Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
Freighted with the glory of Denmark, this interesting bark made the best of its way across the Baltic, and arrived safely at Rostoch. Here the exiled patriarch found many of his early friends, particularly Henry Bruce, an able astronomer, to whom he had formerly presented one of his brass quadrants.
I had with me land-charts and compass, but nothing for taking altitude-observations: for the Speranza instruments, except one compass, had all been broken-up by her shock. However, on getting to the town of Silivri, about thirty miles from our start, I saw in the ruins of a half-standing bazaar-shop a number of brass objects, and there found several good sextants, quadrants, and theodolites.
One of these groups has eight, the other seven, figures of these feathers, and on the two remaining quadrants are the star emblems so constantly seen in pottery decorated with bird figures. The zone of decoration of this vessel, which surrounds the rows of feathers, is strikingly complicated, and comprises rain-cloud, feather, and other designs.
He could box the compass, in his own way; for instance, the quarter-points between north-northeast and northeast by north he persisted in naming from the first of these points instead of from the other, as was seamanlike and proper; and the same with the corresponding sectors in the other quadrants.
It was this that made them the originators of chemistry, that led them to the invention of all kinds of apparatus for distillation, sublimation, fusion, filtration, etc.; that in astronomy caused them to appeal to divided instruments, as quadrants and astrolabes; in chemistry, to employ the balance, the theory of which they were perfectly familiar with; to construct tables of specific gravities and astronomical tables, as those of Bagdad, Spain, Samarcand; that produced their great improvements in geometry, trigonometry, the invention of algebra, and the adoption of the Indian numeration in arithmetic.
The great clock at Greenwich Observatory, made by him one hundred and fifty years ago, is still in use and could hardly now be surpassed in substantial excellence. The mural arch in the same establishment, used for the testing of quadrants and other marine instruments, was also his work.
The telescope was invented in the year 1609, and telescopic sights were added to the quadrant in the year 1668. Picard, who was one of the first astronomers who applied telescopes to quadrants, determined the earth's diameter in 1669, by measuring a degree of the meridian in France.
For purposes of reference Sir Clements Markham had suggested that the Antarctic area should be divided into four quadrants, to be named respectively the Victoria, the Ross, the Weddell, and the Enderby, and when he also proposed that the Ross quadrant should be the one chosen for this expedition, his proposal was received with such unanimous approval that long before the Discovery was built her prospective course had been finally decided.
About him, for three quadrants of the circle of the world, arose low- rolling hills, smooth, fenced, cropped, and pastured, that melted into higher hills and steeper wooded slopes that merged upward, steeper, into mighty mountains. The fourth quadrant was unbounded by mountain walls and hills.
This we do by means of our quadrants, or sextants; for, as the sun is always in the zenith at twelve o'clock, nothing is easier than to do this, when the sun can be seen, and an arc of the heavens measured. At the instant the height of the sun is ascertained by one observer, he calls to another, who notes the time on the chronometer.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking