A Plane's Position

Abstract

THIS question is becoming one de gustibus, and its further discussion will probably be profitless. I retain my opinion, and am content with the few who side with me. In the two finest treatises on astronomy published during the present century, Herschel's “Outlines of Astronomy,” and Grant's “History of Physical Astronomy,” the word position is used as I use it. Not systematically, I admit; for Herschel sometimes wrote “situation” wrhere I should write “position.” Grant in one place deals somewhat definitively with the word, for at p. 258 he writes, “The position of Saturn's ring is usually determined by the inclination of its plane to the ecliptic and the longitude of its ascending node,” the longitude of this node being defined, as all astronomers know, by the direction of the line of nodes, not by its actual place.