A Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy

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Clarendon Press, 1877 - Astronomy - 928 pages

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Page 332 - And there appeared another wonder in heaven ; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth...
Page 74 - While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Page 331 - How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations ! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...
Page 331 - On the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood Unterrified, and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war.
Page 555 - The constellations seem to have been almost purposely named and delineated to cause as much confusion and inconvenience as possible. Innumerable snakes twine through long and contorted areas of the heavens, where no memory can follow them ; bears, lions, and fishes, large and small, northern and southern, confuse all nomenclature, &c. A better system of constellations might have been a material help as an artificial memory.
Page 257 - December 37 for the sake of convenience. This inclination is ever varying, as well from the effect of its mean diminution, as of the nutation of the earth's axis: it is an important element in deducing...
Page 134 - Have they vanished or suddenly fled ? Has Saturn, perhaps, devoured his own children? Or were the appearances indeed illusion or fraud, with which the glasses have so long deceived me, as well as many others to whom I have...
Page 190 - ... beams projecting from it which deserved notice as much more conspicuous than the others ; but the whole was beamy, radiated in structure, and terminated (though very indefinitely) in a way which reminded me of the ornament frequently placed round a mariner's compass. Its colour was white, or resembling that of Venus. I saw no flickering or unsteadiness of light. It was not separated from the moon by any dark ring, nor had it any annular structure ; it looked like a radiating luminous cloud behind...
Page 483 - ... posterity ; but the record remains, and transfuses all its own exactness into every determination which takes it for a groundwork, giving to inferior instruments, nay, even to temporary contrivances, and to the observations of a few weeks or days, all the precision attained originally at the cost of so much time, labour, and expense.
Page 794 - While earnestly listening for the cause I heard a faint voice near the door calling my name. I arose, and, taking my sword, stood at the door. At this moment I heard the same voice still beseeching me to rise, and saying, ' O my God, the world is on fire...

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