NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Philip Lange
Date: 2014 Dec 31, 10:35 -0500
Old sextant type thing, heavily damaged and corroded. Possibly beyond repair.
Word "Ahab" scratched on arc.
Sold for parts only.
Opening bid, $25.50
(Reserve not met)
Happy New Year All!
Philip
"Its not the distance you travel so much as the direction that counts."
On 12/30/2014 06:36 PM, Samuel L wrote:
Moby Dick- CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.
Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: "Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!" dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," lighting from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!"
-- Philip Lange P.O. Box 701 Edenton NC 27932 252.370.7453 The USA will be the land of the free When it becomes home of the brave.
