My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

CHAPTER VIIISELF-EDUCATION IN SCIENCE AND LITERATUREDuring the larger portion of my residence at Neathwe had very little to do, and my brother was often away,either seeking employment or engaged upon smallmatters of business in various parts of the country.I was thus left a good deal to my own devices, and,having no friends of my own age, I occupied myselfwith various pursuits in which I had begun to takean interest. Having learnt the use of the sextant insurveying, and my brother having a book on NauticalAstronomy, I practised a few of the simpler observations.Among these were determining the meridianby equal altitudes of the sun, and also by the polestarat its upper or lower culmination ; finding thelatitude by the meridian altitude of the sun, or ofsome of the principal stars ; and making a rude sundialby erecting a gnomon towards the pole. Forthese simple calculations I had Hannay and Dietrichsen'sAlmanac, a copious publication which gave allthe important data in the Nautical Almanac, besidesmuch other interesting matter, useful for the astronomicalamateur or the ordinary navigator. I alsotried to make a telescope by purchasing a lens ofabout two feet focus at an optician's in Swansea, fixingit in a paper tube and using the eye-piece of a smallopera-glass. With it I was able to observe the moon