Taking the apparent semidiameter of the nubecula major at three degrees, and regarding its solid form as, roughly speaking, spherical, its nearest and most remote parts differ in their distance from us by a little more than a tenth part of our distance from its center.
"Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I"
Herbert Spencer
1865 Aug 22 On the Value of the Moon's semidiameter R. Astr.
"Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy"
George Biddell Airy
That Rote, Subtracte from your first semidiameter of the earth to your watry Superficies: that, which remaineth, is the heith of the water, in the middle, aboue the leuell.
"The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara"
John Dee