"Hale, Edward Everett - The Brick Moon Et. Al." - читать интересную книгу автора (Hale Edward Everett)

story. The subscribers, of course, have a right to
know what became of their money. The astronomers may
as well know all about it, before they announce any
more asteroids with an enormous movement in
declination. And experimenters on the longitude may as
well know, so that they may act advisedly in attempting
another brick moon or in refusing to do so.

It all began more than thirty years ago, when we were
in college; as most good things begin. We were studying
in the book which has gray sides and a green back, and is
called "Cambridge Astronomy" because it is translated
from the French. We came across this business of the
longitude, and, as we talked, in the gloom and glamour of
the old South Middle dining-hall, we had going the usual
number of students' stories about rewards offered by the
Board of Longitude for discoveries in that matter,--
stories, all of which, so far as I know, are lies. Like
all boys, we had tried our hands at perpetual motion.
For me, I was sure I could square the circle, if they
would give me chalk enough. But as to this business of
the longitude, it was reserved for Q.[1] to make the
happy hit and to explain it to the rest of us.


[1] Wherever Q. is referred to in these pages my
brother Nathan is meant. One of his noms de plume
was Gnat Q. Hale, because G and Q may be silent letters.


I wonder if I can explain it to an unlearned world,
which has not studied the book with gray sides and a
green cambric back. Let us try.

You know then, dear world, that when you look at the
North Star, it always appears to you at just the same
height above the horizon or what is between you and the
horizon: say the Dwight School-house, or the houses in
Concord Street; or to me, just now, North College. You
know also that, if you were to travel to the North Pole,
the North Star would be just over your head. And, if you
were to travel to the equator, it would be just on your
horizon, if you could see it at all through the red,
dusty, hazy mist in the north, as you could not. If you
were just half-way between pole and equator, on the line
between us and Canada, the North Star would be half-way
up, or 45@ from the horizon. So you would know there
that you were 45@ from the equator. Then in Boston, you
would find it was 42@ 20' from the horizon. So you know
there that you are 42@ 20' from the equator. At Seattle