"Portable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and screw-cutting machine is a convenient portable hand drill-press, the use of which is readily understood ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... a suitable place is made to fit the several raksangs (large brass pots and bowls), in which the brick tea, duly pounded first in a stone or wooden mortar, is boiled and stirred with a long brass spoon. A portable iron stand is generally to be seen somewhere in the tent, upon which the hot vessels are placed when they are removed from the fire. Close to these is the toxzum or dongbo, a cylindrical wooden churn, used for mixing the tea ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... the cacti to fill up the spaces between the wheels and form a formidable barricade. The animals were tied to the carts, and the cooking utensils placed by the side, of the brushwood brought from a distance; a portable forge was established; and this colony, which seemed as though it had risen from the ground as by a miracle, was soon busily employed, while the anvil resounded with the blows which were fashioning horses' shoes and ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... attacks to which they were being subjected. The matter was so doubtful that we had to hold ourselves in readiness to clear out from the hospital at two hours' notice, whilst our wounded were taken away as fast as we could get them into what one can only describe as a portable condition. It was a physical impossibility for our wards to hold more than a hundred and fifty patients, even when packed close together side by side on the floor, and as I have said, three hundred and fifty were dealt with in the first four days. This meant that most of them spent ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... had finished ransacking the room; every scrap of paper, every portable article had been ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... second volume there is a frontispiece representing a portable universal furnace, made of strong wrought iron plates and lined with bricks bedded in fire-proof loam. The height of the furnace is two feet. The body of the furnace is elliptical. There are three openings in front of the furnace, one above the other, furnished with sliding doors, ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... Meantime, its more portable flowers came to order in abundance. That the roses, so to put it, were but excellent artificial flowers, redolent only of musk, neither disproved for Carl the validity of his ideal nor for our minds ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... so, let me present you with a little treatise upon the subject written by a Mohammedan hakim, or doctor of medicine, after studying several cases of the kind at Madras, which is in India," and at his bidding, Mesrour brought him a small portable writing desk from which he took a manuscript scroll inscribed in the Arabic language. "The first page," said Prince Achmed, "contains a few thoughts upon the superiority of the Moslem faith over all others and a discussion of the follies, inconsistencies, not to say evils of them all when ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... ungrateful country and seek a home in some foreign land, where he should be permitted to pursue his studies unmolested and live in quietness and peace. He accordingly removed from the island of Huen all his instruments and appliances that were of a portable nature, and packed them on board a vessel which he hired for the purpose of transport, and, having embarked with his family, his servants, and some of his pupils and assistants, 'this interesting barque, freighted with the glory of Denmark,' ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... knowledge. Napoleon, however, in his triumphant days never, and for obvious reasons, lacked money. It was less an actual treasure that he required and valued so highly for political and military purposes, than an ever ready reserve of wealth easily portable, of paramount value at all times; "concentrated," so to speak. And nothing could come nearer to that description than rolls of English guineas. Indeed the vast numbers of these coins which fitfully appeared in circulation throughout ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Baron's Houdanian valet, was intently transcribing upon his shirt-cuff, the contents of a paper which lay uppermost in the drawer of a small portable desk. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... as any other candle; and there exists no single element of comfort, convenience, profit, and economy, in which this article has not the advantage of sperm, star, wax, or tallow candles. It will be readily conceded that the days of all other portable or table light, including lard-oil, are numbered. In fact, except where intense light, as in public buildings, is an object, gas itself cannot compete with ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... machine, behind the central hinge, and locks it in a distended position, after the silk has been placed on it. Strong cords run round the outer edges of the silk, and there are loops at the corners to attach it to the distenders. Thus, you see, the kite can be put up, or folded into a portable form like an umbrella, though not of course as quickly, nor yet as easily, owing to its ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... caroling forth a gay air—the gushing gladness of her happy heart—she proceeded to perform the duties of her toilet. Now, like a naiad at a fountain, does she lave that charming face and those ductile limbs in the limpid and rose-scented waters of a portable bath, sculptured in marble and supported by four little Cupids with gilded wings; then, like the fabled mermaid, does she arrange her shining hair in that style of beautiful simplicity which is so becoming, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... don't pretend to be up on the plan of salvation, and so far as vicarious atonement goes, I don't even know who is the author of it, but I've got a kind of hand-made religion that suits me. It's cheap, and portable, and durable, and stands our severe northern climate first rate. It ain't the protuberant kind. It don't protrude into other people's way like a sore thumb. All-wool religion don't go around with a chip on it's shoulder looking for ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... of our gold coinage is creditable to the officers of the Mint, and promises in a short period to furnish the country with a sound and portable currency, which will much diminish the inconvenience to travelers of the want of a general paper currency should the State banks be incapable of furnishing it. Those institutions have already shown themselves competent to purchase and furnish domestic exchange for the convenience ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... would be glad to have me establish my real rights," said Crawford. "You would like to have it brought up in court, perhaps, how your sister was found going through my possessions, and how she happened, quite by chance, of course, to select the most portable and valuable article in my house and carry it away with her. She would like, I am sure, to have public opportunity to make ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... Point of the Mixing Water; Common Salt (Sodium Chloride):—Freezing Temperature Chart—Heating Concrete Materials; Portable Heaters; Heating in Stationary Bins; Other Examples of Heating Methods, Power Plant, Billings, Mont., Wachusett Dam, Huronian Power Co. Dam, Arch Bridge, Piano, Ill., Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. R. Work, Heating in Water Tank—Covering and Housing the Work; Method ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... nutritious and palatable dishes when cooked in their unground state, this is not always the most convenient way of making; use of them. Mankind from earliest antiquity has sought to give these wonderful products of nature a more portable and convenient form by converting them into what is termed bread, a word derived from the verb bray, to pound, beat, or grind small, indicative of the ancient manner of preparing the grain for making bread. Probably ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... numbers had been augmented in other ways. The Quapaws, who had been early driven from their homes and once restored,[550] had left them again when they found that their country had been denuded of all its portable resources. It was exposed to inroads of many sorts. Even the Federal army preyed upon it and, as all the able-bodied male Quapaws were gradually drawn into that army, there was no way of defending it. Its inhabitants, therefore, returned as exiles ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... the whole perfect, and that, if we may believe the newspapers, is very near completion—a coach to go without horses: to this I beg leave to propose, the steam apparatus might be made applicable to all the purposes of a portable kitchen. The coachman, instead of being a good judge of horse-flesh, to be selected from a first rate London tavern for his proficiency in cooking, a known prime hand at decomposing a turtle; instead of a book of roads, in the inside pocket ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... punches cut for eighteen or twenty double letters and contractions. I was thus enlisted and articled into the service, and being infected with the type fever, the fits have periodically returned. In the year 1815, having viewed a portable press invented by Mr John Ruthven, an ingenious printer in Edinburgh, I purchased one, and commenced compositor. At this period, my brother having it in contemplation to present Bamfield to the Roxburghe Club, and not aware of the poverty and insignificance ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... sleeping. In one room could be seen a rough table, laden with maps and papers, and there were many electric lights, showing to what degree of perfection the German military system was carried out at this point. A portable dynamo and gasolene engine probably furnished ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... have been too easy. We left him there with one portable water-maker and all of that unpalatable but nourishing fungus which thrives upon Avis Solis that he could eat. I have no doubt that he lived until madness reduced ...
— The Marooner • Charles A. Stearns
... species of loyalty always has been and is now very much the fashion. In ten minutes, the gates were forced open—old Koops knocked down, and trod under foot till he was dead—every article of value that was portable was secured; chairs, tables, glasses, not portable, were thrown out of the window; Wilhelmina's harp and pianoforte battered to fragments; beds, bedding, everything flew about in the air, and then the fragments of the furniture were set fire to, and in less than an hour, Mynheer Krause's splendid ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... owner's time and effort to keep the article in his possession. The savage must personally protect his goods, and to some extent the civilized man must do so; for however well policed a city may be, it will not do to leave purses or portable goods by the wayside. Protective labor is necessary in all stages of social advancement. In civilized life, indeed, we delegate much of it to a special class of persons,—policemen, judges, lawyers, ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... and fared better than those who had spent so much money to be ill lodged. Melissino told me that the empress thought my idea a very sensible one. As I was the only person who had a sleeping carriage, which was quite a portable house in itself, I had numerous visitors, and Zaira was radiant to be able to do ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the church of Glascum, {22} is a portable bell, endowed with great virtues, called Bangu, {23} and said to have belonged to Saint David. A certain woman secretly conveyed this bell to her husband, who was confined in the castle of Raidergwy, {24} near Warthrenion, (which Rhys, son of Gruffydd, had lately ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... innumerable lakes and rivers. Unfortunately, many of the streams abound with rapids, and navigation on them, as generally understood, is an impossibility. Hence, the only way of travelling on them in summer, is in the light birch canoe or in some other craft, so portable, that it can be carried or dragged across the many portages that are so numerous in that ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... to the absence of merit and character on the part of the candidate, and lay them open to that extrinsic influence which, according to the meaning of the law, is bribery and corruption. As for the man who takes his bribe, for the sake of convenience, in the direct, portable, and exchangeable form of a sovereign, he lays it out in any pleasure or distinction he, on his part, has a fancy for. If he is a dissolute person, he spends it in the public-house; if he is a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... daytime, were flung bright-colored Navajo blankets. Another was spread on the ground. Thorpe later, however, sent over two bear skins, which were acknowledgedly an improvement. To the tent pole a mirror of size was nailed, and below it stood a portable washstand. The second tent, devoted to the two men, was not quite so luxurious; but still boasted of little conveniences the true woodsman would never consider worth the bother of transporting. The third, equally large, was the dining tent. The other three, smaller, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... letter U consisting each of one solid flint, hollowed through, also hookahs made by sailors with cocoanut shells. All, however, now agree that it is impossible to have either comfortable, cool, or safe smoking, unless through a substance like clay, porous and absorbent, especially as portable pipes are the mode. Those of black charcoal are not handsome; indeed, I always feel like a mute at a funeral while smoking one, but they are delightfully cool, absorbing more essential oil of nicotine, and more quickly than any meerschaum. I caution the smoker to have an ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... directed chiefly to the possibilities of higher and still higher explosives for use in war, the neglect of the mechanical application of this class of substance being largely due to the fact, that chemists are not as a rule engineers, nor engineers chemists. But an easily portable substance, the decomposition of which would evolve energy, or—what is, from the practical point of view, much the same thing—an easily portable substance, which could be decomposed electrically by wind or water power, and which would then recombine and ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... 1825, the Monument was illuminated with portable gas, in commemoration of laying the first stone of New London Bridge. A lamp was placed at each of the loopholes of the column, to give the idea of its being wreathed with flame; whilst two other series were placed on the edges of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... iron-work; and tents to be erected on shore for the reception of a guard, coopers, sail-makers, etc. I likewise gave orders that vegetables (of which there were plenty) should be boiled every morning with oatmeal and portable broth for breakfast, and with pease and broth every day for dinner for the whole crew, over and above their usual allowance ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... case where a reforming spirit determined not to submit to such an iniquitous tax. The gatekeeper and night-watchman immediately resigned and could not be replaced, while by the end of the month most of his portable belongings had been surreptitiously removed. Thoroughly cowed, he recalled the two servants and instructed them to pay the tax, whereupon the stolen articles promptly reappeared and security was ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... the chill sententiousness of his great French predecessor, his portable wisdom and detached thoughts, he has made a far deeper study of real life, apart from comparative politics and the European investment of transatlantic experience. One of the very few propositions which he has taken straight from Tocqueville is also one of ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... side rooms received their light from these, and not through windows looking into the street. The windows of rooms in upper stories were not supplied with glass until the time of the Empire. They were merely openings in the wall, covered with lattice-work. To heat a room, portable stoves were generally used, in which charcoal was burned. There were no chimneys, and the smoke passed out through the windows or ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... Water. Dragging down the Burning Masses and Packing with Clay: (c) Insulating the Seat of the Fire by Dams. Dam Building. Dam Work in the Fiery Pits of Southern Hungary: (a) Cross-dams of Clay; (b) Masonry Dams, Gallery Linings. Wagner's Portable Safety Dam. Analyses of Fire Gases. Isolating the Seat of a Fire with Dams: Working in Irrespirable Gases ("Gas-diving"): 1, Air-Lock Work (Horizontal Advance) on the Mayer System as Pursued at Karwin in 1894; 2, Air-Lock Work (Horizontal Advance) by the Mauerhofer Modified ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... skins. Ah, here we are! Just take a look at my necktie, child. Is it tied all right? And is my diamond pin there? No? Well, where the mischief can it be? Ah, yes, here it is in my pocket. My jewel cases are all portable. There! Now, we're ready. Look timid, my child, but confident in the final triumph of your just ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... They were tents on wheels. Some thin and ascetic-looking old mules and wizen donkeys had been taken out of the shafts, and were now nibbling the short wayside grass, the young burdocks and mulleins, which, but for the rain, would have filled their mouths with dust. Small portable stoves—alas! not the traditional fire with three stakes set in the ground and tied at the top, with the pot swinging therefrom—had been lighted outside the caravans, and gipsy women were making the evening ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... "That? Portable forge? Oh, nothing much." They had several of the same sort, it appeared, but nothing to what they had down at the sea; all sorts of machines and apparatus, huge big things. Isak was given to understand that mining, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... the neighborhood and causing outbreaks of cholera among neighboring herds. It may be advisable to burn the corn-cobs and other litter that have accumulated about the yards. Loose board floors should be torn up and the manure from beneath removed. Portable houses should be removed. The floors, walls of the house and fences should be first cleaned by scraping off the filth, and then sprayed with a three per cent water solution of a cresol or coal tar disinfectant to which sufficient lime has been added to make ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... darkness would overtake us before we could reach shelter, we started on toward a deserted, half-ruined "yurt" (yoort) [Footnote: A Mongolian name for a portable or permanent house-like shelter, made of logs, skins, or felt.] which Nicolai said stood near the western edge of this elevated plateau, about eight versts distant. Our horses sank to the knee at every step in the soft, spongy ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... wryly. "We smell something and we run. But I think it's the old familiar terror beam that crosses highways to stop men from using them. If it were a portable beam projector with somebody aiming it, we wouldn't be ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... steel has improved, Munro! Chilled steel! Bessemer! Bessemer! Very good. How much to cover a man? Fourteen inches by twelve, meeting at an angle so that the bullet will glance. A notch at one side for the rifle. There you have it, laddie—the Cullingworth patent portable bullet-proof shield! Weight? Oh, the weight would be sixteen pounds. I worked it out. Each company carries its shields in go-carts, and they are served out on going into action. Give me twenty thousand good shots, and I'll go in at Calais and come out at Pekin. Think of it, my boy! the ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... Glancing toward the door he saw it standing open and then noticed the disorder of the room, and of himself, and sat up to find he was on the floor, once more disrobed, and the place stripped of every portable thing in it, even the bed, little stove, and the trunk filled with clothes and a few personal possessions sacred to Mickey because they had been his mother's. The men had used the key in Junior's pocket to enter while ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... evening near the end of May. They were eating their supper at the time, seated on a stone seat at the bottom of the garden, where there was a brook. Their supper, as it consisted of a bowl of bread and milk for each, was very portable; and they had accordingly gone down to their stone seat to eat it, as they often did on pleasant summer evenings. The stone seat was in such a position that the setting sun shone very cheerily upon it. On this occasion, Rollo had finished his milk, and was just going down to ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... Walter's to the plumber gone. A boy with smut on nose, Furnace and carpet-sack in hand, With the journeyman he goes. Now grown a journeyman himself, In grimy hand he gripes A candle-end, and 'neath the sink Explores the frozen pipes. His furnace portable he lights With smoking wads of news- Papers, and smiles to see within The pot the solder fuse. He gives his fiat: "They are froze Down about sixteen feet; If you want water ere July You must dig up the street." "Practical Plumber" now is he, As witnesseth his sign, And ready now to undertake ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... not a plant, or, at least, he is a very curious one, for he carries his soil in his stomach, which is a kind—of portable flower-pot, and he grows round it, instead of out of it. He has, besides, a singularly complex nutritive apparatus and a nervous system. But recollect the doctrine already enunciated in the language of Virchow, that an animal, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... profound as that of the sphinx. Good-morning, Monsieur Gervase!"—and, turning round, he addressed the artist, who just then stepped out on the terrace carrying a paintbox and a large canvas strapped together in portable form. "Are you going to sketch some picturesque corner ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... courtyard, however, I met Upton, who had a habit of early rising, and was apparently idling about. I purposely did not wear my motor-cap, but my pockets were stuffed with all my belongings that were portable. ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... honour to a guest, allow him a corner of the Harem to sleep in quiet among the women. The men's apartment is covered with carpets, which serve as beds to strangers and to the unmarried members of the family; the married people retire into the Harem. The Turkmans have also a kind of portable tent made of wood, like a round bird cage, which they cover with large carpets of white wool. The entrance may be shut up by a small door; it is the exclusive habitation of the ladies, and is only met with in families who are possessed of large property. The tent or hut of a ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... have been made with the single treatment tube, containing an ointment destructive of all forms of venereal disease microbes, whether used before or after connection. The Pennsylvania Department of Health is within measurable distance of finding a solution of this problem—the production of a cheap, portable, easily applied ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... Athens. Fixed antiquities must be reported by the discoverer to the Ephor General or one of the ephors of antiquities or other official. Damaging of ruins or remains of monuments is forbidden. Owners of the land on which portable antiquities desirable for the National Museums are found are compensated to the extent of half their value. Any person who finds antiquities on his land must report them within five days, on pain of confiscation. ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... exploration of the river Macquarie would not present the same difficulties as formerly. The charge of organising an expedition was given to Captain Sturt, who was to be accompanied by Hume, with a party of two soldiers and eight convicts. They carried with them portable boats; but when they reached the Macquarie they found its waters so low as to be incapable of floating them properly. Trudging on foot along the banks of the river they reached the place where Oxley had turned ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... and, whilst she was absent, I took up, in one of my fretful movements of nervousness, a book which was lying upon a side-table: the book fell open of itself at a particular page; and in that, perhaps, there was nothing extraordinary, for it was a little portable edition of Paradise Lost; and the page was one which I must naturally have turned to many a time: for to Agnes I had read all the great masters of literature, especially those of modern times; so that few people knew the high classics more familiarly: and as to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... clothing and utensils neatly packed on sledges, as if to start at a moment's notice.[1059] The only desirable form of capital is that which transports itself, namely, flocks and herds. Beyond that, wealth is limited to strictly portable forms, preferably silver, gold and jewels. It was in terms of these, besides their herds, that the riches of Abraham and Lot were rated in the Bible. That the Israelites when traveling through the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... the telescope. This can readily be managed with a little ingenuity. Mr. Howlett describes an excellent method. The following, perhaps, will sufficiently serve the purposes of the general observer:—A plain frame (portable) is to be constructed to fit into the window: to the four sides of this frame triangular pieces of cloth (impervious to light) are to be attached, their shape being such that when their adjacent edges are sewn together and the flaps stretched out, they form a rectangular ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... Portable coffee-making outfits to fit the pocket were much in vogue in France in 1691. These included a roaster, a grinder, a lamp, the oil, cups, saucers, spoons, coffee, and sugar. The roaster was first made of tin plate or tinned copper; but for the aristocracy ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... can, with a blowpipe and a piece of charcoal, determine many substances without any reagents, thus enabling him, even when travelling, to make useful investigations with means which are always at his disposal. There are pocket blowpipes as portable as a pencil case, such as Wollaston's and Mitscherlich's; these are objectionable for continued use as their construction requires the use of a metallic mouthpiece. Mr. Casamajor, of New York, has made ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... Masters's elegant ice-making machine, in which, by combining chemical action with centrifugal motion, ice can be made in a few minutes, let the heat of the weather be what it may. This machine, and the portable refrigerators manufactured by the Wenham Company, together with our familiar, old-fashioned ice-houses, might supply us with much more preservative power, in respect to articles of food, than we have hitherto ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... reflectively. "Stephens! I once had a valet of that name, and a very good one he was, who left my service rather abruptly, taking with him numerous portable memorials of myself, including a set of diamond studs. I endeavored at the time to keep up my acquaintance with him; but he took measures effectually to close it. In fact, I have never heard of him ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... precious metals. It was a sign that the merchant could not obtain a profit for the capital, which, for the sake of security, he invested in this inert form. It was a proof that the noblemen or gentlemen feared the rapacity of power, when they put their wealth into forms the most portable and the most capable of being hidden; and it showed the uncertainty of credit, when a man of judgment preferred the actual possession of a mass of a silver to the convenience of a goldsmith's or a banker's receipt. While a shadow of liberty remained," he said, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... were all preparing to push onwards towards Lisbon. Bullock carts and carriages, mules, donkeys, and horses were crowded together, all laden with the aged, the children, the sick, and such property as was most portable and valuable. Happily Massena had a circuitous detour to make; the road in the mountain defile was scarcely passable, and throughout the march he displayed but little energy; consequently it was not until the morning of ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... fourteen stone falling ten feet; and the result of our experiments is, that no rope can be made, whether of hemp, flax, or silk, which is strong enough to bear that strain, and yet light enough to be portable. We believe that these ropes, which weigh about three-quarters of an ounce to the foot, are the heaviest which can be conveniently carried about in the Alps. We append a statement of the respective merits of the three kinds, all ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Cell:—The chloride of silver cell is largely used as a standard for testing purposes. Its compactness and portability and its freedom from local action make it particularly adaptable to use in portable testing outfits where constant electromotive force and very small currents ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... sweeping simplicity, however, marked many of his experiments. It is said that he once repainted all the numbers in a street in the dead of night merely to divert one traveller into a trap. It is quite certain that he invented a portable pillar-box, which he put up at corners in quiet suburbs on the chance of strangers dropping postal orders into it. Lastly, he was known to be a startling acrobat; despite his huge figure, he could leap like a grasshopper and melt into the tree-tops like a monkey. Hence the great Valentin, when he ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... clear mountain stream. Then Sandy unpacked his saucepans, built a fire, and fried bacon which he laid—smoking hot—between two slices of bread. Was ever a meal so delicious, Donald wondered! Supper finished, the little portable tent was set up, more wood heaped on the fire, and the camp pitched for the night. Donald was tired out. After the sheep were bedded down around them, he crept only too gladly into his sleeping-bag and was soon oblivious of the range, the herd, and ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... little furniture; "the whole inventory of a wealthy family," says Volney, "consists in a carpet, mats, cushions, mattresses, some small cotton clothes, copper and wooden platters for the table, a mortar, a portable mill, a little porcelain, and some plates of copper tinned. All our apparatus of tapestry, wooden bedsteads, chairs, stools, glasses, desks, bureaus, closets, buffets with their plate and table services, all our cabinet and upholstery-work are unknown." ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... O'Donnell, "with a ball from a gun;" and the following year the Earl of Kildare destroyed the Castle of Balrath, in Westmeath, with ordnance. The early guns were termed hand-cannons and hand-guns, to distinguish them from the original fire-arms, which were not portable, though there were exceptions to this rule; for some of the early cannons were so small, that the cannonier held his gun in his hand, or supported it on ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... on that day the blast of a cavalry bugle was the signal that any settler might enter and stake out his claim. On foot, on fleet horses, in primitive wagons, an excited, jostling mob rushed toward those lands that seemed most desirable. Trains were crowded to the roofs; tools, furniture, and portable houses were carried in from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. By nightfall a stretch of waving prairie became Gruthrie, with a population of 10,000 persons; by the evening of the first day Oklahoma possessed a population of 50,000; twenty years ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... easier, also, to rescue books than buildings. The Revolutionists tore down a cathedral, and it is gone; but books are portable and, moreover, do not burn or tear or drown easily, especially vellum MSS.; and when the first hurricane of idiocy had blown over they were very likely found, rather dustier than before, still ...
— The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts - Helps for Students of History, No. 17. • M. R. James
... child in her joy over what was to be revealed, unpacked a small, portable typewriter and set it upon the table of the sitting-room, Jefferson Craig suddenly caught her in ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... collection—part of the Medici collection, and contains some of the finest Italian and Spanish specimens," remarked the blind connoisseur. "Birch of the British Museum is quite right in declaring that the seal, portable and abounding in detail, not difficult of acquisition nor hard to read if we set about deciphering the story it has to tell, takes us back as we look upon it to the very time of its making, and sets us, as it were, face to face with the actual ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... dominions, but they had no knowledge of the influences that prevailed in "the womb of nations," as Central Europe appeared to the Latins, who saw emerging therefrom hosts of warriors, bearing with them their wives, their children, and their portable effects, determined to win a settlement amid the fertile regions owned and improved by ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... tidal dynamos, thunderstorms, chemical action, and slow-moving quadruple-expansion steam engines, provides the power required to run our electric ships and water-spiders, railways, and stationary and portable motors, for heating the cables laid along the bottom of our canals to prevent their freezing in winter, and for almost every conceivable purpose. Sometimes a man has a windmill on his roof for light and heat; then, the harder the wintry blasts may blow the brighter and warmer becomes the ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... terrible diamonds, in her way. He pointed out to her that her farm lay right in the road to the diamonds, yet the traffic all shunned her, passing twenty miles to the westward. Said he, "You should profit by all your resources. You have wood, a great rarity in Africa; order a portable forge; run up a building where miners can sleep, another where they can feed; the grain you have so wisely refused to ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... she had been confined, was in the portion of the wreck that still remained; and there she found a change of raiment, which Stephano had provided ere the vessel left Leghorn. Carefully packing up these garments in as small and portable a compass as possible, she fastened the burden upon her shoulders by the means of a cord, and, quitting the vessel, conveyed it safe ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... predominance; yea, watch His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if The passage and whole carriage of this action Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and ad That if he overhold his price so much We'll none of him, but let him, like an engine Not portable, lie under this report: Bring action hither; this cannot go to war. A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant. ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... sound of a bell warns us that we are near the kindergarten building.... A few belated youngsters are hurrying along,—some ragged, some patched, some plainly and neatly clothed, some finishing a "portable breakfast" thrust into their hands five minutes before, but all eager to be there.... While the Lilliputian armies are wending their way from the yard to their various rooms, we will enter the front door and look about ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... result of our treatment by the present forms of mechanical contrivances, there would not be found three cases of coaptation of the broken ends of the bone so complete as to do credit to the surgeon. The most pliant and portable of all forms of apparatus which constitute the hospital armamentaria, is the judgment; and this cannot give its approval to any plan of instrument which takes effect only at the expense of ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... you doing?" she asked. "Do you think our electric lights or gasoline flares are going to fail?" she went on jokingly. The Sampson Brothers' Show was a modern one, and carried a portable electric light plant. ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... sands; yet considering their work would be long, they began to cultivate some pieces of ground; here they sowed French beans, which ripened in six weeks, and many other fruits. They had good provision of Spanish wheat, bananas, racoven, and other things; with the wheat they made bread, and baked it in portable ovens, brought with them. Thus they feared not hunger in those desert places, employing themselves thus for five or six months; which past, and the long-boat finished, they resolved for the river of Nicaragua, to see ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... from which we may infer that Leonardo really had at the time plans for travelling further than Naples. From lines 3, 4 and 7 it is evident that he purposed, after selling every thing that was not easily portable, to leave a chest in the care of his relations at Vinci. His luggage was to be packed into two trunks especially adapted for transport by mules. The exact meaning of many sentences in the following notes must necessarily remain obscure. These brief remarks ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... of the artillery that formed a part of the cortege. The scholars of the colleges of Paris, the patriotic societies, the battalions of the national guard, the workmen of the different public journals, the persons employed to demolish the foundations of the Bastille, some bearing a portable press, which struck off different inscriptions in honour of Voltaire, as the procession moved on; others carrying the chains, the collars and bolts, and bullets found in the dungeons and arsenals of the state prisons; and lastly, busts of Voltaire, Rousseau, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... filter-press, however, a sludge containing 90 per cent of water was at once reduced to 50 per cent or even less. By this means the percentage of its valuable constituents was very much increased, and the sludge-cake, besides being much more portable, was neither so objectionable nor so liable ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... day I made another voyage, and now, having plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables. Cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the ironwork I could get; and having cut down the spritsail-yard, and the mizzen- yard, and everything ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... practice." Amongst these are enumerated false decks, such as in a moment should kill and take prisoners as many as should board the ship, without blowing her up, and in a quarter of an hour's time should recover their former shape without discovering the secret; a portable fortification, able to contain five hundred men, which in the space of six hours might be set up, and made cannon-proof; a dexterous tinder-box which served as a pistol, and was yet capable of lighting a ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... said to be only five portable authentic paintings by Leonardo da Vinci," said Cleigh, "and I had one of them, Mother. Illegally, perhaps, but still I had it. It is a copy that hangs in the European gallery. There's a point. Gallery officials announce ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... for the Egyptian Archaeology by English and American tourists, as well as students, decided the English publishers to issue a new edition in as light and portable a form as possible. This edition is carefully corrected, and contains the enlarged letterpress and many fresh illustrations necessary for incorporating within the book adequate accounts of the main archaeological results of recent Egyptian excavations. M. Maspero has himself ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... for "star" lights, that is to say, the tiny electric lamps of the ballet. The Schanschieff battery, consisting of zinc and carbon plates in a solution of basic sulphate of mercury, is suitable for reading, mining, and other portable lamps. ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... but that man in his original wild state lived on nuts and berries and perhaps roots. Nuts are rich in protein and fat. They are a concentrated food, very palatable, gently laxative, require no preparation but shelling, keep well, are easily portable, and are, in every sense, an ideal food. They have a name for being indigestible, but this may be due to errors in eating, not to the nuts. If we eat nuts, as is often done, after having loaded the stomach with a large dinner, the work of digesting them is rendered very ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... mere wall of stone or dried brick, with towers at intervals; the wall measuring from nine to twelve feet thick at the base, and from thirty to thirty-six feet high, thus rendering an assault by means of portable ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... production applied in many different ways, but labouring under as many disadvantages, chief of which are lack of water, scarcity of fuel and cost of transit of machinery. Sometimes condensing steam-engines have been employed. For the generation of steam the semi-portable and semi-tubular have been the type of boiler that has most usually been brought into service. Needless to say, when highly mineralised mine water only is available the adoption of this class of boiler is attended ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... Nicaragua, those, at least, of Aztec lineage, made use of parchment volumes, folded into a neat and portable compass, in which they painted, in red and black ink, certain figures, "by means of which," says the chronicler Oviedo, "they could express and understand whatever ...
— Aboriginal American Authors • Daniel G. Brinton
... our ears rather than our eyes if we are to catch these villains. But we have made progress. We know where they are. We have limited our field of observation to one place. Now we shall have to do as we did at Elk City. We shall have to get two portable sets with compact detectors and begin a watch in Hoboken. We'll have to find this hidden wireless by triangulation, just as we caught the dynamiters. But we haven't enough of a force to maintain two watches. We shall likely have to send for more of ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... printing was soon seen to be the spread of intelligence through the popularizing of literature. Books were to be placed in the hands of the people, not simply of the priests, nobles, and professional men. That end could only be accomplished by making books cheap and portable, that is to say small. To this end the printers soon addressed themselves to the task of devising forms of type which should be smaller, so as to reduce the number and size of pages required for a book without sacrifice ...
— The Uses of Italic - A Primer of Information Regarding the Origin and Uses of Italic Letters • Frederick W. Hamilton
... to get as high and as long an aerial as possible, height being the more important factor. In a stationary set the aerial may be fastened to a tree or pole or high building while in a field set a tree or an easily portable pole must be used. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... heroes and heroines whose names contain more than four letters. Full of this idea, on my returning home in the evening, I sat to my desk, and before I retired to rest, had written a novel of three neat, portable volumes; which, I assert, any lady or gentlemen, who has had the advantage of a liberal education, may get through with tolerable ease, in the time occupied by the railroad train running ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various
... it from Asia Minor to the court of Charlemagne (i.e., Western Europe), so that it travelled at the rate of two miles per annum; but the legion was like the violin, less terrifically tumultuous, but more infinite than the organ, whilst it is in a perfect sense portable. Pitch your camp in darkness, on the next morning everywhere you will find ground for the legion, but for the fastidious phalanx you need as much choice of ground as for the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... First Consul determined to hear Mass publicly on Sundays in the chapel of the Palace a small altar was prepared in a room near his cabinet of business. This room had been Anne of Austria's oratory. A small portable altar, placed on a platform one step high, restored it to its original destination. During the rest of the week this chapel was used as a bathing-room. On Sunday the door of communication was opened, and we heard Mass sitting in our ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... battle axes, iron scroll-work, &c. One of these engines was painted in many colours; but the other a plain drab, the latter it was laughingly said, being kept for the Society of Friends, the former for society at large. The first time a "portable" or hand engine was used here was on the occurrence of a fire in a tobacconist's shop in Cheapside Oct. 29, 1850. The steam fire engine was brought here in Oct. 1877.—See "Fire ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... And, the moment he met the eyes of the Dame, Threw her as knowing a nod as though He had known her fifty long years ago: And presto! before she could utter "Jack" - Much less "Robinson"—opened his pack - And then from amongst his portable gear, With even more than a Pedlar's tact, - (Slick himself might have envied the act) - Before she had time to be deaf, in fact - Popped a Trumpet into her ear. "There, Ma'am! try it! You needn't buy it - The last New Patent, and nothing comes ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... league distant, for hot bread; and while we breakfasted, her conversation and good breeding made up a principal part of the repas; she had my horse too brought to the back part of her cabbin, where he was well fed from a portable manger. I bought of her two bottles of white wine, not much inferior to, and much wholesomer than, Champaigne, and she charged me for the whole, milk, bread, fire, conversation, and wine, thirty six sols, about seventeen pence English! Though this gentlewoman, for ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... standardized. This testing-table was connected by means of wires with all parts of the laboratory and machine-shop, so that measurements could be conveniently made from a distance, as in those days we had no portable and direct-reading instruments, such as now exist. Opposite this table we installed, later on, our photometrical chamber, which was constructed on the Bunsen principle. A little way from this table, and separated ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... consulting with the surgeon, I had thought it expedient to make some slight changes in the issuing of the provisions. Oatmeal was boiled for breakfast four days in the week, as usual; and at other times, two ounces of portable broth, in cakes, to each man, with such additions of onions, pepper, etc., as the different messes possessed, made a comfortable addition to their salt meat. And neither in this passage, nor, I may add, in any subsequent part of the voyage, were ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... expecting to be blest, is a zealot of the faith which ascribes the direction of events to the outer world. Her soul was in full song to that contriving agency, and she with the paralyzed limbs became practically active, darting here and there over the room, burning letters, packing a portable bundle of clothes, in preparation for the domestic confusion of the morrow when the body of Marko would be driven to their door, and amid the wailing and the hubbub she would escape unnoticed to Alvan, Providence-guided! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... picking, downright thievery, We scorn it as we do board wages. Then 50 Had one of our folks done it, he would not Have been so poor a spirit as to hazard His neck for one rouleau, but have swooped all; Also the cabinet, if portable. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... made, it is easy, by the use of portable dams,—of thin boiler-iron, like broad shovels,—which may be set in the course of the flow, to divert the current into any branch channel, or to stop it at any desired part of this channel. All the gutters having sufficient descent to lead the sewage rapidly forward, ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... the riuer of Volga, more than a mile ouer. This riuer taketh his beginning at Beal Ozera, and descendeth into Mare Caspium, portable thorow of very great vessels with flat bottomes, which farre passe ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... 'oldest and most Christian' Moriscos in each village of a hundred souls, who were to remain and teach their successors their modes of cultivation, every man and woman of them were to be shipped within three days for Barbary on pain of death, carrying with them only such portable property as they themselves could bear." In six months one hundred and fifty thousand Moriscos were driven from Spain. In the winter of 1609-10 the Moriscos were also expelled from Aragon, Murcia, Andalucia, and Cataluna, and other places. See Hume's ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... Pericles, Phidias, and Euripides, many quiet unambitious travellers might choose to dispense with 'glory,' and content themselves with the view of Greek external nature. To these persons we would recommend the plan of carrying amongst their baggage a tent, with portable camp-beds; one of those, as originally invented upon the encouragement of the Peninsular campaigns from 1809 to 1814, and subsequently improved, would meet all ordinary wants. It is objected, indeed, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... though more out of curiosity than with any idea of aggression. At sight of John, a number of them immediately assembled round him; looking at him, and everything about the place, in a sort of inquisitive manner; jabbering amongst themselves; and handling everything portable within their reach. The group consisted of some twenty persons of both sexes and various ages; and were a family of the Nungar tribe, which usually made its home on the other side of the Gibson river, in the scrub, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... bronze gates from the mound of Balawat, near Nimroud, set up by Shalmaneser to celebrate his conquest of Tyre and Sidon,[35] we find a portable tabernacle, evidently meant to accompany the army on a march. It is not much larger than a four-post bed, with transverse poles for drawing the curtains, all fringed with bells and fruit. This is an illustration of the motive for the Tabernacle ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... week, by the pillage of Constantinople. The right of victory, unshackled by any promise or treaty, had confiscated the public and private wealth of the Greeks; and every hand, according to its size and strength, might lawfully execute the sentence and seize the forfeiture. A portable and universal standard of exchange was found in the coined and uncoined metals of gold and silver, which each captor, at home or abroad, might convert into the possessions most suitable to his temper and situation. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... covered carts they had enclosed a square into which they had driven their cattle and horses; inside and outside of this the people were bustling about. Some put a portable manger on a stand and fed the cows, others ran to the river with buckets. The women brought out their saucepans and little sacks of vegetables and a crowd of children ran ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... earlier (probably Saxon) building on the spot. They are now tightly packed in a case, exactly as they were discovered, for their better protection against relic hunters, whose ideas of property, when it happens to be of a portable kind, are a constant source ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... was readily portable, had been seized, each raider keeping his own lootings. Then, at last, at a given signal, the murderers and robbers reformed themselves into a solid company, and rode away, setting fire to the village in half-a-dozen separate places before ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... Ruhle's 'malacca' as a memento," concluded Hawke. "It may help me to discriminate between it and a portable metal tripod, and save me from being placed under arrest by the military. Fortunately, upon the last occasion, I did not ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... by came the sounds of singing and of laughter, and thither he turned his steps. When he entered the place a lively scene greeted him. Somehow or other a small portable organ had been secured, and at this a bearded fellow in a mackinaw coat was seated. He was playing a spirited accompaniment for two women, sisters, evidently, who sang with the loud abandon of professional "coon shouters." Other women were present, and Phillips ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... delightful prospects that forests, rivers, and mountains can afford, and wilfully exclude themselves from all the riches of nature. To look about us, while thus surrounded, seems to be a very natural wish. And if so, a portable closet, or rather a flying watch-box, ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... in large clocks, such as one finds in halls, towers, and observatories. The great advantage of employing weights is that a constant driving power is exerted. Springs occupy much less room than weights, and are indispensable for portable timepieces. The employment of them caused trouble to early experimenters on account of the decrease in power which necessarily accompanies the uncoiling of a wound-up spring. Jacob Zech of Prague overcame the difficulty in 1525 by the invention of the fusee, a kind ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... a minute later to report that everything looked clear and to show him where the equipment had been set up in Chris' office. It was all there, including the electron mike—a beautiful little portable model. There was even a small incubator with its own heat source into which he immediately transferred the little bottles he'd been keeping warm against his skin. Most of the equipment had never been unpacked, which made loading it ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... valuable objects, could, at his leisure, and in perfect security, choose what best pleased him; watches, jewels, diamonds, precious stones, &c. He chose those which he deemed most valuable, most portable, and as soon as he had made his selection, he dismissed ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... constancy. But they are hideously inartistic, and, moreover, to a man of ordinarily fickle nature, are apt to bring in very damning evidence at the most inopportune moments. Whereas (still according to Cospatric) the higher types of these human frescoes spell Art, with a very big A, and form a portable picture gallery which no spasmodic poverty can ever induce one to ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... ROYAL VISIT TO THE THEATRE. Friday, Aug. 1.-This was a very busy day; the Duke of York was expected, and his fond father had caused a portable wooden house to be moved from the further end of Cheltenham town up to join to Fauconber, Hall. The task had employed twenty or thirty men almost ever since our arrival, and so laborious, slow, difficult, and all but impracticable had it proved, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... portage, transmission, conduction, delivery. Associated Words: portable, portability, unportable, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... huge goanna near the head of my bed. I called Harold to dislodge the creature, when it came to light that it was roped to the bedpost. Great was the laughter at my expense. Who tethered the goanna I never discovered, but I suspected Harold. In return for this joke, I collected all the portable docks in the house—about twenty—and arrayed them on his bedroom table. The majority of them were Waterburys for common use, so I set each alarm for a different hour. Inscribing a placard "Hospital for Insane", I erected it above his door. Next ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... woods, who inspected the several plantations, and suggested that every encouragement should be given to the extension of railways through the Forest, and also recommended the erection of circular sawing power, for the purpose of reducing the timber to a portable size and shape for naval purposes, by which its value would be much increased, and the expense of carriage reduced. He likewise advised that the plan hitherto pursued of stripping the bark from the young oaks, ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... signal, we had hailed the monster, which, condescendingly relaxing her speed, had suffered our boat, tossing like a feather on the steamer's mighty swell, to come in palpitating, timid fashion under the shadow of her paddle-box, where the strong arms of men stationed on the portable ladder let down from her side had caught our skiff by the prow and held the inconstant thing for one instant firmly enough to suffer us to spring to their precarious stairway and so secure our passage to Ardrishalg. Thence, after ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... "Psalm Singer," because of the fact that once, during a revival held by an itinerant evangelist in a tent next door to the Silver Dollar saloon, the buck had attended regularly, attracted by the melody of a little portable organ, the plaintive strains of which appeared to charm his heathen soul. An unorthodox citizen, in the sheer riot of his imagination, had saddled the buck with his new name. It had stuck to him, and since in the vernacular psalm singer was pronounced ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... and balance themselves, but cannot balance minister; who, struggling with a drooping head and a backward tendency, seems determined to return below, while they are as determined that he shall be got to the reading-desk in mid- saloon. Desk portable, sliding away down a long table, and aiming itself at the breasts of various members of the congregation. Here the double doors, which have been carefully closed by other stewards, fly open again, and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... side, and was able, by the flashing of a single lightning message ahead, to arrest our progress and dissipate all our fondest hopes. There was no telegraphic station where we took the train, but we knew not how soon our enemies might reach one, or whether they might not have a portable battery at command. To obviate all danger on this point, we stopped, after running some four miles, ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... The king then sat on his iron chair, and I on a wooden box which I had contrived to stuff with the royal grass he gave me, and so made a complete miniature imitation of his throne. The folly in now allowing me to sit upon my portable iron stool, as an ingenious device for carrying out my determination to sit before him like an Englishman. I wished to be communicative, and, giving him a purse of money, told him the use and value of the several coins; but he paid little regard ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... booth in one of the smaller of Tom's shops, Ned proceeded with his part in the new experiment. A small shelf had been fitted up in the booth, or closet, and on this was the apparatus, consisting of a portable telephone set, and a small box, in which was set a selenium plate. This plate had been wet by a spray of water in order to test ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... German wind instrument, called the MUND HARMONICA, till it became the popular concertina, patented on June 19, 1829 The portable harmonium is another of his inventions, which gained a prize medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. He also improved the speaking machine of De Kempelen, and endorsed the opinion of Sir David Brewster, that before the end of this century ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... Meat entirely Spoiled, we are obliged to make use of it as we have nothing else except a little pounded fish, the remains of what we purchased near the great falls of the Columbia, and which we have ever found to be a convenient resort, and a portable method ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... idol representing a bear or a lizard. If one adores a lizard or a bear, one is likely to think that prayer and acts of worship addressed to an image of the animal will please the animal himself, and make him propitious. Thus the art of making little portable figures of various worshipful beings is fostered, and the craft of working in wood or ivory is born. As a rule, the savage is satisfied with excessively rude representations of his gods. Objects of this kind—rude hewn blocks ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... to pay her 2,000 pounds on condition that the estate of Cross Hall should be recovered for her and her sister through Mrs. Peck's information. She laid the paper open on the book she had bought, then she took a pen and a portable ink-bottle from the same repository, dipped the pen in the ink, and demanded Elsie's signature then ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... was opened one evening in the boathouse. The boys feasted their eyes on the array of treasures—fishing rods of spliced bamboo, a portable set of camp dishes that fitted into each other, a pair of brass lanterns, rubber blankets, and several other articles that were of no practical use on ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... his retorts, but he was never violent. In any one else but Mr. Craddock, such conduct might have been considered weak by the male population of Riggan, who not unfrequently settled their trifling domestic difficulties with the poker and tongues, chairs, or flat-irons, or indeed with any portable piece of household furniture. But Mr. Craddock's way of disposing of feminine antagonists was tolerated. It was pretty well known that Mrs. Craddock had a temper, and since he could manage her, it was not worth while ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Your ladyship commanded; buy three pretty little medallions in frames of filigraine, for our dear old friend. They will not ruin you, having cost not a guinea and a half; but it was all I could find that was genteel and portable; and as she does not measure by guineas, but attentions, she will be as much pleased as if you had sent her a dozen acres of Park-place. As they are in bas-relief, too, they are feelable, and that is a material circumstance to her. I wish the Diomede had even so much ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... property they could lay hands on, and break whatever proved too heavy to carry. Good manners, of course, forbade the cave people to resist this visit, but etiquette permitted (and in New Caledonia still permits) the group to bury and hide its portable possessions. Canoes had been brought into the little creek beneath the cave, to convey the women and children into a safe retreat, and the men were just beginning to hide the spears, bone daggers, flint fish-hooks, ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... schoolboys, he descended to find a frightened footman waiting outside, from whom he gathered that something dreadful had happened to Lady Bellamy, who had been found lying apparently dead upon the floor of her drawing-room. Providing himself with some powerful restoratives and a portable electric battery he drove rapidly ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... was HARRIED by Rowland Foster, the English captain of Wark, with his company, to the number of 300 men. They spoiled the poetical knight of 5000 sheep, 200 nolt, 30 horses and mares; the whole furniture of his house of Blythe, worth 100 pounds Scots (L8. 6s. 8d.), and every thing else that was portable. "This spoil was committed the 16th day of May, 1570, (and the said Sir Richard was threescore and fourteen years of age, and grown blind,) in time of peace; when nane of that country LIPPENED [expected] such a thing."—"The Blind Baron's Comfort" consists in a string of puns on the ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... and she consented, that her clothes, or whatever else her relations should think fit to send her, should be directed to thy cousin Osgood's. Let a special messenger, at my charge, bring me any letter, or portable parcel, that shall come. If not portable, give me notice of it. But thou'lt have no trouble of this sort from her relations, I dare be sworn. And in this assurance, I will leave them, I think, to act upon their own heads. A man would have no more to answer ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... it's meant to serve me all day. You see I find a good, solid, well-made plum-pudding, with not too much suet, and a moderate allowance of currants and raisins, an admirable squencher of appetite. It's portable too, and keeps well. Besides, if I can't get through with it at supper, it fries up next mornin' splendidly.—Come, I'll let you taste a bit, an' that's a favour w'ich I ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... of Antiphons—Antiphonarium; of Psalms—the Psalter: these were required for the Day Hours. As an abbreviation of them, sufficient for practical purposes, the Breviary was arranged. A portable form of it was called Portiforium. The Breviary was printed in four volumes on the Continent, but in England had only a Winter Volume and a ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... his Portable Electrical Machine and Apparatus, and the volumes of the Encyclopaedia that might tell him how to manage it, and Solomon John had his photograph camera. The little boys had used their india-rubber boots as portmanteaux, filling them to the brim, and ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... very singular—though, of course, I immediately classified it as an English characteristic—to see a great many portable weighing-machines, the owners of which cried out continually and amain,—"Come, know your weight! Come, come, know your weight to-day! Come, know your weight!"—and a multitude of people, mostly large in the girth, were moved by this vociferation to sit down ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... the darkness had set in, Demosthenes formed his men in columns, each soldier taking with him five days' provisions, and the engineers and workmen of the camp following the troops with their tools and all portable implements of fortification, so as at once to secure any advantage of ground that the army might gain. Thus equipped and prepared, he led his men along by the foot of the southern flank of Epipolae, in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... spite of all these, the room was so close and redolent of dinner, that fish, flesh, and fowl were breathed in every breath. A scant and well-worn carpet covered the space on which the dinner-table stood; and portable curtains of insufficient number and enormous size ornamented a few favoured windows, waved in the erratic draughts, and tripped up incautious attendants, diffusing all the while the stale odour of tobacco smoke through the other varied smells. At one end of the room was a round table with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... on the line of Sherman's march to the sea, and pretty much everything in it that was portable was taken by the boys in blue, including most of the books in the library. When I was President the facts about my ancestry were published, and a former soldier in Sherman's army sent me back one of the books with my grandfather's name in it. It was a little copy ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... brawny arm, shivered the panels; the crowd rushed in, and there, seated amongst a strange and motley litter, they found the devoted Madge. The poor old woman had collected into this place, as the stronghold of the mansion, whatever portable articles seemed to her most precious, either from value or association. Sibyll's gittern (Marmaduke's gift) lay amidst a lumber of tools and implements; a faded robe of her dead mother's, treasured by Madge and Sibyll both, as a relic of holy love; a few platters and cups of pewter, the pride of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... female figure clasps her hands, as if in astonishment. This I can hardly understand. But the panel with the papal ensigns I think may throw some light on the use of the whole. In the year 1429, John Codrington of Codrington obtained a bull from Pope Martin V. to have a portable altar in his house, to have mass celebrated when and where he pleased. I find that such a portable altar ought to have "a suitable frame of wood whereon to set it." Such altars are frequently mentioned, though I believe very few remain; but I never could ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... the ancient history. The temple, the focus to which the worship was concentrated, and which in reality was not built until Solomon's time, is by this document regarded as so indispensable, even for the troubled days of the wanderings before the settlement, that it is made portable, and in the form of a tabernacle set up in the very beginning of things. For the truth is, that the tabernacle is the copy, not the prototype, of the temple at Jerusalem. The resemblance of the two ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Leith only hath been transported three hundred and twenty thousand bushels of corn; besides some hath been shipped away from Saint Andrews, from Dundee, Aberdeen, Dysart, Kirkaldy, Kinghorn, Burntisland, Dunbar, and other portable towns, which makes me to wonder that a kingdom so populous as it is, should nevertheless sell so much bread-corn beyond the seas, and yet to have more than sufficient ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... that, upon their examination of the premises, many rich articles of bijouterie, jewelry, and personal ornaments, had been found lying underanged, and apparently in their usual situations; articles so portable that in the very hastiest flight some might have been carried off. In particular, there was a crucifix of gold, enriched with jewels so large and rare, that of itself it would have constituted a prize ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... use of, by which he was able with one man, to perform more than with twelve oxen; and surely, there might be much done by fastning of iron-hooks and fangs about one root, to extract another; the hook chain'd to some portable screw or winch: I say, such an invention might effect wonders, not only for the extirpation of roots, but the prostrating of huge trees: That small engine, which by some is call'd the german-devil, reform'd after ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... warming of a house the Romans not only portable braziers with charcoal for fuel, but in the larger establishments there existed a system of "central" heating, by which hot air was conducted from a furnace in the basement through flues running beneath the floor and up through the walls, ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... late. The rose of the afterglow lay upon the water, tipping the silvery ripples with soft colour. It was a magic night. But the wonder of it did not apparently reach him. A table littered with papers stood in front of him bearing a portable electric lamp. He was obviously too engrossed to think ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... land legs, the Mooncat touched the open hillside a little over a quarter of a mile from the woods, stood straddled and rakish, nose high. The storeroom lock opened, and a slender ramp slid out. Quist showed in the lock, dumped two portable shelters to the ground, came scrambling nimbly down the ramp. Dr. Egavine followed, more cautiously, the two handcuffed Fleetmen behind him. Dasinger came out last, glancing over at the castaway who had started across the slope ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... book! It's the title!" This is the reputed saying of Longman, the publisher, when asked for the key to bookselling. It is a pity that Mr. Owen's book has so cumbrous a name to carry; for everything else about it is compact and portable. Few American works on statistics or political economy possess either brevity or an index, and this combines both treasures. "In this small volume, which a busy man may read in a few hours," the author condenses an immense deal,—and it is a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the approach of a strangely wondrous and imposing spectacle, one that had not been seen in those parts for many days. The tramper, tired as he could be, at length approached, but the crowd had increased so enormously that the road was completely blocked. Tradesmen with their portable workshops, pedlars with their cumbersome gear and pack-horses could not pass, but had to wait for their turn; there were not even any tortuous by-streets in this place whereby they might reach their ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... he rose and made his way out of the hotel into Leicester Square. The bright, cold day had grown increasingly colder, and when he came out into the street he was surprised by a few flakes of snow. While he still carried the sword-stick and the rest of Gregory's portable luggage, he had thrown the cloak down and left it somewhere, perhaps on the steam-tug, perhaps on the balcony. Hoping, therefore, that the snow-shower might be slight, he stepped back out of the street for a moment and stood up under the doorway of a small and greasy hair-dresser's shop, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton |
