Practical Talks by an Astronomer

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C. Scribner's sons, 1902 - 235 pages
 

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Page xii - Observer' at a salary of 100£ per annum, his duty being 'forthwith to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying the tables of the motions of the heavens and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so much desired longitude of places for the perfecting the art of navigation.
Page 203 - After a few moments' silent thought, Sir John diffidently inquired whether it would not be possible to effect a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of vision ! Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the idea, paused awhile, and then hesitatingly referred to the refrangibility of rays, and the angle of incidence.
Page 207 - But whilst gazing upon them in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large winged creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow even motion from the cliffs on the western side, and alight upon the plain.
Page 201 - British public, and thence to the whole civilized world, recent discoveries in astronomy which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said that " the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man," as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation.
Page 208 - It is quite proper that the Sun should be the means of shedding so much light on the Moon, That there should be winged people in the moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of such a race of beings on...
Page 206 - In the shade of the woods on the south-eastern side, we beheld continuous herds of brown quadrupeds, having all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than any species of the bos genus in our natural history.
Page 203 - Sir David sprung from his chair in an ecstacy of conviction, and leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, " Thou art the man !" Each philosopher anticipated the other in presenting the prompt illustration that if the rays of the hydro-oxygen microscope, passed...
Page 208 - ... exist such a race, rests on the evidence of that most veracious of voyagers and circumstantial of chroniclers, Peter Wilkins, whose celebrated work not only gives an account of the general appearance and habits of a most interesting tribe of flying Indians; but, also, of all those more delicate and engaging traits which the author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal relations he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe.
Page 207 - Sir John has added a stock of knowledge to the present age that will immortalize his name and place it high on the page of Science.
Page 201 - Account of the great Astronomical Discoveries lately made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope.

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