Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c8.2

c8.2

The situation of the two large quadrants of the instrument marked *A* in *Figure I*, whose radius is nine feet two inches, by their being at right angles with a gnomon at twenty-five degrees elevation, are thrown into such an oblique situation as to render them the most difficult, not only to construct of such a magnitude, but to secure in their position for so long a period, and affords a striking instance of the ability of the architect in their construction; for, by the shadow of the gnomon thrown on the quadrants, they do not appear to have altered in the least from their original position; and so true is the line of the gnomon, that, by applying the eye to a small iron ring of an inch diameter at one end, the sight is carried through three others of the same dimension to the extremity at the other end, distant thirty-eight feet eight inches, without obstruction; such is the firmness and art with which this instrument has been executed. This performance is the more wonderful and extraordinary when compared with the works of the artificers of Hindostan at this day, who are not under the immediate direction of an European mechanic; but arts appear to have declined equally with science in the East.