Posted by Ed Kiser on October 26, 2007 at 22:21:51 from 205.188.116.198 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Time Ball, was Signal Stations posted by John Wilson on October 26, 2007 at 10:22:10:
There is no reference to sextant in GN.
There are these two references to sextant in PD:
PDCH15.doc
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Captain Flint and Peter Duck were busy, with sextant and chronometer, trying to get an observation. The sun was showing now and then through scurrying patches of grey cloud. There was not quite so much white water as there had been, and though the wind was still strong it was no longer lifting whole tops of waves.
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PDCH17.doc
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Peter Duck taught everybody a good many things about knots and ropes that are not to be found in books. Captain Flint taught both John and Nancy how to take an observation with the sextant, and together they wrestled with problems in mathematics a great deal harder than any they had met at school. At first the sums they worked out after taking their shots at the sun (and it is not easy to use a sextant on a swaying deck) ended up by making out that the Wild Cat was sailing in the Sahara Desert, crossing the Andes, or passing within hail of well-known cities in the Middle West. But before long they could be pretty sure of finding that she was somewhere in the Atlantic, and during the last few days of the voyage there was seldom more than fifty or sixty miles' difference between the results of their calculations and those of Captain Flint.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky