An Explorer's Adventures in TibetLandor, Arnold Henry Savage
History
An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet
Landor, Arnold Henry Savage
Tibet Autonomous Region (China) -- Description and travel
temperature of a given place on the sea-level, one can obtain with
accuracy the difference in height between the two points.
Two aneroid barometers were also carried, which were specially made for
me--one registering heights to 20,000 feet, the other to 25,000 feet.
Although I used these aneroids principally for differential heights
along my route, as aneroids cannot always be relied upon for great
accuracy, I found on checking these particular instruments with the
boiling-point thermometers that they were always extremely accurate.
This was, however, exceptional, and it would not do for any one to rely
on aneroids alone for the exact measurement of mountain heights. There
were in my outfit three artificial horizons--one with mercury, the
others constructed with a plate glass. The latter had a special
arrangement by which they could be levelled to a nicety. I found that
for taking observations for latitude and longitude by the sun the
mercury horizon was satisfactory, but when occultations had to be taken
at night the plate-glass horizons were easier to work, and gave a more
clearly defined reflection of stars and planets in such a bitterly cold
climate as Tibet, where astronomical observations were always taken
under great difficulty. The most useful instrument I carried on that
expedition was a powerful telescope with astronomical eyepiece.
Necessarily, I carried a great many compasses, which included prismatic,
luminous, floating, and pocket compasses. Maximum and minimum
thermometers were taken along to keep a record of the daily temperature,
and I also took with me a box of drawing and painting materials, as well
as all kinds of instruments for map-making, such as protractors,
parallel rules, tape rules, section paper, note-books, etc. I had
water-tight half-chronometer watches keeping Greenwich mean time, and
three other watches. In order to work out on the spot my observations
for latitude and longitude, I had with me such books as _Raper's
Navigation_ and the _Nautical Almanac_ for the years 1897 and 1898, in
which all the necessary tables for the computations were to be found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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