"Astronomical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... essay at the Brussels Congress to show, from the astronomical observations of the Egyptians and Assyrians, that 11,542 years before our era man existed on the earth at such a stage of civilization as to be able to take note of astronomical phenomena, and to calculate with considerable accuracy the length of the year. The Egyptians, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... wrote on the smaller astrolabe—the instrument then used to measure the star orbits—and on the rise of the Nile, a subject always of interest to the mathematicians of Egypt, from its importance to the husbandman. From Theon's astronomical observations we learn that the Alexandrian astronomers still made use of the old Egyptian movable year of three hundred and sixty-five days only, and without a leap-year. Paul the Alexandrian astrologer, on the other hand, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... yet it sometimes happens that the margin of the box is extended to such a size, as to contain from twenty to thirty concentric circles, containing various characters of the language, constituting a compendium of their astronomical (perhaps more properly speaking) astrological knowledge. As numbers of such compasses are in the museums of Europe, it may not perhaps be wholly unacceptable to give some notion of what these circles ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... that these crossing-places (which for convenience and according to astronomical usage we shall call the nodes), are in motion upon the ecliptic, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... great plates, was published at Paris in 1817. III. Recueil d'Observations Astronomiques, et de Mesures executees dans le Nouveau Continent: two volumes quarto. This learned work contains the result of Humboldt's astronomical and trigonometrical observations on the lunar distances, the eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter, the transit of Mercury, and upwards of five hundred elevated points in the New World, taken from barometrical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... even a spelling-book. It was consulted by every member of the household on every subject, save possibly religion—for that they had the best of all books. The planters learned from it meteorological, astronomical, thaumaturgical, botanical, and agricultural facts—or rather what the editor stated as facts. Social customs and peculiarities and ethics were also touched upon in a manner suited to the requirements and capacity of the ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... 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
... the private study of Dr. William Kinney. In itself, it was not at all out of the ordinary. Shelves of books, cases of surgical and psychological instruments, star charts, maps and astronomical apparatus—these told at once both the man's vocation and avocation. With these contents and rather severe furnishings the room was merely interesting, ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... "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 vastness of suns and systems should have any special interest in so pitiful a creature ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... had subsided; the wind remained unfavourable, but was mild. The captain now tried to find our bearings by means of his astronomical instruments. He complained of the sky, which had been overcast so many days, swore that he would give much for a single glimpse of the sun or the stars, and did not conceal the uneasiness he felt at not being able to indicate our whereabouts with certainty. He consoled ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the contract has been followed out. The grain market was built in 1767, upon the site of the hotel of Soissons. Of this, nothing was preserved but the astronomical tower of Catherine de Medicis, which still remains. The central part of the market left free was soon covered with a wooden framework, which was destroyed by fire in 1802. This was then replaced by the architect Brunet with an iron cupola covered with sheet copper. This market ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed the invention of his pendulum,—an invention the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... which he thought and worked during the long period which elapsed between his leaving the quarter-deck and his death; as his Charts (constructed from his numerous surveys), his twenty years' Essays in the United Service Journal, his efforts to render his astronomical researches accessible ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... intelligence in the universe, did the soul of man create, or does the soul of man govern it? Shall we adore his soul? Some Pantheists have got just to this length. M. Comte declares, that "At this present time, for minds properly familiarized with true astronomical philosophy, the heavens display no other glory than that of Hipparchus, or Kepler, or Newton, and of all who have helped to establish these laws." Establish these laws! Laws by which the heavenly bodies were guided thousands ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... Morocco lies between the annual Isothermal lines of 68 Fahr. (or 20 Cent.), whilst the mean temperature at the Equator was considered by Humboldt to be 81.4 deg. Fahr. and by Atkinson (Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society) 84.5 deg.. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... his return from his second voyage, and remaining buried in our archives for a long time. It is a precious monument, for without it we should have been left in ignorance of the great additions which he made to astronomical science. The most rigorous examination of this letter cannot bring to light the least circumstance proving anything for or against the accuracy of his first voyage. The diffidence with which he commences the matter is, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... erecting an observatory and telescope, in order to sweep our sky and render visible what I am convinced exist there undiscovered—some of those deep blue nebulae which Sir John Herschel found in the southern hemisphere! If the astronomical conjectures be correct, concerning the possibility of a galaxy of blue stars, a huge cluster hangs in this neighborhood and furnishes an explanation of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... 339, increased his claim to popular acknowledgment by adding "an astrologer, a devil-dancer, and a preacher."[1] At the present day the astronomical treatises possessed by the Singhalese are, generally speaking, borrowed, but with ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... well-arranged manual, giving proof of the wide erudition and sense of proportion possessed by the author. Besides dealing with Arithmetic as understood by the modern school-boy, it discusses certain astronomical operations, multiplication by memory, the mysteries of the Roman and Ecclesiastical Calendars, and gives rules for the solution of any problem arising from the terms of the same. It treats of partnership in agriculture, the Mezzadria system still prevalent in Tuscany and in other parts of ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... chawats, nor was it to be desired until they knew how to wash them. We had also brought a beautiful magic lantern with a dissolving-view apparatus for our people's amusement and instruction, for some of the slides were painted by Miss Rigaud to illustrate the life of our Lord, and there were many astronomical slides also. All these treasures brought us numerous visitors. The Chinese Christians were all invited to a feast at our house, after which the magic lantern was exhibited, and we were glad to find that our school-children could explain all ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... to work to compose their sacred hymns and arrange their simple ceremonial. We must never forget that what is natural in one place is natural in other places also, and we may sum up without fear of serious contradiction, that no case has been made out in favor of a foreign origin of the elementary astronomical notions of the Hindus as found or presupposed in ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... This astronomical apotheosis startled me for a moment, but I said unhesitatingly, "Yes," feeling sure that the lustrous eyes that looked in mine could certainly see as far as Dante's, when Beatrice was transferred from his side to the highest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... explanations at the beginning of the book. Still, I can take but little of the blame, when I consider how I fared through my geography, right to the end of the grammar-school course. I did in time disentangle the symbolism of the orange revolving on a knitting-needle from the astronomical facts in the case, but it took years of training under a master of the subject to rid me of my distrust of the map as a representation of the earth. To this day I sometimes blunder back to my early impression that any given portion of the earth's surface is constructed upon a skeleton consisting ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... 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
... what one can do in after hours away from his work. He was a laborer in a steel mill. His duties were not such as resemble in any way planning or research work, yet he became one of the world's most prominent astronomical thinkers and an Honorary member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, because he had the desire to be a student. Under Scientific Management such a desire receives added impetus from the method of attack provided for through ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... Burlington House are the Geographical and Chemical Societies, and on the west the Linnaean. In the courtyard, the Royal Society is in the east wing, and the Royal Astronomical and the Society of Antiquaries ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body, but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and saints. The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture in the air, in the ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... of the great eclipse. For a week Miss Ladd's boarders had talked about it, exchanging among themselves much newspaper astronomical misinformation—which the learned Miss Moore good-naturedly corrected. It was her suggestion that the household should make a night of it: "Let's all go up on the roof and see the show!" So the friendly gayety was planned—a supper in the basement dining room at half ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... Pharaoh used upon the Nile was three hundred and thirty feet long, and was fitted with state rooms and private rooms of considerable size. Another vessel contained, besides the ordinary cabins, large bath-rooms, a library, and an astronomical observatory. It had eight towers, in which there were machines capable of hurling stones weighing three hundred pounds or more, and arrows eighteen feet in length. These huge vessels were built some two centuries before Caesar ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... wish to see in your flag?" The result of some of Mr. Johnson's harangues was so often a personal collision, in which the more ardent on both sides had an opportunity to see any number of new constellations, that this astronomical view of the case must have struck the audience rather by its pertinence than its novelty. But in the argument of the Secretary, as in that of the President, there is a manifest confusion of logic, and something very like a petitio principii. ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... 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" ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... J. L. appears as Mr. James Laurie, with a new pamphlet "The Astronomical doctrines of the Moon's rotation ..." Edinburgh. Of all the works I have seen on the question, this is the most confident, and the sorest. {5} A writer on astronomy said of Mr. Jellinger Symons,[18] "Of course he convinced no one ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... the "Tannhaeuser March," as rendered by himself, with its flourish of trumpets and its general hurrah-boys. But he is unmoved by the apostrophe to the "Evening Star" from the same opera. For this, in passing through the piano-player, is almost reduced to a frigid astronomical basis. The singer is no longer Scotti or Bispham, but Herschel or Laplace. The operator may pump and switch until he breaks his heart—but if he has any real musical instinct, he will surely grow to feel ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... one. The first boat was filled instantly with water, swamped, and thrown back against the rocks "almost a perfect wreck, and its contents were washed down below the overhanging rocks." A package of Wheeler's valuable papers was lost, also a lot of expensive instruments, the astronomical and meteorological observations, and the entire cargo of rations. This was a discouraging disaster, and came near compelling the retreat of the whole party. Darkness came on, and they were obliged to drop back about half a mile to make a camp. ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... crushed out of his imagination it will be time enough to give him a name, seeing he is neither Republican nor Democrat, nor Tammany, nor even a Stalwart, nor a three-hundred-and- sixer—seeing, in fact, that he is not an astronomical point in any political heaven with which the world is acquainted, but only the most nebulous of nebulae which have yet come within ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... to be trustworthy. Should the Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass. Your geologists and biologists may yet find ...
— The Blindman's World - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... an ancient observatory of more than ordinary interest, erected by a famous Hindoo patron of science, Rajah Manu. Though it is now quite neglected and in partial ruins, a sun-dial, a zodiac, meridian lines, and astronomical appliances are still distinctly traced upon heavy stones arranged for celestial observations. This proves that astronomy was well advanced at Benares hundreds of years before Galileo was born, and it will be remembered that the astronomers of India first settled the fact of the rotation of the earth. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... has recently been discovered that one of the satellites of Saturn, known as Phoebe, is revolving in a direction the exact contrary of that which all known astronomical laws would have led us to expect. English astronomers admit that this may necessitate a fundamental revision ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... eccentricities; and, false as those theories might be, the position of the planets could be calculated with moderate certainty by them. The very first result of the science, in its most imperfect stage, was a power of foresight; and this was possible before any one true astronomical law had ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... well-known work upon The Heavens has secured him a wide reputation as one of the first of living astronomical writers and observers. In this compact treatise he discourses familiarly but most accurately and entertainingly of the Sun as the source of light, of heat, and of chemical action; of its influence upon living beings; of its place in the Planetary World; of its place ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... equally true that this outrageous gallop of rhymes ending with a frantic astronomical image would lose in energy and spirit if it were written in a conventional and ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... 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 forces of the earth are in equilibrium, but let a magnetic storm ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... would not let me sleep. 'My lord,' said I, 'let me now question thee.' 'I am sleepy,' said he, 'but ask on.' 'What subject shall I choose?' I said. 'Any subject,' he replied; 'of all knowledge I know the half.'" Joseph asks him astronomical, musical, logical, arithmetical questions; to all of which Enan replies, "I do not know." "But," protests Joseph, "how couldst thou assert that thou knewest half of every subject, when it is clear thou knowest nothing?" "Exactly," says Enan, "for Aristotle ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... greater number of known analogies; for if a theory be required to embrace some false principle, it becomes more visionary in proportion as facts are multiplied, as would be the case if geometers were now required to form an astronomical system on the assumption of ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... The 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 to prevent well-meaning bureaucrats from insisting on written competitive ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... 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 ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... 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 ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... of a miner's hut, though displaying great originality of design, and ingenious artistic effects, becomes after a time rather a tiresome object of contemplation. The colonel found it so, and he relieved his strained eyes by an occasional amateur astronomical observation. On turning his head, with a yawn, from one of these, he saw inside the hut a state of affairs which caused him to feel hurriedly ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... being broken. There was no glazier in the village, which broke few windows, and was content to wait the coming round of a peripatetic plumber, who came at irregular intervals, like Easter, but without astronomical checks. So, as a temporary expedient to keep the dust out, Widow Thrale pasted a piece of paper over the breakage, and the mill was hidden from the human eye. Toby showed penitence, and had ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... was the only change that we made in the "charter party" throughout the voyage. There was no haphazard sailing on this voyage. Daily observations for determining latitude and longitude were invariably made unless the sun was obscured. The result of these astronomical observations were more reliable than one might suppose, from their being taken on a tittlish canoe. After a few days' practising, a very fair off-hand contact could be made, when the canoe rose on the crest of a wave, where manifestly ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... the attempt of Anaxagoras to explain everything rationally. His contemporary, Hippocrates, regarded diseases as of divine origin, and Plato believed that the sun and stars were animated gods with their souls (Philebus, cap. xvi., Laws, x.), and only permitted astronomical investigation so long as it abstained from blasphemy against these gods. And Aristotle in his Physics tells us that Zeus rains not in order that the corn may grow, but by necessity (ex anharchest). They tried to ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... monsoons, the harbours, the islands, the shoals, the sunken rocks and dangerous quicksands, and he accompanied his work with various maps and charts, both general and special, of land and water, rarely delineated before his day, as well as by various astronomical and mathematical calculations. Already a countryman of his own, Wagenaar of Zeeland, had laid the mariners of the world under special obligation by a manual which came into such universal use that for centuries afterwards the sailors of England and of other countries called ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sort—like 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 was ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... design, he would immediately say, after a little examination of 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 genius! There cannot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... time when people were talking about some menace of the end of the world, not apocalyptic but astronomical; and the cloud that covered the little town of Beaconsfield might have fitted in with such a fancy. It faded, however, as I left the place further behind; and in London the weather, though wet, was comparatively ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... 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, ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... of those who possess astronomical telescopes, and devote more or less of their leisure in following some particular line of research, is shown by the great success in recent years of societies, such as the British Astronomical Association with its several branches, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and similar institutions ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... have been greatly increased. Since 1870, the yearly additions for all the libraries have averaged 700 volumes, and they at present contain exclusive of pamphlets about 45,000 volumes, besides nearly 5,000 books which are either duplicates or worthless. These figures are independent of the Astronomical library located at the Observatory, the library of the 'Society of Inquiry,' and of the libraries of the Medical and Agricultural departments, which will probably be connected with the main library. The library as it is now constituted is well adapted to the work ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... inches in diameter, was cut with fifty threads to the inch; the nut to fit on to it being twelve inches long, and containing six hundred threads. This screw was principally used for dividing scales for astronomical purposes; and by its means divisions were produced so minute that they could not be detected without the aid of a magnifier. The screw, which was sent for exhibition to the Society of Arts, is still carefully preserved amongst the specimens of Maudslay's handicraft ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... 49.) tells, that in the tomb of Osymandyas (palace of Rameses II. at Thebes) there lay a circle of gold, one ell thick and 365 ells in circumference, containing a complete astronomical calendar. The circle of the zodiac from Dendera, which is now in Paris,—an astronomical ceiling painting, which was believed at the time of its discovery to be of great age, is not nearly so ancient as was supposed, dating only ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Astronomical causes sometimes give rise to disturbances in the universe, the reason of which cannot be understood by the observer. I felt in the same way, without being able to prove anything definite, from certain ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... 13," his alert assistant astronomical officer answered, reading the number from a ...
— The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban
... production, protraction; tension, tensure[obs3]; extension. [Measures of length] line, nail, inch, hand, palm, foot, cubit, yard, ell, fathom, rood, pole, furlong, mile, league; chain, link; arpent[obs3], handbreadth[obs3], jornada [obs3][U.S.], kos[obs3], vara[obs3]. [astronomical units of distance] astronomical unit, AU, light-year, parsec. [metric units of length] nanometer, nm, micron, micrometer, millimicron, millimeter, mm, centimeter, cm, meter, kilometer, km. pedometer, perambulator; scale &c. (measurement) 466. V. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... great astronomical event a special interest on this occasion," continued Minard, "is that the author of the discovery is a denizen of the twelfth arrondissement, which many of you still inhabit, or have inhabited. But other points are striking in this great scientific fact. The Academy, on the reading ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Sanhedrin, there has been no central authority recognised throughout Jewry. The Jewish organisation has long been congregational. Since the fourth century there has been no body with any jurisdiction over the mass of Jews. At that date the Calendar was fixed by astronomical calculations. The Patriarch, in Babylon, thereby voluntarily abandoned the hold he had previously had over the scattered Jews, for it was no longer the fiat of the Patriarch that settled the dates of the Festivals. ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... consists of 220 school books, and 148 volumes of miscellaneous books, chiefly for the young. The school has 6 large fine maps, and 5 of Mr. Bidwell's Missionary maps, and 16 of Mattison's astronomical maps. These maps were the gifts of Mrs. Dr. Burgess and of Fisher Howe, Esq. The school has a pair of globes, one Season's machine, one orrery, a pair of gasometers, a spirit-lamp and retort stand, a centre of gravity apparatus, a capillary attraction apparatus, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... to the King of the Reverend Dr. Kennedy's Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... astonished if he had come across the city magistrates, sitting apart in conclave to hear the witnesses of the new moon's appearance and settle the time. He could picture the scientific men in their midst, making their astronomical calculations, and judging whether the testimonies agreed with their calculations. If they did, the president of the assembly proclaimed the new moon by the sound of a trumpet, and set open the gate of Nicanor, the great eastern brazen ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... the other eclipses, so far as days of the moon and month go, are as consistent with each other as are modern Chinese dates with European (Julian) dates. As regards the year, Oppolzer's dates are the "astronomical" dates, that is, the astronomical year—x is the same as the year (x 1) B.C.; or, in other words, the year of Christ's birth is, for certain astronomical exactitude purposes, interpolated between the years 1 B.C. and A.D. 1, as we vulgarly compute them: that is to say, ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... admitted it,—slow as the devil, blast him, 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 ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... 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 study and observation. ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... coordinates branches, or phases, of geographical study which tend to become specialized and separate. Mathematical or astronomical, physiographic, topographic, political, commercial, geography, all make their claims. How are they to be adjusted? By an external compromise that crowds in so much of each? No other method is to be found unless it be constantly borne ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... familiar to the Hindoos, that the self-triplicated Great Father yet remained but one in essence, the Peruvians supposed their Tanga-tanga to be one in three, and three in one: and in consequence of the union of hero worship with the astronomical and material systems of idolatry they venerated the sun and the air, each under three images and three names. The same opinions equally prevailed throughout the nations which lie to the west of Hindostan. Thus the Persians had their Ormuzd, Mithras, and ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... its floods of electro-magnetism upon all the circling planets; that solar crater which we now know was, when at its maximum, all of one hundred and fifty thousand miles across; the great sun spot of the summer of 1919—the most enormous ever recorded by astronomical science. ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... he does not seem to be getting on well there. Another uncle visits, and takes Tom back with him, giving him a much pleasanter and more interesting life. Together they convert an old windmill into an astronomical observatory, which means grinding the glass lenses and mirrors, as well as bringing the structure of the building up to the required standard. In this they are encouraged by the daily visits of the vicar, while the housekeeper, Mrs Fidler, and the old gardener, make various remarks on the ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... it led the starry choir, because it was the king and guide of all the other luminaries and therefore the master of the whole world.[87] The astronomical doctrines of the "Chaldeans" taught that this incandescent globe alternately attracted and repelled the other sidereal bodies, and from this principle the Oriental theologians had concluded that it must determine the entire life of the universe, inasmuch ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... a statement by William Lambert, explanatory of his astronomical calculations with a view to establish the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... culture,' he looked doubtfully at his audience and went on, 'I mean that they made beautiful statues and jewellery, and built splendid palaces. And they were very learned—they had glorious libraries and high towers for the purpose of astrological and astronomical observation.' ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... considerable uncertainty. At the time when Callisthenes was requested by Aristotle to gain information concerning the origin of science in Chaldea, he was {43} informed that the ancestors of the Chaldeans had continued their astronomical observations through a period of 470,000 years; but upon examining the ground of this report, he found that the Chaldean observation reached no further backward than 1,903 years, or that, of course (adding this number to 331, B.C., the year in which Babylon was taken by Alexander), ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... a measure of prices with the same universality of application and the same unchangeableness as the measure of length, which is determined by astronomical calculation, we should be able, not only to clearly understand all the data relating to value, that is to say, a not unimportant portion of historical science, but we should, moreover, have a practical means to condition and fix even perpetual annuities, in such a way, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... miracles were allegorical, and intended to typify the confining of rivers within their channels, or the limiting of the incursions of the sea. Other authors have been inclined to account for their prevalence, as having reference to the sun, or to astronomical phaenomena; but surely the most simple and satisfactory mode of explaining them, lies in considering the dragon as the emblem of evil, and the various victories gained over dragons, as so many conquests obtained ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... "I have to say, that my feelings at this hour are too many for me. Perhaps I might add, that the courses have been so also. As my friend SOYER used to observe when we were together in the Crimea, astronomical and gastronomical laws are alike fixed. And one of them is, that the precession of the dinner-plates, and the nutation of the glasses, do not promote the music of the spheres. But, Mr. PUNCH and gentlemen, although not one of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... her husband did not comply with her wishes. What could poor Ahmed do? He was no astrologer, but he was dotingly fond of his wife, and he could not bear the idea of losing her. He promised to obey, and having sold his little stock, bought an astrolabe, an astronomical almanac, and a table of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Furnished with these, he went to the marketplace, crying, "I am an astrologer! I know the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the twelve signs ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 idea was of the mission of the sonnet, as associated with life, ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... made considerable proficiency in learning, and employed the short time which in those days was devoted to education, preparatory to entering the service to advantage, may be justly inferred, if we may judge from the style of his letters, and from the precision and accuracy which mark the astronomical observations to ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... 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
... low, table-topped hills, called El Gaaf, the coffle encamped on the third evening in a desert, called Sbir ben Afeen, where the plain presented on all sides so perfect a horizon, that an astronomical observation might have been taken as well as at sea. From the excessive dryness of the air, the blankets and barracans emitted electric sparks, and distinctly crackled on being rubbed. The horses' tails, also, in beating off the ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... wert thou so ineffably blessed in one presence? Why, in quitting that presence, did Duty become so grim? Why dost thou address to me those inept pedantic questionings, under the light of yon moon, which has suddenly ceased to be to thy thoughts an astronomical body and has become, forever and forever, identified in thy heart's dreams with romance and poesy and first love? Why, instead of gazing on that uncomfortable orb, art thou not quickening thy steps towards a cozy inn and a good supper at Oxford? Kenelm, my friend, thou ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not be supposed 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
... an inventor; he took out letters-patent for various discoveries, among others for an instrument of precision applicable to astronomical observations. Competent persons have recognized the great value of this invention, conceived without previous study, and which remains hidden among the papers ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... 53.—In 1762 he wrote for the Reverend Dr. Kennedy, Rector of Bradley in Derbyshire, in a strain of very courtly elegance, a Dedication to the King[*] of that gentleman's work, entitled, A complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding the Scriptures. He had certainly looked at this work before it was printed; for the concluding paragraph is undoubtedly of his composition, of which let ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... and thence Shone through his body, with sweet influence; Letting their glories so on each limb fall, The whole frame render'd was celestial. Come, learned Ptolemy[3] and trial make, If thou this hero's altitude canst take: 40 But that transcends thy skill; thrice happy all, Could we but prove thus astronomical. Lived Tycho[4] now, struck with this ray which shone More bright i' the morn, than others' beam at noon. He'd take his astrolabe, and seek out here What new star 'twas did gild our hemisphere. Replenish'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... more likely to both these subjects. It has not been far opened; but will probably prove of the utmost interest, if, as it is expected, it contains any account of the system of the heavens as known to or acknowledged by the Egyptians and Chaldeans, the authors of astronomical science. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... the astronomical instruments were landed, and some important errors, both of latitude and longitude, were discovered and corrected. Thirty or forty whale-ships were seen fastened to the icebergs along the shore ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... masterpiece of his 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
... orbiting around Acquatainia—the capital planet of the Acquataine Cluster—served simultaneously as a transfer point from starships to planetships, a tourist resort, meteorological station, communications center, scientific laboratory, astronomical observatory, medical haven for allergy and cardiac patients, and military base. It was, in reality, a good-sized city with its own markets, its own local government, and its own ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... theory of comets. Having occasion to go out after dark, and having observed the brilliant comet then visible (1858), she ran in with breathless haste to the house, calling on her fellow-servants to "Come oot and see a new star that hasna got its tail cuttit aff yet!" Exquisite astronomical speculation! Stars, like puppies, are born with tails, and in due time have them docked. Take an example of a story where there is no display of any one's wit or humour, and yet it is a good story, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... upon the ether, such as light and electricity, has any influence on its action or its direction. All bodies are, so to speak, absolutely transparent to universal attraction, and no experiment has succeeded in demonstrating that its propagation is not instantaneous. From various astronomical observations, Laplace concluded that its velocity, in any case, must exceed fifty million times that of light. It is subject neither to reflection nor to refraction; it is independent of the structure of ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... animal existing. On the night of the 20th Lieutenant Schwatka observed a meridian culmination of the moon, which showed in latitude 67 deg. 32 min. 42 sec. north, only three miles from our reckoning. It is a difficult task to make astronomical observations with a sextant in a temperature thirty-eight degrees below zero, or seventy below the freezing-point, as it was this night. It is not pleasant to sit still for any length of time in such weather. A thin skim of ice ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... preparations Harding arranged everything for his astronomical observation. He chose a clear place on the shore, which the ebbing tide had left perfectly level. This bed of fine sand was as smooth as ice, not a grain out of place. It was of little importance ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... a wooden building, or shed, twenty-five feet square, painted a dark red, its roof on a level with the height of the outer parapet. The bishop opened the door with another key and threw the windows wide, disclosing a canvas-hooded telescope in the centre, chairs and tables bearing astronomical instruments, and sidereal maps upon the walls. Then, as he pressed a lever, the roof was cleft asunder till ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Society awarded him its Copley medal in 1848. In the same year the members of St John's College commemorated his success by founding in the university an Adams prize, to be given biennially for the best treatise on a mathematical subject. In 1851 he became president of the Royal Astronomical Society. His lay fellowship at St John's College came to an end in 1852, and the existing statutes did not permit of his re-election. But Pembroke College, which possessed greater freedom, elected him in the following ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... great authority has been seen to oppose itself to "Natural Selection," by limiting, on astronomical and physical grounds, the duration of life on this planet to about one hundred million years. This period, it has been contended, is not nearly enough on the one hand for the evolution of all organic forms by the exclusive action of mere minute, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... start out of their dark Retreat, and with a Curiosity not below the Seraphic Dignity; for these are some of the things which the Angels desire to look into, to take a flight thro' all the amazing Systems of the fix'd Suns or Stars, which we see now but at a Distance, and only make Astronomical ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... a small case which contained books, the latest astronomical data sheets, and a space computer and scratch board. These were obviously for Rip's personal use. He examined them. There were all the references he would need for computing orbit, speed, and just ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... "made by us, Catholics, is in taking too wide, too bird's-eye a view of human history and philosophy, instead of mapping them into sections, as the astronomical photographers are mapping the skies from the Papal Observatory in Rome to the Lick Observatory in California. What we want most is sectional treatises on single subjects. Now, what you are to give us is ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... he married Sophia Elizabeth, daughter of William Frend, a Unitarian in faith, a mathematician and actuary in occupation, a notice of whose life, written by his son-in-law, will be found in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (vol. v.). They settled in Chelsea (30 Cheyne Row), where in later years Mrs De Morgan had a large circle of intellectual ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... other works of which the series will be composed, may be mentioned, profusely Illustrated Volumes upon Geographical, Astronomical, Mathematical, and General Science, as well as works essential to the proper training ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Sobieski in 1683 is now a small park, "Tuerkenschanz-Park," located in Doebling, one of the northwestern quarters of Greater Vienna. Only a little ways south of this park, and overlooking it, stands the Astronomical Observatory, not far from which Schnitzler has been living for a number of years. Numerous references to localities in this play indicate that he has placed the Wegrat home in that very villa quarter of Waehring, where he himself ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... 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, or twenty states like New York or Illinois, spread ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... early decades of the seventeenth century, the men of the Renaissance could show that they had already put out to good interest the treasure bequeathed to them by the Greeks. They had produced the astronomical system of Copernicus, with Kepler's great additions; the astronomical discoveries and the physical investigations of Galileo; the mechanics of Stevinus and the 'De Magnete' of Gilbert; the anatomy of the great French and Italian schools and the physiology of Harvey. In Italy, which had ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... Egyptian origin, the word itself is referred to the Egyptian term for black earth—and to have passed to the Arabs, who made it into a quantitative science, without greatly interesting the scientific mind of Greece. Careful astronomical records extending over thousands of years were kept both in Egypt and Babylonia, and upon them a considerable body of astronomical knowledge was built up. But there is no evidence of a scientific interest detached at once from theology and industry. ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... an interval, however, the Duke of Devonshire succeeding the Duke of Montrose as Chamberlain, this demand was not enforced; eventually a compromise was agreed upon, and a reduced fee of L1 1s. was levied upon each vaudeville, &c. Colman even succeeded in rating as a stage play, an astronomical lecture, delivered at the Lyceum. The "At Homes" of Mathews were of course taxed, a "slight sketch and title" being submitted to the Examiner, the actor professing to speak without any precise text, but simply from "heads and hints ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... whom some specially great man might have in his service for the 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 observations ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... of the heavenly bodies, which, rudimentary as they were, still prove them to have been men of rare intellect. For a great and a patient genius must he have been, who first distinguished the planets from the fixed stars, or worked out the earliest astronomical calculation. But they seem to have been crushed, as it were, by their own discoveries. They stopped short. They gave way again to the primeval fear of Nature. They sank into planet-worship. They invented, it would seem, that fantastic pseudo-science of astrology, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... filled with advertising and testimonials—including the familiar story of the illness of Dr. Morse's father and the dramatic return of his son with the life-saving herbs—but also containing calendars, astronomical data, and some homely good advice. Odd corners were filled with jokes, of which the ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... belonging to the sphere of the earth and within reach of the senses. He holds, of course, the unity of the world; the laws of the whole visible universe are one order; but the heavens, wonderful as they are to him, are—compared with other things—out of his track of inquiry. He had his astronomical theories; he expounded them in his "Descriptio Globi Intellectualis" and his Thema Coeli He was not altogether ignorant of what was going on in days when Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo were at work. But he did not know how to deal with it, and there were men in England, before and ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... His simile conveyed the astronomical compliment at once to Honora and Phoebe, who were content to share it. Honora was in a condition of subdued excitement and anxiety, compared to which all other sensations were tame, chequered as was her felicity, a state well known to mothers and sisters. Intensely ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... astronomical world by declaring that he saw some of the canals double—that is appearing as two parallel lines. As these lines span the planet's surface for distances of many thousands of miles the announcement naturally gave rise to much surprise and, as I have said, to ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... Jyoti[s.]a (astronomy), a short treatise of only thirty-six verses, written not earlier than 300 B.C., and affording us some knowledge of the extent of number work in that period.[62] The Hindus {18} also speak of eighteen ancient Siddh[a]ntas or astronomical works, which, though mostly ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... never said who I was. Matt Hennessy, from Farside Observatory, back of the Moon, just back from a proving flight cum astronomical survey in the starship Whale. Whoever you are who finds this tape, you're made. Take it to any radio station or newspaper office. You'll find you can name your price and don't ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily
... sanctioned with the credence of the multitude. Before Copernicus, there was no one who did not believe that the earth was stationary, that the sun described his annual revolution round it. Was, however, this universal consent of man upon a principle of astronomical science, which endured for so many thousand years, less an error on that account? Yet to have doubted the truth of such a generally-diffused opinion, one that had received the sanction of so many learned men—that was clothed with the sacred vestments of so many ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... employ to measure the angles from which to deduce the height of the clouds is a peculiar form of altazimuth that was originally designed by Prof. Mohn, of Christiania, for measuring the parallax of the aurora borealis. It resembles an astronomical altazimuth, but instead of a telescope it carries an open tube without any lenses. The portion corresponding to the object glass is formed by thin cross wires: and that corresponding to the eye piece by a plate of brass, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... that the similarity that existed between the architecture of the Phoenicians and the Central Americans, as evinced in their arches; in the beginning of the century on the 26th of February; the advancement and interest taken in astronomical science; the coexistence of pyramids in Egypt and Central America; that five Armenian cities should have their namesakes in Central America, should all be a matter of accident. The historiographer ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... century, the red spider a day; in power, intellect, and dignity the one creature is separated from the other by a distance which is simply astronomical. Yet in these, as in all qualities, man is immeasurably further below me than is the wee spider below ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... linen under such circumstances, so I had learned to nip all fastidious notions of individual cleanliness in the bud, and to accept the inevitable. When the time arrived for retiring, the Governor and the brothers went out to make astronomical observations or smoke, as the case might be, while the sisters and I made our evening toilet, and disposed ourselves in the allotted corners. That done, the stalwart sons of Adam made their beds with skins ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the physicist are as convinced of the existence of these atoms as they are of the objects we see and touch. The theory "is a necessity to explain the experimental facts of chemical composition." "Through metaphysics first," says Soddy, "then through alchemy and chemistry, through physical and astronomical spectroscopy, lastly through radio-activity, science has slowly groped its way to the atom." The physicists make definite statements about these hypothetical bodies all based upon definite chemical phenomena. Thus Clerk Maxwell assumes that they are spherical, that ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... was the manufacture of clocks, but it was one of the few branches that did not pay him. Two of his finest astronomical clocks were bought by the Empress of Russia, after being offered for sale in this country in vain. His friend, Dr. Small, is said to have invented a timepiece containing but a single wheel. The "town clocks" of the present day are only worth notice on account of ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... "fact," for instance, that the Moon is a dead world with no life upon it. The suggestion made by the great 16th century mathematician, Johannes Kepler, that some life might exist on the Moon was debunked into silence long since. Yet today a fellow of the British Royal Astronomical Society writes that the first men to arrive on the Moon may find not only plant life but possibly animal life. "The fact that terrestrial organisms may be unable to survive in the surroundings of another planet ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... requisite information as to the particular method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the twine into a net-work of sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a hoop and the necessary cords; bought a quadrant, a compass, a spy-glass, a common barometer with some important modifications, and two astronomical instruments not so generally known. I then took opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty gallons each, and one of a larger size; six tinned ware ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... before, during, and after the birth and growth of Protestantism, who would have nothing to do with it. Assuredly, the rejuvenescence of science and of art; the widening of the field of Nature by geographical and astronomical discovery; the revelation of the noble ideals of antique literature by the revival of classical learning; the stir of thought, throughout all classes of society, by the printers' work, loosened traditional bonds and weakened the hold of mediaeval Supernaturalism. In the interests ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... inappropriate to seek by supplication to alter it. No devotee, acquainted with the theory of the tides, would, like Canute the King, think of staying their waves with words. Eclipses and comets, once matters of superstitious terror, have been entirely shorn of this attribute by astronomical discovery. Even real and tragic misfortunes, if believed to be such as flow from fixed law, and especially if they can be predicted sometime before they arrive, do not excite religious feeling. As Bishop Hall quaintly observes, referring to a ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... hardly a heresiarch for England, though a hobby for Henry VIII. But the negative Germanism of the Reformation, its drag towards the north, its quarantine against Latin culture, was in a sense the beginning of the business. It is well represented in two facts; the barbaric refusal of the new astronomical calendar merely because it was invented by a Pope, and the singular decision to pronounce Latin as if it were something else, making it not a dead language but a new language. Later, the part played by particular royalties is complex ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... my Philosopher has a great physical advantage over me when it comes to seeing things. His eyes are only two feet ten inches from the ground, while mine are some five feet ten. Three feet do not count for much when we are considering astronomical distances, but they make a great difference in the way things seem. There is a difference in the horizon line, and the realm of mystery begins much nearer. There is no disenchanting bird's-eye view of the ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... capital which I send to you is ornamented with groups of Centaurs or Sagittaries. Astronomical sculptures are frequently found upon the monuments of the middle ages. Two capitals, forming part of a series of zodiacal sculptures, are preserved in the Musee des Monumens Francais; and, speaking from memory, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... discoveries, whether nautical or by land, dwindle into mere ordinary events, when compared with his absolutely solitary exertion of previous scientific views. The sagacious and almost prophetic induction, persevering ardour, cosmographical, nautical, and astronomical skill, which centered in COLUMBUS, from the first conception to the perfect completion of this great and important enterprize, the discovery of a large portion of the globe which had lain hid for thousands of years from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... on the Teneriffe Astronomical Experiment of 1856. Humboldt makes the elevation 12,090 feet. A beautiful model of the Peak was constructed by Mr. J. Nasmyth from Piazzi Smyth's plans, of which photographs ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... ASTRONOMICAL IDEAS. Animals frequently have a part to play in relation to the constellations. Throughout the codices and, to a less degree, in the stone carvings, we find what have usually been considered to be glyphs for several ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... instances of immense financial returns derived from the most abstruse principles of physics. Yet there are scarcely any physical laboratories devoted to research, or endowed with independent funds for this object, except those supported by the government. The endowment of astronomical observatories devoted to research, and not including that given for teaching, is estimated to amount to half a million dollars annually. Several of the larger observatories have an annual income of ...
— The Future of Astronomy • Edward C. Pickering
... scientists who have the art of making science popular without making it or themselves contemptible. It will be hard to find anywhere else so much skill in effective expression, combined with so much genuine astronomical learning, as is to be seen ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... is deservedly considered one of the greatest of the lunar wonders. It lifts its giant ramparts to upwards of 12,000 feet above the level of the lunar surface. Being quite visible from the Earth and well situated for observation, it is a favorite object for astronomical study; this is particularly the case during the phase existing between Last Quarter and the New Moon, when its vast shadows, projected boldly from the east towards the west, allow its prodigious dimensions ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... readers who, with me, have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon, and seldom regard the astronomical part of the almanac, will be as much astonished as I was when they hear of his rising so early, and especially when I assure them that he gives light as soon as he rises. I am convinced of this. I am certain of my fact. One cannot be more certain of any fact. I saw it ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... me. "So Carter was right, I see. Dixon, the abysmal stupidity of the human race continually astounds me with new evidence of its astronomical depths, but I believe this escapade of yours plumbs the uttermost ...
— The Point of View • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... the Chronology of Ancient Egypt discovered from Astronomical and Hieroglyphical Records, including many dates found in coeval inscriptions from the period of the building of the great Pyramid to the times of the Persians, and illustrative of the History of the first ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... solution 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. In popular ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... at which Queen Tera intended her resurrection to take place! We are in contact with some of the higher astronomical calculations in connection with true orientation. As you know, the stars shift their relative positions in the heavens; but though the real distances traversed are beyond all ordinary comprehension, the ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... sounded well and metaphysical; but what did it mean if acted upon? What was the centre of London for any purpose whatever, latitudinarian or longitudinarian, literary, social, or mercantile, geographical, astronomical, or (as Mrs. Malaprop kindly suggests) diabolical? Apparently that we should stay at our inn; for in that way we seemed best to distribute our presence equally amongst all, viz., by ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... been aptly likened to an astronomical telescope, which is able to scan the heavens, but is useless for things close at hand. To some extent this is true of Wagner, but less so than with most, and not in the sense in which it has been often asserted. The attacks which ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... largest and most powerful telescopes in the world. Most interesting observations as to the great comet of 1843 were made by Alexander, Anderson, Bartlett, Kendall, Pierce, Walker, Downes, and Loomis, and valuable astronomical instruments have been constructed by Amasa Holcomb, of Massachusetts, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... swept by the greater viewpoint. Awed by the mysteries of nature, we realize how very small and unimportant we are in the vast scheme of things. We envisage the infinite reaches of astronomical space overhead. Realms of largeness unfathomable. And at our feet, everywhere, are myriad entrances into the infinitely small. With ourselves in between—with our fatuous human consciousness that we are of some importance ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... cannot give these Babel builders priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... up in great excitement, and the two maids hastily dressed and ran down-stairs. Of course it was really only six, but as the sun was now shining brightly, they had no thought for astronomical calculations, and besides, they were frightened nearly out of their wits. Such a thing had never before happened in ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... water was plentiful. Although only 1 p.m., I determined to halt for the remainder of the day, as it was too late to make an attempt to enter the hills without giving the horses the advantage of some hours' feed and rest. It also afforded me leisure to make astronomical observations and work up the plans of our route. A set of lunar distances, very carefully taken, placed the camp in longitude 121 degrees 3 minutes 30 seconds east, while that by account, carried on by triangulation and dead-reckoning ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... improved the method. He made use of an idea which the astronomer Jannsen had applied to the photographing of astronomical processes. Jannsen photographed, for instance, the transit of the planet Venus across the sun in December, 1874, on a circular sensitized plate which revolved in the camera. The plate moved forward a few degrees every minute. There was room in this way to have ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... in which each mind habitually substitutes signs for images will be, CETERIS PARIBUS, the degree in which it is liable to error. This is not contradicted by the fact that mathematical, astronomical, and physical reasonings may, when complex, be carried on more suecessfully by the employment of signs; because in these cases the signs themselves accurately represent the abstractness of the relations. Such sciences deal only with relations, and ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... herewith communicate, for the information of Congress, a report of the Secretary of War, with accompanying documents, showing the progress made during the present year in the astronomical observations made under the act of the 14th of July, 1832, relative to the northern boundary ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... solemnize the three marriages. Ernest and Henrietta inhabit the Grotto Ernestine, which his brothers fitted up as a very tasteful dwelling. They had even, to gratify their brother, raised on the rock above the grotto a sort of observatory, where the telescope is mounted, to enable him to make his astronomical observations. Yet I perceive his passion for exploring distant planets is less strong, since he has so much to attach him ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss |
