TRAVERSE

In Law, a name given to a plea containing a denial of some matter of fact alleged on the other side, and offering to refer the matter to the decision of u jury-In cases of misdemeanour, where the defendant |K)stpones the trial of the indictment until the next se ions or a izes, he Is said to traverse the indictment. The delays which this form formerly occasioned have been materially abridged by the act 60 G.:i, and 1 G. 4, c. 4; under which pcr>ons in custody, or held to bail twenty days before the se ions, are bound to plead, unle a certiorari I delivered before jury sworn. TRAVERSE BAILING, in Navigation, is sailing on dif ferent courses in succe ion; and the method of reducing such compound courses and distances into an equivalent single course and distance is called resolving a traverse. The reduction may be effected either by geometrical projection or trigonometrical computation; but it is generally performed by inspection, with the aid of a traverse table. TRAVERSE TABLE, in Navigation, is the tabulated form in which the northing, southing, easting, and westing are made on each individual course and distance in a traverse, for the purpose of finding readily the difference of latitude and departure made upon the whole; the differ ence between the sums of the northings and southings be ing the diff. lal., and between the sums of the eastings and westings the departure. The northing, southing, easting, and westing are generally taken by inspection, from u table which contains the parts of a right-angled plane triangle corres|>onding to a giv en acute angle, and a hypothenusal line of every unit in length from 1 to 300, and sometimes to 500; an extent suf ficient for the wants of the practical navigator. This table itself is also called a traverse table, from the facility which it affords in resolving a traverse; but it may be applied ad vantageously to many other purposes. In the annexed figure A B C is a plane trianglo right angled at B; and if A B represent a portion a. of the meridian pa ing through A, and A C the distance from A to C, then the angle A is called the course, A B the difference ot latitude, and B C the departure; and to a given angle A the corresponding values ot A B and B C, being computed and entered in a table, form for the a umed value of A a portion of a traverse table. ** C The table is thus constructed to A C and the angle A as arguments, the angle being taken to every degree and every quarter point of the compa , and the hypothenuse to every integer from unity to as high a number as may be thought requisite. But the table being formed, any two elements which geometrically determine the triangle may be a um ed as the given one, and the other found by inspection from the table. But tbe vse of the table is not limited to 1203 [s. 1277]