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More "Steeper" Quotes from Famous Books



... hoofs, and scrape of pack. On one side towered the iron-stained cliff, not smooth or glistening at close range, but of dull, dead, rotting rock. The trail changed to a zigzag along a seamed and cracked buttress where ledges leaned outward waiting to fall. Then a steeper incline, where the burros crept upward warily, led to a level ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... massive head overseer, whose weight threatened to break his horse's back. Well up we came upon the "chaparral," the hacienda herdsman, tawny with sunburn even to his leather garments. He knew by name every animal under his charge, though the owners did not even know the number they possessed. A still steeper climb, during the last of which even the horses had to be abandoned, brought us to a hilltop overlooking the entire lake, with the villages on its edge, and range after range of the mountains of Jalisco and Michoacan. Our animals were more than an hour picking their way down the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... it would be difficult to point out an elevational plant. The same remark applies to the march to Gygoogoo, distant twelve miles, and situated 500 feet below the road, but still it is about the same level as Murichom. The march commenced with a steep descent, followed by a steeper ascent, then winding along, in and out, at an average elevation of 5,000 feet. The road was very bad, rocky and rugged as usual, P. and B. passed the village, and pushed on to Buxa, a distance of twenty miles, which place they ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... with Cap'n Jack up a deep gully. On either hand the sides of the chasm shot up, steeper than the roof of a house, while in some ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... of Jalajala and the Island of Talim, from which rises the Susong-Dalaga volcano, terminate the vista. From the convento to the lake stretches an endless grove of coco-trees, while towards the south the slope of the distant high ground grows suddenly steeper, and forms an abruptly precipitous conical hill, intersected by deep ravines. This is the Banajao or Majaijai volcano, and beside it Mount San Cristobal rears its ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... horses refuse the craggy path and rear, and sometimes a knight is unseated and the others look back and laugh at his discomfiture and ride on until they themselves are proved unfit; and so, on and on, while the way gets steeper and more perilous, and the company smaller and still smaller, until the sun drops down behind the mountain and the gold flag flutters as gray as a moth, and in all the windows of the castle torches spring up to greet the knight ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... is accumulating; now supposing that all the hard marine animals, or rather those having hard parts to preserve, were preserved to a future age, excepting those which lived on rocky shores where no sediment or only sand and gravel were accumulating, and excepting those embedded along the steeper coasts, where only a narrow fringe of sediment was accumulating, supposing all this, how poor a notion would a person at a future age have of the Marine Fauna of the present day. Lyell{322} has compared the ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... platform they discovered that the train was following the course of a river winding through a rocky gorge that grew narrower, moment by moment. The walls grew higher and steeper at every turn, while towering above and beyond were the mountain peaks. They stood clinging to the railings, and watching the rapidly changing scene, as the train swerved and swept from one direction to another, following ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... mountain range stood blackly defined against the glittering stars. It was easy to find his way, for on the level sands there were no impediments, and when the mountain was reached, a low divide offered him easy passage up the ascent. For the most part the slopes were gradual and in steeper places, ledges of granite, somewhat like giant stairs, assisted him to the highest ridge. From this vantage-point he could see the level plain stretching away on the farther side; he could count the ridges running parallel to the one on which he had paused, and note ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... he was a stern wheel tow boat, kicking his feet out of the water to imitate the splash of the wheel. The boat did not make great headway but backed and went ahead as the raft floated down the creek. The banks were steeper on either side, therefore, the tow boat decided to go down the stream a little further ere landing. In fact, the towboat was having such a good time he did not fully realize the current was carrying his tow rapidly towards the old mill dam. Neither ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... quitted the market while thus engaged in conversation, and were ascending one of the steeper parts of the city, when their attention was attracted by ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... to him, as though he were somehow coming home. The road entered a green valley among the downs. To the left, an outstanding bluff was crowned with the steep turfed bastions of an ancient fort, and as they went in among the hills, the slopes grew steeper, rich with hanging woods and copses, and the edges of the high thickets were white with bleached flints. At last they passed into a hamlet with a church, and a big vicarage among shrubberies; this was Windlow Malzoy, the coachman said, and that was Mr. Sandys' house. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... plant. Carley conceived a desire to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... of the wolf grew faint and far away; he fell into an uneasy slumber and saw himself, aged and gray, trying to keep pace with a fair youth, who mounted with free and graceful step a mountain whose summit was crowned with the light of everlasting day. Steeper and steeper grew the path, yet he strove with failing strength. The youth reached out a strong hand to him and said, "Lean on me;" but he put it back, crying fiercely: "No! no! climb thou alone farther I cannot go. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... a little at this, but here I overruled him. We took our revolvers again, left the inn, and struck straight up the road. For nearly a mile we mounted, the way becoming steeper with every step. Then there was a sudden ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... heights, climbed steeper and more rugged paths than these, Miss Abbot," he said. "The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, are all familiar ground, and this is but ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... campaniles had either flat summits, or were crowned with a low, unimportant roof. But as they approached the North of Lombardy, and found their way into Germany, France, and Britain, these roofs, through the necessities of climate, became steeper and sharper. Many of the little gray mountain-chapels in the South of Switzerland still lift up these pointed towers amid the hamlets of the valley, having gathered in the hardy flocks at eventide for seven or eight centuries. The same early modifications may yet be seen on the banks of the Rhine, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... of Cetewayo's stands, or rather stood, for it has long been burnt, on the slope of the hills to the north-east of the plains of Ulundi. Above it these hills grow steeper, and deep in the recesses of one of them is the Valley of Bones. There is nothing particularly imposing about the place; no towering cliffs or pillars of piled granite, as at the Black Kloof. It is just a vale ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... mountains and the clouds have business together, its aspect rises to grandeur. To his first glance probably not a tree will be discoverable; the second will fall upon a solitary clump of firs, like a mole on the cheek of one of the hills not far off, a hill steeper than most of them, and green ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... descent on the eastern side of the Cordillera is much shorter or steeper than on the Pacific side; in other words, the mountains rise more abruptly from the plains than from the alpine country of Chile. A level and brilliantly white sea of clouds was stretched out beneath our feet, shutting out the view of the equally level ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... plateau. Another couple of hours' march brought us to the gate's of Begemder. In front of us arose the plateau of Dahonte, only about a couple of miles distant, but we had to ascend a more abrupt precipice than the one we had just passed and climb again a steeper ascent before we could reach it. The valley of the Jiddah, a tributary of the Nile, was between us and our halting-place—a stiff march, as the silver thread we viewed from the narrow passage between the basaltic columns of the Eastern Begemder ridge was 3,000 feet ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... a long reach, but we chose the rocky ridges and moraines, trying to avoid the crevassed glaciers, and all went well until the twentieth, when just as we were reaching the steeper gradients a strong wind sprang up, blowing straight down the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... her iron bones. Most of my fellow Argonauts, long before this, must have sunk into that sleep from which there is no earthly waking. Few, if any of us, managed to find the Golden Fleece. Those who, like myself, are still seeking it, are treading that downhill path which grows steeper at every pace, and which leads to that valley, filled with grey shadow, out of which none return. To them I hold out a hand of greeting in the spirit. Perhaps, when the Great Cycle has been traversed, we may ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... the water of the ocean could be suddenly drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma; while, finally, the island with ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... right about that topsail; it won't be quite as easy getting off," he said. "You'll stand by, Charly, and watch the schooner. If the surf gets steeper you can make some sign. I'll leave one of the Siwash on ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... blemish it is upon the farm. I have wondered if we could not make it useful in some way, and at the same time improve the looks of things. I think we might build an embankment upon the open side, make the slope steeper all round, bring the water into it from the creek, and so have a fishing-pond. We should have to make a race-way from the creek to the pond, and cut a channel through the meadow, in which the water could flow back to ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... outside, ready for the stokers to heave into the boilers. He had been passing less than an hour during his first watch when the coal ran short in the lower bunker. He speared with a slice-bar in the bunker above. The fuel rested at a steeper angle than his weak eyes could see, and his bar dislodged a wedged lump; an instant later the new passer was half buried under a heap of sliding coal. Bewildered, but unhurt, he crawled to the boiler-room, shaking the coal from his back and shoulders. Through dust-filled ears he ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouch and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamers across ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... precipice falls sheer away, by cut stone guard-posts. So extensive and substantial are these improvements that one instinctively looks for a real-estate dealer's sign: "This beautiful lot can be yours for twenty-five dollars down and ten dollars a month for a year." Climbing higher, the roads become steeper and narrower and, because of the heavy rains, very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your brakes is quite likely to bring your career ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... than through a short one, if impelled by the same force; but the subject appears in a different light upon more mature reflection, for it is then seen, that the weight which performs the longer journey starts down the steeper declivity, and therefore acquires a greater velocity. A ball does not run down a steep hill and a more gently inclined one at the same pace; neither, therefore, will the suspended weight move down the steeper ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... indication of any pass or any opening, however narrow, through which the great stream might run. Nothing was there but one unbroken wall of iron cliffs and icy summits. At last we saw that the sloping shores grew steeper, until, about a mile or two before us, they changed to towering cliffs that rose up on each side for about a thousand feet above the water; here the stream ran, and became lost to view as completely as though ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille

... curious rift in the dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no living creatures ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment of the Apennines, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hill-sides breaking down into thick chestnut ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... beneath my feet as they approached. The incline seemed folding up upon itself, like a telescope. As I watched, its upper edge came into view, a curved, luminous line against the blackness above. Every instant it crawled down closer, more sharply curved, and its inclined surface grew steeper. ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... entered the thick highland forest, which stretched before us farther than we could see, and through the dense underwood of which the axe of our pioneers had to cut us a way. The ground had been gradually ascending for two days—that is, ever since we had left the Amboni—and it now became steeper; we had reached the foot of the Kenia mountain. The forest zone proved to be of comparatively small breadth, and on the morning of the 30th we emerged from it again into open undulating park-land. When we had scaled one of the heights in front of us, there lay before us, almost within ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... the reverberation of the stones intolerable, my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. For the mill is now a mute ornament, a ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... twenty miles. In latitude 28 degrees 25 minutes is a remarkable white sand-patch 274 feet above the sea, between two and three miles south of which is a deep ravine where there is probably a stream of fresh water. Here the shore becomes steeper, and rises abruptly from the sea, forming downs about 300 feet high. Native fires were seen in this neighbourhood, and the country had a more fertile appearance than in the vicinity of Champion Bay. This part of the coast is bold too, and is free from outlaying dangers, the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... again. We rode for three hours at a foot-pace, and by the time we left our horses and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. Except that, looming out of ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... the valley until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their light behind a stair—for ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... flying up about them, and afterward came to a stop again. Next they tried pushing; and after several rests they arrived, breathless and gasping, at the crest of the rise. There was a big hollow in front, and on the opposite side a ridge which looked steeper than the last one. ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... the canon had become much rougher and steeper. The pony, for all his goat-like agility and sure-footedness, found difficulty in scrambling up ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... not stop at the street level; they continued on down another ramp, around a bend, descending an even steeper incline toward the bowels of Jupiter. Their descent ended at last before a huge metal barrier which, at a signal from the leader, drew smoothly up into the ceiling to disclose a gigantic, red-lit chamber underlying the foundations ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... bank of clay, some few feet high, and he could not round it at either end or surmount it in the middle. Finally he literally pawed and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... power into the exertion of a few moments. If it is capable of lifting a given load up a given grade at a certain speed on its lowest gear, it cannot lift twice the load up the same grade, or the same load up a steeper grade in double the time, for its resources are exhausted when the limit of the power developed through the lowest gear is reached. The grade may be only a mud hole, out of which the rear wheels have to rise only two feet to be free, but it is as fatal ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... Proceeding eastward from the Agua del Zorro, and afterwards leaving on the north side of the road a rancho attached to some old goldmines, you pass through a gully with low but steep rocks on each hand: the road then bends, and the ascent becomes steeper. A few hundred yards farther on, a stone's throw on the south side of the road, the white calcareous stumps may be seen. The spot is about half a mile east of the Agua del Zorro.) They projected between two and five feet above the ground, and stood at ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... went off, one on each side of the oxen, with long sticks, sharpened at the end, to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving labor in California,— two Indians to two oxen. Now, the hides were to be got down; and for this purpose we brought the boat round to a place where the hill was steeper, and threw them off, letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we had to let ourselves down and set them a-going again, and in this way became covered with dust, and our clothes torn. After we had the hides all down, we were obliged to take them on our heads, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... the Grange and all round the south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of the horizon received into itself the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... into San Francisco, and took the long sweep of the descending hills at a rate that caused pedestrians to turn and watch them anxiously. Through the city streets the bright sweaters flew, turning and twisting to escape climbing the steeper hills, and, when the steep hills were unavoidable, doing stunts to see which would first ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... patented, the tariff gets a lot steeper compared to taking vitamins. (Since they are naturally-occurring substances, vitamins can't be patented and therefore, aren't big-profit items. Perhaps that's one reason the FDA is so covertly opposed to vitamins.) Right now it would be quite possible to spend ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... a bit of fish on some bread, and told me to skittle off to bed again. I am sure there was not no moon, else I should have seed there wasn't a top stare when I put my foot out so slow. I only skratted my left eye and ear a bit with that last bump at the bottom, witch was a hard one, Stares are steeper than girls think, speshilly where ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... than agreed with her husband's opinion when he led her up into the stupendous gorge and the walls of rock began to tower on each side ever steeper and loftier. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... that Ida Stirling was glancing at him, but his face remained expressionless; and as he suggested nothing further, they went on again. The mountain slope had been steadily growing steeper beneath them, and they had not yet reached the bench. They went up for another hour, and then came out upon the expected strip of plateau in the midst of which the gully died out. The plateau, however, lay on the northern side of a great peak, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... higher and steeper the mountain appeared, which made them think several times of giving over their enterprise. When the one was weary, the other stopped, and they took breath together; sometimes they were both so tired, that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... dense thickets and belts of woods before the hill and on each side of it. The position was a powerful, though not an impregnable one; for batteries might readily be pushed up the slope, and our infantry had often ascended steeper eminences. But an opposing army scattered about the meadow lands below, would find its several components exposed to shot and shell, thrown from points three or four ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... a Hargrave kite, as will be confirmed by Mr. Herring. It was frequently tested by launching from the top of a three-story house and glided downward very steadily in all sorts of breezes, but the angle of descent was much steeper than that of birds, and the weight sustained per square foot was less than with single cells, in consequence of the lesser support afforded by the rear cell, which operated upon air already set in ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... to be always accessible. 2. The pipes should be generally 4 in. diameter. In no instance need a drain pipe inside a house exceed 6 in. in diameter. 3. Every drain of a house or building should be laid with true gradients, in no case less than 1/100, but much steeper would be preferable. When from circumstances the drain is laid at a smaller inclination, a flush tank should be provided. They should be laid in straight lines from point to point. At every change of direction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various

... long, Bull," Terence said. "There is a steeper slope behind you. However, I don't think they will come up very far—not, at least, until they are reinforced. There is another body just starting, and I think we can hold on here until they join the skirmishing line. As soon as they do so, sound the order ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... not be able to find a way up," Nessus said; "the sides seem to get steeper and steeper, and we may find ourselves caught in a trap at the end of this gorge. At any rate we will try that way first. I wish the moon was up; it is as black as a wolf's mouth here, and the bottom of the gorge is all covered with boulders. If we stumble, ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... some four hundred fighting men, together with a crowd of nearly two thousand women and many children. Now although this teocalli was not quite so lofty as that of the great temple of Mexico, its sides were steeper and everywhere faced with dressed stone, and the open space upon its summit was almost as great, measuring indeed more than a hundred paces every way. This area was paved with blocks of marble, and in its centre stood the temple of the war-god, where his statue still ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... began the ascent. How much steeper the acclivities were than they had seemed to be when I came down! My limbs ached before I had gone many rods, and my breath came short. Upward I toiled, and by the time my trail reached the cog-road I was ready to drop from exhaustion. Yet I had not gone more than a third of the way to the top. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... becoming steeper and steeper as we mounted upwards, often casting wistful looks at the beacon rock. Just before we gained the summit, smoke was seen curling up from the copse at a ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... hill gets steeper and steeper, until about fifty yards from the rock it is too precipitous and rugged to ride with safety, so that the rest of the ascent must be made on foot. Tying my mule to a sapling, I scrambled up the path, and soon emerging from the dark forest, stood under the grey ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... us. The grade became steeper, and in places our road had been blasted through solid rock. And then we reached the summit of this ridge, and like a flash the superb panorama of the Hudson burst upon us. At our feet lay the broad bosom of the Tappan Zee, its waters glistening in the sunlight, the spires ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... beehives, with three or four 'ekes' apiece. Up to the time of reaching this little village, which seemed to be called Sagnette, our path had been that which leads to La Brevine, the highest valley in the canton; but now we turned off abruptly up the steeper face on the left hand, and in a very few minutes came upon a dry wilderness of rock and grass, which we at once recognised as 'glaciere country;' and when I told our guide that we must be near the place, he replied by pointing ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... All about them, huge metallic structures, iron girders, inhumanly vast as it seemed to him, interlaced, and the edges of wind-wheels, scarcely moving in the lull, I passed in great shining curves steeper and steeper up into a luminous haze. Wherever the snow-spangled light struck down, beams and girders, and incessant bands running with a halting, indomitable resolution passed upward and downward into the black. And with all that mighty activity, with an omnipresent sense ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... thirty years ago rendered them capable of climbing grades which, in the early days of railroad engineering, were deemed out of the question. The improvements proved a serious stumbling block in the way of the inventors, who found that an ordinary locomotive was able to climb a much steeper grade than was commonly supposed. The first railroads were laid almost level, but it was soon discovered that a grade of a few feet to the mile was no impediment to progress, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... my words." I straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent Than I in truth did feel me. "On," I cried, "For I am stout and fearless." Up the rock Our way we held, more rugged than before, Narrower and steeper far to climb. From talk I ceas'd not, as we journey'd, so to seem Least faint; whereat a voice from the other foss Did issue forth, for utt'rance suited ill. Though on the arch that crosses there I stood, What were the words I knew ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... chose a short cut up the precipice along a natural fissure in the rocks, which, having been transformed with loose stones into a kind of ladder, was formerly, before these peaceful times, the only means of access to the summit. A steeper scramble would be hard to find. I must confess, however, that before taking either of these routes, we halted to enjoy a lunch for which the drive had given us the keenest appetite, and which we ate al fresco ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... his ankle got sprained with all the rest. You see, my chum and me went bobbing, and Pa said he supposed he used to be the greatest bobber, when he was a boy, that ever was. He said he used to slide down a hill that was steeper than a church steeple. We asked him to go with us, and we went to that street that goes down by the depot, and we had two sleds hitched together, and there were mor'n a hundred boys, and Pa wanted to steer, and he got on the front sled, and when we got about half way down the sled slewed, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck

... they soon began the ascent of a winding canyon. After two or three turns, to Darrell's surprise, every sign of human habitation vanished and only the rocky walls were visible, at first low and receding, but gradually growing higher and steeper. On they went, steadily ascending, till a turn suddenly brought the distant mountains into closer proximity, and Mr. Britton, pointing to a lofty, rugged range ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... projecting, close-fitting bonnets, as though needlessly careful of their anything but blonde complexions. Long carts laden with baskets of grapes block the narrow roads, and donkeys, duly muzzled, with baskets slung across their backs, toil up and down the steeper slopes. Half way up the principal hill, backed by a dense wood and furrowed with deep trenches, whence soil has been removed for manuring the vineyards, is the village of Verzenay, overlooking a veritable sea of vines. Rising up in front of the old grey cottages, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly

... pass through Martigny Bourg, and presently, turning aside from the road which had led me to the Grand St. Bernard, we took the way on the right, almost at once feeling the rise of the hill. Steeper and steeper it grew, and warmer and warmer we, though the day was young. Often we were glad of the excuse the view gave us to stop and look back, down into the wide bowl of the Rhone Valley, with a heat-haze of quivering blue, creating an effect of great distance, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... girl caught sight of this last boat she began rapidly to descend the 300 feet of cliff which separated her from the cove below. The path began in easy zig-zags, which, however, got gradually steeper, and the last thirty feet of the descent consisted of a sheer face of rock, in which were fixed two or three iron stanchions with a rope running from one to the other to serve as a handrail; and the climber must depend for other assistance ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... get back to you," she continued, sinking into a chair near the mantel and unfastening her cloak. "The stairs seem to grow steeper every time I come up. Thank you. Just hang it behind the door. And now my hat, please." She lifted the cheap black straw from her head, freeing a fluff of light-golden hair, and with her fingers combed it back from ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... is steeper here," said Berger, halting after he had led his party half a mile through the darkness. "We ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... to sketch at all among mountains; if not, let him merely draw for himself, carefully, the outlines of any low hills accessible to him, where they are tolerably steep, or of the woods which grow on them. The steeper shore of the Thames at Maidenhead, or any of the downs at Brighton or Dover, or, even nearer, about Croydon (as Addington Hills), is easily accessible to a Londoner; and he will soon find not only how ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... than the occupants of the floe imagined, for as with one accord they paused to glance at the ship in response to an exceptionally strident outburst of sound, they beheld the line of lights suddenly incline from the horizontal, saw the slope grow steadily steeper, and then, as the great mass of the vessel's stern hove up, an indistinct blur of deeper blackness on the darkness of the night, the line of lights slid forward and vanished one after another until all had disappeared, while at the same moment a heartrending ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... which they stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They followed a descent much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward. They stopped to taste, for the first time, the waters of the Columbia; and, after a few minutes, followed the road across steep ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... The path led upwards first through the pine-woods, with moss a foot deep on either side, where the wood was damp with the dividing arms of the stream, and the moss on the trees hung in solemn grey clusters, like banners swinging from the branches. And then the path grew steeper and runnels of water dripped down the rocks, all covered with ferns and saxifrage. Down below on one side lay the rushing stream and the valley where the village was, and up above on the other side rose the great mountains, dark with pine-woods ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn

... hill. I pass round a shoulder, wooded and covered to the base with tangled thickets, where the birds sing shrilly. I turn up to the left into a kind of "combe." At the very farthest end of the little valley, at the base of the steeper slopes but now high above the plain, stands an ancient church among yews. On one side of it is a long, low-fronted, irregular manor-house, with a formal garden in front, approached by a little arched gate-house which stands on the road; on the other side of the church, and below it, a no less ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... observe the real and important events that marked or confirmed her political independence. I. The Capitoline hill, one of her seven eminences, [36] is about four hundred yards in length, and two hundred in breadth. A flight of a hundred steps led to the summit of the Tarpeian rock; and far steeper was the ascent before the declivities had been smoothed and the precipices filled by the ruins of fallen edifices. From the earliest ages, the Capitol had been used as a temple in peace, a fortress in war: after the loss of the city, it maintained a siege against the victorious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... hills; and a sheet of sand, "pure as that of the sea-shore," and which slopes in an angle of forty degrees, reclines against it from base to summit. As represented in the lithograph, there projects over the steep sandy slope on each side, as in the "Mountain of the Bell," still steeper barriers of rock; and we are told by Sir Alexander, that though "the mountains here are generally composed of granite or mica, at Reg-Rawan there is sandstone and lime." The situation of the sand is curious, he adds: it is seen from a great ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... dug in my knees and elbows, bunching my body into a compact bundle so as to steady it; but my head projected from the end, and it was a marvel that I did not dash out my brains. There were long, smooth slopes, and then came steeper scarps where the barrel ceased to roll, and sprang into the air like a goat, coming down with a rattle and crash which jarred every bone in my body. How the wind whistled in my ears, and my head turned and turned until I was sick and giddy and nearly senseless! Then, with a swish and a great ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... another wood of firs, and though the days were fairly long, here it was rapidly growing dark under the heavy branches, so that the winding path could only have been followed by those well used to it. As it became steeper and more stony the trees became thinner, and against the eastern sky could be seen, dark and threatening, the turrets of a castle above a steep, smooth-looking, grassy slope, one of the hills, in fact, called from their shape by ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on the grass with the broad shadow of the oak tree lying all about them and stretching farther and farther as the afternoon sun moved down the sky. They had chosen the steeper slope of the hill so that they could look down upon the whole length of the winding stream, the scattered house-tops, and the wide green of those gardenlike stretches that still lay, safe and serene, ripening their grain beside the river. The Beeman's ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... undulating character "which have gradients of 1 in 70 or in 80 distributed over them in short lengths, may be positively better lines, i.e., more susceptible of cheap and expeditious working, than others which have nothing steeper than 1 in 100 or 1 in 120!" They concluded by reporting in favour of the line which exhibited the worst gradients and the sharpest curves, chiefly on the ground that it could be ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... mean time, the day wore away, and the road led into a more and more mountainous country. The hills were longer and steeper, and the tracts of forest more frequent and solitary. The number of passengers increased too, until the coach was pretty heavily loaded; and sometimes all but the female passengers would get out and walk up the hills. ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott

... weather faster than their waste is carried away, the waste comes at last to cover all rocky ledges. On the steeper slopes it is coarser and in more rapid movement than on slopes more gentle, but mountain sides and hills and plains alike come to be mantled with sheets of waste which everywhere is creeping toward the streams. Such unbroken slopes, worn or built to the least inclination at which the waste supplied ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... machinery, the stairways should be placed outside of the building. Such stairways should not be spiral stairways, but should be made in short straight runs with square landings, because in the spiral stairway the portion of the stairs near the center is of so much steeper pitch that it renders them dangerous when the help are crowding out ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... fixed frame. In all machines, bicycles and tricycles, with the usual fixed frame, a position is found for the saddle which is, on the whole, most suitable. For some particular gradient it will be perfect; on a steeper gradient the treadles will be further in advance, but with a steeper gradient the rider should be more over the front of the treadles. To get his weight further to the front, he has to double up in the middle, and assume a position in which he cannot possibly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... from a triangle; the triangle being so constructed as to rest on a horizontal base, the oblique sides bearing the relation to each other of two to one. Stevinus found that his chain of balls just balanced when four balls were on the longer side and two on the shorter and steeper side. The balancing of force thus brought about constituted a stable equilibrium, Stevinus being the first to discriminate between such a condition and the unbalanced condition called unstable equilibrium. By this simple experiment was laid ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... them, and were now climbing the long, winding ascent that led to Staplegrove. As the road grew steeper, Brown Becky ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... material from Flanders and from England, because the Tuscan fleece was too hard and poor. Through these lonely pastures you climb with your guide, through forests of oak and chestnut, by many a winding path, not without difficulty, to the steeper sides of the mountain covered with brushwood, into the silence where there is no voice but the voice of the streams. Here in a cleft, under the very summit of Falterona, Arno rises, gushing endlessly from the rock in seven ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... only go round and round the place, looking with despair at the steep sides of the cream-jug, which seemed far larger and steeper than they had ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various

... Francisco, which is alleged to have a gradient of 34 per cent., with twenty-three persons on board. As 25 per cent. is regarded as the maximum safe gradient for an Abt rack railway, since the cog-wheel is liable to climb out of the rack on any steeper grade, it will be seen that the strain upon the credulity of the hearer of this story is almost as great as that upon the car ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... steeper side which faced Wildtree, and Percy would have scorned to approach the monster from any other quarter. From where they stood the narrow path zigzagged for about one thousand feet onto one of the upper shoulders ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... starker, steeper Hath no other Cross been set, For His Tomb's sake! darker, deeper There hath been ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... was growing steeper, narrower every moment, and after a time Leloo forgot to reply to his forest friends, and just rode on, peering through the shadows to avoid the dangers on all sides. Presently a sound that belonged to neither crag nor canyon fell across his quick, Indian ears. It was a man's voice, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... adventurer, who sat in seeming stolidity near the rear door of the smoking-car, with the black bag between his feet. Even experienced travelers found the lunges of the train trying to their nerves as it shot at speed around "hairpin" bends, or hurled itself to the fall of a steeper descent. To Zeke, who for the first time knew the roar and jolt of such travel, this trip was a fearsome thing. To sit movelessly there, while the car reeled recklessly on the edge of abysses, was a ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... I thought, "she is going over, she is going to turn the turtle with us!" as I felt the incline of the deck getting steeper and steeper beneath my feet, and I turned and clawed my way aft toward the wheel. On reaching it I found there was ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... grew steeper. We stopped, and Father Olever felt for the bank with his whip to be sure we were on the road. Then we heard the sound of rushing, angry waters, mingled with the roar of the wind, and he seemed to hesitate about going on, but we could not very well stay there, and he once ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... did not meet a human being or a habitation for miles, as we wound along the secluded path, now up and now down, but on the whole gradually ascending, till we reached the summit of a hill larger and steeper than the rest. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... would have been imported into the system each season, bringing with it new supplies of plant nutrients. Without importing that bushel or so of wheat seed on each acre each year, the curves would have been steeper ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove's coach containing the four ladies, and Charles's curricle, in which he drove Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme, and entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself, that it was very evident they would not have more than time for looking about them, before the light and warmth of the day ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... above, or on either side, I could not see. It was solitude of the most awful kind. There was nothing but the storm, which had already wet me through, and the bleak gray waste of rocks. It grew sleeper and steeper; I could barely trace the path by the rocks which were worn, and the snow threatened soon to cover these. Added to this, although the walking and fresh mountain air had removed my illness, I was still weak from the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... the rest at the summit! We stopped for breath while the locomotive puffed and panted as if it would burst its brass-bound lungs; then we began to climb again, and to wheeze, fret and fume; and it seemed as if we actually went down on hands and knees and crept a bit when the grade became steeper than usual. Only think of it a moment—an incline of two hundred and twenty feet to the mile in some places, and the track climbing over itself at frequent intervals. Far below us we saw the terraces ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... the horse, the load clanked behind as the hill descended steeper. The road curved down-hill before him, under banks and hedges, seen only for a ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... freshened up, and to his disappointment he found that the boat was no longer gaining on the dhow. Still he kept firing the gun, hoping that a fortunate shot might bring down her yard. Some way ahead, on the south side of the river, he observed a small bay, where the bank was steeper than in any other place and free of trees; the dhow appeared to be edging away towards it. "I must knock away that fellow's yard. I'd give a hundred guineas to see it come down," he exclaimed, as he ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... Tom, but there is no saying; some of those steps may be a good deal steeper than they look. However, I have no doubt one could find places where it would be possible to climb if there were any use in doing so, but as we should only find ourselves up on bad lands we ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... argus pheasant and wah-wah next morning sounded familiar. The north side of the Bukit, or mountain (the name applied by the natives to the ridge), is steeper and rougher than the south side, but the descent presents no difficulties. We followed the small river Brani, most of the time wading it. The distance to the junction of the Brani with the Kasao ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... we came in sight of the luminous mountain, which cheered me considerably. It was a curious thing, indeed. A straight-sided cone of light it was, rather steeper than the average volcano. Its point was sharp, its sides smooth as if cut with a mammoth plane. And it shone with a pure white light, with a steady and unchanging milky radiance. It rose out of the black and dull yellow of the ice wilderness like a ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... a gentle rise in the ground. It grew steeper. The horse slacked in its galloping. The incline grew steeper still. The horse slowed to a walk, which it pursued with a rhythmically tossing head. It was only less uncomfortable than a gallop. The dim outline of trees ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... began to climb among loose stones, finally finding solid rock beneath our feet, the path skirting the edge of what seemed to be a deep gash in the earth, and winding about wherever it could find passage. The way grew steeper and steeper, and more difficult to traverse, although, as we thus rose above the tree limit, the shadows became less dense, and we were able dimly to perceive objects a yard or two in advance. I strained my eyes over Barbeau's shoulder, but could gain no glimpse of De Artigny. Then we ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish

... cry, he sprang from the carriage to retrace his way; but he only climbed up a ladder that grew every instant steeper; and all at once he was plunged downwards after his horse and carriage into the stream. He could swim, and as he swept down this thought came to him—that he might be able to get the shore, as he heard ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was overwhelmed with anxiety; for his quick wits had told him that Benoni, infuriated by the check he had received, would lose no time in remounting the stairs, saddling a horse, and following them. If only they could reach the steeper part of the ravine they could bid defiance to any horse that ever galloped, for Benoni must inevitably come to grief if he attempted a pursuit into the desolate Serra. He saw that Hedwig had not apprehended ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... mode of passage there may be, and looking for some road up those slacker western parts: has found no road, but a kind of sheep track, which he thinks will do. Mollendorf, with all energy, surmounting many difficulties, pushes up accordingly; gets into his sheep-track; finds, in the steeper part of this track, that horses cannot draw his cannon; sets his men to do it; pulls and pushes, he and they, with a right will;—sees over his left shoulder, at a certain point, the ranked Austrians waiting for him ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... gorge, along the bottom of which flows a tributary brook that finds its way a little lower down into the mill-stream. This deep gully in character a good deal resembles Redman's Glen, into which it passes, being fully as deep, and wooded to the summit at both sides, but much steeper and narrower, and therefore ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... was of such a size that a single man could just fit through by stooping. For fifty yards it ran almost straight into the rock, and then it ascended at an angle of forty-five. Presently this incline became even steeper, and we found ourselves climbing upon hands and knees among loose rubble which slid from beneath us. Suddenly an exclamation broke ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... fall of the land, always with its limited outlook, became tedious, and the labyrinthine hillocks with their intricate windings seemed to enclose them inextricably. But on reaching the summit of a longer steeper incline that had perceptibly slowed the galloping horses, he saw spread out before him a level tract of country stretching far into the distance, with a faint blue smudge beyond of the chain of hills that Said told him ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... the shore. After an hour's walking, they found that the character of the forest was changing: the ground rose rapidly, the thick, tangled undergrowth disappeared, and they were able to walk briskly forward, under the shade of the large trees. The hill became steeper and steeper, as they advanced; and Will knew that they were ascending the hill that they had seen from the ship, when she ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... are to be occupied for a considerable length of time will usually have their steeper slopes revetted, and be arranged with scarp and counterscarp, galleries, traverses, blindages, &c. Such works hold an intermediary rank between ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... of 2,200 yards from the breakers, Captain Fitzroy found no bottom with a line of 7,200 feet in length; hence the submarine slope of this coral formation is steeper than that of any volcanic cone. Off the mouth of the lagoon, and likewise off the northern point of the atoll, where the currents act violently, the inclination, owing to the accumulation of sediment, is less. As the arming of the lead from all the greater depths showed a smooth sandy ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin

... out of doubled paper according to the solid lines of Fig. 128. The three sets of planes are bent back in the manner already described, but the front planes are given a somewhat steeper angle than the others. This type is very ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... dragged out again, and floated down to be used in the repair of the dam. The other passage, especially adapted to quick exit in case of danger from the way of the roof, was about as spacious as the first, but much shorter and steeper. It was crooked, moreover,—for a reason doubtless adequate to the architects, but obscure to mere human observers. The exits of both passages were always in open water, no matter how fierce the frosts of the ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... vats or cisterns of stone were in pairs, the bottom of the upper one of each couple being about on a level with the top of the lower, so as to allow the liquid contents of the former to run freely into the latter. The upper is the fermenting vat, or "steeper," and is about twenty feet square by three deep. The lower is the "beater," and is of much the same dimensions with the upper, except that its length is five or six feet greater. As the twigs and leaves of the plants ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... that a weight hung upon a string ought to take longer to move through a long arc than through a short one, if impelled by the same force; but the subject appears in a different light upon more mature reflection, for it is then seen, that the weight which performs the longer journey starts down the steeper declivity, and therefore acquires a greater velocity. A ball does not run down a steep hill and a more gently inclined one at the same pace; neither, therefore, will the suspended weight move down the steeper curve, and the less raised one, at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various

... the current, and presently the steeper shores were left behind and the banks fell away in long upward sloping fields, with farm-houses and with stacks of harvest dimly visible in the generous expanses. By and by they passed a fisherman drawing his nets, and bending from his boat, there near Albany, N. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... they walked easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grew steeper, he fastened the rope to the dog's harness and advanced a little at a time, dragging Brave up after him. Soon he was forced to snub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet. Toward noon—at ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper

... it ran in a dark gulf thousands of feet below. The shape of this extraordinary turn I will describe in a moment. Let me say, meanwhile, that there was no precipice or rock between me and the river, only a down, down, down through other trees and pastures, not too steep for a man to walk, but steeper than our steep downs and fells in England, where a man hesitates and picks his way. It was so much of a descent, and so long, that one looked above the tree-tops. It was a place where no one would care ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... towards Morecambe, I called my sheep and gathered them from all the fells, near and far; and a fairer flock of sheep ye shall never see 'twixt Scotland and Trent, as the song says, though I trow ye may, an ye look carefully, find steeper hills than ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... arms downward over the edge, he pulled first Desiree, then myself, up after him. The whole performance had occupied a scant two seconds, and, waiting only to pick up the three spears he had thrown up the sloping surface of the rock to another yet higher and steeper. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... sycamores. Thus we have a better view of the country; and, approaching closely to the banks, can from our seats at any time pluck blue lupine by the armful. It thrives mightily on these gravelled shores, and so do the bignonia vine, the poison ivy, and the Virginia creeper. The hills are steeper, now, especially in Indiana; many of them, although stony, worked-out, and almost worthless, are still, in patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... goes from a part of the heath down to the rivulet. As a due mixture of pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used occasionally to disport ourselves, as the lawyers call it, at this sand-hill. Our diversion was this: we used to go to the top of the hill, which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used to draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself down with his arms by his sides; and then the others, one at head, and the other at feet, sent him rolling down the hill like a barrel ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... sunbeams grew hotter, the mountain breeze became a sultry breath, the ground steeper and more rugged, and their accumulating floral treasures more and more cumbrous. Lady Mabel seemed to take delight in adding every moment to the load L'Isle carried. "You must know," she said, "that the pupil is ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen

... at this, but here I overruled him. We took our revolvers again, left the inn, and struck straight up the road. For nearly a mile we mounted, the way becoming steeper with every step. Then there was a sudden turn off ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

... showed him the very point where the pathway seemed to end. It looked so, but Two Arrows knew that you cannot cut off the end of a buffalo path in that way, and he pushed on, every moment finding the way steeper and more winding. He could not make any "short cuts" over such ground as that, and every Indian boy knows a fact which the white engineers of the Pacific Railway found out for themselves—that is, that a herd of buffaloes ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard

... first four miles the path gently ascended through an open country, then became abruptly much steeper, and led me deeper and deeper among thickets and endless woods. By the time my watch informed me that I must have nearly walked my appointed distance, the view was bounded on all sides and the sky was ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... Nurse Smith had come in from their usual walk, and were toiling slowly up from the hall to the nursery. The stairs got steeper at the last flight, and Nurse went more slowly still, and panted a good deal, for she was stouter than she need have been, though Ruth would never have dreamed of saying so. Ruth was in front, and she had nearly reached the top when ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton

... the time of reaching this little village, which seemed to be called Sagnette, our path had been that which leads to La Brevine, the highest valley in the canton; but now we turned off abruptly up the steeper face on the left hand, and in a very few minutes came upon a dry wilderness of rock and grass, which we at once recognised as 'glaciere country;' and when I told our guide that we must be near the place, he ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne

... or a pack-trail is used as a fire line, when possible; but when a fire line must be cleared especially, it is laid from bare spot to bare spot and along the tops of ridges. A fire travels very fast up-hill, but works slowly in getting across. Scouts should remember this important fact: The steeper the hill, the swifter the fire ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... respect of distance with the increase of altitude and rarity of air, and there is no limit to the speed through space if only our strength remains. And with oxygen for pilot and passengers and a steeper pitch[11] for the Propeller we may then circle the Earth ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber

... hour's walking, they found that the character of the forest was changing: the ground rose rapidly, the thick, tangled undergrowth disappeared, and they were able to walk briskly forward, under the shade of the large trees. The hill became steeper and steeper, as they advanced; and Will knew that they were ascending the hill that they had seen from the ship, when she was ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... completed the journey on foot. Some adventurous spirits, however, chose a short cut up the precipice along a natural fissure in the rocks, which, having been transformed with loose stones into a kind of ladder, was formerly, before these peaceful times, the only means of access to the summit. A steeper scramble would be hard to find. I must confess, however, that before taking either of these routes, we halted to enjoy a lunch for which the drive had given us the keenest appetite, and which we ate al fresco in the shadow of a cliff, surrounded by a dozen curious natives. Then, the ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... the total area thus surface fitted in China must be eight or tenfold this amount. Such enormous field erosion as is tolerated at the present time in our southern and south Atlantic states is permitted nowhere in the Far East, so far as we observed, not even where the topography is much steeper. The tea orchards as we saw them on the steeper slopes, not level-terraced, are often heavily mulched with straw which makes erosion, even by heavy rains impossible, while the treatment retains ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King

... the summit the brow came out somewhat, and even the rude steps in the turf were not much assistance in climbing this almost perpendicular wall of sward. Above the brow the ascent became easy; these brows raised steeper than the general slope are often found on the higher hills. A circular entrenchment encloses the summit, but the rampart has much sunk, and is in places levelled. Here it was pleasant to look back upon ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... against the sky. Some way up, a long grey village lay like a seam or a rag of vapour on a wooded hillside; and when the wind was favourable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at the same time widened out on either hand; and from an eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and in their place rose the more hateful sounds of anguish. Now as I stood thus, my eyes smarting with burnt powder, my ears yet ringing with the din, I grew aware how the deck sloped in strange fashion; at first I paid small heed, yet with every minute this slope became steeper, and with this certainty came the knowledge that we were sinking and, moreover (judging by the angle of the ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... has here acted to drive the people away, as has been the case further south. It is a perpetual succession of ridge and valley, with a running stream or oozing bog, where ridge is separated from ridge: the ridges become steeper and narrower ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... and began desperately to mount. There was not a breath of wind; the sunlight shone down on the bare hillside; the loud chirp of the grasshoppers was the only sound. It was a steep ascent and grew steeper as the valley sank away. He turned for a moment, and looked down towards the stream which now seemed to wind remote between the alders; above the valley there were small dark figures moving in ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... rougher and steeper as we ascended, and the grass and trees gave place to low, scrubby bushes. We were half an hour or more in the cloud-belt, where the singing skylarks did not follow us. The clouds proved to be as loose of texture and as innocent as any summer fog that loiters in our valleys; ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... week they had passed the Little Missouri, the height of land that divides the waters of the Missouri from those of the Saskatchewan, and the great Yellowstone River, first found by wandering French trappers and now for the first time explored. The current of the Missouri grew swifter, the banks steeper, and the use of the tow-line more frequent. The voyage was no more the holiday trip that it had been all the way from St. Louis. Hunters were kept on the banks to forage for game, and once four of them came so suddenly on an open-mouthed, ferocious old bear that ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... below the surface. The winds and rains have carried away the softer and lighter soil, and allowed the heavier and harder rocks to remain. This process goes on all the time. In the depths of the Canyon, however, except on the steeper slopes, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... walked through sleep and we have slept while we walked. The rise is steeper. Our oil lamp is still burning and our shadows fall behind us into the blackness. There will be light for ...
— Out of the Earth • George Edrich

... ascent became steeper and steeper, till at length it was all our horses could do to pull us up. The treatment of horses in Naples is a thing that takes away much from the pleasure and comfort of such travelers as have the least feeling for animals. The people seem absolutely to have no consideration for ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... ways reminds one of Kobe, but the hills are steeper and the most striking feature of the town is the massive stone walls that support the streets winding around the hills, and the elaborate paving of many of these side-hill streets with great blocks of granite. The rainfall is heavy at Nagasaki, so we find here a good system of gutters ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... of the land. The road extending to the right, under those mulberry trees, is the one to take. Alittle distance along it, at a well with a cistern, anarrow road strikes off to the left and ascends the mountain by a steeper and shorter way. The mountain offers a splendid field for botanists. To see the sun rise from the top, travellers generally start at 11 P.M., and await the appearance of the glorious luminary in the chapel of Ste. Croix, on the summit. ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... country of crumbling mesas and painted cliffs, of hillsides where greasewood and giant cactus struggled from the parched earth. This they traversed until they came to plateaus, terminating in foothills, crevassed by gorges deep and narrow. The canyons grew steeper, rock ridges more frequent. Gradually the going became ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine

... Spaniards fired the town, we mustered our array to find that there were left to us in all some four hundred fighting men, together with a crowd of nearly two thousand women and many children. Now although this teocalli was not quite so lofty as that of the great temple of Mexico, its sides were steeper and everywhere faced with dressed stone, and the open space upon its summit was almost as great, measuring indeed more than a hundred paces every way. This area was paved with blocks of marble, and in its centre ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... when we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever it rained hard. After this was a short and steeper hill, and then another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and sunny after the green glooms ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland

... upper bar, which was luckily rotten, and clearing the lower ones in her stride. The blow, and the splintered wood flying about her ears, appeared to frighten her afresh, and she tore up the opposite ascent, which was longer and steeper than the last, like a mad creature. I was glad to perceive, however, that the pace at which she had come, and the distance (which must have been several miles), were beginning to tell—her glossy coat ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... at Galveston. In the jerky, scrawling fashion of a child writing his first copy on a slate, I saw the pen gradually draw what looked like a rough profile map—a long declining plateau, a steep and then a steeper slope, a jagged ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... framed by the windows, the dairy pastures and meadows were being replaced by small vineyards and orchards; the canyon wall, on the northern side, became higher and steeper, shutting out the mountains in the distance and showing only a fringe of trees on the sharp rim; while against the gray and yellow and brown and green of the chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the silvery softness of the olive trees that border ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... way was still redolent of the floral relics of summer, daphne and myrtle-blossom, sheltered in the little hollows and ravines. At last, amid rocks here and there piercing the soil, as those descents became steeper, and the main line of the Apennines, [202] now visible, gave a higher accent to the scene, he espied over the plateau, almost like one of those broken hills, cutting the horizon towards the sea, the old brown ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... rules, and promised to obey them, and then walked on. They tried to walk slowly and steadily, listening to Jonas's story. They turned off, after a time, into a narrower and steeper path, and ascended, stepping from stone to stone The trees and bushes hung over their heads, making ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott

... the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down in the midst of a cloud of snow upon a snow-slope even steeper than the one above. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible, but without a bone broken in his body; and then at last came to gentler slopes, and at last rolled out and lay still, buried amidst a softening heap of the white masses that had accompanied ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... The path became steeper and more rugged every moment; and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every moment. Another hour passed, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... taken was farther to the right, but as he was in a hurry to get down as quickly as possible he followed a course, which was much steeper, with Harry and the Professor close on ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... hour Blake followed the windings of a ravine that grew closer and steeper as it burrowed into the hills. Old game trails are as good as turnpikes in the eyes of the plainsman. It was when the ravine began to split into branches that the problem might have puzzled them, had not the white fleece lain two inches deep on the level when "Lo" made his dash to escape. Now ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... the united expeditions kept on their way up the mountain side, which sloped gradually at its base, the steeper portion still being ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... other side of the valley. It was a steep climb, and Lucia was tired when she reached the top. She sat down for a while to rest before going on the remainder of the way. The next path that she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill to a tiny plateau above. From it one could look down on Cellino across the valley. When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade of a big rock ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent

... Steeper and steeper grew the hill, Madder, merrier, chillier still The western wind blew down, and played The wildest tricks with the little maid, As, tying her bonnet under her chin, She tied a young man's ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... simple, except that the question of side thrust should be considered also as a factor. The thrust against the side of a tunnel in dry sand having a flat angle of repose will necessarily be greater than in very moist sand or clay, which stands at a much steeper angle, and, for the same reason, the arch thrust is greater in dryer sand and therefore the load on a tunnel structure should not be as great, the material being compact and excluding cohesion as a factor. This ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem

... a turn in the lane farther down, so that Grey for a minute lost sight of his comrade. He looked carefully ahead as he rounded it, to see if the end of the descent were near. The hill only grew steeper, but the end was a good ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe

... hideous heads might be seen, colossal or squat, with enormous bellies, or immoderately flattened, opening their jaws, extending their arms, and holding forks, chains or javelins in their hands; while the blue of the sea stretched away behind the streets which were rendered still steeper by ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... masses and moving shapes and lengthy strips of impenetrable darkness, vast ungainly Titans of shadow. All about them, huge metallic structures, iron girders, inhumanly vast as it seemed to him, interlaced, and the edges of wind-wheels, scarcely moving in the lull, I passed in great shining curves steeper and steeper up into a luminous haze. Wherever the snow-spangled light struck down, beams and girders, and incessant bands running with a halting, indomitable resolution passed upward and downward into the black. And with all that mighty activity, with an omnipresent ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... of another quarter of an hour they were approaching a steeper place than usual, but their pursuers were very near now, and the gentlemen owned to themselves that though they might shoot down a few of their enemies, the Malays would certainly conquer; when Ned, who had been staring about him wildly for some minutes, suddenly uttered ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... to the bundle. "Alas! Honoured Sir, what is to be done? The furoshiki is far beyond one's poor strength. Though the distance is not great—only to Go Bancho[u]—yet it could as well be a pilgrimage to Ise. Surely the hills of Hakone and Iga are no steeper than this Kudanzaka." She sighed; and apart from a weariness of voice there was a suspicion of moisture in her eyes. The more Rokuzo looked at her, the greater waxed his pity and benevolence. Barely ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... go down on the other side,' urged Mary. 'It is a little steeper on the Cumberland side, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... must keep her gaze fixed ahead. Although at the speed the mare was now running it is quite doubtful if the girl could have retarded her mount in any degree. They came to the forks that Mrs. Candace had told her of, and Betty managed to turn the frightened mare up the steeper road to the left. There were few landmarks that the snow had not hidden; but the way to Dr. Pevy's was so direct that ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson

... placed his batteries, and his infantry lay in dense thickets and belts of woods before the hill and on each side of it. The position was a powerful, though not an impregnable one; for batteries might readily be pushed up the slope, and our infantry had often ascended steeper eminences. But an opposing army scattered about the meadow lands below, would find its several components exposed to shot and shell, thrown from points three or ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... pleasure, and indeed had got so far on in my meal as to care little whether they did, when automatically they appeared. Fortunately they needed but a short rest, and as the descent on the Noto side was much steeper than on the other, half an hour's walk brought us to the level of ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... extremes were many variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his load rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... through. Thus it drops farther and farther into the cut. A crosscut-saw may be thought of as a series of knife points, arranged in two parallel rows. Ordinarily the angle of the "face" of each tooth with the line of the teeth is about 65 deg., and slightly steeper than the back of the tooth. The angle of the cutting edge of each tooth may be filed more acute when the saw is to be used ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... the next minute or more the three parties all went on, Mr. Evans and Bernard going up slowly towards the level place; the carriage coming rapidly down the road, being drawn by horses used to steeper hills than that; and nurse behind at the top of ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... but we chose the rocky ridges and moraines, trying to avoid the crevassed glaciers, and all went well until the twentieth, when just as we were reaching the steeper gradients a strong wind sprang up, blowing straight down ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... and steeper stairways than even the abbe's. I was careless about the second and the third floors; and it was not till we had mounted a half dozen crazy pair of stairs, that I began to scrutinize narrowly the doors, and sometimes to ask if this ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... lashed to the back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were much steeper than the roof of a house—as perpendicular as can be imagined—but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority. But the cruelty of the Chinese ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... became steeper, the fir-woods below were like a green sea, and white clouds above sailed along over the blue sky. The wildness of the region was, as it were, tamed by its uniformity and the simplicity of its elements. Nature, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the ages long ago the hill was much steeper than it now is, and there were no trees or undergrowth. On that side it was impregnable. The river, however, in receding, silted up much earth and boulders at the bend, and has made ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... discovered a deep bay, called Balloon Bight, where the rounded snow-covered slopes undoubtedly were land and not, as heretofore, floating ice. Farther east, as they sailed, shallow soundings and gentle snow slopes gave place to steeper and more broken ridges, until at last small black patches in the snow gave undoubted evidence of rock; and an undiscovered land, now known as King Edward VII.'s Land, rose to a height of several thousand feet. The presence of thick pack ahead, and the advance of the season, led Scott to return ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-arched galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their light behind a stair—for it blows fresh up ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouch and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... a Thomas car which climbed Fillmore Street, San Francisco, which is alleged to have a gradient of 34 per cent., with twenty-three persons on board. As 25 per cent. is regarded as the maximum safe gradient for an Abt rack railway, since the cog-wheel is liable to climb out of the rack on any steeper grade, it will be seen that the strain upon the credulity of the hearer of this story is almost as great as that upon the car must ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... he rose above the floor of Zoraida's grassy valley the steeper did his trail become, flanked with cliffs, at times looking too sheer ahead for a horse. But always the path twisted between the boulders and found the possible way up. So he came into a splendid solitude, a region of naked rocks, of a few windblown trees, of little open level ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... deep broad shadow over the flat top of it, and shade was what one appreciated most on that hot day. All the ground in Gorlay sloped, for Gorlay was built on two hills, while the gardens of all the houses on either side sloped either up or down another and a steeper hill. Dr. Trenire's house was on the left-hand side of the street, as one walked up it, and it was the steep slope up of the garden behind it that made ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... our work and it progressed much faster, although as the ridge rose it became steeper and steeper and even more rugged and chaotic, and the difficulty and danger of its passage increased. Our situation up here was decidedly pleasanter than below. We had indeed exchanged our large tent for a small one in which we could sit upright but could not stand, and so narrow that ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... As it grew steeper, the snow became knee-deep, and the men helped the little horse, which often coughed, tossing its thick head up and down, as if working a churn. Once, when the poor creature met with a very heavy fall, Marx pointed to the green woollen scarf on the animal's neck, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... with those two brothers, and the son, as they passed the outmost tents of Israel, and turned, while yet the dew lay round about the camp, towards the slopes of Mount Hor; talking together for the last time, as step by step they felt the steeper rising of the rocks, and hour after hour, beneath the ascending sun, the horizon grew broader as they climbed, and all the folded hills of Idumea, one by one subdued, showed, amidst their hollows in the haze of noon, the windings ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin

... The road here was not so broad, and smooth, and easy as the one he had just left, but was narrow and rough. At length he reached the skirts of the mountains, and the road now began to ascend. After a while it grew somewhat steeper, and decidedly rougher. And now Bob found, to his immense relief, that the pace was at last beginning to tell upon the tough sinews of the fiery animal which he bestrode. The ass could not keep up such a pace while ascending the mountain. Gradually his speed slackened, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... instability of the material as proved to exist from other considerations. Operating at the rate of 1,500 c.c. per hour, as recommended by Dr Will, the evolution of nitrogen is represented by a straight line, steeper, however, than that of service gun-cotton. The rate of passage of CO{2} was therefore chosen at 1,000 c.c. per hour, or two-thirds of the rate of Dr Will, and this rate, besides possessing the advantage claimed of rendering diagnostic the manner of nitrogen evolution in Z gun-cotton, has in other ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable height. The wood suddenly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... hauled our canoes and camp-stuff over the terrible road that leads to the lake, with much creaking and groaning of wagons, and complaining of men, who declared that the mud grew deeper and the hills steeper every year, and vowed their customary vow never to come that way again. At last our tents were pitched in a green copse of balsam trees, close beside the water. The delightful sense of peace and freedom ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke

... than the first charge, for not only was the slope steeper, but the face of the hill was covered with low, tough scrub, the tangled roots of which caught the men's feet as they ran, and brought many down. The result was that the line was no longer level. Some got far ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... hot afternoon. He felt a man of substance as he emerged in the blinding sunshine, but even by the foot of the down the sun was insisting again that his skull was too small for his brains. The hill had gone steeper, the chalky road blazed like a magnesium light, and his front wheel began an apparently incurable squeaking. He felt as a man from Mars would feel if he were suddenly transferred to this planet, about three times as heavy as he was wont to feel. The two ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... columns of The Gazette. Certain of his articles brought him compliments from the best people for their wit, penetration and good humor. He had entered upon a career of great promise when the current of his life quickened like that of a river come to a steeper grade. It began with a letter from Margaret Hare, dated July 14, ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... residency after walking up the hill. The exercise made him puff. In the old days he used to run up steeper gradients, now it sometimes distressed him ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... a delicate child, and her frolic did not last long. As the ascent became steeper, her breath grew shorter, and she toiled on in a resolute uncomplaining manner after his long, vigorous steps, till he looked round, and seeing her panting far behind, turned to help her, lead her, and carry her, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rattling stones, and click of hoofs, and scrape of pack. On one side towered the iron-stained cliff, not smooth or glistening at close range, but of dull, dead, rotting rock. The trail changed to a zigzag along a seamed and cracked buttress where ledges leaned outward waiting to fall. Then a steeper incline, where the burros crept upward warily, led to a level ledge heading ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... one diameter and seven eighths to two diameters and a half. The portico of the Pantheon is one of the best specimens of the Corinthian order. The entablature of the temple of Jupiter Stator, like that of the Pantheon, is two diameters and one half. The pediments are steeper than those made by the Greeks, varying in inclination from eighteen to twenty-five degrees. The mouldings used in Roman architectural works are the same as the Grecian in general form, although they differ from them in contour. They are ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... On the steeper ground my horse slackened a bit, but I urged him forward till we were deep in the wood, with a choice of four or five paths, any of which led, heaven knows where. Here I let him stand and get his wind, while ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... The ridges were steeper now, and came in more swift succession, as the horsemen plodded wearily along the southern slope of the Rand. Piggie was breathing heavily; and Weldon, clinging to his saddle with the purely mechanical grip of the exhausted ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... off with your sticks. Try to imagine that the Skis are only a moving staircase and that all you have to do is to stand upright on them and let them do the rest. If your slope is only 10 deg. and there is nothing steeper below you, the Skis won't do much. Indeed in deep snow they may refuse to move at all, in which case try pushing yourself along with your sticks. The great thing is always to want to run faster than ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse

... at last, I ran forward as both boats went over the side and the men were tumbling into them. As I ran I noticed the steeper incline to the deck, and that the forecastle was submerged; but I was not prepared for the sudden launch of the ship into the sea, nor the sickening crash of riven timbers as her after body was torn away, and which drowned my shouts ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... the camera set halfway up a gentle slope commanding a steeper hill beyond, down which the boys would send the cattle in a slow, uneasy march before the storm, Luck focused his telephoto lens upon bleakness enough to satisfy even his voracious appetite for realism. Bill ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... by the time we left our horses and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. Except that, looming out of the cloud just in front of ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... then, hold or conserve the water, first, by leaving the steeper slopes covered with vegetation; second, by keeping the soil loose; and, third, by building reservoirs to hold the floods. We can make use of the conserved water by carrying it in pipes or ditches to those regions where it is needed. We can get rid of too much ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks

... Steeper, darker!—lo! I felt From my feet the pathway melt. Swallowed by the black despair, And the hungry jaws ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... you approach too near the Blacktail feeding near the great hotel, and so alarm them—for they are truly wild—they make not for the open run as do the Antelope and the Hares, not for the thickest bottomland as do the Whitetail and the Lynxes, but for the steeper hillsides. They know right well where their safety lies, and on that near and bushy bank, laying aside all alarm, they group and pose in artless grace that tempts one to a lavish use of films and gives the chance for that crowning ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... into and out of Birmingham in the olden days were little better than deep ruts, which were more or less levelled about the middle of last century. The making of the great Holyhead coachroad also graded some of the steeper spots as well as the lowest, but the modern town improvements must be credited as the greatest factor in the levelling of the roads, none of which, however, were "macadamised," until 1818. The total length of highways "taken ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... Daylight mounted and rode on away from the ranch and into the wilder canons and steeper steeps beyond. Nothing could satisfy his holiday spirit now but the ascent of Sonoma Mountain. And here on the crest, three hours afterward, he emerged, tired and sweaty, garments torn and face and hands scratched, but with ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... walked down the drive. Hyacinth saw him fumble with the fastening of the rickety gate, and at last open it slowly and with difficulty. The car reached a gap in the loose stone wall, a familiar gap, for across it lay a short cut up a steeper part of the hill, which the road went round. Hyacinth jumped down and ran up the path. In another minute the greeting of father and son was accomplished, and the two were walking hand-in-hand towards the house. Hyacinth noticed that his father trembled, and that ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... blowing. He wondered as he went along how the path was so much steeper and rougher than it used to be, not aware how ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston

... filtration collects at the lowest part of the plain, and of the water of the sea, which enters by canals, or martellieres, when the flood-tide is favoured by the winds. The situation of these new salt-works is less advantageous than that of the lagoon. The waters which fall into the latter pass over steeper slopes, washing a ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... down the valley until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer

... order to reach the next plateau. Another couple of hours' march brought us to the gate's of Begemder. In front of us arose the plateau of Dahonte, only about a couple of miles distant, but we had to ascend a more abrupt precipice than the one we had just passed and climb again a steeper ascent before we could reach it. The valley of the Jiddah, a tributary of the Nile, was between us and our halting-place—a stiff march, as the silver thread we viewed from the narrow passage between ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They followed a descent much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward. They stopped to taste, for the first time, the ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... the United Kingdom a worse-planned entrance gate than Robert Trinder's. You come at it obliquely on the side of a crooked hill, squeeze between its low pillars with an inch to spare each side, and immediately drop down a yet steeper hill, which lasts for the best part of a quarter of a mile. The jingle went swooping and jerking down into the unknown, till, through the portholes on either side of the driver's legs, I saw Lisangle House. It had looked decidedly better ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... taking advantage of every stone and boulder, and although exposed to a terrific fire, gradually pushing on until they reached a stone wall which ran round the face of the hill. Beyond this the ground was much rougher and very much steeper—so steep, indeed, that it was almost impossible to climb it. The fire of the enemy was now terrific. The troops were some three hundred yards from the crest, and it was certain death to show a head above the wall. An officer placed ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty

... to head for the inlet, but that would have brought the little white seas, which were rapidly getting steeper, dangerously on her beam, and the thrust of one beneath her side probably would have been sufficient to turn the diminutive craft over. He accordingly pulled straight for the beach before the wind, and the perspiration dripped ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss

... a place level enough for a lodgment. Before you ascend the hill you see at intervals an acre or two of wood, then an open space with a few huts on it; then wood again, and then an open space, and so on, till the intervening of the western hills, higher and steeper still, and crowded with trees of the loveliest ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... up and have tea with you in your fairy dell, George?" he demanded suddenly. "What do you think of this fellow, Mrs Macalister, finding a veritable little heaven below, and keeping it to himself all this time? There's an easy ascent by the head of the glen for those who object to the steeper climb; there's shade, and water and everything that the most exacting person could want for an ideal picnic. To be in the country on a day like this, and not to go for a picnic seems to me a deliberate waste of opportunity, What about this afternoon, eh? That will suit ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Twitter shouted in vain. Welland's was a joyous spirit, apt to run away with him. He placed his legs over the handles for security, and allowed the machine to run. It gathered speed as it went, for the hill became steeper, insomuch that the rider once or twice felt the hind-wheel rise, and had to lean well back to keep it on the ground. The pace began to exceed even Welland's idea of pleasure, but now it was too late to use the brake, for well did he know that on such a slope and going at ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne

... upon us. The grade became steeper, and in places our road had been blasted through solid rock. And then we reached the summit of this ridge, and like a flash the superb panorama of the Hudson burst upon us. At our feet lay the broad bosom of the Tappan Zee, ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... becoming rougher and steeper, and Billy's progress slower and slower, and the summit of the Peak drawing nearer and nearer. Miss Keane and Tom had got ahead of the waggon, and were the first to reach the top. At last Billy, with ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan

... with stones! Ay, well you may scream, Victorine. We went down on our knees, Maitre Hebert and I, to pray they might let us give them burial, but they mocked us, and bade Hassan say they never bury dogs. I went round the steeper path, for all the load at my back, or I should have been flying at the throats of the cowardly vultures, and then what would ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wilder and steeper; the vegetation became more scant. The heat of the sun was tempered by the cold of the upper air. It was easier to climb, and the boy felt that his muscles were made ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... instead of two, it fairly flew, cleaving the current while the dim shores and water grew lighter. The mountain divide ahead was gradually drawing closer, and all the country along the stream seemed steeper. One by one ranches were passed which in the midst of cleared forest and jungle looked more prosperous than the ranches of the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... swore fluently, but Royson spoke no word until they were free of the boulders, and had gained a passable incline which led to the steeper path up the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... thousands, the grass sprang up by magic, all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper mountain-sides. Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time, so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a considerable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... the footpath, the spur of the hill yonder looks larger and steeper and more ponderous in the mist; it seems higher than this, a not unusual appearance when the difference in altitude is not very great. The level we are on seems to us beneath the level in the distance, as the future is higher ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... day after our arrival, J——- and I went to visit the Enchanted Castle; and we were so venturesome as to turn aside from the road, and ascend the declivity towards its walls, which indeed we hoped to surmount. It proved a very difficult undertaking, the site of the fortress being much higher and steeper than we had supposed; but we did clamber upon what we took for the most elevated portion, when lo! we found that we had only taken one of the outworks, and that there was a gorge of the hill betwixt us and the main walls; ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is found to be steeper, and more difficult than was expected. What from below seemed a gentle acclivity turns out to be almost a precipice—a very common illusion with those unaccustomed to mountain climbing. But they are not daunted—every ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... cleared a path, we emerged into a fine lofty forest pretty clear of undergrowth, and in which we could walk freely. We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope of even rock, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Below the steeper ridge of the tor a patch of land had been cleared for tillage: and here a yoke of oxen was moving leisurely before a plough ('twas their tinkling bells I had heard, just now); while behind followed the wildest shape—by the ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... was near. The climb became steeper and rougher. The fallen stones occasioned more frequent obstacles. On the right the Gothic arches, the remains of a chapel, stood out against the blue sky. On the left was a strip of wall with a ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... water of the ocean should be suddenly drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma;[121] while, ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... one side the azure sea lapped across the horizon into the azure sky; on the other side the sea lifted itself into great breakers of emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a white coral beach. Beyond the beach, green plantations of sugar-cane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became jagged volcanic crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most beautiful dream. The Snark turned and headed directly in toward the emerald surf, till it lifted and thundered on either hand; and ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London









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