What is "ascertaining"

Usage examples of "ascertaining".

To show their relevancy, I propose to state my understanding of the true rule for ascertaining the boundary between Texas and Mexico.

But in ascertaining the number of the people for this purpose, five slaves are counted as being equal to three whites.

He is to be free upon certain conditions but whether those conditions do or do not pertain to him no mode of ascertaining is provided.

We desire to pass your lines under safe conduct, and to proceed to Washington to hold a conference with President Lincoln upon the subject of the existing war, and with a view of ascertaining upon what terms it may be terminated, in pursuance of the course indicated by him in his letter to Mr.

The despatch is so vague that there is no means here of ascertaining whether or not the execution of sentence of one or more of them may not already have been ordered.

Two attempts were ineffectually made to gain soundings, and the extreme density of the fog precluded us from any other means of ascertaining the direction in which we were driving until half past twelve, when we had the alarming view of a barren rugged shore within a few yards, towering over the mast heads.

A succession of fresh breezes prevented our ascertaining the intensity of the magnetic force.

Ysabel the doctor employs an ingenious apparatus for discovering the cause of sickness and ascertaining its cure.

I may observe that on this occasion we had an opportunity of ascertaining that good Burgundy, well racked off, and in casks hermetically sealed, does not lose its quality on a sea voyage.

I cannot tell whether what followed was a portion of his premeditated conversation with me, or whether it was the result of the satisfaction he had derived from ascertaining my perfect conviction of the purity of his conduct with regard to Hortense, and being assured that I would express that conviction.

It is certain that when at Madrid he had aspired to win the good graces of a Spanish Infanta, and on that subject reports were circulated with which I have nothing to do, because I never had any opportunity of ascertaining their truth.

The greatest number of them disdained to have recourse to a denial, and seemed less anxious for the preservation of their own lives than for the honour of the cause in which they had embarked, not with the view of assassination, as had been demonstrated, but for the purpose of ascertaining the true state of the public feeling, which had been represented by some factious intriguers as favourable to the Bourbons.

I immediately intimated to our Government that this circumstance would probably give a new turn to the operations of the combined army, for hitherto the uncertainty of its movements and the successive counterorders afforded no possibility of ascertaining any determined plan.

On the evening of the 9th of July he despatched Count Las Cases and the Duke of Rovigo to the commander of the English squadron, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the passports promised by the Provisional Government to enable him to proceed to America had been received.

Indeed, the channels between the islands which lay around the one we have been describing were so narrow that it was even difficult to say which portions of the land were connected, or which separated, even as one stood in the centre, with the express desire of ascertaining the truth.