Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 26, 2025
In connection with Hipparchus' great discovery it may be mentioned that modern astronomers have often attempted to fix dates in history by the effects of precession of the equinoxes. At about the date when the Great Pyramid may have been built gamma Draconis was near to the pole, and must have been used as the pole-star.
A glance at the star-lit sky, in which the pole-star hung, only some twenty to twenty-five degrees above the horizon, told poor Leicester that they were landing upon a shore open to the northward, and that, from the position of Polaris in the sky, they were somewhere within about twenty-five degrees of the equator; but, beyond that, he was just then unable to learn anything further concerning their whereabouts.
In each sub-race appears a principle which manifests itself more fully, more thoroughly, in the corresponding Root-Race; and therefore, though it will only be possible for us at the present time to work towards the next sub-race of our own Fifth Race, which is already beginning to appear upon the surface of our globe, none the less is it true that in quickening the evolution of that sub-race it is the next Root-Race to which we must look for our guiding principle; that is the far-off Pole-star by which we must guide our ships at the present time, that the point towards which we must steer, however far off we must sorrowfully admit that it is.
Above it, and over the black spires of the poplar avenues, the regiments of stars moved in parade. My gaze went up to the ensign of their noiseless evolutions, to the pole-star, and to Cassiopeia swinging beneath it, low in the north, over my Flora's pillow my pole-star and journey's end.
Some of these rambles led me to great distances, for an opium-eater is too happy to observe the motion of time; and sometimes in my attempts to steer homewards, upon nautical principles, by fixing my eye on the pole-star, and seeking ambitiously for a north-west passage, instead of circumnavigating all the capes and head-lands I had doubled in my outward voyage, I came suddenly upon such knotty problems of alleys, such enigmatical entries, and such sphynx's riddles of streets without thoroughfares, as must, I conceive, baffle the audacity of porters and confound the intellects of hackney-coachmen.
By a report of the Astronomer-royal to the Board of Visitors, who have lately made their annual inspection of the Greenwich Observatory, we are informed, of a singular fact, that observations of the pole-star shew that its position varies some three or four seconds on repeating the observations at intervals of a few months, and this notwithstanding the extreme accuracy of the transit circle.
A little while after that, he observed on the other side of the Pole-star another beautiful assemblage of stars, which was always opposite to Charles' Wain; this, Mr Barlow told him, was called Cassiopeia's Chair, and this, in a short time, was added to the collection.
The Olympus of the Greeks and Mount Zion of the Hebrew Bible mean the same, the Pole-Star; and there, on the pictured planisphere, sits Cephus, the mighty Jove, with one foot on the Pole-Star and all the gods gathered below him. The Pole-Star is the symbol of the highest heaven.
Around the northern pole the Swan swings by its tail, as in our skies the Lesser Bear; Arided being a Pole-Star which needs no Pointers to indicate its position. Vega is the only other brilliant star in the immediate neighbourhood; and, save for the presence of the Milky Way directly crossing it, the arctic circle is distinctly less bright than our own.
"Have 'e any notion what course we're steerin'?" inquired Bill. "None wotsomediver," answered Ben. Soon after that, however, the sky cleared a little, and Bill got sight of part of the constellation of the Great Bear. Although the pole-star was not visible, he guessed pretty nearly its position, and thus ascertained that the breeze came from the south-west.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking