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Mr. Cook's paper having been communicated by Dr. Bevis to Mr. Witchell, the latter gentleman compared it with an observation at Oxford, by the Rev. Mr. Hornsby, on the same eclipse, and thence computed the difference of longitude respecting the places of observation, making due allowance for the effect of parallax, and the prolate spheroidal figure of the earth.
A. When the wheel of a coach rolls along the ground, any point of its periphery describes in the air a curve which is termed a cycloid; any point within the periphery traces a prolate or protracted cycloid, and any point exterior to the periphery traces a curtate or contracted cycloid the prolate cycloid partaking more of the nature of a straight line, and the curtate cycloid more of the nature of a circle.
A discussion arose as to the interpretation of these measures, some affirming that they indicated a prolate, others an oblate spheroid; the former figure may be popularly represented by a lemon, the latter by an orange.
The most interesting specimens of ancient alabaster are the very beautiful vase of Alabastro cotognino, prolate in form, and in colour white, streaked with very light pink, which contained the ashes of Augustus, found in the ruins of his mausoleum, and now in the Vatican; the bust of Julius Cæsar, made of the variety tartaruga, from the resemblance of its brownish-yellow markings to tortoise-shell, in the Museum of the Capitol; and the two large blocks of alabastro a pecorella, brought from the Villa of Hadrian, in the fourth portico of the Vatican, the largest and most beautiful specimens of this very rare alabaster in Rome, distinguished by white circular blotches, like a flock of sheep huddled together, on a deep blood-red ground.
On September 8, 1890, Barnard saw the first elongated and bisected by a bright equatorial belt, during one of its dark transits; and his observation, repeated August 3, 1891, was completely verified by Schaeberle and Campbell, who ascertained, moreover, that the longer axis of the prolate body was directed towards Jupiter's centre.
He sent out quite needlessly a third sack of ballast and a fourth, and presently had the immense satisfaction of soaring up out of the damp and chill into the clear, cold, upper air in which the day still lingered. "Thang-God!" he said, with all his heart. A few stars now had pierced the blue, and in the east there shone brightly a prolate moon.
Mr Wells' own sight of our blindness, our complacent acceptance of the sphere as an oblate or prolate spheroid, might be, he hoped, another of the marvels which we should come to accept through the medium of romance.
There were many bricks of wood in diverse colours, oblong and cuboid, bricks of polished china, bricks of transparent glass and bricks of india-rubber; there were slabs and slates; there were cones, truncated cones, and cylinders; there were oblate and prolate spheroids, balls of varied substances, solid and hollow, many boxes of diverse size and shape, with hinged lids and screw lids and fitting lids, and one or two to catch and lock; there were bands of elastic and leather, and a number of rough and sturdy little objects of a size together that could stand up steadily and suggest the shape of a man.
Persistent repetition will finally influence the young mind, however gifted, and if Mr Wells had been subject to the discipline of what may be called an efficient education, he might have seen his sphere at the age of twenty-seven as slightly flattened whether it appeared oblate or prolate is no consequence and I could not have crowned him with the designation that heads this Introduction.
In the earlier days of her formation, while still in a state of mobility, she had been probably a perfect sphere in shape, but, under the influence of terrestrial gravity operating for uncounted ages, she was drawn at last so much towards the centre of attraction as to resemble somewhat a prolate spheriod.
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