Remarks Upon the Establishment of an American Prime Meridian |
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Remarks Upon the Establishment of an American Prime Meridian (Classic Reprint) Charles Henry Davis No preview available - 2017 |
Remarks Upon the Establishment of an American Prime Meridian (Classic Reprint) Charles Henry Davis No preview available - 2017 |
Remarks Upon the Establishment of an American Prime Meridian Charles H. Davis No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
accuracy adopted ALPHEUS FELCH American Almanac American meridian American navigator American prime meridian American vessels argument asserted assumed dif astronomer and geographer Atlantic Atlas books of navigation Bowditch British Coast Survey command an insurance committee Congress continent count our longitudes count their longitudes creates confusion differences of longitude effectual employed English error establishing an American father's loins former paper French gitudes government charts Greenwich meridian half a mile hydrography importance inconvenience interval King Alfred labor language maps means memorial merid meridian of Greenwich meridian of Washington national feeling national observatory national prejudices national vanity nautical charts Navy nomical objections observations occultations ocean Peak of Teneriffe perplexity positions of places present meridian principle question reasoning ridian scientific and practical sextants shipmaster ships Sir John Herschel solar eclipses standard surveyor tables of reckoning tical Almanac tion topographical triangulation truth uncertainty United unknown and unsettled zero of longitudes
Popular passages
Page 40 - ... name implies, strictly arbitrary. It may be thought that there are reasons of a scientific character why the National Observatory at Washington should be selected as the nominal origin of longitude, on this continent. Such is not the case. Our National Observatory at Washington must have existed a half a century before it will be able to furnish independent observations sufficient for the determination of a correct theory of the moon or primary planets. But these theories are already calculated...
Page 5 - ... meridian, it would be proper, in a national point of view, to establish a first meridian for ourselves; and that measures should be taken for the eventual establishment of such a meridian in the United States. " In examining the maps and charts of the United States, and the particular states, or their sea-coasts, which have been published in this country, the committee find that the publishers have assumed different places in the United States, as first meridian. This creates confusion, and renders...
Page 27 - Commons on shipwrecks says, that " the committee cannot conclude its labors without calling attention to the fact, that the ships of the United States of America frequenting the ports of England, are stated by several witnesses to be superior to those of a similar class amongst the ships of Great Britain, the commanders and officers being generally considered to be more competent as seamen and navigators, and more uniformly persons of education, than the commanders and officers of British ships of...
Page 5 - ... that, situated as we are in this western hemisphere, more than three thousand miles from any fixed or known meridian, it would be proper, in a national point of view, to establish a first meridian for ourselves; and that measures should be taken for the eventual establishment of such a meridian in the United States. " In examining the maps and charts of the United States, and...
Page 5 - that situated as we are in this western hemisphere, more than three thousand miles from any fixed or known meridian, it would be proper, in a national point of view, to establish a first meridian for ourselves ; and that measures should be taken for the eventual establishment of such a meridian in the United States; that no place perhaps is more proper than the seat of government.
Page 4 - ... for by the Act of Congress, approved March 3, 1849, I addressed to him a letter concerning the Prime Meridian to be adopted in the calculation of this work, the selection and determination of which form the first step in my progress. Mr. Preston, in his reply (dated August 7) to this communication, directed me "to bring the subject of an
Page 27 - ... competent as seamen and navigators, and more uniformly persons of education than the commanders and officers of British ships of a similar size and class trading from England to America; while the seamen of the United States are considered to be more Carefully selected, and to be more efficient ; that American ships sailing from Liverpool to New York have a preference over English vessels sailing to the same port, both as to freight and to rate of insurance...
Page 14 - York, the latitude and longitude of which had been determined by entirely different means, gave the point from which the longitudes have been counted, as reduced to Greenwich, there being no other point within the limits of the Survey astronomically determined, nor any fixed point in the United States from which the longitude could be counted. 32. As well in my operations of 1817 as in those of last year, the angles of elevation or depression of the...
Page 33 - ... masterly manner, as respects the planetary observations made in the Greenwich Observatory. That work will remain to the latest posterity a monument of national glory, to which the world has not produced, and probably never will produce, any thing comparable, unless it be this its forthcoming companion. The filling up of the great outline struck by Newton, with the analytical expression of the laws of lunar and planetary motion, we owe to other nations, and especially to the French. We grudge...
Page 16 - ... nights of observation." An investigation of the probable value of such error shows that, under favorable astronomical circumstances, and with due care in the use of the transit instrument, " the astronomical difference of longitude, between any two stations of a trigonometrical survey, may be determined by telegraphic signals, with a degree of precision of the same order as that of the differences of latitude," the inaccuracy depending upon the same causes as the deviation of the plumb-line.