"Slaty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... further addition of traces of carbonate of lime, magnesia, and occasionally faint traces of hornblende and mica, which evidently result from its intimate association with the granite rock and gneiss, amongst which it is mostly found, the latter rocks being of a slaty nature, in layers or plates, and, like granite, containing mica, ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... his gun, the shrike, to his amazement, burst into an exquisite song, sweet and pure as a thrush's melody, and, spreading its slaty wings, it sailed off through ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... from Bath to Painted Post, though stony, is tolerably level. The adjacent mountains have a slaty appearance, with horizontal strata. Mr. Hall was disappointed at Painted Post, to find the post gone, broken down or rotted, within the last few years. It had been an Indian memorial, either of triumph or ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... ground, were less pleasant than she thought at first. The hills, bare of trees, exposed them to the full power of the sun, yet were covered with a growth of tall heaths, mingled with patches of the cistus ladaniferus, which covers so much of the surface of the slaty hills of this region. The close growth and gummy exudations of this plant often made the thickets impenetrable, and forced the party to many a long circuit, in their efforts to reach the ridge of the high grounds. Mrs. Shortridge at length sat, or rather sunk, down ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... mail was distributed and I saw there wasn't anything for me, I just went in and said to Slaty, I said, "Are you sure there isn't anything? Would you mind looking again?" I knew it wasn't any use and I guess he did too, but anyway, ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... outpost of the Perryman farm lie extensive wolds rising rapidly into desolate regions where sheep can scarcely find pasture. In this region Toller concealed himself. About two miles beyond the old quarry, on a slaty hillside, he found a deep pit; and here he built himself a hut. He made the walls out of stones of a ruined sheepfold; he roofed them with a sheet of corrugated iron, stolen from the outbuildings of a neighbouring farm, and covered the iron with sods; ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... film, wrought by the south wind over the whole sky, iridescent with delicate rainbow tints within the influences of the sun, and ever-changing shape. On another, when the turbulent Foehn is blowing, streamers of snow may be seen flying from the higher ridges against a pallid background of slaty cloud, while the gaunt ribs of the hills glisten below with fitful gleams of lurid light. At sunrise, one morning, stealthy and mysterious vapours clothe the mountains from their basement to the waist, while the peaks are glistening ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... less than engaging. He still bore the traces of last night's debauch and of his sojourn in the police-cell. There was dry mud on the back of his coat, his shirt-cuffs and collar were of a slaty hue, his hands and face filthy. He began to eat bread and butter, washing down each morsel with a gulp of tea. The spoon remained in the cup whilst he drank. To 'Arry it was a vast relief to be free from ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... a treasure: everything is soft and friable: sand and finest shingle, so fine as to be mere dust, are all the available material for road-making. I am told that later on I shall find that a cartload of sand in Maritzburg is indeed a rare and costly thing: there we are all rock, a sort of flaky, slaty rock underlying every place. Our last day, or rather half day, in D'Urban was very full of sightseeing and work. F—— was extremely anxious for me to see the sun rise from the signal-station on the bluff, and accordingly he, G—— and I started with the earliest dawn. We drove through the sand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... sheep, wildly scampering over the slaty shingle, emerged from the leaden mist that muffled the fell-top, and a shrill shepherd's whistle broke the damp stillness of the air. And presently a man's figure appeared, following the sheep down the hillside. He halted a ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... dogs. George, the elder, exhibited an ebony-tipped nose, surrounded by a narrow margin of pink flesh, and a coat marked in random splotches approximating in colour to white and slaty grey; but the grey, after years of sun and rain, had been scorched and washed out of the more prominent locks, leaving them of a reddish-brown, as if the blue component of the grey had faded, like the indigo from the same kind of colour in Turner's pictures. In substance it had originally been ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... their crystalline character, that the metamorphic rocks of Anglesea were more ancient than any rocks of the adjacent main land; but it has since been shown that they are of the same age with the slates and grits of Carnarvon and Merioneth. Again, slaty cleavage having been first found only in the lowest rocks, was taken as an indication of the highest antiquity: whence resulted serious mistakes; for this mineral characteristic is now known to occur in the Carboniferous system. Once more, certain red ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... number were waiting on the solid rock-filled reach, the wharfinger's office at its head and a stone warehouse blocking the end, where the Nautilus lay with her high-steeved bowsprit pointing outward. The harbor was slaty, cold, and there was a continuous slapping of small waves on the shore. Darkening clouds hung low in the west, out of which the wind cut in flaws across the open. The town, so lately folded in lush greenery, showed a dun lift of roofs and stripping branches ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... loads the meads with sand, Rolls her red tide to Teviot's western strand, Through slaty hills, whose sides are shagged with thorn, Where springs in scattered tufts the dark-green corn, Towers wood-girt Harden far above the vale, And clouds of ravens o'er the turrets sail. A hardy race who never shrunk from war, The ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... was a beautiful expanse of clear, serene, unclouded blue; while the other hung livid and threatening above us, with the promise of a raving tornado lurking within its black bosom. Immediately overhead the colour of this immense cloud curtain was a cold, slaty blue, from whence, as the eye travelled down its expanse toward the north-western horizon, the hue became darker until where it met the water it was as black as night; while, underneath it, the sea undulated ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... again encamped on the Sweet Water, within a few miles of the SOUTH PASS. The country over which we have passed to-day consists principally of the compact mica slate, which crops out on all ridges, making the uplands very rocky and slaty. In the escarpments which border the creeks, it is seen alternating with a light-colored granite, at an inclination of 45 deg.; the beds varying in thickness from two or three feet to six or eight ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... a short distance from the beach, formed a deep and rapid stream, near the mouth of which we landed. This spot was, I think, the most barren I ever saw, the ground being almost entirely covered with small pieces of slaty limestone, among which no vegetation appeared for more than a mile, to which distance Mr. Ross and myself walked inland, following the banks of the stream. Among the fragments we picked up one piece of limestone, on which was the impression of a fossil-shell. We saw here a great number ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... constantly saw new beauties in the old Hulk. It always seemed to adapt itself to the changing moods of the weather,—being grave or gay as the skies lowered or smiled. In the dull November days, when the clouds drifted in straight lines of slaty gray, it assumed a weird, forbidding look. When the wind blew a gale from the northeast, and the back water of the river overflowed the marsh,—submerging the withered grass and breaking high upon the foot-bridge,—it ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... were both up, and gazing along our pointer at the cliff; but we could make out nothing save the one dead, monotonous, slaty surface, rougher perhaps at the part we were examining than elsewhere, but otherwise presenting ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... whom it is recorded by that faithful biographer Fuller that he "wrote learnedly, preached painfully, lived piously, died peacefully." To the westward are Watersmouth, with its natural arch in the slaty rocks bordering the sea, and Hillsborough rising boldly to guard a tiny cove. Upon this precipitous headland is an ancient camp, and it overlooks Ilfracombe, the chief watering-place of the northern Devonshire ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... birds; the males being about sixteen inches in length, the females slightly smaller, and usually of less attractive plumage. The head, part of the neck, and chin of the male bird, are of a slaty-blue colour; the lower portions being also of a slate colour, banded with gold, green, and purplish-crimson, changing as the bird moves here and there. Reddish-hazel feathers cover the throat and breast, while the upper tail-coverts and back are of a dark slaty-blue. Their other ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... answer. The two old men stood silent, looking down the valley, lying like a crevasse in a glacier between the towering white mountains. The sinuous course of the frozen river was almost black under the slaty sky of March. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... understands the quality of the thing to be purchased will be more likely to get full value for the money paid than the one who does not. About coal, it should be understood that good hard coal has a glossy black color and a bright surface, whereas poor coal contains slaty pieces. The quality of coal can also be determined from the ash that remains after it is burned. Large chunks or great quantities of ash indicate a poor quality of coal, and fine, powdery ash a good ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... on white make it appear yellow. " " red make it appear orange-brown. " " orange make it appear orange-yellow. " " yellow make it appear deeper yellow. " " green make it appear yellowish-green. " " blue make it appear slaty-gray. " " violet make it appear purplish-gray. " " ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... was of the bituminous variety, having a jet black color and slaty structure. It was readily ignited, burning with a dull flame and smoke, the fragments comminuting more or less by the heat. It had a specific ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... the Gulls (thirty inches long) and unlike any other. The mantle is dark slaty black, and the primaries are black with white tips. The bill is very large and powerful and quite strongly hooked. They are quite abundant birds in their range, and are very quarrelsome, both among themselves and other species. ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Blondey's hoofs, so that he was walking on snowballs. When these got about five inches high, they would drop off and begin again. It is needless to say that these varying snowballs did not help Blondey's sure-footedness, especially as the snow was just thick enough to conceal the treacherous slaty rocks beneath. For the first time I understood the phrase, ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... pleasing—it is a tone of light with which they accord: and the dimness of the scene is enlivened by an object at once conspicuous and cheerful. I will conclude this subject with noticing, that the cold, slaty colour, which many persons, who have heard the white condemned, have adopted in its stead, must be disapproved of for the reason already given. The flaring yellow runs into the opposite extreme, and is still more censurable. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the drying and solidification of such rocks involved their contraction, and usually, in consequence, their being traversed throughout by minute fissures. Under certain conditions of pressure, these fissures take the aspect of slaty cleavage; under others, they become irregular cracks, dividing all the substance of the stone. If these are not filled, the rock would become a mere heap of debris, and be incapable of establishing itself in any bold form. This is provided ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... in the shape of rocks inside the cavern, for it should be borne in mind that in gouffres of this character the stream frequently descends by a series of cascades. The weather was very sultry, and the sky towards the west was of a slaty blue. A fierce storm was threatening, but we paid no attention to it—a mistake which others bent on exploring caverns where streams still flow should be warned against. There is probably no force in nature more terrible, or which makes a man's helplessness more miserably ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... cabbage-stalks. At night the coyotes roam the wintry waste, howling for food. The variegated fields are all one color now; the pastures, the stubble, the roads, the sky are the same leaden gray. The hedgerows and trees are scarcely perceptible against the bare earth, whose slaty hue they have taken on. The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and the spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powdered with pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, father saw that 'twas the dashing dragoon. His face was still a slaty-grey, and clammy with sweat; and when he spoke, his voice was all of a whisper, with ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wall on the fourth, must have formed one of the most inaccessible in the kingdom. The masses of pitchstone a-top, though so intensely black within, are weathered on the surface into almost a pure white; and we found lying detached among them, fragments of common amygdaloid and basalt, and minute slaty pieces of chalcedony that had formed apparently in fissures of the trap. We would have scrutinized more narrowly at the time had we expected to find anything more rare; but I did not know until full four months after, that aught more rare was to be found. Had we examined ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... which I established my home was fertile and extremely rich in tropical vegetation, the adjoining ranges were in striking contrast to it; many districts being rugged and slaty and painfully difficult to traverse on foot. There were, however, many interesting natural curiosities which beguiled the ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... several myall creeks; over stony ground; the flood close by obliged to change course to bearing of 97 degrees for three-quarters of a mile, then bearing of 91 degrees for two and a quarter miles over low chopping slaty and stony hills and several creeks; then bearing of 84 1/2 degrees for eight miles over stony ground, very bad travelling; then on bearing of 77 degrees for half a mile to camp on a frizzly-barked tree creek. Passed several of the same ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... said the Psammead, as a great beast like an enormous slaty-blue slug showed itself against the black bank on the ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... time of day when a change in the aspect of the weather so frequently takes place; and the little pool was no longer the reflection of a blue and sunny sky: it sent back the dark and slaty clouds above, and, every now and then, a rough gust shook the painted autumn leaves from their branches, and all other music was lost in the sound of the wild winds piping down from the moorlands, which lay up and beyond ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Through slaty hills whose sides are shagged with thorn, Where springs, in scattered tufts, the dark green corn, Towers wood-girt Harden far above ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... that all have been derived from one wild species, the common rock-pigeon (Columba livia). As this is a very important point it is well to state the evidence on which the belief is founded. The wild rock-pigeon is of a slaty-blue colour, the tail has a dark band across the end, the wings have two black bands, and the outer tail-feathers are edged with white at the base. No other wild pigeon in the world has this combination of characters. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... its width; the exterior presents at a glance the changes which have taken place in it, and the layers and masses of different coloured stones tell their own tale; the oldest work (comprising several periods) is constructed with dark slaty stone, having red freestone dressings; the Norman work is observed in the transept and several bays of the nave and choir nearest the transept, while the pointed work is specially noticeable in the eastern half of the choir.[210] The first parts of the cathedral built were the three ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... again, and the whole village shrunk again within it, like a turtle within its shell. The next morning dawned without its misty mask, but with it rose a gusty wind that commenced howling like a famished wolf. Alas! for the glories of the woods! As the rude gusts rushed from the slaty clouds, the rich leaves came fluttering upon them, blotting the air and falling on the earth thick as snow-flakes. Now a maple-leaf, like a scalloped ruby, would fly whirling over and over; next a birch one would flash across the sight, as if a topaz had acquired ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... with epilobium, saxifrage, grass-tufts, sedges, and creeping willows on the higher ground. But only the mosses were sufficiently abundant to make conspicuous masses of color to relieve the dull slaty gray of the glacial mud and gravel. The front of the glacier, like all those which do not discharge icebergs, is rounded like a brow, smooth-looking in general views, but cleft and furrowed, nevertheless, with chasms and grooves in which the light glows and shimmers ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... somber curtains while they ate, revealing a sky overcast with slaty clouds. What with her wanderings of the night before and the journey through the dark with Roaring Bill, she had absolutely no idea of either direction or locality. The infolding timber shut off the outlook. Forest-clad heights ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and Severn, Tweed with his gateway of many grey arches, Clyde, dying at sunset westward In a sea as red as blood; Rhine and his hills in close procession, Placid Elbe, Seine slaty and swirling, And Isar, son of the Alpine snows, A ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... on as fast as it could, its progress was painfully slow. The column advancing in single file extended over a distance of nearly three miles, and as the sun rose high in the heavens the reflected heat from the bare slaty rocks became almost insupportable. There were no trees to give the men shade, or springs to slake their thirst. For the first four miles the road continued to ascend the Lashora ravine between hills on the ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... calling him, for example, the Voltaire de nos jours. What he does enjoy is the frank disparagement of Mr. WILFRID BLUNT, who describes him in the second volume of My Diary, just published, as "an ugly fellow, his face a pasty-white, with a red nose and a rusty red beard, and little slaty-blue eyes." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... two-thirds up a small peaked insulated hill of limestone, between three and four hundred feet above the level of the sea, several pieces of coal, which he found to burn with a clear bright flame, crackling much, and throwing off slaty splinters.” ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry |
