much success. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... contained in the museums of Mexico, and scattered about in the archaeological collections of Europe and America. The celebrated calendar stone found buried in the Plaza Mayor of Mexico, and now preserved in that city, demonstrates the astronomical advancement of the Aztecs in an incontrovertible manner, and that monument alone would ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... was neither healthy nor natural to a normal, vigorous lad just entering upon manhood, and, as will be seen, it did not endure. Like everything else, it had its causes. His astronomical studies were one of these, but a deeper reason was to be found in those Sunday seances at the Villa Ogilvy. For a long while Godfrey did not know what happened to him on these occasions. The party sat round the little table, ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... attracted by 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 leather articles, numerous photographs of the Shah, a copy of the Petit Journal ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Phillips, the 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 is said to have ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... for astronomical purposes, has no observatory. The largest telescope in the city is about five feet long, but the astute professor of natural philosophy in the Jesuit College who has charge of it had not the most distant idea that an eclipse of the sun would occur on the 29th of August, and an eclipse ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... of the concept of time, the concept of space is fairly well cultivated by geologic study, though far less effectively than is done by astronomical study. Astronomy and geology work happily together in contributing to ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Clarke's Astronomical Lantern. Intended to familiarize students with the constellations by comparing them with facsimiles on the lantern face. With seventeen slides, ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... implying that we have never gone dinnerless. Diurnal, the scientific term, is used exactly, whether applying to the period of daylight or to the whole twenty-four hours. A diurnal flower closes at night; a diurnal motion is precisely coincident with the astronomical day. In poetry, however, diurnal is often used for daily. "Give us this day our bread." "The rotation of the earth on its axis is the cause of our day and night." "Fred and I went for our ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... or four hundred yards of the latter; this effect I do not remember to have observed before upon the windward side of any collection of ice, though it invariably happens, in a remarkable degree, to leeward of it. I may here mention, as a striking proof of the accuracy with which astronomical bearings of objects may be taken for marine surveys, that the relative bearing of Capes Providence and Hay, as obtained this evening when the two headlands were opening, differed only one minute from ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... necessary magnetic and astronomical observations were now completed I seized the opportunity offered by the first favourable day and started with a party of three in the direction of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set their instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area. But Father Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them useless for astronomical observation, persuaded the Emperor to let them be removed, to make way for several instruments of his own construction. The instruments set aside by the European astronomers are still in a hall adjoining ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... catches a great deal of the moisture brought up by the easterly winds. Many of the trees are covered with lichens. While here we had cold southerly breezes, and a sky so overcast every day after 10 A.M., that we could take no astronomical observations: even the latitude was too poor to be much depended on. 12 deg. 53' S. may have been ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... four hours through a ravine which gradually opened out upon this beautiful "park," but we rode through it for some miles before the view burst upon us. The vastness of this range, like astronomical distances, can hardly be conceived of. At this place, I suppose, it is not less than 250 miles wide, and with hardly a break in its continuity, it stretches almost from the Arctic Circle to the Straits of Magellan. From the top of Long's Peak, within a short distance, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... (xxii. 6, 14-16), and his geographical discussions upon Gaul (xv. 9), the Pontus (xxii. 8), and Thrace (xxvii. 4). Less legitimate and less judicious are his geological speculations upon earthquakes (xvii. 7), his astronomical inquiries into eclipses (xx. 3), comets (xxv. 10), and the regulation of the calendar (xxvi. 1); his medical researches into the origin of epidemics (xix. 4); his zoological theory on the destruction of lions by mosquitos ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... distance and possible habitation of those orbs. The vague and illusive ideas thus aroused fall in so well with the dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we attribute this emotion to those ideas, and persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts. ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... King of the Reverend Dr. Kennedy's Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding the Scriptures, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... 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 people ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... the 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 ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... commodious laboratory should be fitted up in the building, to enable every pupil to acquire experimentally that knowledge of chemical forces and action which books alone can never impart. A convenient observatory should afford facility for astronomical ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... to reject Mr. Knight's interpretation, and, were it necessary to realize the scene between Jacques and Touchstone at all, I should prefer doing so by imagining some old turnip-faced atrocity in clock-making presented to the fool's lack-lustre eye, than the nice astronomical observation supposed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... advance notices of such phenomena were not so widely published as they are now; at the old farm, too, we did not take a daily newspaper. So one of the great astronomical events of the last century had come and gone, and we had not known what it was until ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... and are about one-half an inch in diameter. They seem to have been bored out by some sharp instrument. Schoolcraft, certainly a competent Indian authority states that these tubes were employed for astronomical purposes, that is to look at the stars. This is unlikely; for though the race, with which I shall try to identify our mound builders are said, in regions further south, to have left remains showing astronomical knowledge, yet a more reasonable ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... writer, when a boy, discovered unexpected powers in a pocket telescope not more than fourteen inches long when extended, and magnifying ten or twelve times. It became his dream, which was afterward realized, to possess a more powerful telescope, a real astronomical glass, with which he could see the beauties of the double stars, the craters of the moon, the spots on the sun, the belts and satellites