"Chronometer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of longitude sailed there is four minutes' difference of clock-time," Scott proceeded. "You know that a chronometer is a timepiece so nicely constructed and cared for, that it practically keeps perfect time. Meridians are imaginary great circles, and we are always on one of them. With our sextants we find when the centre of the sun is on the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... you have seen."' This singular address did not bring the interview, as one might have expected, to an abrupt end. The lamb, as the Abbe calls the doctor, trembling, stammered out an account of what he had seen. He explained how he had timed the passage of the black spot. 'Where is your chronometer?' asked Leverrier. 'It is this watch, the faithful companion of my professional journeys.' 'What! with that old watch, showing only minutes, dare you talk of estimating seconds. My suspicions are already too well confirmed.' 'Pardon me, I have a pendulum which beats seconds.' 'Show it me.' The ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... did not speak of it when his son put aside the curtains at the door for him, and he saw that this was not to be his room. New chintzes took the place of his old leather cushions; a big photograph of Minnie stood on the lid of the chronometer case, and the broken-backed Admiralty guides, ocean directories and the rest were reinforced by a brigade ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... at his wrist chronometer. He had two minutes left, before the cruiser departed. No more time now to search for his men. He hoped the sergeant-major had sense enough to be waiting at some sensible place. He went up the ladder hand over hand and sped down the corridor to the ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... after shaking off the "seasoning fever" at Ponta Negra, proceeded to make a trial trip, and a route survey with compass and chronometer, up the important Quillu River. As usual, it has a bar; within the last few years the right bank has been carried away by the floods, and some of the old factories are under water. The average breadth is 400 paces, which diminishes to 25 at the rocky "gates" near Kama- Chitoma, Manyamatal and ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... now. Before his eyes there seemed to darken, to dazzle, a strange and moving curtain. Through it, piercing it with a supreme effort of the will, he caught dim sight of the dial of the chronometer. Subconsciously he noted that ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... are. Yes, you're as crazy as you c'n be. I tormented you, eh? Is that what I did? I picked you up outa the gutter! I fetched you outa the midst of a blizzard when you was standin' by the chronometer an' stared at the lamplighter with eyes that was that desperate scared! You oughta seen yourself! An' I hounded you, eh? Yes, to prevent the police an' the police-waggon an' the devil hisself from catchin' you! I left you no rest, eh? I tortured you, did I? to ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... any kind except by the unavoidable perils of the sea, then doubtless he WAS a navigator, and a ripe, good one. But anything cruder than the "rule-of-thumb" way in which he found his positions, or more out of date than his "hog-yoke," or quadrant, I have never seen. I suppose we carried a chronometer, though I never saw it or heard the cry of "stop," which usually accompanies a.m. or p.m. "sights" taken for longitude. He used sometimes to make a deliberate sort of haste below after taking a sight, when he may have been looking at a chronometer ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... Because they have taken mine is no reason why I should take yours. Besides, I have a chronometer here that satisfies ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... the captain's chronometer, when I came on deck on the morning of the 25th of May. I had become a late riser, for what was the good of rising early when there was nothing to rise for? I had scarcely raised my eyes above the rail of the ship when, to my utter amazement, I perceived a vessel not ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... eight at Sydney," said Helen, holding out her chronometer; for she had been sharp enough to get it ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... days," describing them as alternate pauses in the work of God. Such was the interpretation given by the first Christians. Why should we try to measure this term day, in its first occurrences, by a chronometer which did not come into use until the fourth day? The notion that these days were twenty-four hours, sprang up in the middle ages, and is the child of the literalism and realism of those times. Moses gives seven ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... Lyra will shine forth as the brightest of all possible pole stars. These data give us some idea of the extent of the motions which, divided into infinitely small portions of time, proceed without intermission in the great chronometer of the universe. If for a moment we could yield to the power of fancy, and imagine the acuteness of our visual organs to be made equal with the extremest bounds of telescopic vision, and bring together ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... Plane, Traverse, Middle-Latitude, and Mercator's Sailing," I answered. "I can also do a Day's Work; I can use my quadrant with accuracy; can find the Latitude by a meridian altitude of the sun, moon, or a star; can find the error and rate of the chronometer, and also the longitude by it; can determine the variation of the compass; can find the longitude by a 'lunar'; can do the Pole Star problem; and—well, I think that is about ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... sailing ship he grows warmer. One notices the passion for sailing which this seaman has, for he was trained on a sailing ship and had won many prizes in the regattas at Kiel. "But we had hardly any instruments," he narrated, "we had only one sextant and two chronometers on board, but a chronometer journal was lacking. Luckily I found an old 'Indian Ocean Directory' of 1882 on board; its information went back to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... excellent fit; and closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... be added elemental dangers of all kinds, such as the tides and shallows of the North Sea—the shallow waters contiguous to the coast being chiefly navigated—dangers against which neither compass nor chronometer was then available. Even buoys and lighthouses were comparatively rare or inadequate at a time when nautical knowledge itself was still extremely defective. It was therefore not astonishing that shipwrecks ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... Mr. Richardson's journal he mentions the distances as 18 to 20. He also explains that he had two maps, in which a difference of 30 miles in longitude existed in the position of their starting point. Not having a Chronometer to ascertain his longitude for himself, he adopted that assigned by the tracing ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... a regular journal, and travelled, I thought, more like a geographer than a fur-trader. He was provided with a sextant, chronometer and barometer, and during a week's sojourn which he made at our place, had an opportunity to make several astronomical observations. He recognised the two Indians who had brought the letter addressed to Mr. J. Stuart, and told us that ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... call for all hands to haul courses up and stand by to work ship. We hauled sharp up to windward, and, as we drew on, we saw what was the matter, and the sight caused our Old Man to dive below to his charts, cursing his wayward chronometer. ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... Harrison produced the chronometer, by which longitude could be determined at sea, making the ship independent in all parts of the world. At the same time more ingenious rigging increased her power of working to windward. With such advantages ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... more cracks about the possible guilt of others in the diamond robbery, we adjourned to the library, and Holmes settled himself in the best chair, still wearing Luigi Vermicelli's light green livery, consulted his old chronometer again, and yawned. ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... that it does," said the mate, walking aft and consulting his chronometer for the last time, after which he put his head down the hatchway and shouted, "Up lights!" in a deep ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... funny in that place of death, this fact might be. And it was a fact. Of the many clocks in the store not one was ticking, and all pointed to different hours. The big regulator indicated 10:22; a chronometer in a showcase was five hours and some minutes ahead of that. The clock over Darcy's work table noted the hour of 7:56. Some cheaper clocks, alarms among them, on the shelves, which were ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... is merely the least imperfect time-piece man has devised, makes possible the surest and easiest method by far of ascertaining longitude. Yet the Pilgrim sailed in a day when the chronometer was just coming into general use. So little was it depended upon that the Pilgrim carried only one, and that one, going wrong at the outset, was never used again. A navigator of the present would be aghast if asked to voyage for two years, ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... fore, told him that unless he would tell the truth in ten minutes from that time, he would hang him from the yard-arm. He then made him sit down under it on the deck. All around him were the passengers and sailors of the midway watch, and in front of him stood the inexorable mate, with his chronometer in his hand, and the other officers of the ship by his side. It was the finest sight, said our informant, that he ever beheld—to see the pale, proud, sorrowful face of that noble boy, his head erect, his beautiful ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... day of April we were obliged to lay to in lat. 38 deg. 26' south, and longitude 45 deg. 34' 47'' east, by chronometer, and on parts of the first, third, and fourth days of May had to undergo the same operation. This was by no means pleasant, as, owing to the weight of our battery, we rolled very much; and as we could ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... would represent 6500 miles. In seven hours I should be carried along that orbit 7000 miles eastward by the impulse my Astronaut had received from the Earth, and driven back 500 miles by the apergy; so that at 1 A.M. by my chronometer I should be exactly in the plane of the midnight meridian, or 6500 miles east of my starting-point in space, provided that I put the eastward apergic current in action exactly at 12 P.M. by the chronometer. At 1 A.M. also I should have generated a westward impulse of 1000 miles an hour. This, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... de Fleurieu, was the principal geographer in France. He was at this time director of ports and arsenals. He had throughout his life been a keen student of navigation, was a practical sailor, invented a marine chronometer which was a great improvement on clocks hitherto existing, devised a method of applying the metric system to the construction of marine charts, and wrote several works on his favourite subject. A large book ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... the finger was about to descend upon the chronometer that timed his race. The dust atoms that a hundred years ago had been exalted to make a man now clamored for their humble rehabilitation. Man shall never, in this mortal body we ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... man at times, even when he was cross. And he was one of the best sailor-men that ever trod a deck. A chronometer watch, which was committed to the care of the writer by Hayes, ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... bird-of-prey profile with detached interest as Y'Nor jerked his head around to glare again at the chronometer on the farther wall ...
— The Helpful Hand of God • Tom Godwin
... as in most of the others, there is Bohemian glass in great profusion, and a "one year chronometer" of great precision. A really beautiful inlaid ivory table is disfigured by a menagerie of coloured miniature leaden cats, lions, lizards, dogs, a children's kaleidoscope, and some badly-stuffed birds, singing automatically. On another table were more glass vases and ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... about nine o'clock in the morning, I remember, for just then the captain called to me to stand by the chronometer while he took his fore observation. Captain Hackstaff wasn't one of those old skippers who do everything themselves with a pocket watch, and keep the key of the chronometer in their waistcoat pocket, and won't tell the mate how far the dead reckoning is out. He was ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... forced our weary way. Commander Peary took his sights from the time our chronometer-watches gave, and I, knowing that we had kept on going in practically a straight line, was sure that we had more than covered the necessary distance to insure our arrival at the top of ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... Harrison's chronometer was again tried on board the Tartar frigate, commanded by Captain John Lindsay, who reported most ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... property," Jean interrupted, brusquely, "it ought to be a gold watch, hunting case, chronometer, Geneva make, with eighteen-carat gold chain, dragon-head design for hook; a bunch of keys, seven in number, and a door-key, and about one hundred and eighty francs in ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... produced the wished-for effect, and henceforward I always took care to be provided with a couple of pair, as I often threw one pair away if I had not time to lay hold of them, when the approach of lions, men, or hyaenas interrupted my botanizing. My excellent watch was an admirable chronometer to me for the short period of my peregrinations; but I required a sextant, some philosophical instruments, ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... until noon or until stopped by snow. This document, having been duly drawn up by Professor Coello, seated on a lava rock amidst the clinker-like cinders of the old volcano, was duly signed and sealed. In order that there might be no dispute as to the time, my best chronometer was handed over to Pablo Tejada to carry until noon. The mules were reloaded and again the ascent began. Presently the mules encountered some pretty bad going, on a steep slope covered with huge lava boulders ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... I hev squinted through a quadrant afores now, an' can take a sight; tho' I arn't much up to loonars. But if there's a good chronometer aboard, I won't let a ship run very far out of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... fall. And the spectrum at once tells what the jets are composed of, whether hydrogen, gaseous iron, calcium, or anything else. Prof. C. A. Young saw a jet of hydrogen ascend a distance of 200,000 miles, measured its height, noted its spectrum and timed its ascent by a chronometer all at once, and was astonished to find the velocity one hundred and sixty miles per second—eight times faster than the earth flies on its orbit. By these improvements solar hurricanes, whirlpools, and explosions can be seen from any ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... opinion and given Herbert Spencer up. As it was, he found Spencer's explanation of things convincing; and, as he phrased it to himself, to give up Spencer would be equivalent to a navigator throwing the compass and chronometer overboard. So Martin went on into a thorough study of evolution, mastering more and more the subject himself, and being convinced by the corroborative testimony of a thousand independent writers. The more he studied, the more vistas ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... afterward a new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail, and all was buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For a fortnight, once, Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a chronometer sight. Rarely did he know his position within half of a degree, except when in sight of land; for sun and stars remained hidden behind the sky, and it was so gloomy that even at the best the horizons were poor for accurate observations. A gray ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... had no artificial means of measuring time, and, the sky being overclouded, darkness visible pervaded the region. But a healthy stomach helped in some degree to furnish a natural chronometer, and its condition when he awoke suggested that he must have slept till near daylight of the following day. Rousing the dogs, he gave them a feed, ate heartily himself, and then went out to look ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dr. Smith the Patrons' Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, he said: "You have not, like an ordinary explorer, made a common route survey, but you have made a scientific survey, a triangulation frequently checked by astronomical observations with theodolite and chronometer." ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... a quadrant, adjusted to the eye of the observer. The figures marked on the quadrant give the latitude of the ship at the moment of meridian. The ship's time is then made to correspond, that is to say, it must indicate 12 o'clock, M., after which it is compared with the chronometer's Greenwich time, and the difference enables the observer to determine the longitude. As fifteen miles are allowed to the minute, there will be nine hundred miles to the hour. The importance of absolute correctness in ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... deluge us with spray as we brought her close to the wind and started on our long beat back to our own island. And now it became necessary for me to use a little discretion, lest I should miss the island altogether; for it was far below the horizon, and I had neither chronometer nor sextant to help me to find it again, all I knew as to its position being that it lay about a hundred miles dead to windward. Therefore I held on upon the starboard tack until midnight, and thereafter tacked every four hours, knowing that by following this ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... cheap affair which I had won at a raffle. My visitor was deceiving me, though for what purpose I did not on the instant divine. No one would like to suspect him of having purloined his wife's tiara. Why should I not deceive him, and at the same time get rid of my poor chronometer for a sum that ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... London award him the Royal Donation of 25 guineas, placed by her Majesty at the disposal of the Council (Silver Chronometer). ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... up with vast solemnity. "Take care," said he. "There's odds of women, sir. They're like sheep's broth is women. If there's a heart and head in them they're good, and if there isn't you might as well be supping hot water. Faces isn't the chronometer to steer your boat to the good ones. Now I've seen ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... the great schoolmaster of the race: necessity has been the mother of all great inventions. Ericsson began the construction of a screw-propeller in a bath-room. John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in the loft of an old barn. Parts of the first steamboat ever run in America were set up in the vestry of an old church in Philadelphia by Fitch. McCormick began to make his famous reaper ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... historical value which they had acquired. The face of the clock, coated with verdigris as thick as a diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day; while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formed triangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, were cleared ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... thought to bring Wolf Larsen's chronometer and sextant," I said, still gloomily. "Sailing one direction, drifting another direction, to say nothing of the set of the current in some third direction, makes a resultant which dead reckoning can never calculate. Before long we won't ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... in her early years, and living to nurse great-grandchildren in her old age. The landlord of the inn informed us, with much pride, that Couvet was the birthplace of the man who invented a clock for telling the time at sea; by which, no doubt, he meant the chronometer, invented by M. Berthoud. At Motiers, the next village, Rousseau wrote his Lettres de la Montagne, and thence it was that he fled from popular violence to the island on ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... elucidated to Varney, "did she tell me, 'I'll be ready in a minute.' And a ten-minute interval elapsed each time, by my grandfather's trusted chronometer." ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... God's likeness has a bodily form, some have presumed to infer backwards therefrom that God also has a bodily form like to man, which is related by way of prototype to the human form." [125] As well might we say that because a watchmaker constructs a chronometer with a movement somewhat like that of his own heart, therefore he is mechanical, metallic, and round. Against this anthropomorphic materialism science lifts up its voice; for what modern philosopher, ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... A uniformed spaceman watched us, fussily regarding a chronometer. He fretted. "The ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the valet rushed in among the guests, who were discussing the odd circumstances, and said that his master was at the point of death. Lord Lyttelton had kept looking at his watch, and at a quarter past twelve (by his chronometer and his valet's) he remarked, 'This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.' The real hour was then a quarter to twelve. At about half-past twelve, by HIS watch, twelve by the real time, he asked for his physic. ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... works which can alone be effected by the power of man. However perfect or complete be human mechanism, it can only move by the application of some power inherent in matter; did not an elastic spring expand itself after being coiled, the chronometer would be a dead and lifeless mass; did not fluids obey the force of gravitation, and currents in the atmosphere the expansive power of heat, the water-wheel and wind-mill would be useless; did not water form vapour at elevated temperatures, and condense when cooled, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... having read every book I could lay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool. I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship's chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... screen at the end of his office. Close to the wall at the left was a stereopticon which, as nearly as I could make out, shot a beam of light through a tube to a galvanometer about three feet distant. In front of this beam whirled a five-spindled wheel governed by a chronometer which was so accurate, he said, that it erred ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... than "raining cats and dogs"? Hailing omnibuses. When is butter like Irish children? When it is made into little pats. Why is a chronometer like thingumbob? Because ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... walls as of his tree trunks. He came regularly at eleven and again at three in the afternoon, and a barn owl went by with a screech every evening a little after eight. The starlings told the time of the year as accurately as the best chronometer at Whitehall. When I saw the last chimney swallow, November 30, they went by to their sleeping-trees about three o'clock in the afternoon—a long night, a short day for them. So they continued till in January the day had grown thirty minutes longer, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... rates came the other great requisites,—increased speed and security; and now, as you all know, the work of the Post-Office, in all its wide ramifications, goes on with the uniform regularity of a good chronometer ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... superior who is touchy, overbearing, and difficult to please; but every ship Captain MacWhirr commanded was the floating abode of harmony and peace. It was, in truth, as impossible for him to take a flight of fancy as it would be for a watchmaker to put together a chronometer with nothing except a two-pound hammer and a whip-saw in the way of tools. Yet the uninteresting lives of men so entirely given to the actuality of the bare existence have their mysterious side. It was impossible in Captain MacWhirr's case, for instance, to understand what under heaven ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... Captain Malan's eye turn from Moorshed and seek that of the Cryptic's commander. And he telegraphed as clearly as Moorshed was speaking: "My dear friend and brother officer, I know Panke; you know Panke; we know Panke—good little Panke! In less than three Greenwich chronometer seconds Panke will make an enormous ass of himself, and I shall have to put things straight, unless you who are a man of ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... met us in the Channel, and the backers of daylight had almost given up hope; but it dropped in the late afternoon, and by the log we were evidently in for a close finish. Mr. Olstein had set his watch by the ship's chronometer, and consulted it from minute to minute. He stood by me, binocular in hand, and grew paler with excitement as sunset drew on and the minutes scored off the guesses one by one from the list. His guess was among the last, but not actually the last ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... find some cabbage-palm trees growing in the vicinity of the camp; the tops are very nutritious, and would be very desirable for men in a starving state, had they been aware of it. I picked up part of a key belonging to a chronometer. After having a good look round, we returned to the boats, all tired, from our drenching and wading through so much mud and water, and we unfortunately had no provisions of any kind, and had eaten nothing ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... chronometer for the voyage was all that now worried me. In our newfangled notions of navigation it is supposed that a mariner cannot find his way without one; and I had myself drifted into this way of thinking. My old chronometer, a good one, had been long in disuse. It would cost fifteen dollars ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... and hot. The usual chart-rack overhead was full, and the chart on the table was kept unrolled by an empty cup standing on a saucer half-full of some spilt dark liquid. A slightly nibbled biscuit reposed on the chronometer-case. There were two settees, and one of them had been made up into a bed with a pillow and some blankets, which were now very much tumbled. The Northman let himself fall on it, his hands still in ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... determined by the science of navigation. It is a complicated and difficult science, but by calculating the distance of the sun above the horizon, sometimes by views of stars, by knowing the speed of the ship, and by having the exact astronomical time at hand, shown on an accurate chronometer, the exact position of a ship at any hour ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... one mile, got no bottom with 40 fathoms of line. Kept our course south by east: it (the island) appeared to be quite level with rocks extending to north-west, with heavy breakers. Made it by observation south latitude 14 degrees 4 minutes; east longitude 123 degrees 31 minutes by good chronometer rated at Roti. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... cylindrical bracelet of gold about my wrist was my Barsoomian chronometer—a delicate instrument that records the tals and xats and zodes of Martian time, presenting them to view beneath a strong crystal much after the ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... smile, then sigh—he had not seen such things since he had left his own home nearly six years before. Hung upon the walls of the sitting-room were half a dozen old and faded engravings, and on a side-table were a sextant and chronometer case, each containing instruments so clumsy and obsolete that a modern seaman would have looked ...
— "Old Mary" - 1901 • Louis Becke
... had taken a fresh departure from the Western Isles, a thick fog came on, the continuance of which prevented them from ascertaining their situation by the chronometer. The wind, which blew favourably from the south-east, had, by their dead reckoning, driven them as far north as the latitude of Ushant, without their once having had an opportunity of finding out the precise situation of the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... latest complete equipment, is an abridgment and compend of a nation's arts: the ship steered by compass and chart, longitude reckoned by lunar observation, and, when the heavens are hid, by chronometer; driven by steam; and in wildest sea-mountains, at vast ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... silver ware establishment, S.E. corner of Fifth and Chestnut streets, has an immense variety of beautiful and valuable presents for the season. He is the sole agent for a new style of watch lately introduced into this country, approved by the Chronometer Board at the Admiralty, in London, which is warranted. Orders by mail, including a description of the desired ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... or less sick man," answered Forsythe, "that if I hadn't made sick would ha' had you in irons. Get up on deck. All I want is a chronometer." ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... boy pointed to the clenched hand of the senseless woman. A glimmer of gold shone out from between the fingers, and on opening them up, there was the Admiral's chronometer. This interesting victim had throttled her protector with one hand, while she had ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the only Pharos whose beams never fail, which no tempest can shake from its foundation. Within my recollection, it was deemed a necessary qualification for the master and the mate of a merchant-ship, and even for a prime hand, to be able to "work a lunar," as it was called. The improvements in the chronometer have in practice, to a great extent, superseded this laborious operation; but observation remains, and unquestionably will for ever remain, the only dependence for ascertaining the ship's time and deducting the longitude from the comparison of that ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... mechanician, born at Foulby, Yorkshire; was the first to invent a chronometer which, by its ingenious apparatus for compensating the disturbing effects caused by variations of climate, enabled mariners to determine longitude to within a distance of 18 m.; by this invention he won a prize of L20,000 offered by Government; amongst ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... unfazed. Kossuth looked at his wrist chronometer. "One hour in the Embassy Club, gentlemen." The two of them clicked again, bowed from the waist, ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... was worth saving, or that could be saved, we found ourselves still in the possession of some goods soon to become of great value to us, especially my compass and charts which, though much damaged, were yet serviceable and suggested practical usefulness; and the chronometer being found intact, my course was no longer undecided, my wife and sons agreeing ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... the sun passes the meridian (twelve o'clock, noon) the chronometer's reading is taken, and the longitude, or distance east or west of Greenwich, is reckoned by the difference in time between local noon and that ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... Besides his observation that "in going from London to Greenwich we must not go round by Inverness," he said, "We must not become too complicated with our machinery. Remember the get-at-ability of parts. If we go on as some mechanics are doing, we shall soon be boiling our eggs with a chronometer!" ...] that comes forth from our workshops, and merely show the mastery we possess over materials and mechanical forms. The original of this measuring machine of Maudslay's was exhibited at the Loan Collection at South Kensington in 1878. It is now treasured up, with other relics of ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the charter, because of his age, Matt Peasley's youth and practical maritime knowledge should have offset Cappy's error; and even if both had erred, there still remained the matchless Skinner, as suspicious as a burglar, as keen as a razor, as infallible as a chronometer. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... guardians; here's a flat-iron worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you are replete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer-watch, in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and family and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half a dozen dinner-plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm the baby ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... off from my feet in my botanical investigations, without having time to pick them up, when threatened by the approach of lions, men, or hyenas. My excellent watch, owing to the short duration of my movements, was also on these occasions an admirable chronometer. I wanted, besides, a sextant, a few philosophical instruments, and some books. To purchase these things, I made several unwilling journeys to London and Paris, choosing a time when I could be hid by the favouring ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... unsuccessful with his first letter. They fretted for a while, planning and erasing, till at last Edward, who was getting on the worst, asked what o'clock it was. And then it appeared that the Captain had forgotten, for the first time for many years, to wind up his chronometer; and they seemed, if not to feel, at least to have a dim perception, that time was beginning to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... until the Bee's return. To flour one's legs with pollen, to distend one's crop with syrup is a task that takes long a-doing; and the intruder, therefore, has time and to spare wherein to commit her felony. Moreover, her chronometer is well-regulated and gives the exact measure of the Bee's length of absence. When the Halictus comes back from the fields, the Gnat has decamped. In some favourable spot, not far from the burrow, she awaits the opportunity ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... been about a quarter of an hour on deck, when the sun, which had not shown itself for two days, gleamed through the clouds. Newton, who was officer of the watch, and had been accustomed, when with Mr Berecroft, to work a chronometer, interrupted the captain, who was leaning on the carronade, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... chronometer, made in London. It runs fifteen days without being wound. I gave it a turn of the key yesterday: it has, then, thirteen days to run. If I throw it on the ground, or if I break the main-spring, all is over. I will have killed the little animal. But suppose that, without damaging anything, I find ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... statement of the longitude, it will be observed, is not required. Any navigator of that time could easily determine his latitude, but there was no accurate method of determining longitude at sea till John Harrison made his trial voyage to Jamaica with his chronometer in 1761-1762.] ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... ejaculated the skipper. "We'll no can salve the specie! Make note of her poseetion, Mr. Gissing!" He hastened to gather his papers, the log, a chronometer, and a ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... whether measured by the Martian chronometer aboard the Nomad or by Carr's watch, which he was regulating to match the slightly longer day of the red planet. He was becoming proficient in the operation of all mechanisms of the ship and had developed a fondness ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... unfold the scheme. I did not attempt any rhetoric. But I did not make any apologies. I told them simply of the dangers of lee-shores. I told them when they were most dangerous,— when seamen came upon them unawares. I explained to them that, though the costly chronometer, frequently adjusted, made a delusive guide to the voyager who often made a harbor, still the adjustment was treacherous, the instrument beyond the use of the poor, and that, once astray, its error increased forever. I said that we believed we had a method which, ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... looked at the ruby-studded chronometer, it was nearly three-quarters of an hour. But then, of course, the ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... instruction in navigation; so that he was shortly able not only to take meridional observations correctly (or to shoot the sun, as midshipmen call it), and to work a day's work as well as anyone, but to use the chronometer ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... which the incessant action of the clustering power has brought it at present, is a kind of chronometer that may be used to measure the time of its past and future existence; and although we do not know the rate of going of this mysterious chronometer, it is nevertheless certain that since the breaking up of the Milky Way affords a proof that it cannot ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... M. Commont found human implements of distinct types in about eight out of eleven or twelve successive geological layers. But the story would take too long to tell. However, it is well to start with an example that is primarily geological. For it is the geologist who provides the pre-historic chronometer. Pre-historians have to reckon in geological time—that is to say, not in years, but in ages of indefinite extent corresponding to marked changes in the condition of the earth's surface. It takes the plain man a long time to find ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... direction of all eyes, that there was land stretching along on our weather beam. We immediately took in studding-sails and hauled our wind, running in for the land. This was done to determine our longitude; for by the captain's chronometer we were in 25 W., but by his observations we were much farther; and he had been for some time in doubt whether it was his chronometer or his sextant which was out of order. This land-fall settled the matter, and the former instrument was condemned, and, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Kosciusko, a kaleidoscope, a dram-phial of ipecacuanha, a teaspoonful of naphtha for deleble purposes, a ferrule, a clarionet, some licorice, a surcingle, a carnelian of symmetrical proportions, a chronometer with a movable balance-wheel, a box ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... was a trait of madness or of nobility. I could have told her with absolute confidence that it was neither the one nor the other, but a sort of epicurean selfishness with perhaps a little dash of swagger away down at the bottom of it. What had I ever had from my chronometer like the quiet thrill of satisfaction when the fellow brought me the pawn ticket and told me that the thirty ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... station yourself in whichever part of the forest you like, be assured the fly will be there; it was never otherwise. The question is, who sends the fly? how does it know the sportsman? and by what mysterious chronometer does it regulate with such exactness its movements? Chi lo sa? He who doth not let a sparrow fall to the ground without He willeth it. Equally incomprehensible is the departure of this little insect, which, the concert over, and when ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... were places for ten bunks in the room, but as there were only nine of us, one of the bunks was removed and the space used for our chronometer locker. This contained three ordinary ship's chronometers. We had, in addition, six chronometer watches, which we wore continually, and which were compared throughout the whole winter. The meteorological instruments found a place in the kitchen ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... we had no baggage but my little satchel previously referred to, in which I had bills of lading of my houses, they being consigned to me, the specifications of my carpenter's schedule, my letters and a gold chronometer watch, worth $250, belonging to H., a broker in New York, a friend, and a bottle of the best brandy, which he presented to me to keep off the fever in crossing the Isthmus. This bag I handed to the guide boy, about seventeen years of age, taking out the brandy bottle. The watch I was to sell, ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... Glenlivet was at ebb? Who dare declare that he ever saw our mouth dry? or sensible of a bitter taste, since we gave over munching rowans? Put your ringer on our wrist, at any moment you choose, from June to January, from January to June, and by its pulsation you may rectify Harrison's or Kendal's chronometer. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... fail to be of service to them. They were also introduced to Captain Owen and to Mr. Lander, the value of whose experience in planning their operations was obvious. And the expedition being brought under the notice of his majesty's government, the loan of a chronometer was obtained for it, with strong letters of introduction and recommendation to the officers commanding the naval and military forces of the crown ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... ventured so far as the hold, but had taken everything of value from the captain's cabin—his books and charts, the ship's instruments, a fine eight-day chronometer clock, still going, and which he wound up ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... action!" Dane's eyes flicked over the gages, checking in routine precaution. He started when he saw the V of the chronometer's hands. Only six minutes had passed since the battle's start—it seemed hours. And already the reserve was being called on! He was suddenly cold. Out there, over the bay, the enemy forces had ceased their advance. The American first line cones were gone—true enough, but the support ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... no concept of time. The chronometer in the suit was not working. But it seemed as if many hours had passed when he felt a faint shock pass through the hull beneath him. He felt a momentary elation. The ships had separated. The search for him—if any—had ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... spoke, the first officer glanced down towards Mrs. Ogilvy, and held out his chronometer with an encouraging smile which seemed to say, "Only an hour and a half more now! At twelve, I shall be ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... the chronometer. "About eleven minutes. And of course I don't need to ask you to stay ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... anticipated, and later I always carried two pairs, since I sometimes threw them from my feet, without having time to pick them up again, when lions, men, or hyenas startled me from my botanizing. My very excellent watch was, for the short duration of my passage, a capital chronometer. Besides this I needed a sextant, some scientific instruments, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... buildings; in the arts of Spinning and Rope-making, from the hand distaff to the spinning-frame, and to the machine which makes cordage or cables of any length, in a space ten feet square; in Horology or Time-keeping, from the sun-dial and the water-clock to the watch, and to the chronometer, by which the mariner is assisted in measuring his longitude, and in saving property and life; in the extraction, forging, and tempering of Iron and other ores having malleability to be wrought into all forms and used for all ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... there would be one on Thursday. "Or if you don't think you can be ready by then, we can wait for the next," he added. He seemed quite willing to wait, but (remembering that the captain's preparations for his longest voyage had only taken him eighteen and a half minutes by the chronometer, which was afterwards damaged in the diving-bell accident, and which I had seen with my own eyes, in confirmation of the story) I said I should be ready any time at half-an-hour's notice, and Thursday was fixed as ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... alone," began the latter; "it saves time. I haven't got to take my turn with the rest, in there,"—he indicated the church with his thumb,—"and you haven't got to make an appointment. You have got a clear forty minutes before the Angelus rings," he added, consulting a large silver chronometer, "and I reckon I kin git through my part of the job inside of twenty, leaving you ten minutes for remarks. I ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... eyepiece and stand; a prismatic, a luminous, a floating, and two pocket compasses; maximum and minimum thermometers, a case of drawing instruments, protractors, parallel rules, tape rules, a silver water-tight half-chronometer watch and three other watches, section paper in books and in large sheets, Raper's and the Nautical Almanac for ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... going from West to East. The variation of the needle amounted to 3 deg. East, its inclination to 9 deg. 28'. As the longitude of Cape Frio has been variously laid down, I took much pains to ascertain it exactly. By a very good chronometer, I found the difference between Cape Frio and Botafogo 1 deg. 6' 20"; so that the true longitude of Cape Frio from Greenwich must be 42 ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... a mere employer of the inventor has no rights under the patent. Only contracts or assignments give to the employer, or to anyone else, a license or a partial or entire ownership in the patent. The equity of this may be appreciated by examples. A journeyman carpenter invents an improvement in chronometer escapements and patents it. The man who owns the carpenter shop has no shadow of claim on or under this patent. Again, the carpenter invents and patents an improvement in jack planes. The shop owner has no rights in or under the patent. Again, the carpenter invents an improvement ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... and his body thrown into the rushing stream. Poor fellow! I have often heard him speak of the dull terror that took possession of him when he awoke and saw that his own life and the lives of the whole ship's company depended on his submission and silence. The chronometer, every piece of brass, and every sail and rope of any importance was taken out of her, and this included the sails that were unbent. In fact, there was not a single article of that kind left aboard when the brigands went from alongside. This was one ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... When his chronometer clocked off the beginning of the twenty-first day, Jon received a tumbler of the hemlock from the ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... score or two of portraits and as many busts of celebrities—including, by-the-bye, both bust and portrait of Benjamin Franklin—one finds a cabinet containing other mementos similar to those on the library tables. Here is the first model of Davy's safety-lamp; there a chronometer which aided Cook in his famous voyage round the world. This is Wollaston's celebrated "Thimble Battery." It will slip readily into the pocket, yet he jestingly showed it to a visitor as "his entire laboratory." That is a model of the double-decked boat made by Sir William Petty, and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... suit all buyers," said Tresco. "They go from ten pounds upwards. This is the one I recommend—it carries a guarantee for five years—jewelled throughout, in good, strong case—duplex escapement—compensation balance. Price L25." He held up a gold chronometer in a case which was flat and square, with rounded corners, and engraved elaborately—a watch which would catch ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... said Tom, and then turned to the logbook and jotted down the time in the ship's journal. The astral chronometer over the control ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... walked—or rather flew, so easy and graceful were her movements—over to a portion of the wall and looked long and earnestly into a peculiar instrument, then returning she said: (without the use of words) "according to my chronometer, more than four thousand two hundred and thirty years have elapsed since the ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... The chronometer is nothing more than a very finely regulated clock. With it we ascertain Greenwich Mean Time, i.e., the mean time at Greenwich Observatory, England. Just what the words "Greenwich Mean Time" signify, will be explained in more ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... that Charlotte was going into the City to choose a new watch, wherewith to replace the ill-used little Geneva toy that had been her delight as a schoolgirl; and as Charlotte brought home a neat little English-made chronometer from a renowned emporium on Ludgate-hill, the simple matron accepted this explanation in all ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... by personal inspection that everything was in perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to fire ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... observations were obtained. Grant placed Western Port in latitude 38 degrees 32 minutes south and (by chronometer) in 146 degrees 19 minutes east of Greenwich. He did not, however, discover the stream for which he was looking. On the following morning the second mate (Mr. Bowen) tried to find the stream but was also unsuccessful. During his absence the Commander explored ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... rather bright ones," said Captain Solomon. "My chronometer—my clock, you know—was losing a good deal, and I looked through my sextant at them to find out where ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... giant Carnivora of Inra. Yet something—perhaps a sentimental attachment, perhaps what his ancestors would have called a "hunch"—compelled him to strap it around his waist. He carefully packed a few essentials in his knapsack, together with one chronometer and a tiny gyroscopic compass. So equipped, they could travel with a fair degree of precision toward the mountains some hundred miles on the other side of a steaming forest, a-crawl with feral life, and hot ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... Anglia observer, has recorded six-twenty as the hour. In the Hebrides it was as late as seven. In our own case there can be no doubt whatever, for I was seated in Challenger's study with his carefully tested chronometer in front of me at the moment. The ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and it was not even possible to employ it to advantage in observations, as all the chronometers but one and the larger instruments, in order to expose them as little as possible to change of rate or injury, had been forwarded from Metis in the vessel. With the one chronometer and the reflecting repeating circle numerous observations were, however, made for the latitude of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... a circular envelope, making a complete revolution every two minutes. The inequality of position is thus, as it were, equalised on that short lapse of time; the mechanism itself producing compensation, whether the chronometer is subjected to any continuous movement, or kept steady in an inclined or upright position. Breguet did still more: he found means to preserve the regularity of his chronometers even in case of their getting any sudden shock or fall, and this he did by the parachute. Sir Thomas ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... through which I had searched had I found a sextant; nor would it have been of any use to me, had I found one, unless I had found also a chronometer still keeping time. Charts I did find; but as I had to know my position to get any good from them, and as I would run straight for any land that I sighted without in the least caring on what coast I made my landfall, I left them behind. My only aid to navigation ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... THE AMATEUR, by Capt. E. T. Morton. A short treatise on the simpler methods of finding position at sea by the observation of the sun's altitude and the use of the sextant and chronometer. It is arranged especially for yachtsmen and amateurs who wish to know the simpler formulae for the necessary navigation involved in taking a boat anywhere ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... knowing as he did the dangers with which we were surrounded. He was constantly observing the compass, and several times he got the chart of the African coast, and examined it in his own cabin. He told me also one morning to tend the chronometer for him, while he made a set of observations with the sextant to ascertain our exact longitude. When he had worked them out, his countenance assumed a graver aspect than I had ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Sunday I halted; especially as the cattle had made an unusually long journey the day before. I wished to take sights for the purpose of ascertaining the rate of my chronometer, and to lay down my surveys. I found that Mr. Oxley's points on this river were much too far to the westward; a circumstance to be expected as his survey could not, at that early age of the colony, be connected with ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Behind we could not see either the Dartonia or the German steamer. Our own boat, however, went full speed ahead and kept up the pace till the fog shut down again. The captain now, in pacing the bridge, had his chronometer in his hand, and those of us who were at the front frequently looked at our watches, for of course the nautical passenger knew just how late it was possible for us ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... until 0134:57 on the ship chronometer. At that precise instant in time, and at that instant only, blastoff would place them on the proper hyper-space orbit. And, before they could feel the mounting pressure of blastoff, the timelessness of hyper-space ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... good story, and is doubtless substantially true; but no watch was ever yet made which has varied as little as five minutes in seven years. Readers may remember that the British government once offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds sterling for the best chronometer, and the prize was awarded to Harrison for a chronometer which varied two minutes in a sailing voyage from England to Jamaica ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... very intelligible and practical piece of advice, that the wise man should labour to have no passions. It is the advice embodied in Horace's Nil admirari, Talleyrand's "No zeal," Beaconsfield's "Beware of enthusiasm." It would have man to work like a scientific instrument, calm as a chronometer, regulated by reason alone. This was the Stoic teaching, this the perfection that they inculcated, quite a possible goal to make for, if not to attain. And it is worth a wise man's while to consider, whether ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... have not chartered her, but only agreed with the owner a month ago nearly that I would take her at a certain sum per day, subject to divers conditions about being caulked (which is all she wants, I have ascertained), being provided with spare sails, spars, chronometer, boat, &c., and all agreement to be off unless by a certain day (already past) she was in a state satisfactory to Mr. Kerr. But there is, I fear, none other, and ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "I shouldn't be surprised if we get a glimpse of the sun between the clouds presently. Will you get my sextant and the chronometer up, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... obedient servant, ever mindful of your strict injunctions, and of your eloquent discourse on sobriety and self-denial, and believing that he could not do better than regulate his watch according to the captain's chronometer, followed precisely the same rule. We maintained a glorious state of health after the first week; and if all future voyagers would do the same, let them neither eat nor drink aboard ship to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... outside of himself for a standard of right and wrong. He must have something with which to compare the dictates of his own conscience, some chronometer to set his watch by. In the decay of religious ideas, the Frenchmen of the eighteenth century had set up a standard of comparison independent of revelation. They had found it in public opinion. The sociable population of Paris was ready to accept the common voice as arbiter. It ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... He appealed to Tenby constantly, as to the one man he knew in the room. Tenby it was who made the discovery of him somewhere in the City, where he earned his livelihood either as a corn-merchant; or a stockbroker, or a chronometer-maker, or a drysalter, and was always willing to gratify a customer with the sight of his proofs of identity. Mr. Tenby made it his business to push his clamorous waggishness for the exhibition. I could readily ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the masthead, and it is from their accounts that I am induced to give it a place upon the chart. The position of the vessel when we saw the breakers was in latitude 28 degrees 53 minutes and in longitude 114 degrees 2 minutes, and from the short interval between our obtaining sights for the chronometer and the meridional observation at noon, the position may be considered to be tolerably correct. After taking the bearings and before sail was made we sounded in twenty-five fathoms, fine shelly sand; but as we stood to the eastward ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... of December, and the thermometer stands at eighty-five in the shade. I rise with the 'ganza grulla'—our bird chronometer—that wonderful creature of the crane species, with a yard of neck, and two-feet-six of legs. Every morning at six of the clock precisely, our grulla awakens us by half-a-dozen gurgling and metallic shrieks, in a tone loud enough to be heard by his Excellency the Governor, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman |
