Publisher's Synopsis
A very common observation relating to the plane of the horizon is called -taking the sun's altitude, - and consists in measuring the angle between the sun's rays and the plane of the horizon upon which they fall. This angle between a line and a plane appears slightly different from the angle between two lines, but is really the same thing, since it means the angle between the sun's rays and a line drawn in the plane of the horizon toward the point directly under the sun.