of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the extraordinary shapes of the nebulae, the crowds of stars in the Milky Way, and the great stellar clusters. And now he would ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... Belfast Nat. Hist. Soc., as given in the Belfast Northern Whig, Nov. 19, 1866. Mr. Murphy here follows the line of argument against my views previously and more cautiously given by the Rev. C. Pritchard, Pres. Royal Astronomical Soc., in his sermon (Appendix, p. 33) preached before the British Association ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... and the learned Rabbis, who had been banished by religious fanaticism, and there to establish a permanent council—a mediaeval Academy of Sciences—which devoted itself to the study of the heavens and the making of astronomical calculations. "This was the first time," says the Spanish historian, "that in barbarous times the Republic of Letters was invited to contemplate a great school of learning,—men occupied through ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 13, 1833, came the wondrous celestial exhibition of falling stars, which is listed as one of the most remarkable phenomena of the astronomical story. ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... science and religion were not spared. At the celebrated Astronomical Observatory not an instrument was left. Every one had been carried off by the orders of men high in authority at the French and German Legations, and the whole place was totally wrecked. What possible excuse could there have been ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... after reading the Report of the Astronomical Society for the past year, (which is very favourable) observed, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... for which the French yearned, and on which their responsible financiers counted, were large. The figures employed were astronomical. Hundreds of milliards of francs were operated with by eminent publicists in an offhand manner that astonished the survivor of the expiring budgetary epoch and rejoiced the hearts of the Western taxpayers. For it was not only journalists who wrote ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... fluid or some medium, the existence of which cannot be directly ascertained. Thus stands the hypothesis of a luminiferous ether—in what must be allowed to be a very unsatisfactory condition. But a condition, we think, very superior to the astronomical speculation of Laplace, which Mr Mill, after scrutinizing the preceding hypothesis with the utmost strictness, is disposed to treat with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... attainments of the Egyptians is based upon modern observation of their pyramids and temples. It was early observed, for example, that the pyramids are obviously oriented as regards the direction in which they face, in strict accordance with some astronomical principle. Early in the nineteenth century the Frenchman Biot made interesting studies in regard to this subject, and a hundred years later, in our own time, Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, following up the work of various intermediary observers, has given the subject ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning; neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments. But, Sir Anthony, I would send her at nine years old to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts; ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... feet, in a rudely rectangular arrangement, with an opening on the east. This shrine, facing east, contains an upright slab of thin sandstone on which a rude sun-symbol has been engraved. The governor of Zuni, in explaining the purpose of this shrine, compared its use to that of our own astronomical observatories, which ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... 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 ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Chronographs.—The astronomical chronograph is an instrument whereby an observer is enabled to register the time of transit of a star on a sheet of paper attached to a revolving cylinder. A metal cylinder covered with a sheet of paper is rotated ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... little variation in the experience of the explorers, and no special incident took place. At the junction of the north and south fork of the Platte, Fremont, who wished to explore the south branch and to secure some astronomical observations, set out with nine men intending to advance to St. Vrain's fort, where he was hopeful of obtaining some mules. The rest of the party followed the north fork to fort Laramie, where it was agreed they would wait for the others to ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... navigation. It is a complicated and difficult science, but by calculating the distance of the sun above the horizon, sometimes by views of stars, by knowing the speed of the ship, and by having the exact astronomical time at hand, shown on an accurate chronometer, the exact position of a ship at any hour may ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... 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 know ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... mind, and lost sight of him altogether till about 1840. Then circumstances connected with my own line of study led me to call on him in Doughty's Hospital, Norwich, an asylum for aged persons. I found him surrounded by astronomical apparatus, books, the tools of his former trade, and all kinds of strange litters. In the conversation that ensued, I learned much of the workings of his mind; though his high self-appreciation could not descend to unreserved converse with a woman. My object was, to ascertain by what steps he had ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... through the holes in the vault of the nave one could see the blue sky. The beautiful Organ built by Silbermann was pierced by a shell and the magnificent painted windows were in great part spoiled. Fortunately the celebrated astronomical ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... ancient Hindu scriptures, scholars have been able to correctly ascertain the dates of the authors. The scientific knowledge of the rishis was very great; in the KAUSHITAKI BRAHMANA we find precise astronomical passages which show that in 3100 B.C. the Hindus were far advanced in astronomy, which had a practical value in determining the auspicious times for astrological ceremonies. In an article in EAST-WEST, February, 1934, the following summary is given of the JYOTISH or body of Vedic astronomical treatises: ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... and the rest of the day given up to writing voluminous accounts of the marvel, and correcting astronomical tables to fit it. Toward midnight a demoniacal shriek was heard, then a clattering and rumbling noise, and the next instant a vast terrific eye shot by, with a long tail attached, and disappeared in the gloom, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... is presented here of what is to many an astronomical puzzle. When I was younger than I am now, I was greatly troubled to understand how it could be that if the moon was always falling to the earth, as the astronomers assured us it was, it should never reach it, nor have its falling velocity accelerated. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... Encke's and Halley's comets, for instance—it warn't anything but just a flash and a vanish, you see. You couldn't rightly call it a race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE. WE haven't got any such comets—ours don't begin. One night I was swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and the wind in my favor—I judged I ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain |
