"Declination" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was easily learnt by conversing with seamen, or with such as go a-hunting by night, or others who profess to know these things; but he dissuaded very much from penetrating farther into this science, as even to know what planets are not in the same declination, to explain all their different motions, to know how far distant they are from the earth, in how long time they make their revolutions, and what are their several influences, for he thought these sciences ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc. Two months are represented on each page, and opposite the number of each successive day of the month the position of the planet is given in hours, minutes, and seconds of right ascension, and degrees, minutes, and seconds of north and south declination, the sign meaning north, and the sign - south. Do not trouble yourself with the seconds in either column, and take the minutes only when the number is large. The hours of right ascension and the degrees of declination are the main things to ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... ship's compasses, True Blue's quadrant, given him by Sir Henry; and also the larger part of a long sweep, and two small spars. Curiously enough, also, a page of an old navigation book, with the sun's declination ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... creatures of his making, his interest and scope was, to turn the barren philosophy precepts into pregnant images of life; and in them, first on the monarchs part, lively to represent the growth, state and declination of princes, changes of government and lawes ... Then again in the subjects case, the state of favour, disfavour, prosperitie, adversity ... and all other moodes of private fortunes or misfortunes, in which traverses, I know, his purpose was to limn out such exact pictures of every posture ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... observe a planet (say Mars or Jupiter) night after night and plot down its place with reference to the fixed stars on a celestial globe or star-map. Or, instead of direct observation by alignment with known stars, it is easier to look out its right ascension and declination in Whitaker's Almanac, and plot those down. If this be done for a year or two, it will be found that the motion of the planet is by no means regular, but that though on the whole it advances it sometimes is stationary ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... that moment have elevated their eyes only three feet higher, they would not have needed to wait for the declination of the orb of day. They would have seen land, such land as it was; but, sunk as their shoulders were almost to the level of the water, even the summits of the sand dunes were not ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... pinnacles of art no honour will be lost; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination: he remits his splendour but retains his magnitude, and pleases more though ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... with the geographical ones; nor does the earth's magnetic equator quite coincide with the geographical equator. The direction of the magnetic needle in London, which is called the magnetic meridian, encloses an angle of 24 deg. with the astronomical meridian, this angle being called the Declination of the needle for London. The north, pole of the needle now lies to the west of the true meridian; the declination is westerly. In the year 1660, however, the declination was nothing, while before that time it was easterly. All this proves that the earth's magnetic constituents are gradually changing ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... leagues. We then anchored in 11 f. on ooze, having Pulo Kero by estimation thirteen league S by W. This night at nine, being still at anchor in the same place, I made the ship, by observation of the Crozies, in lat. 4 deg. 40' S. allowing 29 deg. for the complement of declination. We set sail at four a.m. of the 2d, and by noon had run about six leagues N.N.E. the depths continuing as before, 13, 12, 11 f. By noon of the 3d our course was S. by E. five leagues, the soundings as before, all the ground from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... the moon comes each month to take its place as well as she can; starlight is very bright, and there is besides frequent aurora borealis, and a refraction peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the very moment of his greatest austral declination, the 21st of December, is still only 13 degrees from the Polar horizon, so that there is twilight for a few hours; only fogs, mists, and snowstorms often plunge these regions into complete obscurity. ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... is by every Man directed to himself. This, it must be confessed, is of a Piece with the rest of that hopeful Philosophy, which having patch'd Man up out of the four Elements, attributes his Being to Chance, and derives all his Actions from an unintelligible Declination of Atoms. And for these glorious Discoveries the Poet is beyond Measure transported in the Praises of his Hero, as if he must needs be something more than Man, only for an Endeavour to prove that Man is in nothing ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... chief deficience in them is of laws to repress them. For as it hath been well observed, that the arts which flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military; and while virtue is in state, are liberal; and while virtue is in declination, are voluptuary: so I doubt that this age of the world is somewhat upon the descent of the wheel. With arts voluptuary I couple practices joculary; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of the senses. As for games of recreation, I hold them to belong to civil life and education. ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... by the aid of electric lamps of very small dimensions, supplied by accumulators, and which are lighted at will. Each of these lamps is of one candle power; two of them are designed for the reading of the two circles of right ascension and of declination; a third serves for the reading of the position circle of the micrometer; two others are employed for the reading of the drums fixed upon the micrometric screws; four others serve for rendering the spider threads of the reticule brilliant upon a black ground; and still another serves for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... where the North is. This is always indicated by an arrow pointing either to the magnetic North or the true North. If to the magnetic North the needle will have but one barb away from the true North. The angle between the magnetic and the true North is the declination. ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... Philadelphia with him, Tom went, that evening, to call on Miss Nestor. True to her promise, the girl had a big plate full of apple turnovers, which she gaily offered our hero on his arrival, and, on his laughing declination to partake of so many, she ushered him into a room ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... contain the absolute determinations of the magnetic inclination and declination made in the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake on shore. A very large series made almost daily at sea with Fox's instrument and the Azimuth Compass require several corrections before ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... attitude necessitated a radical change in the entire program. It had been agreed that the Lieutenant-Governorship should go to a colored man, but after Brace's declination the Ames managers were obliged to take one of two men,—H.C. Carter, or A.K. Davis. Davis was the more acceptable of the two; but neither, it was thought, was a fit and suitable man to be placed at ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... sent with letter of acceptance or declination to a wedding to those sending the invitations. And if acquaintance with bride and groom warrant, a note of congratulations may be ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... planted in lines or avenues running from east to west, and the trees should be planted so close that they may in five or six years touch each other, and thus form what looks like a series of hedges in parallel lines. The object of this formation is that as the declination of the sun is southerly during our non-cloudy or clear sky season, a close shadow may be cast from the south to the north, so that the spaces between the lines may have a lateral shade cast on them. When the trees begin to crowd each other every other one should of course ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... then," cried the lady, hastily.—"You need not laugh; for I know what I am saying—the variation, the declination, must be allowed for in computing it with the clock. Now you know perfectly well what I mean, though you will not explain it for me, because you are conscious ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving around the earth and in the heavens, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long intervals of time: when this happens, those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... clearance of the ice, as also that in the beginning of May, coincided roughly with the maximum declination of the moon, and therefore with ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Huyler's bonbons to our hungry palates. Dreamed of being home last night, and hated to wake. Jumped up at first light, called boys and built fire, and put on kettles. We must be moving with more ginger. It is a nasty feeling to see the days slipping by and note the sun's lower declination, and still not know our way. Outlet hunting is hell on nerves, temper and equanimity. You paddle miles and miles, into bay after bay, bay after bay, with maybe no result till you are hopeless. Ugh! This is a great relief to be about ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... Aurelia's declination she had expected. Her inordinate pride in being Caesar's mother had not modified her arrogant, old-time severity toward the freedom of modern life. But that Calpurnia should plead her husband's absence as an excuse was ominous. ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... Aristotle by Plato. Of all philosophy and of all art the true understanding is to be sought not in the afterthoughts of posterity, but in the elements out of which they have arisen. For the previous stage is a tendency towards the ideal at which they are aiming; the later is a declination or deviation from them, or even a perversion of them. No man's thoughts were ever so well expressed by his ...
— Philebus • Plato
... time. The sun, going into northern declination, was straight overhead. There was no wind, except for frequent squalls, which blew fiercely for from five minutes to half an hour, and wound up by deluging us with rain. After each squall, the awful sun would come out, drawing ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... has, incontestably, the merit of first discovering the line where there is no declination of the needle, but also of first inducing a study of terrestrial magnetism in Europe, by his observations concerning the increasing declination as he sailed in a westerly direction from that line. It had been already easily recognized in the Mediterranean, and in all places where, in the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... With the alteration of declination of the sun, the light entering the camera is reflected from different portions of the sphere, and an alteration of the position of the focus results. This may be corrected in three ways; by moving (1) the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... observed for latitude when the weather rendered it possible, and he occasionally attempted to find the longitude by observing eclipses of the moon with the aid of tables calculated by old Regiomontanus, whose declination tables also enabled the Admiral to work out his meridian altitudes. But the explorer's main reliance was on the skill and care with which he calculated his dead reckoning, watching every sign offered by sea and ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... military history. General Schenck; his reminiscences of Corwin Everett, and others. Resignation of my presidency at Cornell, 1885. President Cleveland's tender of an Interstate Railway commissionership, my declination. Departure for Europe. Am tendered nomination for Congress; my discussion of the matter in London with President Porter of Yale and others; declination. Visit to Washington under the administration of General Harrison, January, 1891; presentation ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... in passing over this mountain, and extremely hot, yet the thick fog is never dissipated. In our voyage we never lose sight of land, yet keep always at a considerable distance, carefully observing the declination of the sun, and keeping a southerly course till we arrive in four degrees on the equinoctial[7], when we suddenly change our course to the south-east, keeping the Ethiopian coast always on our left hand in our way to the island of St ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... use on sledge expeditions, together with several sextants of different sizes. We had, moreover, four ship's chronometers and several pocket-chronometers. For magnetic observations, for taking the declination, inclination, and intensity (both horizontal and total intensity) we had a complete set of instruments. Among others may be mentioned a spectroscope especially adapted for the northern lights, an electroscope ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... represent the moon's distance and motion are accurately known, and may be taken from the Nautical Almanac, being all embodied in the moon's parallax or semi-diameter, and in the declination and right ascension; but for the most important element,—the moon's mass, we in vain look to astronomy. In fact, it may be averred that the importance attached to astronomical authority, concerning the mass of the moon, has caused more trouble than any other ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... thus rendered more condensed and powerful. Empedocles, that the sun is hindered from a continual direct course by its spherical vehicle and by the two circular tropics. Diogenes, that the sun, when it comes to its utmost declination, is extinguished, a rigorous cold damping the heat. The Stoics, that the sun maintains its course only through that space in which its sustenance is seated, let it be the ocean or the earth; by the exhalations proceeding from these it is nourished. Plato, Pythagoras, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... found in the zodiacal signs of Cancer and Capricorn. These points are astronomically distinguished as the summer and winter solstice. When the sun is in these points, he has reached his greatest northern and southern declination, and produces the most evident effects on the temperature of the seasons, and on the length of the days and nights. These points, if we suppose the circle to represent the sun's apparent course, will be indicated by the points where the parallel lines touch the circle, or, in other ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... The Declination of any point in the celestial sphere is its distance in arc, North or South of the celestial equator, i.e., N or S ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... the sun has reached the limit of his northern declination and now he will start to come south. Observed this day as holiday, and in the evening had hands aft to drink to the health of the King and the Expedition. All hands are happy, but miss the others at Cape Evans. I pray to God we may soon be ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... all the yeare long, neuer declining from it on the one side or other. The vse hereof in Geography is but litle only to shew what people they are ouer whose heads the Sunne comes to bee once or twice a yeare; who are all those that dwell with in 23. degrees of the Aequator; for so much is the declination, or sloping of the Zodiacke. This circle is also called the Eclipticke line, because when the Sunne and Moone stand both in this circle opposite each to other, then there happens an Eclipse of the Sunne or Mone, vpon a globe it is easily discerned, by the sloping of ...
— A Briefe Introduction to Geography • William Pemble
... neighboring hills. The surplus waters of this little pool are discharged by a small brook, threading its way among a multitude of very small lakes, until it gathers sufficient water, and soon forms a larger lake. From here a second rivulet, impelled along a rapid declination, rushes with violent impetuosity for some miles, and subsides in Lake Itasca. Thence, with a more regular motion, until it reaches Lake Cass, from whence taking a mainly southeasterly course, a distance ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... 1898, the Spray sailed for a home port, heading first direct for Cape Hatteras. On the 8th of June she passed under the sun from south to north; the sun's declination on that day was 22 degrees 54', and the latitude of the Spray was the same just before noon. Many think it is excessively hot right under the sun. It is not necessarily so. As a matter of fact the thermometer ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... Planet offices. I would have sacrificed much to have been afforded means to comfort Isobel; a furious anger towards the man who thus deliberately had brought doubt and unhappiness upon her had taken up permanent quarters in my mind. I counted Coverly's declination to clear himself little better than ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... A.D. 1300. It was soon discovered that the needle does not point, in all places, truly to the North Pole, but that it varies considerably in different degrees of longitude, and this is called the variation of the needle. It has also another variation, called the declination, or dip. The cause of these phenomena is still utterly unknown. The means of steering with almost perfect accuracy across the pathless ocean, gave a confidence to mariners, when they lost sight of land, which they had never before possessed, and in time induced them to launch forth ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the 5th its right ascension was found to be about 0 hours 13 minutes 0 seconds, and declination about 13 degrees 0 minutes South. The following evening it was observed to have had a motion of above three degrees and a half in the direction of the constellation Orion; the right ascension being 0 hours 26 minutes 0 seconds, and the declination 12 degrees ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... Egyptian findings by both Jodrell Bank and Green Bank. Both reported that they had also located a source of apparently modulated hydrogen impulses. Both gave the same co-ordinates in space, in terms of ascension and declination, the way astronomers locate the position of heavenly bodies. Both stated that the finding was remarkable and requested all available data from Sahara Wells, and both announced their intention of concentrating on ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... tilt may be assumed to be constant, for I won't bother with the precessions, nutations and other minor movements considered in accurate computations. As the earth moves around the sun, this tilt gives rise to what we call the sun's declination. You can readily see that at one time in the year, the north pole will be at its nearest point to the sun, speaking in terms of tilt and not in miles, while at another point on the elliptic, it will be farthest from the sun and the south pole nearest. There are two ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... opposite party was undergoing the same process of oscillation. It was clear enough that Cowie was the required Oedipus; and if it should turn out that he was dead, or could not be found, the advantage was, with a slight declination, on the part of Charles Napier; insomuch as, while he was indisputably the nephew of the deceased, the orphan, Henrietta, was under the necessity of proving her birth and pedigree. And so, as it appeared, Mr. Dallas was of that opinion, for the very next day he applied ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the race for governor in 1795, his party's weakness discovered itself in the selection of Chief Justice Robert Yates, Hamilton's coalition candidate in 1789. It was a makeshift nomination, since none cared to run after Clinton's declination sounded a note of defeat. Yates' passion for office led him into strange blunders. He seemed willing to become the candidate of any party, under any conditions, at any time, if only he could step into the official shoes of George Clinton. He ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and it was a great achievement of Roemer and Flamsteed to reduce this error to seconds. Bradley, the modern Hipparchus, carried on the improvement, his errors in right ascension, according to Bessel, being under one second of time, and those of declination under four seconds of arc. In the present day the average error of a single observation is probably reduced to the half or the quarter of what it was in Bradley's time; and further extreme accuracy is attained by the ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the moon's parallax," says Bonnycastle, "cannot be accurately determined by the methods ordinarily resorted to, on account of the varying declination of the moon, and the inconstancy of the horizontal refractions, which are perpetually changing according to the state the atmosphere is in at the time. For the moon continues but for a short time in the equinoctial, and the refraction at a mean rate elevates her apparent place ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... universally acknowledged natural laws. Even the celebrated Halley, at the end of the seventeenth century, hollowed out the Earth in his magnetic speculations. Men were invited to believe that a subterranean freely-rotating nucleus occasions by its position the diurnal and annual changes of magnetic declination. It has thus been attempted in our own day, with tedious solemnity, to clothe in a scientific garb the quaintly-devised fiction of the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... undisturbed in the remnant of the days I have to sojourn here, unless called upon to defend my country (which every citizen is bound to do); but on public grounds also; for although I have abundant cause to be thankful for the good health with which I am blessed, yet I am not insensible to my declination in other respects. It would be criminal, therefore, in me, although it should be the wish of my countrymen and I could be elected, to accept an office under this conviction which another would discharge ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... to the declination of the British Government to be represented at the San Francisco world exhibition, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... against his personal wishes, he was nominated by the Democracy for Judge of the Supreme Court. He consented to be a candidate only after the convention had positively refused to accept his declination. The Republican nominee was his law partner, the Hon. Franklin T. Backus, one of the most prominent members of the Cuyahoga Bar. The result was the election of Judge Ranney by a decided majority, and although party lines ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... done wonders, and were going to be promoted to admiral instead of being only a middy who has to pass his examination years hence, and then going to be plucked for a muff, for I know more navigation than you do. Look here, Guy Fawkes: when the sun is in right declination forty-four degrees south, how would you find the ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... almanack was blown overboard, and we have lost our reckoning. We never have our latitude exact now, for we cannot tell the sun's declination for ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... and the farms of the countryside, Loveday descended lower still—she became a "faggot." Thus from one born to wield a broom we see how she descended, with the declination in scale of the chatterboxes, to the broom itself, and from that to the rough material for it. Which things are a parable, could one but fit the moral to them as neatly as did everyone who discussed Loveday, in whatever terms, fit the due ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... "Regrets" on one's visiting card and send it in declination of any invitation is bad form, even if the invitation come in similar shape. One should always ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... this, I got almost no observation; the fog came up, and I had scarcely anything better than an estimation. I saw the comet blaze out, just on the edge of the field, and I could read its declination only. ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... motor that the engine frequently gets red hot. The only accommodation for the traveller is a little bicycle seat, from which the aeronaut will direct his motor and steering gear by means of treadles. Then the inclination or declination of his machine must be noted on the spirit level at his side, and the 200 odd pounds of ballast must be regulated as ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... the English type, in which the telescope tube is supported by the declination trunnions between the arms of the polar axis, built in the form of a rectangular yoke carried by bearings on massive pedestals to the north and south. These bearings must be aligned exactly parallel to the axis of the earth, and must support the polar axis so freely that it can be rotated with perfect ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... beach of the wide ocean with an illimitable forest in their rear. Their provisions were scanty. They grew watchful of the strange soil, of the new skies, of the unknown climate. Even upon the voyage over, John Winthrop thought that "the declination of the pole star was much, even to the view, beneath that it is in England," and that "the new moon, when it first appeared, was much smaller than at any time he had seen it in England." Here was a man evidently using his eyes with a new interest in natural phenomena. Under these ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... engraved upon my memory," said Baron von Stein, smiling. "But, inasmuch as I am also of your majesty's opinion that such officials as you have described me to be are most injurious to the interests of the monarchy, I must request your majesty to accept my declination, and I hope it will ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... life in many of its most interesting aspects give an unfailing charm to their society. One can maintain the most cordial and intimate relations with editors of magazines and journals if he will recognize that such relations should have no influence whatever in the acceptance or declination of manuscripts. I am constantly receiving letters from literary aspirants who appear to think that if I will use a little influence their stories or papers would be taken and paid for. I have no such influence, nor do I wish any, in regard to my own work. The conscientious ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... the observer can find it by day. If his telescope is not permanently mounted and provided with "circles" this may not prove an easy thing to do, yet a little perseverance and ingenuity will effect it. One way is to find, with a star chart, some star whose declination is the same, or very nearly the same, as that of Venus, and which crosses the meridian say twelve hours ahead of her. Then set the telescope upon that star, when it is on the meridian at night, and leave it there, and the next day, twelve ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... why I refused that proposition before. We beat the brush pretty thoroughly at that time." It was declination involved, but declination nevertheless unmistakable. "It's a rocky road I'm on, and with occasional mudholes such as—well—such as I fell into to-night; but somehow I can't leave it. I won't try to defend ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... without the help of a workman. When the atoms, says he, descend in infinite space (very ingeniously spoken, to make high and low in infinity), they do not fall plumb down, but decline a little from the perpendicular, either obliquely or in a curve; and this declination, says he, from the direct line is the cause of our liberty of will. But, I say, this declination of atoms in their descent was itself either necessary or voluntary. If it was necessary, how then could that necessity ever beget liberty? If it was voluntary, then atoms had that ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... the Magnetic needle makes with the True Meridian (called the Magnetic Declination) varies at different points on the earth. In some places it points east of the True Meridian and in others it points ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... out with a small telescope. These unfavorable conditions occur in 1907 and 1921. Between these dates, especially for some years after 1910, the position of the planet in the sky will be the most favorable, being in northern declination, near its perihelion, and having its rings widely open. We all know that Saturn is plainly visible to the naked eye, shining almost like a star of the first magnitude, so that there is no difficulty in finding it if one ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... change of horse, bore the letter of the convention to Wright in Washington, and returned with his reply by the time the convention had reassembled. As will be remembered, Wright persisting in his declination, George M. Dallas ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... gain experience in practical astronomical work, and in the following year ht became observer at Upsala Observatory. Becoming interested in terrestrial magnetism he made many observations of magnetic intensity and declination in various parts of Sweden, and was charged by the Stockholm Academy of Sciences with the task, not completed till shortly before his death, of working out the magnetic data obtained by the Swedish frigate "Eugenie" on her voyage round the world in 1851-1853. In 1858 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... 89deg. 58.6'. That this result must be nearly correct is confirmed by the considerable displacement of the periods of culmination which is indicated by the series of observations, and which in the immediate neighbourhood of the Pole is caused by the change in the sun's declination. On the day of the observations this displacement amounted to thirty minutes in 89deg. 57', forty-six minutes in 89deg. 58', and over an hour and a half in 89deg. 59'. The upper culmination occurred so much too late, and the lower culmination so much too early. The interval ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... clairvoyance of knowledge and human understanding. Clemens, a few days later, was invited by Colonel Harvey to dine with Baron Rosen and M. Sergius Witte; but an attack of his old malady—rheumatism—prevented his acceptance. His telegram of declination apparently pleased the Russian officials, for Witte asked permission to publish it, and declared that he was going to take it home to show to the Tsar. It was ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... weather and urging our way south to the winter of Cape Horn. And as we double the Cape and proceed north, we shall go through spring and summer—a long summer—pursuing the sun north through its declination and arriving at Seattle in summer. And all these seasons have occurred, and will have occurred, in ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... be seen by a keen eye makes an angle of 40", but by putting six microscopes on the scale of the telescope on the mural circle, we are able to reach an exactness of 0".1, or 1/3600 of an inch. This instrument is used to measure the declination of stars, or angular [Page 64] distance north or south of the equator. Thus a star's place in two directions is exactly fixed. When the telescope is mounted on two pillars instead of the face of a wall, it ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... apparent position of a star is generally denoted by its right ascension ([alpha]) and its declination ([delta]). Taking into account the apparent distribution of the stars in space, it is, however, more practical to characterize the position of a star by its galactic longitude (l) and its galactic latitude (b). Before defining these coordinates, ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier
... western declination[2] of nineteen degrees, forty-two minutes, just as it is above. As for the inclination[3] I have discovered ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... broke the sea-rim. The ship the centre, the horizon was the invariable and eternal circle of the world. The magnetic needle in the binnacle was the point on which the Mary Turner ever pivoted. The sun rose in the undoubted east and set in the undoubted west, corrected and proved, of course, by declination, deviation, and variation; and the nightly march of the stars and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... of the Criminal Law. As to the measures to which we have just alluded, there will still continue to be a large diversity of opinion. Thousands of the wealthy classes will regard them all as steps in the declination of the national power; while the more popular mind, that rarely troubles itself with large or profound views, has already registered its ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... of honours has been of rare example in the world[3]: Few men have frowned first upon fortune, and precipitated themselves from the top of her wheel, before they felt at least the declination of it. We read not of many emperors like Dioclesian and Charles the Fifth, who have preferred a garden and a cloister before a crowd of followers, and the troublesome glory of an active life, which robs the possessor of his rest and quiet, to secure the safety and happiness ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... doubtless are to be discovered the superior causes which convert seas into continents, and continents into seas. These sublime changes are occasioned by the progress of the perihelion point of the earth's orbit through the ecliptic, which passes from extreme northern to extreme southern declination, and vice versa, every 10,450 years; and the maxima of the central forces in the perihelion occasion the waters to accumulate alternatively upon either hemisphere. During 10,450 years, the sea is therefore gradually retiring and encroaching in both hemispheres:—hence ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... a few days when this occurred. The sun had some time since passed its lowest southern declination, and at meridian now threw flaunting streaks of yellow light upon the northern sky. On the day following his mistake with the sugar-bag, Cuthfert found himself feeling better, both in body and in spirit. As noontime drew near and the day brightened, ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... different from any of those which had been used by the earlier observers. The method of observing which Bruennow employed was quite different from that of Struve, though the filar micrometer was used in both cases. Bruennow sought to determine the parallactic ellipse by measuring the difference in declination between 61 Cygni and the comparison star.[38] In the course of a year it is found that the difference in declination undergoes a periodic change, and from that change the parallactic ellipse can be computed. In the first series of observations I measured the difference of ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... is directed to the pole of the heavens; the other axis, at right angles to the first, carries the telescope-tube. One of the many methods adopted for mounting equatorials is that exhibited—with the omission of some minor details—in fig. 9. a is the polar axis, b is the axis (called the declination axis) which bears the telescope. The circles c and d serve to indicate, by means of verniers revolving with the axes, the motion of the telescope in right ascension and declination, respectively. The weight w serves to counterpoise the telescope, and the ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... to dress his wound, he told them, that while his strength was yet entire, his body free from a fever, and his mind able to endure, they might freely use their art; cut and search to the bottom; but if they should neglect their art, and renew torments in the declination of nature, their ignorance, or over-tenderness would prove a kind of tyranny to their friend, and reflect ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Henry stepped forward and huskily asked if he might take her home. Bowing to him with a gracious smile of declination, she said, "Thanks," and, taking Cordis's ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... south- east. These opposite outlines contract the southern side to about 500 miles, and open the northern side to rather above 800 miles; giving a mean breadth of 650 miles. The area, for all general purposes, may be safely taken at 500,000 square miles. The general slope or declination of this great region is westward, towards the Pacific and Gulf ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... exits of one that already exists, which is what we have done in the arctic. The work is also not so nearly complete, since it will not be necessary to use the southern reservoir for storing weight for six months, or until the south pole, which is now at its maximum declination from the sun, is turned towards it and begins to move away; then, by increasing the amount of matter there, and at the same time lightening the north pole, and reversing the process every six months, we decrease the speed at which the departing pole leaves ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... immediacy that was startling. By the third day, men who had not been off their backs for weeks crawled out of their bunks and tottered around on crutches. And on that day, the sun, two months then on its journey into northern declination, peeped cheerfully over the crest of the canyon for ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London |
