Distant Reader - subject-sundials-freebo

Introduction

This is a Distant Reader "study carrel", a set of structured data intended to help the student, researcher, or scholar use & understand a corpus.

This study carrel was created on 2021-05-25 by Eric Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>. The carrel was created using the Distant Reader zip2carrel process, and the input was a Zip file locally cached with the name input-file.zip. Documents in the Zip file have been saved in a cache, and each of them have been transformed & saved as a set of plain text files. All of the analysis -- "reading" -- has been done against these plain text files. For example, a short narrative report has been created. This Web page is a more verbose version of that report.

All study carrels are self-contained -- no Internet connection is necessary to use them. Download this carrel for offline reading. The carrel is made up of many subdirectories and data files. The manifest describes each one in greater detail.

Size

There are 11 item(s) in this carrel, and this carrel is 331,884 words long. Each item in your study carrel is, on average, 30,171 words long. If you dig deeper, then you might want to save yourself some time by reading a shorter item. On the other hand, if your desire is for more detail, then you might consider reading a longer item. The following charts illustrate the overall size of the carrel.

Readability

On a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is very difficult and 100 is very easy, the documents have an average readability score of 96. Consequently, if you want to read something more simplistic, then consider a document with a higher score. If you want something more specialized, then consider something with a lower score. The following charts illustrate the overall readability of the carrel.

Word Frequencies

By merely counting & tabulating the frequency of individual words or phrases, you can begin to get an understanding of the carrel's "aboutness". Excluding "stop words", some of the more frequent words include:

line, one, may, point, will, meridian, degrees, shall, must, circle, place, two, sun, first, horizon, make, hour, lines, globe, index, made, number, therefore, plain, points, side, set, find, day, altitude, figure, draw, north, also, right, pole, prob, south, quadrant, plane, stars, center, take, dyal, now, time, latitude, distance, minutes, way

Using the three most frequent words, the three files containing all of those words the most are Mathematicall recreations. Or, A collection of many problemes, extracted out of the ancient and modern philosophers as secrets and experiments in arithmetick, geometry, cosmographie, horologiographie, astronomie, navigation, musick, opticks, architecture, statick, mechanicks, chemistry, water-works, fire-works, &c. Not vulgarly manifest till now. Written first in Greeke and Latin, lately compi''ld in French, by Henry Van Etten, and now in English, with the examinations and augmentations of divers modern mathematicians whereunto is added the description and use of the generall horologicall ring: and the double horizontall diall. Invented and written by William Oughtred., Elliptical or azimuthal horologiography comprehending severall wayes of describing dials upon all kindes of superficies, either plain or curved, and unto upright stiles in whatsoever position they shall be placed / invented and demonstrated by Samuel Foster ..., and A tutor to astronomie and geographie, or, An easie and speedy way to know the use of both the globes, coelestial and terrestrial in six books : the first teaching the rudiments of astronomy and geography, the 2. shewing by the globes the solution of astronomical & geographical probl., the 3. shewing by the globes the solution of problems in navigation, the 4. shewing by the globes the solution of astrological problemes, the 5. shewing by the globes the solution of gnomonical problemes, the 6. shewing by the globes the solution of of [sic] spherical triangles : more fully and amply then hath ever been set forth either by Gemma Frisius, Metius, Hues, Wright, Blaew, or any others that have taught the use of the globes : and that so plainly and methodically that the meanest capacity may at first reading apprehend it, and with a little practise grow expert in these divine sciences / by Joseph Moxon ; whereunto is added Antient poetical stories of the stars, shewing reasons why the several shapes and forms are pictured on the coelestial globe, collected from Dr. Hood ; as also a Discourse of the antiquity, progress and augmentation of astronomie..

The most frequent two-word phrases (bigrams) include:

meridian line, straight line, hour lines, proper meridian, equal parts, right angles, one foot, first meridian, lower figure, two points, axeltree rod, zenith line, number thought, may see, right ascension, suns place, many degrees, every one, english books, early english, set one, one side, right hand, half circle, one may, poles elevation, right line, straight lines, brasen meridian, suns declination, meridian altitude, hour circle, north pole, clock line, erect direct, degrees minutes, clock hour, left hand, books online, equinoctiall circle, east side, substilar line, terrestrial globe, will shew, higher figure, houre points, globe till, middle rule, longest day, hour line

And the three file that use all of the three most frequent phrases are A table of the equation of days, shewing how much a good pendulum watch ought to be faster or slower than a true sun-dial, every day of the year. The use of the universal ring-dial., and Horlogiographia optica. Dialling universall and particular: speculative and practicall. In a threefold præcognita, viz. geometricall, philosophicall, and astronomicall: and a threefold practise, viz. arithmeticall, geometricall, and instrumentall. With diverse propositions of the use and benefit of shadows, serving to prick down the signes, declination, and azimuths, on sun-dials, and diverse other benefits. Illustrated by diverse opticall conceits, taken out of Augilonius, Kercherius, Clavius, and others. Lastly, topothesia, or, a feigned description of the court of art. Full of benefit for the making of dials, use of the globes, difference of meridians, and most propositions of astronomie. Together with many usefull instruments and dials in brasse, made by Walter Hayes, at the Crosse Daggers in More Fields. / Written by Silvanus Morgan..

While often deemed superficial or sophomoric, rudimentary frequencies and their associated "word clouds" can be quite insightful:

Keywords

Sets of keywords -- statistically significant words -- can be enumerated by comparing the relative frequency of words with the number of times the words appear in an entire corpus. Some of the most statistically significant keywords in the carrel include:

meridian, circle, south, north, horizon, west, tcp, suns, sun, prob, pole, index, equinoctiall, equator, east, dyal, dial, altitude, zodiac, zenith, world, table, sunne, stars, rockets, radius, quadrant, problem, plane, place, pipe, painting, oyl, line, lead, latitude, image, hour, gold, globe, glasse, equinoctial, ellipsis, ecliptick, diall, declin, day, cursor, compasses, colour

And now word clouds really begin to shine:

Topic Modeling

Topic modeling is another popular approach to connoting the aboutness of a corpus. If the study carrel could be summed up in a single word, then that word might be line, and The description and uses of the general horological-ring: or universal ring-dyal Being the invention of the late reverend Mr. W. Oughtred, as it is usually made of a portable pocket size. With a large and correct table of the latitudes of the principal places in every shire throughout England and Wales, &c. And several ways to find a meridian-line for the setting a horizontal dyal. By Henry Wynne, maker of mathematical instruments near the Sugar-loaf in Chancery-lane. is most about that word.

If the study carrel could be summed up in three words ("topics") then those words and their significantly associated titles include:

If the study carrel could be summed up in five topics, and each topic were each denoted with three words, then those topics and their most significantly associated files would be:

Moreover, the totality of the study carrel's aboutness, can be visualized with the following pie chart:

Noun & Verbs

Through an analysis of your study carrel's parts-of-speech, you are able to answer question beyonds aboutness. For example, a list of the most frequent nouns helps you answer what questions; "What is discussed in this collection?":

line, point, degrees, place, number, lines, side, points, figure, day, way, parts, minutes, distance, time, shadow, houre, plane, foot, plain, degree, part, end, b, length, water, hours, stars, d, houres, viz, declination, center, manner, hour, example, p, motion, space, a, circle, e, angle, hand, ▪, work, superficies, table, use, things

An enumeration of the verbs helps you learn what actions take place in a text or what the things in the text do. Very frequently, the most common lemmatized verbs are "be", "have", and "do"; the more interesting verbs usually occur further down the list of frequencies:

is, be, are, have, make, was, being, made, find, set, draw, were, take, see, according, let, found, do, had, placed, having, called, given, drawn, said, know, done, say, come, bring, makes, finde, divided, been, cut, turn, put, shew, give, did, place, go, taken, stand, thought, move, suppose, represent, note, described

Proper Nouns

An extraction of proper nouns helps you determine the names of people and places in your study carrel.

meridian, sun, horizon, circle, globe, index, prob, north, hour, pole, south, quadrant, latitude, dyal, east, line, c., altitude, a, west, c, 〉, b, ◊, star, zenith, m, heaven, 〈, suns, s, glasse, equinoctiall, diall, radius, center, equinoctial, place, f, semi, axis, ecliptick, declination, ellipsis, horizontall, ●, world, poles, london, earth

An analysis of personal pronouns enables you to answer at least two questions: 1) "What, if any, is the overall gender of my study carrel?", and 2) "To what degree are the texts in my study carrel self-centered versus inclusive?"

it, you, i, your, they, them, his, he, their, we, its, him, our, her, my, us, themselves, one, she, me, himself, thy, thee, ours, ♓, yours, theirs, s, y, whereof, mine, 〈, ♒, ♀, whosoever, thou, thinne, spoyl, p, herself, hem, can''st

Below are words cloud of your study carrel's proper & personal pronouns.

Adjectives & Verbs

Learning about a corpus's adjectives and adverbs helps you answer how questions: "How are things described and how are things done?" An analysis of adjectives and adverbs also points to a corpus's overall sentiment. "In general, is my study carrel positive or negative?"

other, same, first, many, such, right, great, second, proper, straight, more, little, equal, true, former, much, meridian, plain, whole, greater, parallel, several, perpendicular, third, lower, small, last, like, direct, equinoctial, good, common, full, lesser, fourth, equall, own, upright, most, next, best, new, distant, opposite, upper, higher, fine, certain, middle, long

then, so, not, therefore, also, now, thus, here, out, more, as, only, first, very, before, again, together, up, much, most, well, there, down, just, is, that, off, in, even, thereof, else, yet, exactly, above, too, never, long, directly, all, about, otherwise, onely, secondly, forth, on, sometimes, still, easily, further, far

Next steps

There is much more to a study carrel than the things outlined above. Use this page's menubar to navigate and explore in more detail. There you will find additional features & functions including: ngrams, parts-of-speech, grammars, named entities, topic modeling, a simple search interface, etc.

Again, study carrels are self-contained. Download this carrel for offline viewing and use.

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