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Theodolite   Listen
Theodolite

noun
1.
A surveying instrument for measuring horizontal and vertical angles, consisting of a small telescope mounted on a tripod.  Synonym: transit.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Theodolite" Quotes from Famous Books



... exile a name he loved. Our day will, in the main, attach names for simple convenience, as they put handles on shovels. Such names, of course, are meaningless. The day for inventing names is past, or seems so. We beg or borrow, as the surveyor who marched across the State of New York, with theodolite and chain and a classical atlas, and blazed his way with Rome, and Illyria, and Syracuse, and Ithaca,—a procedure at once meaningless and dense. Greece nor Rome feels at home ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... salient angle, reentering angle, spherical angle. angular measurement, angular elevation, angular distance, angular velocity; trigonometry, goniometry; altimetry[obs3]; clinometer, graphometer[obs3], goniometer; theodolite; sextant, quadrant; dichotomy. triangle, trigon[obs3], wedge; rectangle, square, lozenge, diamond; rhomb, rhombus; quadrangle, quadrilateral; parallelogram; quadrature; polygon, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, oxygon[obs3], decagon. pyramid, cone. Platonic bodies; cube, rhomboid; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the theodolite and circles to be packed very differently from the usual way, as many instruments are seriously injured by the box warping either inwards or outwards; in the one case pressing too much on the instruments, and in the other, ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... white fire of gushing cupolas and dazzling billets, a train of carriages, drawn by a tamed volcanic demon, on a wonderful way of steel, armed strongly to deliver us from the Castle Perilous in which we were besieged by the Giants. The way was marvelously prepared by theodolite and level, by tented camps of men driving, with shouts and cracking whips, straining teams in circling mazes, about dark pits on grassy hillsides, and building long, straight banks of earth across swales; by huge machines ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... by thousands of obscure transverse streaks.[379] Of these he counted some 600, and carefully mapped 324, while a few of the most conspicuous he set up (if we may be permitted the expression) as landmarks, measuring their distances apart with a theodolite, and affixing to them the letters of the alphabet, by which they are still universally known. Nor did he stop here. The same system of examination applied to the rest of the heavenly bodies showed the mild effulgence of the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... taepo is also a slang term for a surveyor's theodolite among the Maoris, because it is the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... this won't do, we must have at it again;" and then the whole of that was put aside, and a new instrument, begun. By means of such perseverance, he succeeded in bringing various mathematical, philosophical, and astronomical instruments to perfection. The large theodolite for terrestrial measurements, and the equal altitude instrument for astronomy, will always be monuments of his fertile, penetrating, arduous, superior genius! There cannot be a lover (especially of this more difficult part) of philosophy, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various

... object of great importance, not only on its own account, but as furnishing a base for future operations. As soon as a sufficient force had been assembled at Lake Temiscouata a party was therefore formed to survey the portage with a theodolite. Orders were also given by the commissioner that the first barometer which should be returned should be carried over the portage. It was believed that this double provision would have secured the examination of this point beyond the chance of failure. A snowstorm, however (the same ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson

... disk report admitted by Project "Saucer" was in this same month. The first '47 case detailed by Project "Saucer" occurred at Richmond, Virginia. It was about the middle of April. A Richmond weather observer had released a balloon and was tracking it with a theodolite when a strange object crossed his field of vision. He swung the theodolite and managed to track the thing, despite its high speed. (The actual speed and altitude—the latter determined by a comparison of ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... with the theodolite, 7 deg. 40' east; but on the top of the island, where my bearings were taken, the variation appeared to be 8 deg. 30' east; and 8 deg. in ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... rather crude and may not be accurate enough to locate the source exactly, but at least it will give us a pretty good idea of where to look. Given time, a much more accurate instrument could have been made, but two telescopic rifle sights and a theodolite base were all the materials I could find to work with. Climb out, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... I speak can be seen everywhere in a comparison between the ancient and universal things and the modern and specialist things. The object of a theodolite is to lie level; the object of a stick is to swing loose at any angle; to whirl like the very wheel of liberty. The object of a lancet is to lance; when used for slashing, gashing, ripping, lopping off heads and limbs, it is ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... constricted. Although the surface is here and there broken by fractures, it is evident that the movement of the frozen current, though slow, is tolerably free. By placing stakes in a row across the axis of a glacier, and observing their movement from day to day, or even from hour to hour if a good theodolite is used for the purpose, we note that the movement of the stream is fastest in the middle parts, as in the case of a river, and that it slows toward either shore, though it often happens, as in a stream of molten water, ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... in taking observations for latitude may be either a sextant and an artificial horizon, or a small theodolite. Both these instruments were taken on the sledge journey; but the theodolite was not used, owing to the low altitude of the sun. Had the expedition been delayed on the return until May or June, the theodolite would then ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... nail-brushes, and cold cream for cracked lips, and dentifrice for the teeth, and patent preparations for the removal of dandruff from the hair; likewise lint and splints for mending broken legs. One of them carried a theodolite for drawing inaccessible mountains within a reasonable distance; another a photographic apparatus for taking likenesses of the natives and securing fac-similes of the wild beasts; while a third was provided with a brass thief-defender for running under doors and keeping ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... ground just beyond. Moreover, this gave the lovers hope, and Alda had, under Clement's persuasion and rebukes, withdrawn her opposition to the engagement, so that Sophy was free to wander about Penbeacon with her Philip, and help to set up his theodolite, and hold the ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge

... measure the altitude of the lunar mountains, a sextant to take the height of the sun, a theodolite, an instrument for surveying, telescopes to be used as the moon approached—all these instruments were carefully inspected and found in good condition, notwithstanding the violence ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... bivouac among a cluster of dark firs in the mountain corridor, opened by an ancient glacier of King's River in the heart of the Sierras. It dawned a trifle sooner than we could have wished, but Professor Brewer and Hoffman had breakfasted before sunrise, and were off with barometer and theodolite upon their shoulders, proposing to ascend our amphitheatre to its head and climb a great pyramidal peak which swelled up against the eastern sky, closing ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... limp lettuce to his fevered brow, took his temperature with my theodolite, and pressing a copy of Home Chat into his unresisting hand, passed on with a sigh. I think I should have stayed with him but for the abnormal obtusity ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas

... a complete meteorological outfit. Among the instruments belonging to the Fram I may mention a pendulum apparatus, an excellent astronomical theodolite, and a sextant. Lieutenant Prestrud studied the use of the pendulum apparatus under Professor Schiotz and the use of the astronomical theodolite under Professor Geelmuyden. We had in addition several sextants and artificial horizons, both glass and mercury. We had binoculars of all sizes, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... not waited for the word to go ahead, but had already set up his theodolite while the doctor was explaining matters to the men, and had taken a number of sights, set his first bench mark and was getting his boys to work, Jack being ready to follow behind with his levelers as soon as the work ahead was ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh

... used were a small theodolite by Ramsden, and Kater's pocket compass [Note: A most valuable instrument, combining all the advantages of the circumferentor, without being so liable to be damaged and put out of order by carriage.], with the addition of an excellent ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... Mike was rummaging around in one of the tool lockers. "Any sort of a small telescope," he muttered, almost to himself. Then "Paul, is there a theodolite or anything like that left lying ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... we reached the island of San Pedro, where we found the Beagle at anchor. In doubling the point, two of the officers landed to take a round of angles with the theodolite. A fox (Canis fulvipes), of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, and very rare in it, and which is a new species, was sitting on the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of the officers, that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... first burst of enthusiasm and interest had abated, the attention of the party became engrossed in the proceedings of the Professor, who, with his assistants, began at once to adjust his theodolite, and fix stakes in the ice. While he was thus engaged, Captain Wopper regarded the Mer de Glace with a gaze of fixedness so intense as to draw on him the attention and arouse the ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... ascertaining the heights of the Lunar mountains by the barometric pressure under which water boils, a sextant to measure the altitude of the Sun, a theodolite for taking horizontal or vertical angles, telescopes, of indispensable necessity when the travellers should approach the Moon,—all these instruments, carefully examined, were found to be still in perfect working order, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... 11. A pair of globes, by ditto. 12. A dipping needle, by Mr Nairne. I3. A marine barometer, by ditto. 14. A wind gage, invented by Dr Lind of Edinburgh, and made by Mr Nairne. 15. Two portable barometers, made by Mr Burton. 16. Six thermometers, by ditto. 17. A theodolite, with a level, and a Gunter's chain, by ditto. 18. An apparatus for trying the heat of the sea-water at different depths. 19. Two time-keepers, one made by Mr Larcum Kendal, on Mr Harrison's principles, and the other by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... easy to tell the truth and hard to tell a lie. I wish heartily it were. But the truth is one; it has first to be discovered, then justly and exactly uttered. Even with instruments specially contrived for such a purpose—with a foot rule, a level, or a theodolite—it is not easy to be exact; it is easier, alas! to be inexact. From those who mark the divisions on a scale to those who measure the boundaries of empires or the distance of the heavenly stars, it ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various



Words linked to "Theodolite" :   tachymeter, surveyor's instrument, alidad, tacheometer, surveying instrument, alidade



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