"Compute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the angle from one side of the formation to the other. These figures didn't mean a great deal, however, since the altitude at which the formation of lights was flying was unknown. If you assumed that the objects were flying at an altitude of 10,000 feet you could easily compute that they were traveling about 3,600 miles per hour, or five to six times the speed of sound. The formation would have been about 1,750 feet wide. If each light was a separate object it could have been in the neighborhood of 100 feet in diameter. These figures were only a guess since nobody ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... medium-velocity meteoroids, and inside the shell was a self-sealing goo, like a tubeless tire. Evidently the goo hadn't worked. Something had got through the hull and made a pinhole leak. In fact the hole was so small that it had taken me nearly thirty-five hours to compute the rate of leakage exactly. But it was ...
— Last Resort • Stephen Bartholomew
... reason, the fluent may talk, But they ne'er can compute what we owe to the chalk. From the embryo mind of the infant of four, To the graduate, wise in collegiate lore; From the old district school-house to Harvard's proud hall, The chalk rules with absolute sway ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... made by Green in his earlier years has a certain value. By the time he had accomplished 200 ascents he was at pains to compute that he had travelled across country some 6,000 miles, which had been traversed in 240 hours. From this it would follow that the mean rate of travel in aerial voyages will be about twenty-five miles ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... with respect to each other. For as the points, which enter into the composition of any line or surface, whether perceived by the sight or touch, are so minute and so confounded with each other, that it is utterly impossible for the mind to compute their number, such a computation will Never afford us a standard by which we may judge of proportions. No one will ever be able to determine by an exact numeration, that an inch has fewer points than a foot, or a foot fewer than an ell or any greater measure: for which reason ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... barbarous custom, which they follow in order, as they say, to make themselves appear ferocious.... They are a people of great longevity, for we met with many who had descendants of the fourth degree. Not knowing how to compute time, and counting neither days, months, nor years—excepting in so far as they count the lunar months—when they wanted to signify to us any particular duration of time, they did it by showing us a stone ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... Rufus Choate: "To form and uphold a state, it is not enough that our judgments should believe it to be useful; the better part of our affections should feel it to be lovely. It is not enough that our arithmetic should compute its value and find it high; our hearts should hold it priceless—above all things rich and rare—dearer than health and beauty, brighter than all the order of the stars." In contemplating those mysterious ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... are one of those who do not compute riches by the number of dollars one possesses. So I think, to you I may safely answer, yes. I have contentment with little, and on such wealth ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... against the study. I believe neither Mr. Chute nor I ever contracted a moment's vanity from any of our discoveries, or ever preferred them to any thing but brag and whist. Well, Gray has set himself to compute, and has found out that there must go a million of ancestors in twenty generations to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... was ranked by his enemies among the best officers in the British service, was mortally wounded. This loss, when compared with the numbers brought by Lord Cornwallis into the field, was very considerable. The Americans did not compute his troops at more than two thousand rank and file, but his own accounts state them at only fourteen ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... in the same manner streaked the blood upwards, again remove the finger below, and again the vessel becomes distended as before; and this repeat, say a thousand times, in a short space of time. And now compute the quantity of blood which you have thus pressed up beyond the valve, and then multiplying the assumed quantity by one thousand, you will find that so much blood has passed through a certain portion of the vessel; and I do now believe that you will find ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... fashion, i.e. to prejudge the form. 'To cast' was common in the sense of to calculate or compute; see Shakespeare, ii. Henry IV. i. 1. 166, "You cast the event of war." Some think, however, that the word has here its still more restricted sense as used in astrology, e.g. "to cast a nativity"; others see in it a reference to ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... paralysers, two have allowed me to witness their surgical methods, which the third, I feel certain, will confirm. In both cases, a single thrust of the lancet; in both cases, injection of the venom at a predetermined point. A calculator in an observatory could not compute the position of his planet with greater accuracy. An idea may be taken as proved when it attains to this mathematical forecast of the future, this certain knowledge of the unknown. When will the acclaimers of chance achieve a like success? Order appeals ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... accuracy of Spanheim, Reland, and Lowman, we are inclined to compute the Hebrew territory at about fifteen millions of acres; assuming, with these writers, that the true boundaries of the Promised Land were, Mount Libanus on the north, the Wilderness of Arabia on ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... thousand crowns of gold. The exact income of the State, however, from the monopoly of salt, or from the various imposts and duties levied upon merchandise, it is now difficult to know, and it is impossible to compute accurately the value or extent of Venetian commerce at any one time. It reached the acme of its prosperity under Tommaso Mocenigo, who was Doge from 1414 to 1423. There were then three thousand and three hundred vessels of the mercantile marine, giving employment ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... driven into a close confederacy with half the third part of Protestants, with a view to a change in the Constitution in Church or State or both, and you rest the whole of their security on a handful of gentlemen, clergy, and their dependents,—compute the strength you have in Ireland, to oppose to grounded discontent, to capricious innovation, to blind popular fury, and to ambitious, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... everybody said he was the homeliest young man in the region, yet more village girls went to their front doors to see him than if he had been a showman coming to town to do feats of magic. He was not unintelligent either, and could play on the violin, compute accounts equal to the best country book-keeper, and as he was of religious turn, although attached to no particular denomination, the meeting-houses on every side, hardly excepting the Quakers themselves, delighted to see him drive up on Sundays and tell ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... Emperor's great kindness, the two astronomers resolved to compute a new set of astronomical tables, and in honour of his Majesty they were to be called the 'Rudolphine Tables.' This project pleased the Emperor, who promised to defray the expense of their publication. Logomontanus, Tycho's chief assistant, had entrusted ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... great advantages this error and this slight madness has, thus compute: the poet's mind is not easily covetous; fond of verses, he studies this alone; he laughs at losses, flights of slaves, fires; he contrives no fraud against his partner, or his young ward; he lives on ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... but that the vessel would hug the great floe till the wind sprang up. But Captain Marsham was not so confident of their not coming to harm grinding against an ice rock whose extent, save that it was some twenty feet above the water, it was impossible to compute; and as soon as he had convinced himself that they would not have to take to the boats, he had given orders which resulted in the rattling of iron doors and a dull roar from the engine-room, while the semi-darkness grew more dense as the grey fog-cloud began to be pervaded by another and ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... sides. Centuries will not repair that waste of creative ability in either section. France, after the lapse of more than two hundred years, is still suffering from the loss of her Huguenots. It is impossible to compute what American literature has lost as a result of this war, not only from the double waste involved in turning the energies of men to destruction and subsequently to the necessary repairs, but also from the sacrifice of life of ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... sliding-scale of gifts and attentions; and only this Christmas, although he is now—well, Aunt Winnifred has locked up the Family Bible and begins to talk of Arthur as a young man—yet only this Christmas, at Lawrence Newt's family party, at which, so nimbly did they run round, it was almost impossible to compute the actual number of Newt, and Wynne, and Bennet children—Arthur Merlin brought in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy, something covered with a large handkerchief. Of course there could be ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... livres. He has other city properties, houses in Paris, estates here and there, running not into the hundreds of thousands, but into the millions of livres in actual value. Among these are some of the estates of the greatest nobles of France. Their value is more than any man can compute. Is this not something? Moreover, there goes with it all the dignity of the most stupendous personal success ever made by a single man since the world began. 'Tis all yours, Lady Catharine. And unless you share it, it has no value to my brother. I know myself that ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... but I may safely carry it higher, as far as Livius Andronicus, who, as I have said formerly, taught the first play at Rome in the year ab urbe condita CCCCCXIV. I have since desired my learned friend Mr. Maidwell to compute the difference of times betwixt Aristophanes and Livius Andronicus; and he assures me from the best chronologers that Plutus, the last of Aristophanes' plays, was represented at Athens in the year of the 97th Olympiad, which agrees with the year urbis conditae ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... one pound of carbon in ten thousand pounds of ordinary country air. Now, there are one hundred and sixty square rods in an acre, and since there are twelve inches in a foot and sixteen and one-half feet in a rod, it is easy to compute that there are nearly a hundred million pounds of air on an acre, and that the carbon in this amounts to only five tons. A three-ton crop of corn or hay contains one and one-fourth tons of the element carbon; so that the total amount of the carbon in the air over an acre of land is sufficient ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... in the very city in which Eloquence was born and nurtured, how late it was before she grew to maturity; for before the time of Solon and Pisistratus, we meet with no one who is so much as mentioned for his talent of speaking. These, indeed, if we compute by the Roman date, may be reckoned very ancient; but if by that of the Athenians, we shall find them to be moderns. For though they flourished in the reign of Servius Tullius, Athens had then subsisted much longer than Rome has at present. I have not, however, the least doubt that the power ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the mechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer—a great deal more than it does to compute the steering." ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the evils connected with lotteries. To compute their sum total would be impossible. The immense waste of money and time (and time is money) by those persons who are in the habit of buying tickets, to say nothing of the cigars smoked, the spirits, wine, and ale drank, the suppers eaten, and the money lost at cards, while lounging ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... due east of everywhere. In point of fact we were north-west, so that they should have turned"—his thumbs began to turn and his voice to take on the Talmudic sing-song—"south-east. I told them it was easy in each city to compute the exact turning, by corners ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... marbles of different colors," he said, "and you dropped them from the top of a house to the hard ground below, a rough and rocky piece of ground, could you ever figure out what kind of a pattern they would make? You might measure the size of the marbles and compute how many times they would strike against each other in falling, meantime figuring the angles of direction that each collision would produce. You might measure the resistance of the ground and the elasticity ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... If we compute Dryden's share in the theatre at L300 annually, which is lower than it was rated by the actors in their petition;[31] if we make, at the same time, some allowance for those presents which authors of that time received upon presenting ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... loss or injury that may be incurred in the transport of merchandise to these parts it is unnecessary to compute the ordinary dangers to which the merchant is more or less liable in all quarters of the world; but two distinct drawbacks to commercial enterprise at present exist in these countries, which are peculiar to them, these are the prevalence of piracy, and the constant occurrence ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... scene of the story that we are digesting for you is changed. Miss Plynlimmon has gone to London. You will be gratified to learn that she has fallen heir to a fortune of 100,000 pounds, which we are happy to compute for you at $486,666 and 66 cents less exchange. On Miss Plynlimmon's arrival at Charing Cross Station, she is overwhelmed with that strange feeling of isolation felt in the surging crowds of a modern city. We therefore ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... devil may be loth to meddle with them. They believe in one God in Trinity; the son having become a man and died, yet is now in heaven. God equal with the father, yet man at the same time; and that his mother was a woman who is now in heaven: And they compute the time of the death of the son nearly as we do the appearance of the Redeemer on earth. They believe in a hell as we do, and burn lamps that God may light them in the right road in the other world: Yet do they use divination after a ridiculous manner. The country of Thibet produces ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... extensive conquests, and preserved a military spirit, at a time when every other virtue was oppressed by luxury and despotism. If, in the consideration of their armies, we pass from their discipline to their numbers, we shall not find it easy to define them with any tolerable accuracy. We may compute, however, that the legion, which was itself a body of six thousand eight hundred and thirty-one Romans, might, with its attendant auxiliaries, amount to about twelve thousand five hundred men. The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors was composed of no less than thirty ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... was the last that they would see. When they came up to it, the master of it offered them refreshments of cocoa-nuts and other fruits, of which they accepted; after a short stay, they walked forward for a considerable time; in bad way it is not easy to compute distances, but they imagined that they had walked about six miles farther, following the course of the river, when they frequently passed under vaults, formed by fragments of the rock, in which they were told people who were benighted frequently passed the night. Soon after they found the river ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... above the horizon before the people there see it rise. Its distance is 2850 millions of miles, and the sun as seen by them is not larger than Venus appears to us when an evening star. And although this planet is so distant that it can only be seen with large telescopes, they can not only compute its distance and size, but also the mass of matter of which it is composed. But you will find all this thrown into the shade by the way in which it was discovered. As I may be telling you what you know already, I will merely state, that from observed perturbations in the ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... in Aheer. I suspect the number of inhabitants is very small indeed. I had already been powerfully impressed with the paucity of the population of the districts of Ghat, the desert region occupied by the Azgher, and had been led to compute that they cannot contain in all more than a ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... We compute the year from the day on which the sun crosses the line, and on its setting that evening there is a general shout throughout the land; at least I can speak from my own knowledge throughout our vicinity. The people ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... was followed in 1502 by a similar exodus of Moors from Castile, and in 1524 by an exodus of Mauresques from Aragon. To compute the loss of wealth and population inflicted upon Spain by these mad edicts, would be impossible. We may wonder whether the followers of Cortez, when they trod the teocallis of Mexico and gazed with loathing on the gory elf-locks of the Aztec priests, were not reminded of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... the right hand man of Jim Silent, in the days when Jim had been a terrible, half-legendary figure. One felt that same quiet strength as the tawny haired man talked to Barry now; his voice was a smooth, deep current. But as for Barry himself, Gregg could not compute the factors which entered into the man. By all outward seeming that slender, half-timid figure was not a tithe of the force which either of the others represented, but out of the past Gregg's memory gathered more ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... object, as well of the profession as the person. He at once sagaciously beheld the embryo lawsuit and contingent controversy about to result from the proposition; and, in his mind, with a far and free vision, began to compute the costs and canvass the various terms and prolonged trials of county court litigation. He saw fee after fee thrust into his hands—he beheld the opposing parties desirous to conciliate, and extending to him sundry of those equivocal courtesies, which, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... progressive permutations, you will see, when four men equal to a thousand are under the eyes of each other, and of the garrison in the fort, that the whole arsenal of logarithms would give out before you could compute the permutative possibilities of the courage that would be refracted, reflected, compounded and concentrated by all there, each giving courage to and receiving courage from each and all the others. It makes my head ache to ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... Who can compute the amount of mischief that Fourier has done, and those well-meaning but inexperienced dreamers who have followed after him? A Fourth-of-July firecracker once consumed the half of a large city. The boy who exploded it had no evil intentions; neither ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... To-day, by means of the science of forestry, we are slowly winning back the priceless heritage we almost threw away. Because of our ignorance, we neglected the by-products of our fields, our mines, and our industries, and no one can compute the fortunes we lost. Through scientific knowledge, we have begun to utilize these by-products. Some of the greatest of modern industries, and the fortunes which have grown out ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone, Each spring, its various bias. Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But know ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... 'Ah! Madame, you may well wonder! I never saw Maitre Benoit there so cross; the poor man did but offer to sell little Fanchon the elizir that secures a good husband, and old Benoit descended on him like a griffin enraged, would scarce give him time to compute his charges or pack his wares, but hustled him forth like a mere thief! And I missed my bargain for that muffler that had so taken my fancy. But, Madame, he spoke to me apart, and said you were an old customer of ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, its various tone; Each spring, its various bias. Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... more and more the alarming assurance of the fate intended him; and that he will verily have to draw sword again, and fight for Silesia, and as if for life. From about the end of 1743 (as I strive to compute), there was in Friedrich himself no doubt left of it; though his Ministers, when he consulted them a good while afterwards, were quite incredulous, and spent all their strength in dissuading a new War; now when the only question was, How to do said War? ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... thirty- four degrees, which at 17-1/2 leagues to the degree, gives only 575 Portuguese leagues, or 680 geographical leagues of twenty to the degree. Thus miserably erroneous are the estimated distances in old navigators, who could only compute by the dead ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... compute the value of the mother to the child. It is the mother who loves, because she has suffered. And this seems to be the great law of love. Not a triumph in art, literature, or jurisprudence—from the story of Homer to the odes of Horace, from the times of Bacon and Leibnitz ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... certain nations tenaciously held to the custom of observing the Jewish time. But the apostles, by this decree, did not wish to impose necessity upon the Churches, the words of the decree testify. For it bids no one to be troubled, even though his brethren, in observing Easter, do not compute the time aright. The words of the decree are extant in Epiphanius: Do not calculate, but celebrate it whenever your brethren of the circumcision do; celebrate it at the same time with them, and even though they may have erred, let not this be a care to you.. ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... something of a doctrinaire, her observations on "Romanism" (which she dubbed "an abyss of superstition and moral pollution") might have fallen from the lips of a hot-gospeller of to-day. "Who," she asked her hearers, "shall compute the stupefying and brutalizing effects of such religion? Who will dare tell me that this terrible Church does not lie upon the bosom of the present time like a vast, unwieldy, and offensive corpse? America does not yet recognise ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... rugged face Of him who won a place Above all kings and lords; Whose various skill and power Left Italy a dower No numbers can compute, ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... years; according to the Seventy Interpreters, two thousand two hundred xliiij years. But according to Jerome not completely two thousand; according to Metodus two thousand. The cause of which diversity is, that these do not compute according to the manner of sacred Scripture the minutiae of times, or of years, which are over and above the thousands and hundreds of years. From the beginning of the world until Noeh's flood, are two thousand two hundred fifty six [Sidenote: 2.] years. The second age ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... to supremacy in part probably by the arrival of new immigrants, but chiefly by conquest of the small states into which the country was divided. They could learn from their more cultivated neighbors to reform their calendar, compute time with greater accuracy, and make important improvements in other respects. They must also have modified their religious system to some extent, for it does not appear that they had adopted the worship of Kukulcan (whose name they transformed into Quetzalcohuatl) before they ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... of men over other creatures, cannot expect any considerable increase to themselves, if by continual terrour they amaze, shatter, and hare their people, driving them into woods, and running them upon precipices. If men do but compute how charming an efficacy one word, and more, one good action has from a superior upon those under him, it can scarce be reckon'd how powerful a magick there is in a prince who shall, by a constant tenour ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... and long jets, indicated as 'dots' and 'dashes' on the paper. Thus the letter E, which is so common in English words, is now transmitted by a short jet which makes a dot; T, another common letter, by a long jet, making a dash; and Q, a rare letter, by the group dash, dash, dot, dash. Vail tried to compute the relative frequency of all the letters in order to arrange his alphabet; but a happy idea enabled him to save his time. He went to the office of the local newspaper, and found the result he wanted in the type-cases of the compositors. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... journey, and she had decided to await their coming to her at Lexington; and Nellie Rallston, who longed to be present, gave it up when her husband decided that his business would not permit him to be so far away at such a time, but as compensation, he told her to compute every dollar she thought the journey with all incidentals would have cost them, and to double it and send to Chicago for the loveliest present the money would buy as her own gift to Billy's wife. As for himself, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Hercules; they paint the saint on horseback, and drawing the horse in splendid trappings, very gloriously accoutred, they scarce refrain in a literal sense from worshipping the very beast. What shall I say of such as cry up and maintain the cheat of pardons and indulgences? that by these compute the time of each soul's residence in purgatory, and assign them a longer or shorter continuance, according as they purchase more or fewer of these paltry pardons, and saleable exemptions? Or what can be said bad enough ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... strong; and young for his years, which were Fifty-nine last April. The "Three-score and ten years," the Psalmist's limit, which probably was often in Oliver's thoughts and in those of others there, might have been anticipated for him: Ten Years more of Life;—which, we may compute, would have given another History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might observe, was but uncertain in late times; often "indisposed" the spring ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... development, and in the highest class of social games, does away with the antiquated methods and exacting mathematical problems of the above- and below-the-line system, by using a form of score-sheet which allows and encourages the scorer to mentally compute simple sums during the progress of the rubber. By the elimination of complicated figuring, it minimizes the opportunity for mistake, and delay at ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... by swinging a weight at the end of a string, and calculating by the motion of the sun, or any star, how long the vibration would last, in proportion to the length of the string, and the weight of the pendulum, they thought to reduce it back again, and from any part of time to compute the exact length of any string that must necessarily vibrate into so much space of time; so that if a man should ask in China for a quarter of an hour of satin, or taffeta, they would know perfectly what it meant; and all mankind learn a new way to measure ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... little how it must be; but I suppose I ought to understand the differential calculus to compute it. Circles are wonderful things; and the science of curves holds almost everything. Rose, when do you think we shall get ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... observed to my extreme surprise that the ship was under the influence of a very powerful current, which ran to the north-east with such violence that she was carried, now bows on, now stern on, and occasionally drifting sideways like a crab, at a rate which I cannot compute at less than twelve or fifteen knots an hour. For several weeks I was borne away in this manner, until one morning, to my inexpressible joy, I sighted an island upon the starboard quarter. The current would, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... year—x is the same as the year (x 1) B.C.; or, in other words, the year of Christ's birth is, for certain astronomical exactitude purposes, interpolated between the years 1 B.C. and A.D. 1, as we vulgarly compute them: that is to say, the eclipses of the sun recorded 2,400 years ago by Confucius, from notes and annals preserved in his native state's archives as far back as 700 B.C., are found to be almost without exception fairly correct, with ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... prediction agree with the facts of history? It is altogether impossible to compute correctly the number of those who were in different ways put to death for opposing the corruption of the Church of Rome. A million Waldenses perished in France. Nine hundred thousand Christians were slain within thirty years ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... substantial commodities—food and clothing. Minus the attributes which qualify him for a high rank, man is a being with a buried talent, only a unit in the great world around him. Plus these attributes, no system of mathematics can compute his worth. ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... it continued thence through heavy jungle chiefly bamboo, until we descended in an oblique manner on the Laee-panee, about a mile up which we found our halting place. The whole march occupied, including a few halts, seven hours; and as the pace was pretty good for six full hours, I compute the distance to be about fifteen miles. Hill Flora recommenced in the bamboo jungle; two fine species of Impatiens and several Urticeae making their appearance; Camellia axillaris and some fine Acanthacea: the best plant was ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... me Reason to say, she was on the mending Hand; and I have not nam'd all, for the very encrease of our Numbers of late Years, is a vast Addition to our Strength, Credit, and Figure, as a Nation. I think the Dealers in Political Arithmetick, compute that every Nation, unwasted by Famines, Wars, or Plagues, doubles the Quantity of its People in 250 Years; but I have seen Computations, that between our early Marriages, the Breedyness of our People, the Importations of our Neighbours, the Mildness of our Climate, and the Fertility of ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... old Jane? From old Mausa time you can get my age—you can 'pute it up. (compute) I was 95 June before this last June gone. I got a son 70 what lives in the country—he pay my rent. I dunno how many children I had; my son July Ladson lives here with me—he gone out now. One son is gone off somewhere in the world; he's married and has a family—I ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... tails. Napier's invention of logarithms at once attracted Kepler's attention. He must have regretted that the discovery was not made early enough to save him a vast amount of labour in computations, but he managed to find time to compute some logarithm tables for himself, though he does not seem to have understood quite what Napier had done, and though with his usual honesty he gave full credit to the Scottish baron for ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... work at the village. She could return from that to the children for refreshment and for spiritual illumination. In the purity of their eyes, in the liquid sweetness of their voices, in their adorable grace and caprice, there was a healing force beyond her power to compute. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... $28,000. The company which made that bridge, agreed in their contract to give the county a structure that should carry safely 3,000 pounds per running-foot besides its own weight; but they built a bridge, which, if they knew enough to compute its strength at all, they knew perfectly well could not safely carry over one-quarter part of that load. In fact, the weight of the bridge alone is more than it ever ought to have borne. The company warranted each span of that ...
— Bridge Disasters in America - The Cause and the Remedy • George L. Vose
... America of 1653, when there was certainly not a fifth part of that number; who that compares this with the North America of 1853, its twenty-two millions of European origin, and its thirty-one States, will venture to assign limits to our growth; will dare to compute the time-table of our railway progress, or lift so much as a corner of the curtain that hides the crowded events of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... good horseman AND a good sailor, I realized that anyone who expected to find these two qualities combined in one man was quite capable of demanding that his companion- secretary should be able to knit woollen socks, write devotional verse, and compute ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... most severe winter weather experienced for twenty years we are able to compute approximately our loss of feathered life. It is seventy-five per cent of the quail throughout the irrigated district, and about twenty per cent of meadow-larks. In the rough cedar-covered sections south of the Arkansas River, the loss among ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... windows of the great, he had gazed long at these creations. They were suspended on a wire across the window in various lengths, from little ones to sizes too awesome to compute. On one occasion so long had he stood motionless, so deep the trance of his contemplation, that the winter cold had cruelly bitten his ears and toes. He had not supposed that these things were for mere vulgar ownership. He had known of boys ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... to Beauty or Taste as a parallel case, where there may be an operation of the intellect to compute proportions, but where the elegance or beauty must arise in the region of feeling. Thus, while reason conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood, sentiment or emotion must give beauty and deformity, vice ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... hand the copies of your reports on the rescue of the men on the disabled STS-52. It is fortunate that the Lunar radar stations could compute their orbit. ...
— The Man Who Hated Mars • Gordon Randall Garrett
... days of our stay at Carthagena our most interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter commands the town and a very extensive view. The port, or rather the bahia, is nearly nine miles and a half long, if we compute the length from the town (near the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega of Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru, south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach the opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of the small island of Tierra ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... hundreds of thousands of the degraded Africans. There has been time to extirpate most of the native population of North and South America. There has been time to wage war, till the blood of human beings has flowed in torrents. And then, in regard to just and honorable traffic, compute, if human arithmetic be competent to the task, the amount of merchandise brought from India, and from other distant lands. There has been time for all this. Now I ask with great plainness, for it is a solemn and practical subject, Had you exhibited the same enterprise, ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... a letter to Ries, Nov. 22d, 1815:—"He was consumptive for some years, and, in order to make his life easier, I can safely compute what I gave him ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... road ran from northern New England to Savannah, closely hugging the seacoast for the greater part of the way. Some of the milestones set by Franklin to enable the postmasters to compute the postage, which was fixed according to distance, are still standing. Crossroads connected some of the larger communities away from the seacoast with the main road, but when Franklin died, after serving ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... were able to provide for themselves. There were those in Nova Scotia who were receiving rations as late as 1792. What all this must have cost the government during the years following 1783 it is difficult to compute. Including the cost of surveys, official salaries, the building of saw-mills and grist-mills, and such things, the figures must have run up to several ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... years perhaps, passed into their old bodies. Hence it was the great object of the Egyptians to preserve their mortal bodies after death, and thus arose the custom of embalming them. It is difficult to compute the number of mummies that have been found in Egypt. If a man was wealthy, it cost his family as much as one thousand dollars to embalm his body suitably to his rank. The embalmed bodies of kings were preserved in marble sarcophagi, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... and your old fair and easy forty-miles-a-day stage-coaches for the train and the rail, disband your City police and detective organisation, and make the transit of a letter between London and Dublin a matter of from five days to nearly as many weeks, and compute how much easier it was then than now for an adventurous highwayman, an absconding debtor, or a pair of fugitive lovers, to make good their retreat. Slow, undoubtedly, was the flight—they did not run, they walked away; but so was pursuit, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Heaven. Being a stranger there, I gladly and gracefully accepted his kind invitation. Proceeding along the pearly streets, enraptured with the beauties which surrounded me, I saw a multitude of people, the number of whom figures fail to compute; but I noticed there were dividing lines, and they were gathered in companies. Observing a beautiful body of water in the distance, and a gathering of one company by its banks, I inquired of my escort who they were. He ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... quickly to purple, pink, and red by turns, and the opaline sky itself forms a background for the dissolving community of interlacing filaments of priceless filigree, till in time too full of interest to compute by measure, the whole heavens are aflame with a riotous orgy of color, a prodigality of shifting scene, making one think of the descriptions essayed by the writer of ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... hath been very kind. I am thrice the man I was, though I limp wofully, which grieves me since it shortens the day's journey, lad. We have been already these many days and yet, as I compute, we have fully eighty miles yet to go. Alas, dear lad, how my ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... good housewife who bought her woollens and her grocery, the yeoman who chose his frieze-coat, his gay waistcoat, and the leathern integuments of his sturdy props, once only in twelve months, would compute the events of his life after the following fashion:—"It happened three months after last Bury or Chester Fair;" or, "Please Heaven, the bullocks shall be slaughtered the week before the next Statute." ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... komprenebla. Comprehension kompreneco. Compress kunpremi. Compressible kunpremebla. Comprise enhavi. Compromise kompromiti. Compromise kompromiso. Compulsion devigo. Compunction memriprocxo. Computation kalkulo. Compute kalkuli. Comrade kamarado. Concave kaveta. Conceal kasxi. Consecutive intersekva. Concede cedi. Conceit malmodesteco. Conceited malmodesta. Conceive gravedigxi. Concentrate koncentrigi. Concentric koncentra. Conception (idea) elpenso. Concern ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the other hand, that (as I compute) one pen will outlast two and a half bottles of ink; that one bottle will distil thirty thousand words; and that the late James Anthony Froude (who lived close by) drew his supply of writing materials ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Marcia in the affair,—perhaps more than for himself. But to do him justice he did not formulate these now, or in any wise explicitly recognize the favors he was bestowing. At twenty-six one does not naturally compute them in musing upon the girl to whom one is just betrothed; and Bartley's mind was a confusion of pleasure. He liked so well to think how fond of him Marcia was, that it did not occur to him then to question whether he were as fond of her. It is possible that as he drowsed, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... take me to the lower city. Like a poor starveling I wander in the haunts of wealth where the buildings are piled to forty stories, and I spin out the ciphers in my brain in an endeavor to compute the amount that is laid up inside. Also, lest I become discontented with my poverty, I note the strain and worry of the faces that I meet. There is a story of Tolstoi in which a man is whispered by his god that he may possess such land as he can circle in a day. Until that time he had been living ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... mainly due to her representations as to its indispensable necessity; and how much good was done by that instrumentality in giving food, clothing, and protection to those who were so suddenly brought out of the house of bondage, as against the ferocity of the rebel element, it is difficult to compute because of its magnitude. She deserves to be gratefully remembered among "the honorable women not a few," who, in their day and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... clean paper collar; he was a handsome young fellow, with regular features, and a solicitously kept imperial and mustache; his hair, when he lifted his hat, appeared elegantly oiled and brushed. I did not hope from this figure that the work done would be worth the money paid, and, as nearly as I can compute, the weeds he took from that bed cost me a cent apiece, to say nothing of a cup of tea given him in grace at ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... to compute the measurement of drains of any dimensions likely to be adopted, a table and explanations, found in the Report of the Board of Health, already quoted, are given below. The dimensions, or contents of any drain, are found by multiplying together the length, depth, ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... coal, water, etc., occupying all of the space not required for passengers. From California, the freights southward, have consisted of treasure, amounting, it is supposed, to the value of seventy millions of dollars, but it is extremely difficult to compute the worth accurately, as a large portion of the gold, etc., sent has been in the possession of passengers, and the value does not ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... man, mounted the ascent with much speed and activity. I was forced to halt so often in this particular march, that, upon my joining him on the top of the pillar, I found he had counted all the steeples and towers which were discernible from this advantageous situation, and was endeavouring to compute the number of acres they stood on. We were both of us very well pleased with this part of the prospect; but I found he cast an evil eye upon several warehouses and other buildings, which looked like barns, and seemed capable of receiving ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... curious to observe how differently these great men estimated the value of every kind of knowledge. Take Arithmetic for example. Plato, after speaking slightly of the convenience of being able to reckon and compute in the ordinary transactions of life, passes to what he considers as a far more important advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, he tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... love, and only won through money. It demands liberalism from a candidate,—two kinds of liberalism seldom united; the liberalism in opinion which is natural enough to a very poor man, and the liberalism in expenditure which is scarcely to be obtained except from a very rich one. You may compute the cost of Saxboro' at L3000 to get in, and about L2000 more to defend your seat against a petition,—the defeated candidate nearly always petitions. L5000 is a large sum; and the worst of it is, that the extreme opinions to which the member for Saxboro' ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... secure uniform results day after day. Only the rapid worker can do enough to insure pay for her time. Only the girl with a keen sense of taste can properly judge results and devise successful combinations. Only a business woman can buy to advantage and compute ratios of expense and return. This combination, of course, is not to be ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... will provide a comfortable subsistence, without any contribution on their part; the poverty now prevailing will thus be alleviated. The rich, like the poor, receive the daily triobolon as a free gift; but if they compute it as interest for their investments, they will find that the rate of interest is full and satisfactory, like the rate on bottomry." Zurborg, "Comm." p. 25; Boeckh, op. cit. IV. xxi. (p. 606, Eng. tr.); and Grote's note, op. ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon
... Gungas. If one seeks More comprehensive scale, th' arithmic mounts By the Asankya, which is the tale Of all the drops that in ten thousand years Would fall on all the worlds by daily rain; Thence unto Maha Kalpas, by the which The Gods compute ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... blameless life from her youth up.... Her name and the name of her posterity lies under reproach, the removing of which reproach is the principal thing wherein we desire restitution. And, as we know not how to express our loss of such a mother in such a way, so we know not how to compute our charge, but leave it to the judgment of others, and shall not be critical." He distinctly intimates, that they do not wish any money to be paid them, unless "the attainder is taken off." Many other petitions were presented by the families ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... lifted his head and felt for his handkerchief. "Yes, it's quite possible! I believe I have shed a tear or two. The first in how many years, Pauline? Ah—that I could not, would not wish to compute, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... currents of philosophy. Here in India, however, the principal systems of philosophy had their beginning in times of which we have but scanty record, and it is hardly possible to say correctly at what time they began, or to compute the influence that led to the foundation of so many divergent systems at so early a period, for in all probability these were formulated just after the earliest Upani@sads had been composed ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... learn to respect each other as they find that their differences are the effect of social and local custom, not founded upon good reasons. I trust that the industrial commission will enable the world to compute the value of all productions by the same standard, to measure by the same yard or meter, and weigh by ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the size of the battery required, estimate as nearly as possible how many lamps, motors, and heaters, etc., will be used. Compute the watts (volts X amperes), required by each. Estimate how long each appliance will be used each day, and thus obtain the total watt hours used per day. Multiply this by 7 to get the watt hours per week. The total watt hours required in one ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... Jones, master) was rated at a hundred and eighty tons . . . . Yet she was called a fine ship," etc. It is evident that, like Brown, he confused the two vessels, with Cushman's letter before his eyes, from failure to compute the "sixty last." He moreover quotes Cushman incorrectly. The great disparity in size, however, should alone render this confusion impossible, and Cushman is clear as to the tonnage ("sixty last"), ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... problems established, arithmetic is further developed along special lines of trade to meet the demands of the business world. The trained worker should not only be skilled in the manipulation of tools and materials, but she should be able to compute her own problems, such as estimates for garments, how to cut materials economically, the cost of one garment or article as related to the cost of many of the same kind, the prices, and similar trade questions. The ability to deal with these subjects adds materially to the value ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... occasion for pretence," she replied lightly; and I found myself comparing her voice with her figure, her figure with her face, and vainly endeavouring to compute her age. Frankly, she was bewildering—this lovely girl who seemed so wholly a ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... blundered into the strange miscalculation of supposing that they could lessen the sum of it by multiplying it into the misery of another person. All the couples (and it was difficult, in such a confused crowd, to compute exactly their number) stood up at once, and had execution done upon them in the lump, the clergyman addressing only small parts of the service to each individual pair, but so managing the larger portion as to include ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... cessation of arms during the Olympic games. Among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who alleges for proof an Olympic quoit, on which was preserved the inscription of Lycurgus's name. But others who, with Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, compute the time by the succession of the Spartan kings, place him much earlier than the first Olympiad. Timaeus, however, supposes that, as there were two Lycurguses in Sparta at different times, the actions of both are ascribed to one, on account of his particular renown; and that the more ancient ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... yield to a false hope, trembling lest he should be deceived in his calculations, the Doctor leaned again over his chart, and began to compute the black pins which, like a mourning cloak, covered the map of Europe. And indeed the terrible monster he had named was a pall thrown over the happiness of the people of the world. The idealists and ambitious men who sought ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Druse families. The Pasha constantly maintains a force in the Haouran of between five and six hundred men; three hundred and fifty or four hundred of whom are at Boszra, and the remainder at Mezareib, or patrolling the country. The Moggrebyns are generally employed in this service. I compute the population of the Haouran, exclusive of the Arabs who frequent the plain, the mountain (Djebel Haouran), and the Ledja, at about fifty or sixty thousand, of whom six or seven thousand are Druses; and about three thousand Christians. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... acquaintance with the maxim of the great and godlike Gustavus Adolphus, that a flag of truce should be half a messenger half a spy?—And, having finished burnishing his arms, he sate down patiently to compute how much half a dollar per diem would amount to at the end of a six-months' campaign; and, when he had settled that problem, proceeded to the more abstruse calculations necessary for drawing up a brigade of two thousand men on the principle ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... minds of the common people"These," he contended, "were not such as resemble the gradual progress of a fertilizing river, but the headlong and precipitous fury of some portentous flood. The eras by which the vulgar compute time, have always reference to some period of fear and tribulation, and they date by a tempest, an earthquake, or burst of civil commotion. When such are the facts most alive, in the memory of the common people, we cannot wonder," he concluded, "that the ferocious warrior is remembered, and ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... young King has, on his own basis (pretty much in spite of all the world, as we find now and afterwards), determined to invade Silesia, and lay hold of the Property he has long had there;—not computing, for none can compute, the sleeping whirlwinds he may chance to awaken thereby. Thus lightly does a man enter upon Enterprises which prove unexpectedly momentous, and shape the whole remainder of his days for him; crossing the Rubicon as it were in his sleep. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... no complex problems, made no brilliant discoveries. But his habit of analysis enriched the world beyond power to compute. He taught men to think and separate truth from error. He was not popular, for he did not adapt himself to the many. His business was to teach teachers—he conducted a Normal School, and taught teachers how to teach. Coleridge went to the very bottom of a subject, and his subtle mind refused ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year. A nation's GDP at official exchange rates (OER) is the home-currency-denominated annual GDP figure divided by the bilateral average US exchange rate with that country in that year. The measure is simple to compute and gives a precise measure of the value of output. Many economists prefer this measure when gauging the economic power an economy maintains vis-a-vis its neighbors, judging that an exchange rate captures the purchasing power a nation enjoys in the international marketplace. Official exchange ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ingenuity here keep her seat, For works minute, or works immensely great, We to thy native sons the gift impart, Of bright invention, and of matchless art, Skill'd to devise, to reason, to compute, Quick to suggest, and prompt to execute; What some have but conceiv'd, do thou amend, Mature and perfect, ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye |
