CHAP. LXII. SEAMEN'S OBSERVATIONS OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS. TAKING AN ALTITUDE OR MERIDIAN. KEEPING A LOG. VARIOUS CIVIL USES. HOURS AND DISTANCES, OR TIME AND SPACE. EXCEPTING, as I have said, the pole-star, the stars in general enter into small daily account with us, in respect of their ministry to artificial uses. It was greatly otherwise, however, with antiquity; and is still so where the artificial light (the light of science) has penetrated less deeply than among ourselves. As the progress of discovery, of science, and of invention, by the introduction of the magnet or loadstone, and of the magnetic needle, have made us independent of a continual sight of the pole-star; so, the extent and precision of our modern acquaintance with the phenomena of the Do we still make many important uses of the lights of the sun and moon? sun and moon, have lessened our dependence upon those of the stars and planets in general, and therefore withdrawn them from a large share of our attention. It is to the sun and moon that we now content ourselves with looking, in order to be taught chronology, geography, and hydrography; and when to plough, and when to ride and sail, and sow and reap. It is of these only that we are now content to ask concerning the years, and the months, and the seasons; nay, even the weeks, the days, and the hours of the day and night! We know that from the stars in general we receive light and heat. We know that all of them are rising and setting, and all mingling with those of the sun their benign influences upon the earth, as well when the latter is present, and makes them invisible, as when it is Which are the arts and sciences and occupations, in the pursuit and practice of which they afford us their assistance? absent, and they alone supply its place; but the profound knowledge which we now possess of the motions and influences of the sun and moon, and the vast superiority, both of appearance and importance, of those two luminaries, have diminished, age by age, our attention to our lesser friends the stars, and even to our near neighbours and fellow-travellers, the revolving planets! But the sun and moon remain indispensable to us (not wholly neglecting, however, the stars) as our celestial guides. Without repeating my references to other uses, I may again remind you of their importance to navigation, geography, to time-keeping, and therefore to chronology and history. By their help, and with the artificial help of his sextant, his charts, and his logarithms, the seaman determines, as well his What of the uses of the sun and moon to navigation, geography, and time-keeping? What of the use of the sextant? latitude, and keeps his log, and compares his chronometer; so that he knows where he is, how far he has come, how far he has to go; how fast he sails, or has been sailing; how long he has been at sea; and what is the season of the year, the day of the month, and the hour that is passing. By their help, too, the geographer learns the situation and boundaries of countries, the position of cities, towns, and villages; of rivers, plains, and mountains; the hydrographer, the places and extent of seas, of bays, of capes, and of those rocks and shoals which it behoves the navigator to avoid; and finally, the astronomer, the chronologer, the horologer, the dialler, the clock and watch maker, almanacmaker, and the world at large, to know all time in the universal, and all its natural evolutions;cycles and centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds; and to calculate "terms and tides," (like the Schoolmaster in the Deserted Village,) holidays and eclipses, and all |