CALIBER

, or Caliper, is the thickness or diameter of a round body, particularly the bore or width of a piece of ordnance, or that of its ball.

Caliber-Compasses, or Caliper-Compasses, or simple Calipers, a sort of compasses made with bowed or arched legs, the better to take the diameter of any round body; as the diameters of balls, or the bores of guns; or the diameter, and even the length of casks, and such like. The best sort of calipers usually contain the following articles, viz, 1st, the measure of convex diameters in inches &c; 2d, of concave diameters: 3d, the weight of iron shot of given diameters; 4th, the weight of iron shot for given gun bores; 5th, the degrees of a semicircle; 6th, the proportion of troy and averdupois weight; 7th, the proportion of English and French feet and pounds weight; 8th, factors used in circular and spherical figures; 9th, tables of the specific gravities and weights of bodies; 10th, tables of the quantity of powder necessary for the proof and service of brass and iron guns; 11th, rules for computing the number of shot or shells in a complete pile; 12th, rules for the fall or descent of heavy bodies; 13th, rules for the raising of water; 14th, rules for firing artillery and mortars; 15th, a line of inches; 16th, logarithmic scales of numbers, sines, versed sines, and tangents; 17th, a sectoral line of equal parts, or the line of lines; 18th, a sectoral line of planes and superficies; and 19th, a sectoral line of solids.

Calippic Period, in Chronology, a period of 76 years, continually recurring; at every repetition of which, it was supposed, by its inventor Calippus, an Athenian astronomer, that the mean new and full moons would always return to the same day and hour.

About a century before, the golden number, or cycle of 19 years, had been invented by Meton, which Calippus finding to contain 19 of Nabonassar's year, 4 days and 331/459, to avoid fractions he quadrupled it, and so produced his period of 76 years, or 4 times 19; after which he supposed all the lunations &c would regularly return to the same hour. But neither is this exact, as it brings them too late by a whole day in 225 years.

CAMBER-Beam, a piece of timber cut arch-wise, or with an obtuse angle in the middle. They are commonly used in platforms, as for church-roofs, and other occasions where long timbers are wanted to lie at a small slope. A camber-beam is much stronger than another of the same dimensions; for being laid with the hollow side downwards, and having good butments at the ends, they serve for a kind of arch.

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Entry taken from A Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, by Charles Hutton, 1796.

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CALCULATION
CALCULATCR
CALCULATORES
CALENDAR
CALENDS
* CALIBER
CAMELEON
CAMELOPARDALUS
CAMUS
CANCER
CANDLEMAS