"Altitude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his catalogue of 1,000 stars he prepared and used accurate tables of refraction deduced from his own observations. Thus he eliminated (so far as naked eye observations required) the effect of atmospheric refraction which makes the altitude of a star seem greater than ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... imperceptible steps by which a man's honor first descends; show me the way back to the serene altitude of clean conscience, and I will undertake to enlighten you upon the secret of every great historical event, tragic or otherwise. If you will search history carefully, you will note that the basic cause of all great events, such as revolutions, civil strifes, political assassinations, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... cactus,—and a very nasty process it is,—inspecting the granaries belonging to the hacienda, and dodging between the rows of Indian corn, which grows here to so prodigious a height as to rival the famous grain which is said to grow somewhere down South, and to attain such an altitude that a Comanche perched upon the head of a giraffe is invisible between the rows. About noon we had breakfast, and that was the hardest work of all. Item, we had mutton-chops, beefsteaks, veal cutlets, omelets, rice, hominy, fried tomatoes, and an infinity of Mexican hashes and stews seasoned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the spheres of my studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and cosines for a few days more; but stepping into the garden one charming noon, to take the sun's altitude, there I ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... weather still continuing calm and clear, with the sea as smooth as a mirror, we set off without delay, at half past ten, taking our final leave of the Spitzbergen shores, as we hoped, for at least two months. Steering due north, we made good progress, our latitude by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight being 80 deg. 51' 13". A beautifully-coloured rainbow appeared for some time, without any appearance of rain falling. We observed that a considerable current was setting us to the eastward ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... prompted me to travel for my health had a firm grip on me. Colorado was my first objective point, and on the first day of my arrival there I went to the top of one of their snow-capped mountains. I had not taken into account the effects of altitude upon a person not accustomed to it, and in consequence of my sudden ascent I had a slight expectoration of blood. This seemed to be cause for genuine alarm, and I now realized that I was to be a victim of "the great white plague," ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... part of the rudder. V. banked to prevent an uncontrolled side-slip, righted the bus as far as possible, and dived for the lines. These we passed at a great pace, but we did not shake off Archie until well on the right side, for at our low altitude the high-angle guns had a large radius of action that could include us. However, the menacing coughs finally ceased to annoy, and our immediate troubles were over. The strain snapped, the air was an exhilarating tonic, the sun was ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... labyrinth of broken cliffs, and over bench and ridge to the height of the divide. From there Joan had a magnificent view. Foot-hills rolled round heads below, and miles away, in a curve of the range, glistened Bear Lake. The rest here at this height was counteracted by the fact that the altitude affected Joan. She was glad to be on the move again, and now the travel was downhill, so that she could ride. Still it was difficult, for horses were more easily lamed in a descent. It took two hours to descend the distance that had ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... altitudes, they nevertheless, where we are able to undertake certain geological comparisons, follow one another exactly in the same order in which the days follow one another in that Biblical record. The meridian altitude of the third day (for here the certainty of geological knowledge first begins for us) has to be looked for where the continents are formed and the vegetable life preponderates on earth: and that is the carboniferous period. The meridian altitude of the fourth day must have been ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... May, the third and fifth caravans, now united, followed up the right bank of the Mukondokwa, through fields of holcus, the great Mukondokwa ranges rising in higher altitude as we proceeded west, and enfolding us in the narrow river valley round about. We left Muniyi Usagara on our right, and soon after found hill-spurs athwart our road, which we were ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... fjords. A fjord is an arm of the sea, winding its way far inland in the midst of mountains. The sea is very deep, often of greater depth than the towering heights which rise abruptly from the shore, though these are often several thousand feet in altitude. No road can be built along many of these fjords, and boats are the conveyances that are used to go from one place ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... turned over the bridge spanning the river, where the ponies promptly rose on their hind legs at the sight of Dr. Anderson's motor, and betrayed a rooted disinclination to come down from that unusual altitude. Jim handled them steadily, and presently they were induced to face the snorting horror, wherein the doctor sat, waving his hand and calling cheery Christmas greetings as they shot past, to which the three ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... before him (figuratively), this good British tradesman and his fat wife, and worshipped him. They burned incense at his shrine; they adored the ground he walked on; they snubbed their neighbors, and held their chins at an altitude never attained by the family of Dobb before. And in six weeks Miss ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... effect which the fall of Lieutenant Myrtle had upon his mind. Myrtle, who was attempting the height record, fell from an altitude of something over thirty thousand feet. Horrible to narrate, his head was entirely obliterated, though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. At every gathering of airmen, Joyce-Armstrong, according to Dangerfield, would ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... casing that surrounds the gem, Heightened the splendor of her brilliant genius. Equally daring on the battle-field And in the chase, her prudence and her courage, Displayed in many a hot emergency, Had twined victorious laurel round her brow. Under her rule Palmyra's fortunes rose To an unequalled altitude, and wealth Flowed in upon her like a golden sea, Her wide dominion, stretching from the Nile To the far Euxine and Euphrates' flood— Her active commerce, whose expanded range Monopolized the trade of all the East— Her stately capital, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... neither the height of any mountain nor the depth of any sea is above ten stades (furlongs). However, Xenophanes did not take its altitude conjecturally, but by a ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... wife is in Virginia playing golf in order to restore her shattered nerves after the fatigues of the seaside. It occurs again in November when his wife is in the Adirondacks to get the benefit of the altitude, and later on through the winter when she is down in Florida to get the benefit of the latitude. The breaking up of the winter being, notoriously, a trying time on the system, any reasonable man is apt to consent to his wife's going to California. In the later spring, the season of the bursting ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... mingling with the faint afterglow of twilight, showed clearly the outlines of the distant mountains. The stars blinked down from their heavenly dome and the air was cool and comfortable, thanks to the altitude. To the silent watchers it seemed that no skies were ever so deep and clear as those which ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... eastern and the western. The principal point is the volcano Taal, located in the northeastern portion of the province of Batangas. It is situated on a small island in the center of the Bombon laguna, and has an altitude of 550 feet above sea level. Its form is conical, and the rock is composed of basalt feldspar with a small quantity of augite. The crater is supposed to be 232 feet deep. Its sides are almost vertical, and there are two steaming lagunas at ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... the sun. It was splendid! It was stupefying. Not a sound, not a breath! But the balloon was scarcely moving at all. It was only towards six o'clock that the currents of air caught us, and we took our flight towards the east. We were at an altitude of about 1700 metres. The spectacle became fairylike. Large fleecy clouds were spread below us like a carpet. Large orange curtains fringed with violet came down from the sun to lose ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... which for want of a better word I have chosen to call Atlantean, they stand alone. Each of them, for the metaphor is applicable either way, carries a whole world on his shoulders, or looks down on a whole world from his natural altitude. The worlds are different, but they are worlds; and though the attitude of the giants is different also, it agrees in all of them on the points of competence and strength. Take whomsoever else we may among our men of letters, ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious—never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was traveling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... an happiness to have had their lot of life in some notable conjunctures of ages past; but the uncertainty of future times hath tempted few to make a part in ages to come. And surely, he that hath taken the true altitude of things, and rightly calculated the degenerate state of this age, is not like to envy those that shall live in the next, much less three or four hundred years hence, when no man can comfortably imagine what face this world will carry; and therefore, since every age makes a step unto ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... only, owing to the nearness of the spectator. All low clouds appear to move faster than high ones, the pace being supposed equal in both: but when I speak of quick or slow cloud, it is always with respect to a given altitude. In a fine summer morning, a cloud will wait for you among the pines, folded to and fro among their stems, with a branch or two coming out here, and a spire or two there: you walk through it, and look back to it. At another time, on the same spot, the fury of cloud-flood drifts past ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... bearing a cake frosted with chocolate. The respect with which this was viewed proved that the men appreciated to the full what was represented by chocolate cake in this altitude of tiny stoves and scanty supplies. Again Amy dove into the store room. This time she bore back a huge enamel-ware pitcher which she set in the middle of ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... lower parts of the city, from the upper. But then Vespasian himself came to his assistance against those that had fled to the citadel, and brought his whole army with him; now this upper part of the city was every way rocky, and difficult of ascent, and elevated to a vast altitude, and very full of people on all sides, and encompassed with precipices, whereby the Jews cut off those that came up to them, and did much mischief to others by their darts, and the large stones which they rolled down upon them, while they were themselves so high that ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... only a partial one,—is that which refers to the submergence of the hills over at least an extensive tract, and to the inference, evident in the passage, that if lofty mountains were covered in one portion of the globe, mountains of similar altitude must have been equally covered in every other portion ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... to be heard in a crowd must press, and squeeze, and thrust, and climb with indefatigable pains, till he has exalted himself to a certain degree of altitude above them. Now, in all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point, it being as hard to get quit of number as ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... slender, taking both his figure and name of the fire, whole flame if ye marke it, is alwaies pointed, and naturally by his forme couets to clymbe: the Greekes call him Pyramis. The Latines in vse of Architecture call him Obeliscus, it holdeth the altitude of six ordinary triangles, and in metrifying his base can not well be larger then a meetre of six, therefore in his altitude he will require diuers rabates to hold so many sizes of meetres as shall serue for his composition, for neare the toppe there wil be roome little ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... not leave them to do the work and take his ease like a gentleman. He was good enough to express his complete satisfaction with my abilities as a navigator, and opened his eyes in astonishment when he saw that I was not content with a mere daily observation of the meridian altitude of the sun, but used as well such comparatively intricate problems as those of the double altitudes, lunars, altitudes of the stars, and Great Circle sailing. But what gratified him most of all, I think, was the fact that ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... know it," Dolly laughed. "Come down from that lofty altitude and I'll give you a cup ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Benting," said the colonel, "imperialism is the desire for power. Imperialism means looking at the world from a great altitude. And the nation which is without it will never ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... clear that this type of mental training does not teach people to think at all, but has the contrary effect of restricting the intelligence to an altitude very far beyond the ordinary requirements of our social existence. Man may have a very broad horizon; but the broader it becomes, the further he seems to be transported from the capacity to exercise the normal functions ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... Deane's." One of his favourite haunts was the very end of the "coombe," which,—sharply cutting down to the shore,—seemed there to have split asunder with volcanic force, hurling itself apart to right and left in two great castellated rocks, which were piled up, fortress-like, to an altitude of about four hundred or more feet, and looked sheer down over the sea. When the tide was high the waves rushed swirlingly round the base of these natural towers, forming a deep blackish-purple pool in which the wash ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... however, it has become traditional to refer to this as one's 'ICBM address' or 'missile address', and many people include it in their {sig block} with that name. (A real missile address would include target altitude.) ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... Paraguay 750 km, Peru 900 km Coastline: none - landlocked Maritime claims: none - landlocked Disputes: has wanted a sovereign corridor to the South Pacific Ocean since the Atacama area was lost to Chile in 1884; dispute with Chile over Rio Lauca water rights Climate: varies with altitude; humid and tropical to cold and semiarid Terrain: rugged Andes Mountains with a highland plateau (Altiplano), hills, lowland plains of the Amazon basin Natural resources: tin, natural gas, crude oil, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... uphill nearly all the way from Copperopolis to Angel's Camp, but mostly you are in the pine woods. My spirits rose with the altitude and delight at the magnificent view when I at last reached the summit. Toiling up the grade in the dust, I met a good old-fashioned four-horse Concord stage, which from all appearances might have been in action ever since the days of Bret Harte. At last I felt ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... room and the young man was glad to see his father. A conversation so unusual, so suggestive and cleaving made him unhappy. It took him up the high places that indeed gave him a startling outlook of life, but he was not comfortable at such altitude. He rose with something of this strange air about him, and the Earl understood what the trend of the conversation had been. For Annie had talked much to him on such subjects, and he had been sensibly moved and impressed by the wisdom which the little ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... caves also occur. The level of the tableland is indented with "swallet holes," the chief of which are the East Water Swallet and the Devil's Punch-Bowl. The Quantocks are much less extensive, though their highest summits rise to a greater altitude. Like the Mendips, they turn their steepest flank westwards, the ascent on the E. being gradual; and on this side they are cut by a number of well-timbered and delightful combes. Few caves have been discovered in them, though there is one at Holwell near Asholt. W. of the Quantocks are the Brendons ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... tells me there is a mountain of considerable altitude about two days from Ghat, in the route of Touat, from the base of which gush out some twelve large streams. The rain this year has fallen plentifully on these heights, and wheat and barley have been sown on the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... horse-back can ride—both man and horse being rather small; but the dimensions undoubtedly show that it was considerably larger than the "Pavilion tree," and that it carried its huge dimensions to a greater altitude; and although this does not prove it to have been much taller, yet it was in all probability more than ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... mistaken as to the nature of your complaint. You can live as long as Methuselah, my Lord Marquis, accidents only excepted. Your lungs are as sound as a blacksmith's bellows, your stomach would put an ostrich to the blush; but if you persist in living at high altitude, you are running the risk of a prompt interment in consecrated soil. A few words, my Lord Marquis, will make my ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... sick at the stomach, as so many are who climb up there; I had prevented this by eating a very light breakfast and chewing my food to a cream. But I was extremely nervous. I have found a great many other nervous people who do not feel quite right when in a high altitude. As a general rule, sea level is as good a place as a nervous individual can find to live. But people break down there, too. The diet, you see, is the big thing. And when I say "diet" I mean the way food is eaten ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... with my sextant and artificial horizon. We were rather late in making observations of the sun, and we only got one sight of it, which was made by myself. I brought it to a point within 180 yards of me on the level bank of the river, which altitude made our latitude 18 degrees 57 minutes. Thermometer showed 90 degrees at 7 a.m. and 103 degrees at noon. We got a fine potful of cabbage-tree sprouts, ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... should ever prevail at all. In the first place it was not his business. If he did anything, it would only be by asking a favour when he knew that no favour should be granted;—and a favour which he of all men should not ask, because to him of all men it could not be refused. And then the very altitude of the great statesman whom he was invited to befriend,—the position of this Duke who had been so powerful and might be powerful again, was against any such interference. Of himself he might be sure that he would certainly have done this as readily for any Mr. Jones as for the ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... control much of the altitude was lost. In another instant he had again directed the course of their craft toward the open air high above the ruined city. But the lost distance was sufficient to bring the party within range of the rifles of the German soldiers who had been ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... always paid the greatest respect, viz., that the source of ozone for the whole of the planet is equatorial, and that the point of development of ozone is where the terrestrial atmosphere raised to its highest altitude, at the equator, expands out north and south in opposite directions toward the two poles, to return to the equator over the earth as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... and iron and coal, Missouri's well-improved farms invite the intending settler.'" (Steering thought of the lean hill farms as he listened.) "'There is an abundance of timber, in itself a great saving to the house-builder, and there are innumerable streams and water-courses and lakes. The altitude is over one thousand feet above the sea-level, and the climate is the healthiest in the United States. Both mining and farming can be carried on the year round.' ... And now, lastly, about this form letter that I have drafted for intending investors—it runs like this: ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... trying to perfect the photographic method of measuring the height of clouds. Very elaborate cloud cameras, or photo-nephoscopes, have been constructed, by means of which photographs of a cloud were taken simultaneously from both ends of a suitable base. The altitude and azimuth of the center of the plate were read off by the graduated circles which were attached to the cameras; and the angular measurements of any point of cloud on the picture were calculated by proper measurements from the known center of the photographic plate. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... with the altitude. There is the region of ordinary flora, that of the forests, that of pastures, that of bare rocks and glaciers. Above a certain zone wheat is no longer found, but the vine still prospers. The oak ceases in the low regions, the pine flourishes at considerable heights. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... many a glacier passed; and few reach those altitudes without many a savage fall, and without frequent hours of weariness, doubt, and despair. The sufferings and the chastisements of those who have come to this altitude often increase ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... the neighbourhood was of a description to be awed by the mere fact of a great house, and to take the shyness of titled people for pride. Those with whom they prospered best were a good-natured, merry old dowager duchess, with whom they felt themselves in the altitude to which they were accustomed at Hurminster; a loud-voiced, eager old squire, who was bent on being Lord Northmoor's guide and prompter in county business; also an eager, gushing lady, the echoes of whose communications made Frank ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... themselves any permanent, any spiritual reality, come to stay. "Only that soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline and which does not decline to me, but, native of the same celestial altitude, repeats in its own all my experience." Life has too many claims and privileges and resources to waste it in lamentations. Let one look forward, not backward. Fairy realms of enchantment beckon him on. These "flowing conditions of life" are, really, the conditions ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... of Austria, including the Alps of the southern Tyrol, those of Illyria, the Noric and the Julian Alps, and the Alps of Styria and Salzburg. The variety of the scenery, the verdure of the meadows and trees, the depths of the valleys, the altitude of the mountains, the clearness and grandeur of the rivers and lakes give it, I think, a decided superiority over Switzerland; and the people are far more agreeable. Various in their costumes and manners, Illyrians, Italians, or Germans, they have all the same simplicity ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... had been heard to remark that if Caspar had made the tombstone, the lady under it would have tried harder than ever to get to heaven. To Stanwell's present mood, however, there was something more than usually irritating in the gratuitous assumption that Arran had only to derogate from his altitude to have a press of purchasers ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... my lords, and so it is all settled. We must all be on board in half an hour. His Altitude the Prince sails at once for Cherson, and with a view to his immediate marriage. Was ever such a rash step heard of? Not twenty-four hours to get ready the marriage equipment of a Prince of Bosphorus. Well, well, I dare say they would be glad enough to take him with no ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... we're right on course, Joe," he reported nonchalantly, "and our speed's okay. We'll reach maximum altitude in an hour and thirty-six minutes. We ought to be within calculated distance of the ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... the same stream all day. Whether the Iskoot or not we did not know. The signs of lower altitude thickened. Wild roses met us again, and strawberry blossoms starred the sunny slopes. The grass was dry and ripe, and the horses did not relish it after their long stay in the juicy meadows above. We had been wet every day for nearly three weeks, and did ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... certainty just how and why these great changes came about. But geologists have connected them with the alternating rise and fall of the surface of the northern continent and its altitude at various times above the level of the sea. Thus it seems probable that the glacial period with the ice sheet of which we have spoken was brought about by a great elevation of the land, accompanied by a change to intense cold. This led to the formation ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... the summer there. Many of those I observed commonly pass this season much farther north. But the geographical distribution of birds is rather a climatical one. The same temperature, though under different parallels, usually attracts the same birds; difference in altitude being equivalent to the difference in latitude. A given height above the sea-level under the parallel of thirty degrees may have the same climate as places under that of thirty-five degrees, and similar flora and fauna. At the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... along the base of the mountain range, the general altitude of the great plain being fully two hundred feet higher than the other level portions of the island. The mountains to the east, while not high as mountains go, were by far the greatest of any on the island, and John was anxious to know their character, for reasons ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... have described it accurately in my novel The Heart of Life. In its general aspect it resembles my own early home, Denbury, but in some ways it is quite peculiar. In front of it is an Italian garden, below which are breaking waves, and behind it precipitous woods rise like a wall to an altitude of more than twelve hundred feet. The only approach to the house is by a carriage drive three miles long, which descends to it in zigzags from the upper ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... describe her as a straight line, and Miss Shirley as a waving line. Why shouldn't the waving line, at its highest points, touch the same altitude as the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pleasant, somewhat shy laugh, shook his powerful frame and looked from his altitude of six feet three inches down on the small, sable-clad figure of ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... at Simla quite marvellous for psychic possibilities, and this was certainly a great surprise to me; nor was it only a question of altitude and a dry atmosphere. Missouri and the Dhera Doon are celebrated for the purity of air and climate generally, but the ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... source, than these very words designating her rank, for the bonnet was imperial—none but such a lady would have dared to originate it; and it was also high—high indeed! The crown rose eighteen inches in perpendicular altitude from the nape of the neck, while the front poke retained the modest dimensions of the original gipsy hat. We recollect the duchess in Hyde Park with this monstrous headgear, and the women all in ecstacy at the delightful novelty. The success ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... by 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 than the present. In the hedge or scattered bushes, half-way down by the chalk-pit, there grows a spreading shrub—the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... easy to determine the latitude of a ship at sea every day when the sun was visible. The latitude—that is, the distance of any spot from the equator and the pole—might be found by a simple observation with the sextant. The altitude of the sun at noon is found, and by a short calculation the position of the ship can ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... had poisoned the system. The Swedish massage had made her bulky. And the prohibition as to letters had so severely shaken her nerve ganglions that she had been forced to seek the strengthening air of an expensive Swiss altitude, from which she had only just returned by way of Paris, where she had been nearly finished off by the dressmakers. However, being a woman of courage, she was down in peach color, with a pale turquoise-blue waist-belt, to receive ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the barometer may be noted (in a form or table of double entry) at the time of each observation, by a dot at the place corresponding to its altitude, and the time of observing; which dot should be connected with the previous one by a line. The resulting free curve (or zig-zag) will show at a glance what have been the movements during the days immediately previous, by which, and not merely ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... through a mass of dark-coloured moss; whilst a scanty distribution of pale or delicately-tinted flowers showed the humble flora of the north. The sun, sweeping along the heavens opposite, at a very low altitude, gilded as it rose the snowy crests of the mountains of Disco, and served to show, more grim and picturesque, the naturally dark face of the "Black Land of Lively." From thence round to the east, in ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... up their brindled bulldogs, "Spit," "Snap" and "Tug"; had donned their white ties and collars of awful altitude, and were fully prepared to please and to be pleased. Although it was nominally a "stag" party, the triumvirate would as soon have cut off their tender mustaches as have failed to invite Yvonne. But she had replied to Rowden's invitation by a ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... the point of the nacelle told Dennis that the Aviatik was planing down to a lower altitude, and when, some distance ahead, he saw the milky gleam of a river winding away to right and left, he hung over the side with the powerful German glasses glued ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... long-oppressed colored man has a fair field for development and improvement; and to tread under our feet the last vestige of that hateful prejudice which has been the strongest external support of Southern slavery. We must lift ourselves at once to the true Christian altitude where all distinctions of black and white are overlooked in the heartfelt recognition of the brotherhood ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... went up on deck; he took observations at different moments of several lunar distances, and the altitude of the principal stars. He found, however, much difficulty in doing this, for when the temperature was so low, the glass and the mirrors of the instrument were covered with a crust of ice from Hatteras's breath; more than once his eyelids were burned by touching the copper eye-pieces. ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... evergreen tree with a leaf looking a great deal like that of redwood, hemlock, or fir at a distance. It is found growing in the mountains, down narrow canyons, and along streams. It likes shade, water, and altitude. Its bark is reddish beneath and scaly or fuzzy on the surface. Its limbs stand straight out from the trunk at an acute angle, not drooping as those of the redwood ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... on the summits of the mountains comes from the sea, whence it is propelled by its weight to a greater height than that of the mountains, why has this portion of the element of water the power to elevate itself to such an altitude and to penetrate the earth by so great an expenditure of labour and time, when the residue of the element of water, whose only obstacle is the air which does not impede it, is not able to raise itself ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... might well be applied to the management of the boy choir. On the other hand, it is absolutely necessary to maintain discipline in the choir rehearsal, and it is also necessary to arouse in the boys a mental altitude that will cause them to do efficient work and to conduct themselves in a quiet and reverent manner during the church service; hence the necessity for rules and regulations and for punishments of various kinds. But the two things that we have been outlining ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... brick house it was originally: one-storied, with rooms finished on the attic floor. Being built on the hillside, its basement opens into the rear yard. It was at first heated by means of open coal grates, which may not have been altogether adequate in severe winters, owing to the altitude and the north-eastern exposure, but a large furnace is one of the more modern changes. Milan itself is not materially unlike the smaller Ohio towns of its own time or those of later creation, but the venerable appearance of the big elm-trees that fringe the trim lawns ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... all Portlanders as the "Beal." This headland is crowned by a lighthouse which has replaced two older and discarded buildings. In wild weather the scene at the Beal is magnificent, in spite of the low altitude of the cliff. Pulpit Rock is the quite appropriate name given to the curiously shaped block of limestone which stands close to the water. The "Shambles" lightship, about three miles from the Beal, warns the mariner off the long and dangerous sandbank known by that ominous name on which so many ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... the corona was obtained by the well-known American astronomer and physicist, the late Professor Langley, from the summit of Pike's Peak, Colorado, over 14,000 feet above the level of the sea. The coronal streamers were seen to extend to a much greater distance at this altitude than at points less elevated, and the corona itself remained visible during more than four minutes after the end of totality. It was, however, not entirely a question of altitude; the coronal streamers were actually ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... varies with altitude; cold, cloudy, rainy/snowy winters; cool to warm, cloudy, humid summers with ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... at this altitude the trees stood large, straight and tall, not very close together. The earth was covered with a dense floor of pine needles. As she ran she felt her feet slipping, sinking. Now and again she brought ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... the more varied and changing became the scenery. At one time we might be closely hemmed in by the mountains, and then the next moment they would stretch away, one above the other, while their summits seemed to contend which should outrival the rest in altitude and beauty of outline. They were covered, to the height of several thousand feet, with luxuriant vegetation, which, for the most part, then generally ceased, and gave way to the bare rock. I was not less interested, however, with the curious teams we ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Pacific and Atlantic Oceans on either side of the Isthmus, and that the opening of a communication between the two seas would be productive of danger to a large portion of the American continent. It is now, however, ascertained that the difference of altitude is very trifling, not more than thirteen feet at high water.[5] The prevalence of these errors may have tended, in combination with Spanish jealousy, unhealthiness of climate on the Atlantic side, the denseness of the ...
— A Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama • H. R. Hill
... any decision?" To this they added with a smile of ridicule, "Perhaps you have the wings of an eagle, and can fly in the highest region of heaven, and make these discoveries: this we cannot do." We then asked them to tell us, from the altitude or region in which the winged ideas of their minds fly, whether they knew, or were able to know, that the love of one man with one wife is conjugial love, into which are collected all the beatitudes, satisfactions, delights, pleasantnesses, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... two essentially different things. Mass is the characteristic of a quantity of matter; it depends neither on the geographical position one occupies nor on the altitude to which one may rise; it remains invariable so long as nothing material is added or taken away. Weight is the action which gravity has upon the body under consideration; this action does not depend solely on the body, but ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... of timber, where we saw sheep tracks, and expected any moment to sight an old ram. But we did not find one, and when we got out of the timber upon the bare sliding slope we had to halt a hundred times. We could zigzag only a few steps. The altitude was twelve thousand feet, and oxygen seemed scarce. I nearly dropped. All the climbing appeared to come hardest on the middle of my right foot, and it could scarcely have burned hotter if it had been in fire. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... diameter, and whose actual height is great for an object of its kind; as, a tall tree; a tall man; tall grass. That is lofty which is imposing or majestic in height; we term a spire tall with reference to its altitude, or lofty with reference to its majestic appearance. That is elevated which is raised somewhat above its surroundings; that is eminent which is far above them; as, an elevated platform; an eminent promontory. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... form. It has lately become a place of great resort in the warm season of the year. Everything which labor and expence, art and taste could effect was done to render it convenient, showy and elegant. An awning covered the whole area of the garden suspended at an altitude of seventy-five feet; the columns which supported the dome were highly ornamented, and lighted by an immense cut glass chandelier, with thirteen ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... me that the height of the fountain was so great as it is generally represented. So far as I could judge, the greatest altitude at any time from the commencement of the eruption was not over sixty feet. Its volume, however, greatly exceeded my expectations, and the beauty of its form surpassed all description. I had never before seen, and never again expect to see, any thing equal to it. This magnificent display lasted, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... law holds good in the development of mind. It has now reached such an altitude, and it shines with such lustre, that our imagination can hardly find the way down to the morning horizon of its life, and measure its scope and power in the dim twilight of its first hours in time. The simple fact of its ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... have this pleasant scheme for kidnapping him, getting him down to your steamer at Baltimore and cruising with him until he is ready to come to terms. The American air has done much for your imagination, my dear Jules; or possibly the altitude of the hills has ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... real knowledge, the moderns cannot wholly be exempted from a similar imputation. Travellers have delighted to speak of the Peak of Teneriffe, as the highest mountain in the ancient world, whereas, by the best accounts, Mont Blanc exceeds it* by 3523 feet, or near a mile of perpendicular altitude. The Isle of Ferro, having no such mountain to distinguish it, was celebrated for a century or two on the credit of a miraculous tree, single in its kind, enveloped in perpetual mists, and distilling sufficient water for the ample supply of the island.** ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... hill of Glenoro and came out upon the broad, sun-flooded highlands, he found that the country sloped gently upwards, rising in great sweeping terraces of green pastureland and fields of early grain, until it reached its highest altitude on the shores of Lake Oro. Andrew Johnstone lived on the borderland between the highlands and the lowlands; his house, a substantial red brick, surrounded by orchards, stood on the edge of one of the wide terraces and commanded a view of the country for miles around. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... raised considerably above the water level. That the eastern coast of Australia is slowly rising from the waves is well known, for in the neighbourhood of Brisbane valuable reclamations have been made within the memory of living men; but at least two centuries must have elapsed to account for the altitude attained by this old craft. Our regret was great at getting no more certain information, but although we persevered in digging until sundown, no casket of jewels, no bags of specie, and no mysterious parchments rewarded us; and with the darkness we were compelled to abandon ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... hardly have chosen a more inopportune moment. The hero, who had troubled Hugh's repose in the moist atmosphere of the city, persisted in behaving in an untoward fashion, even when translated to an altitude of three thousand feet or so. He still perorated, still posed like a shop-walker, still behaved like a puppet, with its pulling strings ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... agile, transact *Alius other alias, inalienable *Alter other alteration, adultery *Altus high altitude, exalt *Ambulo walk perambulator, preamble *Amicus friend amicable, enemy *Amo, amatum love inamorata, amateur, inimical *Anima life animal, inanimate Animus mind animosity, unanimous Annus year annuity, biennial *Aqua water aquarium, aqueduct Audio, auditum ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... We left Nuwara Eliya, on the morning of January 30th, for Kandy, arriving there at 2 P.M. The train passed through a country similar to that before described, only there was a greater descent, Kandy having less altitude than Nuwara Eliya. We had anticipated much of Kandy, Ceylon's ancient capital and the scene of action in the days of the old Kandyan kings. It is said that when Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise they repaired to ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... makes some difference whether a man sees history from above or from below. Burke saw it from the comfortable altitude of the Whig aristocracy to which he had allied himself. The revolutionary school saw its inverse, from the standpoint of the "swinish multitude" (an angry indiscretion of Burke's) for whom it had worked to less advantage. Paine was a man of the people, and Godwin belonged by birth to the dissenting ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... of numerous tanks and aeroplanes, flying at a low altitude, the English infantry soon after advanced to the attack ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... surface of South Africa. It dips gently on the north to the valley of the Zambesi; but on the west spreads out over the Kalahari Desert and the scarcely less arid wastes of Damaraland, maintaining (except along the lower course of the Orange River) an altitude of from 3000 to 4000 feet above the sea, until within a comparatively short distance of ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... at which the Fleet was travelling sent the wind thrumming through the halliards and funnel stays and past Thorogood's ears with a little whistling noise; otherwise few sounds reached him at the altitude at which he stood. On the signal-platform below, a number of signalmen were grouped round the flag-lockers with the halliards in their hands in instant readiness to hoist a signal. The Signal Boatswain had steadied ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... coast is much lower than that of the mines, which is only a league and a half from the coast of Saint Margaret, being Separated by the breadth of the bay, [46] which is three leagues at its entrance. I took the altitude at this place, and found the latitude 45 deg. 30', and a little more,[47] the deflection of the magnetic needle being 17 ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... both. Well, I'll tell you. Our altitude here is four thousand and forty-five feet. That's twenty-five hundred and twenty feet higher than the true head of the Mississippi River—and we're not to the head of the Missouri by a long ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... short interview with the manager's wife, they found themselves alone again, in the private sitting-room engaged by Lenox. A wood fire burned merrily in the open hearth, for September evenings are chilly at that altitude; and the windows, looking westward, gave generous admittance to ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... windings and doublings of the train; massive walls of granite pressed close and closer, seeming for one instant a threatening, impenetrable barrier, the next, opening to reveal glimpses of distant billowy ranges, their summits white with perpetual snow. The train had now reached a higher altitude, and breezes redolent of pine and fir fanned his throbbing brow, their fragrance thronging his mind with memories of other and far-distant scenes, until gradually the bold outlines of cliff and crag grew dim, and in their place appeared a cool, dark forest through which flecks of ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... can do it!" he whispered, and fell silent. His eyes rested on the instruments before him, their white dials glowing under the little penthouses of their metal shields. Altitude now showed 2,437 feet, and still rising. Tachometers gave from 2,750 to 2,875 r.p.m. for the various propellers. Speed had gone above 190 miles per hour. No sign of man remained, save, very far below through a rift in the pale, moonlit waft of cloud, a tiny light against a coal-black plain ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... him. No; he knew that; he just didn't know how. The ship swept on, ten miles a minute, tearing through thin puffs of cloud. Ten minutes. The Big Bend was glistening redly in the sunlit haze, but Litchfield was still hidden inside its curve. Six. Four. The Countess Dorothy was losing speed and altitude. Now he could see it, first a blur and then distinctly. The Airlines Building, so thick as to look squat for all its height. The yellow block of the distilleries under their plume of steam. ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... opposite opinion has had full sway for twenty centuries at least, and man has by habit, long usage, and ignorance so adjusted his mind to submit to customs of the great past that should he try, without previous training, to reason and bring his mind to such altitude of thought of the greatness and wisdom of the infinite, he might become insane or fall back in a stupor, and exist only as a living mental blank in the great ocean of life, where beings dwell without minds to govern their ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... Jenny Lind was the recipient of world-wide fame and the most lavishly-bestowed encomiums from the most musical critics in the Old and New World simply because she sang that note in Vienna twenty years ago. Parepa Rosa, it is claimed, reached that vocal altitude last summer. But the sopranos who did it flit across this planet like angels. Several competent musicians listened to Anna Hyers last evening, and unanimously pronounced her perfectly wonderful. With the greatest ease in the world, as naturally and gracefully as she breathes, she runs the scale ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... long after I had taken my official oath before an era of unexampled prosperity opened for the American people. The price of beef rose to a remarkable altitude, and other vegetables commanded a good figure and a ready market. We then began to make active preparations for the introduction of the strawberry-roan two-cent stamps and the black-and-tan postal ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... hardy nature and require no cultivation. The tops of these plants are generally distilled in situ, under contract with the Grasse manufacturer, by the villagers in the immediate vicinity. The higher the altitude at which these grow, the more esteemed the oil. The finest oil of lavender is produced by distilling the flowers only. About 100 tons of lavender, 25 of spike, 40 of thyme, and 20 of rosemary are sent out from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... breadth and altitude, but I am forced to lead a narrow life spent over trashy roubles and kopecks. There is nothing more vulgar than a petty bourgeois life with its halfpence, its victuals, its futile talk, and its useless conventional virtue; my heart aches from the consciousness that I am working for money, and money ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Nelson and Wellington, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Wordsworth, stand already so broad and high that they chill him with their shadow, and that therefore he will not, by eulogy, or even notice, add to their altitude? Is he repeating the littleness of Byron, who was jealous not only of his contemporaries, Napoleon, and Wellington, and Wordsworth, but was jealous of Shakespeare? That a pen which, with zestful animation, embraces all contemporaneous things, should be studiously silent ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... general a bold and mountainous island, but on this side it is peculiarly so. It appeared to me that even the Pyrenees, magnificent as they are, were not to be compared, in point of altitude, to the hills now before me; and early in the morning, while yet the mists hung upon their summits and concealed them, no prospect can be imagined more sublime than that which they presented. It was, in truth, a glorious scene; and as the wind ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... hard by the beach, on which the billows continually broke in white foam, so high that the surf might easily be seen at four leagues distance, and in such a manner that no boat could possibly go to land. At noon our masters and pilots took the altitude of the sun, by which they judged that we were 24 leagues beyond the river Sestro to the eastwards, wherefore we hauled in towards the shore and came to anchor within two English miles of the land in 15 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... buffalo grass, the long column was winding up the bare, rolling "divide" which lay between the valleys of Crow and Lodge Pole Creeks. In plain view, only thirty miles away to the west, were the summits of the Rocky Mountains, but such is the altitude of this upland prairie, sloping away eastward between the two forks of the Platte River, that these summits appear to be nothing more than a low range of hills shutting off the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... I say. Of course, it's pretty cold at that altitude all the time, but this cold was like nothing I had ever encountered. It seemed to freeze the blood in our veins and it congealed frost on the windshields and made the motor miss for a moment. It was only momentary and it only existed directly over the wrecked plane. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... crossed by the trunk-roads, the rest of the country is so broken up by mountain and valley that it presented few facilities either to foreign penetration or to external control. The physical barriers to local intercourse, reinforced by striking differences in soil, altitude, and climate, while they precluded Syria herself from attaining national unity, always tended to protect her separate provinces, or "kingdoms," from the full effects of foreign aggression. One city-state could be traversed, devastated, or annexed, without in the least degree affecting neighbouring ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a moisture about my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood, which was oozing quite ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... may and will deviate somewhat in steering, even by the best helmsmen: and then when you come to take an azimuth there is often some difference between him that looks at the compass and the man that takes the altitude height of the sun; and a small error in each, if the error of both should be one way, will make it wide of any great exactness. But what was most shocking to me, I found that the variation did not always increase ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... upwards, over great wastes of rough brown lava, which looked as if some giant, in play, had squeezed out the contents of enormous tubes of oil paint on to the mighty palette of the mountain side. The air had grown fresh and cold, for they were at an altitude approaching 4000 feet, and, but for the scenery, might have imagined ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... from view, and monopolize the scenery and groundwork entirely. None of these bushes can claim the right to be called trees, as the average height is inconsiderable. But they make up in density what they lack in altitude. The peculiar green of the willow is the predominating color, without any variation of any kind. The idea conveyed to the mind is of a huge green carpet or rug, and when the wind blows freely across the valley, it divides up the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... our ancestors, in the healthy interaction of brain with the rest of the body, especially the internal glands. The outside world is the Macrocosmos, or large world, and includes the physical conditions of existence (climate, altitude, plentiness of food, access to the sea) as well as the social conditions of existence (state of culture of times and race and family). The social conditions of existence are of especial interest ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... rock-ribbed sons, as well as graceful daughters, might enjoy the light, the sunshine and the shower—but for this soul of love in matter as well as mind—these bluffs and the sons of Adam, too, might not boast the altitude they glory in to-day. Those who have ears to hear discern low, rumbling noises that foretell convulsions in our social world that may, perchance, in the next upheaval, bring woman to the surface; up, up, from gloomy ocean depths, dark caverns, and damper valleys. The struggling ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Belle laughed merrily. 'Anyone who has courage to stroll through the Middle Ages with old Mr Hallam before sunrise, must have plenty of altitude in her composition. It is my belief she lives on Mount Shasta, in a moral sense, and I shouldn't be surprised to hear of her taking out a building permit at the North Pole, if she thought duty called her. But, Dick, how can you be such an atrocious sceptic as ...
— A Princess in Calico • Edith Ferguson Black
... set." Mr. Fildew speaks of the difficulty he had, on one occasion, when he was obliged to follow the progress of an express train while operating his camera from an aeroplane, they being constantly buffeted by pockets of wind, while flying for many miles at a low altitude in order to keep within the desired focus. He cites another case, when he was photographing the sea scenes for the Fine Arts picture, "Daphne and the Pirates," the waters outside San Francisco Bay being chosen for the locale. A pirate ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... this point was a three days' march over Lambalamfipa, an abrupt mountain range, which crosses the country east and west, and attains, it would seem, an altitude of some 4000 feet. Looking down on the plain from its highest passes a vast lake appears to stretch away in front towards the north, but on descending this resolves itself into a glittering plain, for the most part covered ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... an early age, this unnatural advice held my mind, so that I devised innumerable means of verifying it; I was filled with a despair and longing whenever I met it anew. But it was an ambition appeased only in maturity. And this is the miracle of the tropics: climb up into the hamaca, and, at this altitude, draw in the hole of the mosquitaro funnel, making it fast with a single knot. It is done. One is at rest, and lying back, listens to the humming of all the mosquitoes in the world, to be lulled to sleep by the sad, minor singing of their myriad wings. But though I have slung my hammock in many ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... on passengers, coal and freight, and resumes her voyage. Above the city, the cliffs, increasing in height, attain an altitude of nearly one hundred and fifty feet. They are composed entirely of a hard brown earth having the appearance of pulverized chocolate; and the river, rushing between them, assumes a dirty, brownish hue for many miles. In their shadow, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... 8 — we reached 83deg. S. by dead reckoning. The noon altitude next day gave 83deg. 1' S. The depot we built here contained provisions for five men and twelve dogs for four days; it was made square — 6 feet each way — of hard, solid blocks of snow. A large flag was placed ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... the pines, and bending against the force of the blizzard, which seemed to threaten to blow them back, step for step. No one spoke; instinctively Fairchild and Anita had guessed Harry's conclusions. The nearest mine to the Blue Poppy was the Silver Queen, situated several hundred feet above it in altitude and less than a furlong away. And the metal of the Silver Queen and the Blue Poppy, now that the strike had been made, had assayed almost identically the same. It was easy ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... June; and if they catch the ship in the port, it cannot sail until that first monsoon passes. That usually lasts fifteen or twenty days, or one month. If they are caught outside during this weather, they can sail until they reach the district and altitude where they find the usual winds, with which they can make their said voyage easily. Consequently, they will pass Japon, which is the point where all the difficulties of the said voyage lie, with good weather. If the said monsoon ceases, and the ships are caught inside the bay, as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... Ohio, and there lived at Cambridge when I first came there an Indianian, more accepted by literary society, who was of real quality as a poet. Forceythe Willson, whose poem of "The Old Sergeant" Doctor Holmes used to read publicly in the closing year of the civil war, was of a Western altitude of figure, and of an extraordinary beauty of face in an oriental sort. He had large, dark eyes with clouded whites; his full, silken beard was of a flashing Persian blackness. He was excessively nervous, to such an extreme that when I first met him at Longfellow's, he could not hold himself ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... appear on the field sheets, but could not be shown upon the published plans without confusing the drawing. The contour lines represent an interval of 5 feet; the few cases in which the secondary or negative contours are used will not produce confusion, as their altitude is always ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... said Peter Winn, Junior. "Number Eight is ready, and I know I've at last got that reefing down fine. It will work, and it will revolutionize flying. Speed—that's what's needed, and so are the large sustaining surfaces for getting started and for altitude. I've got them both. Once I'm up I reef down. There it is. The smaller the sustaining surface, the higher the speed. That was the law discovered by Langley. And I've applied it. I can rise when the air is calm and full of holes, and I can ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... with purple mountains upon which snow still lingered. Beside them a smudge dribbled a wisp of smoke sufficient to ward off a pestilential swarm of mosquitoes and black flies. In the clear, thin air of that altitude the occasional voices of what bird and animal life was abroad in the wild broke into the evening hush with astonishing distinctness—a lone goose winged above in wide circles, uttering his harsh and solitary cry. He had lost his mate, Bill told her. Far off in the bush a fox barked. The ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... thickly with deep green moss, flanked right and left with two mountain peaks and roofed over with an expanse of brilliant summer sky. Before them the plateau stretched a mile or more, wind-swept, sun-drenched, with an indescribable bold look of great altitude; but close to them at one side ran a parapet-like line of tumbled rock and beyond this a sheer descent. The eye leaped down abrupt slopes of forest to the valley they had left, now a thousand feet below them, ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... have been so explored by no one as by this same favored Professor Tyndall, among his Alps. It appears that the tints which in temperate regions are seen feebly and occasionally, in hollows or angles of fresh drifts, become brilliant and constant above the line of perpetual snow, and the higher the altitude the more lustrous the display. When a staff was struck into the new-fallen drift, the hollow seemed instantly to fill with a soft blue liquid, while the snow adhering to the staff took a complementary color of pinkish yellow, and on moving it up and down it was hard to resist the impression that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... comparatively little is known, is a characteristic game bird of Arizona and New Mexico, of rare beauty, and with habits similar to others of the species of which there are about two hundred. Mr. W. E. D. Scott found the species distributed throughout the entire Catalina region in Arizona below an altitude of 5,000 feet. The bird is also known as ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... scientific interest in navigation tried to get to Lisbon. Among those whom Columbus may have met there, was the great German cosmographer from Nuremburg, Martin Behaim. Martin helped to improve the old-fashioned astrolabe, an instrument for taking the altitude of the sun; more important still, toward the end of 1492 he made the first globe, and indicated on it how one might sail west and reach Asiatic India. This is the first record of that idea which was later attributed ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... THE AMATEUR, by Capt. E. T. Morton. A short treatise on the simpler methods of finding position at sea by the observation of the sun's altitude and the use of the sextant and chronometer. It is arranged especially for yachtsmen and amateurs who wish to know the simpler formulae for the necessary navigation involved in taking a boat anywhere ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... to the name of Swift, we feel ourselves again approaching an Alpine region. The air of a stern mountain-summit breathes chill around our temples, and we feel that if we have no amiability to melt, we have altitude at least to measure, and strange profound secrets of nature, like the ravines of lofty hills, to explore. The men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be compared to Lebanon, or Snowdown, or Benlomond ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one period this district was a rough, uncultivated moor. It is now cultivated for the most part, and grows excellent barley. The highest point of this extensive range is eleven hundred and thirty-four feet, but the average altitude would not exceed half that height. Almost every valley has its little brook. The district is essentially a "stone country;" for all the houses and most of their roofs are built of the local limestone, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... like a rock and bullets flew by me, cutting my plane, so I pulled up at them, fired, swerved so my gunner could let them have it also and then saw the iron cross flash by, so I knew it was the Huns. I started getting altitude and went up high and then the boches got the sun between them and my plane and came again, but I thought this would happen and "peaked." They went under me and that left me on top, so I gave them about 120 bullets, and one went for home. The other two ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell |
