"Semaphore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... signals, and by the use of the heliograph. As it is of the utmost importance that the enemy should not read the message, the signal books on board a vessel are protected with the greatest care, and are destroyed along with the cipher code whenever it is seen that capture is inevitable. The semaphore system in use in the British navy was tried for a time aboard some of our vessels, but it never became popular, ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... all of us mount and ride. The police will put us on her track during the day. She must have a carriage; angels of that sort have no wings. We shall find her whether she is on the road or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can stop her. You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty. They judge others by themselves, and do not know the point when human nature gives way if you strain the cords too tightly. Why did you not say a word ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... cylinders and pistons, whose air valves are opened and shut by the action of solenoid magnets, q. v. The current of these magnets is short circuited by passing trains, so as to let the valves close as the train passes the signal post. The block system causes the semaphore to be set at "danger" or "caution," as the train enters the next block. Then the following train is not allowed to enter the block until the safety signal is shown. The Westinghouse system provides for two semaphores on a post, one indicating "danger" as long as the train is on the next ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... It ran from the signalling station on the south of the island straight to the town on the north. There was no possibility of making a mistake, because you could see the semaphore from anywhere, and you would know when you got to the town because the road stopped there. The various divisions of the ship were to compete against each other. If you came in first you were to be given a ticket numbered "one"; if second, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... a message in two of the following systems of signaling: Semaphore, Morse, or Myer, not fewer than twenty-four ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... on the platform, it seemed as if Barnstaple had never seen such a man; they were mad with joy, and all wanted to shake hands with me at once. I dodged a good many, and by dint of waving his arms like a semaphore the chairman succeeded, not in restoring peace, but in ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... better, the conformation of mountains, hills, and valleys was better known, and like his great predecessors, though unlike his contemporaries, Bonaparte knew the use of a map; but in the main little was changed in the conditions for moving and manoeuvering troops. News traveled slowly, the semaphore telegraph was but slowly coming into use, and the fastest couriers rode from Nice to Paris or from Paris to Berlin in seven days. Firearms of every description were little improved: Prussia actually claimed that she had been forced to negotiate for peace because France controlled ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... dactylology[obs3], dactylonomy[obs3]; freemasonry, telegraphy, chirology[Med], byplay, dumb show; cue; hint &c. 527; clue, clew, key, scent. signal, signal post; rocket, blue light; watch fire, watch tower; telegraph, semaphore, flagstaff; cresset[obs3], fiery cross; calumet; heliograph; guidon; headlight. [sign (evidence) on physobj of contact with another physobj] mark, scratch, line, stroke, dash, score, stripe, streak, tick, dot, point, notch, nick. print; imprint, impress, impression. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... propeller clear of it, and the ship would forge ahead again. Worsley, Wild, and I, with three officers, kept three watches while we were working through the pack, so that we had two officers on deck all the time. The carpenter had rigged a six-foot wooden semaphore on the bridge to enable the navigating officer to give the seamen or scientists at the wheel the direction and the exact amount of helm required. This device saved time, as well as the effort of shouting. We were pushing through this loose pack all day, and the view from ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry her on the banks of the Falaise like a semaphore signal. She passionately gazed at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with an English, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Tillman, knew that something had gone wrong, for No. 14 was later than usual, and had not been reported from the last two stations; so when the drooping semaphore told him that she was in the block, he went out on the platform to find out what had happened. As the train came panting up to the station he saw two strange men in the cab instead of Downs and Berg, and this puzzled ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... about his greyish hair and close-cut beard, but something very remarkable about his eyes, which sparkle with intelligence and energy; and something still more remarkable about the action of his arms, hands, and thin, wiry fingers, which suggests the idea of his being an animated semaphore worked by a galvanic battery, telegraphing signals against time at the rate of a hundred words a minute, the substantives being occasionally expressed, but mostly "understood,"—pronouns ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... the lonely station the trees crowded down to the right of way, and rustled in a gentle evening breeze. Somewhere off in the wood, his ear discerned the faint hoot of an owl. Across the track in a pool under the shadow of the semaphore, he heard the full orchestra of the frogs, and saw reflected in the water the last exquisite glories of expiring day lamped by one bright star. Leaning back, he partly closed his eyelids, and wondered why so many ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... lacking the clear detail of Cap Ferrat and Cap Martin you get the background of the Maritime Alps which is not visible east of Nice. And the Iles de Lerins look so different from their usual aspect as sentinels to Cannes that it is hard to believe they are the same islands. Near the lighthouse and semaphore a paved path, marked with the stations of the cross, leads ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... assembled at Vienna were not more thunderstruck when, on that very 19th of March, the semaphore brought them news of the legitimate King of France once more fled, and of his country once more abandoned to the hated usurper, than was Captain Jack as he watched the distant flagstaff in the sunrise, and saw, when the morning port gun had vomited forth its white cloud on the ramparts ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... alter ego of a sovereign, speeded the parting guest. Thus, wrapped in the dignity of misfortune, vanished the last semblance of the graceless and treacherous thraldom of the Spanish Bourbons in the capital of Sicily. The flag of Italy was run up on the tower of the Semaphore. Everywhere the revolution triumphed except at Messina, Milazzo and Syracuse. Even Catania, where a rising had been put down after a sanguinary struggle, was now evacuated and ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the sound. There was the prospect of a lift. He stopped, and waited for the dog-cart—it sounded like a dog-cart—to arrive. Then he uttered a shout of rapture, and began to wave his arms like a semaphore. The man in the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry her on the banks of the Falaise standing like a semaphore signal. She gazed passionately at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with her elastic English step; ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... contain a secret message which can be easily read by those who know the semaphore signalling code. This signalling consists of swinging two arms in different positions, either singly or together. The dots indicate where the letters join. For example: The semaphore sign for N consists of both arms pointing downwards at an angle of 90 degrees ^. The letter I is ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... no mistaking the tree, with its one broken branch which depended at an angle like the arm of a semaphore; nor did it relieve his mind to reflect that his mishap was partly due to his own foolish abstraction. He was returning to camp from a neighboring mining town, and while indulging in the usual day-dreams of a youthful ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte |
