United States or Russia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If the object of the ice-party had merely been to cross the glacier, the difficulties would not have been great; but the necessity of always returning to the straight line pointed out by the inexorable theodolite, led them into positions of considerable difficulty.
But the truth is one; it has first to be discovered, then justly and exactly uttered. Even with instruments specially contrived for such a purpose with a foot-rule, a level, or a theodolite it is not easy to be exact; it is easier, alas! to be inexact.
I myself had spent a summer there, and taken part in one of the oceanographical courses. Professor Helland-Hansen was a brilliant teacher; I am afraid I cannot assert that I was an equally brilliant pupil. Professor Mohn had given us a complete meteorological outfit. Among the instruments belonging to the Fram I may mention a pendulum apparatus, an excellent astronomical theodolite, and a sextant.
We sailed at 8 A.M. for Mount Ernest at which place a round of theodolite angles was required and in the afternoon anchored off its south-western side in nine fathoms, one mile off shore. A solitary native was seen at work upon a canoe near the beach, but when a boat approached the shore he withdrew. The canoe was about half finished, and close by was a small shed of bamboo thatched with grass.
He grubbed up all the hedges, and threw the whole of his arable land into one vast field, and had it levelled with the theodolite. He drained it six feet deep at an enormous cost. He built an engine-shed with a centrifugal pump, which forced water from the stream that ran through the lower ground over the entire property, and even to the topmost storey of his house.
A comparison of the results showed an agreement between sextant and theodolite, within the errors of the instrument if the temperature was above about 20° Fahr. At lower temperatures there were frequently discrepancies which could generally be attributed to the mirage effects described above.
The hotel swarmed with carpenters, bricklayers and painters. There was an architect up from the city with a bundle of blue prints in his hand. There was an engineer taking the street level with a theodolite, and a gang of navvies with shovels digging like fury as if to dig out the back foundations of the hotel. "That'll fool 'em," said Mr. Smith.
Denny took the note-book and examined the figuring out of this problem, and Elmer went to the hall for his instrument. He returned with the theodolite still secured at the angle at which the sight had been taken. As he laid the instrument on the dining table, he said: "I am very sorry, uncle, that I did anything about this matter.
We hailed them, and they halted while we hurried towards them. It was a lieutenant and a couple of privates of the 8th Hussars, with a stand like a theodolite, which the artilleryman told me was a heliograph. "You are the first men I've seen coming this way this morning," said the lieutenant. "What's brewing?" His voice and face were eager. The men behind him stared curiously.
Ten principal points have been determined in latitude and longitude by means of 115 sets of astronomical observations, aided by three good chronometers, and seventeen other points have been determined by triangulation with a portable theodolite.
Word Of The Day