"Foundering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trapped—that there is not room enough either to descend or climb out. As you go on burying yourself in the gulf, the nightmare of suffocation continues that you progressively endured as you advanced along the bowels of the trenches before foundering in here. On all sides you bump and scrape yourself, you are clutched by the tightness of the passage, you are wedged and stuck. I have to change the position of my cartridge pouches by sliding them round the belt and to take my bags in my arms against my chest. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... from his horse with an ardor beyond compare, and on the crown of his hat scrawling bombastic phrases, which M. de Saint-Aignan, aide-de-camp in perpetuity, carried to La Valliere at the risk of foundering his horses. During this time, deer and pheasants were left to the free enjoyment of their nature, hunted so lazily that, it was said, the art of venery ran great risk of degenerating at the court of France. D'Artagnan ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... enough to get a view over the fore-yard. From this elevation an uninterrupted view of the object was to be obtained; and after long and careful scrutiny the man made it out to be the dismasted hull of a ship that was either water-logged, or upon the point of foundering. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... about 1,100 revolutions per minute when at full speed, causing a plenum in the stokeholes of about 6 in. water pressure. Double steam steering gear is fitted, for the forward and aft rudder respectively, and safety from foundering is provided to an unusual degree by the subdivision of the hull into numerous compartments, each of which is fitted with a huge ejector, capable of throwing overboard a great body of water. A body of water equal to the whole displacement of the boat can be discharged in less than seven minutes. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... make good their retreat. Slow, undoubtedly, was the flight—they did not run, they walked away; but so was pursuit, and altogether, without authentic lights and official helps—a matter of post-chaises and perplexity, cross-roads and rumour, foundering in a wild waste of conjecture, or swallowed in the quag of some country inn-yard, where nothing was to be heard, and out of which there would be no relay of posters to pull you until nine o'clock ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... be blown out to sea, and be in danger of foundering, or else driven toward the shore, perhaps to stick half a ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... though the men waded in waist-deep and carried all the heavy bundles on their heads and shoulders. When it came to the artillery, it meant a boat lost for every single piece of ordnance landed. Nor was even this the worst; for, strange as it may seem, there was, at first, more risk of foundering ashore than afloat. There were neither roads nor yet the means to make them. There were no horses, oxen, mules, or any other means of transport, except the brawny men themselves, who literally buckled to with anchor-cable drag-ropes—a hundred pair of straining ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... Council, he wrote: 'I am rather unwilling to be re-Englished after once attaining that higher transatlantic development. However, il faut s'y soumettre, I presume, though I fear I am embarked in the foundering ship. I hope to heaven you'll get rid of slavery, and then I shouldn't fear but you would really 'go ahead' in the long run. As for us and our inveterate feudalism, it is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat!—or, lastly, be thou a ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decayed grandeur; or performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the time-worn church, while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent ghastly dwellings of the dead around ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hurricane. For several days she was driven about at the mercy of the elements, and so strained and racked, that her seams yawned open, and her hold was half filled with water. The storm subsided, but left her a mere foundering wreck. The crew stood in the hold to their waists in water, vainly endeavoring to bail her with kettles, buckets, and other vessels. The leaks rapidly gained on them, while their strength was as rapidly declining. They lost all hope of keeping the ship afloat, until they should ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... subsisting between myself and my eldest sister, under the circumstances of our difference in age (she being above eight years of age, I under six), and of our affinities in nature, together with the sudden foundering of all this blind happiness, I have described elsewhere.[10] I shall not here repeat any part of the narrative. But one extract from the closing sections of the paper I shall make; in order to describe the depth to which a child's heart may be plowed up by one over-mastering storm of grief, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the ear of the Church to-day, I would, as a great kindness to it, cry out with all the earnestness of soul I could command, "It's death or deep water; deep water in this holy service of world-winning, or death from foundering." ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... realised what was happening, the entire hull had disappeared, the masts, yards, and top-hamper generally only remaining in sight a moment longer, as though to impress upon them unmistakably the fact that a ship was foundering ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... missionary must go among savages, bearing his life in his hand; the physician must expose himself to pestilence for the sake of others; the sailor, in the frail boat upon the wide ocean, escaped from the foundering or burning ship, must step calmly into the hungry waters, if the lives of the passengers can be saved only by the sacrifice of his own; the pilot must stand firm at the wheel, and let the flames scorch away his own life to insure the common safety of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... G. W. Melville, the chief engineer, who was in charge of one of the boats, with nine men, reached, on September 26, a Russian village on the Lena. All the others perished, some being lost at sea, by the foundering of the boats, while others, including De Long, had starved to death after reaching ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... mine. I find a sensuous pleasure, almost a sensual, in dabbling in delicate drugs—like Helen, for that matter, and Medea, and Calypso, and the great antique women, who were all excellent chymists. To study the human ship in a gale, and the slow drama of its foundering—isn't that a quite thrilling distraction? And I want you to get into the habit at once of letting ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... the Shilka, which runs into the Amur at the Pokrovskaya Stanitsa. The river is not broader than the Psyol, it is even narrower. The shores are stony: there are crags and forests. It is absolutely wild.... We tack about to avoid foundering on a sandbank, or running our helm into the banks: steamers and barges often do so in the rapids. It's stifling. We have just stopped at Ust-Kara, where we have landed five or six convicts. There are mines here and a ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... any distance before the Speedwell let in so much water that it was necessary to put in at Dartmouth for repairs. Again they set sail, and this time they had left old England one hundred leagues behind when the captain reported the Speedwell in danger of foundering. There was nothing to do but to bear up again and return to England, where they put in at Plymouth. Upon examination the Speedwell was pronounced unseaworthy and sent to London with about twenty of the company. With the rest, one hundred ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... and the danger to the ship settled all difficulties. The master was too full of drink to take charge of the ship, and the mate was not much better. I took command, and for four days we maneuvered the ship to keep it from foundering; at the end of that time the master recovered momentarily, and, securing possession of a revolver, cleared the deck and prevented us ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... after forty-eight hours of incessant pumping, a cry arose for "the boats," as presenting the only chance of safety. Riou pleaded with the men to persevere, and they went on bravely again at the pumps. But the dawn of another day revealed so fearful a position of affairs that the inevitable foundering of the ship seemed to be a matter of minutes rather than of hours. The boats were hoisted out, discipline being preserved to the last. Riou's servant hastened to him to ask what boat he would select to go in, that he himself might take a ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... the foundering of the Golden Mary at sea, I, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stern-sheets of the Surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer—that is to say, with my eyes strained, wide-awake, ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... you and yours, and goodbye! I drop these few lines, as in a bottle from a ship water-logged and on the brink of foundering, being in the last stage of dropsical debility; but, though suffering in body, serene in mind. So, without reversing my union-jack, I await my last lurch. Till which, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... the Dream, which had doubtless struck on a rock was sensibly foundering. The water was creeping up to the level of the deck. The engine fires ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... our old "coffin brigs," seems quite ascertained now: the fact of their being unable to make headway through a heavy sea unless towed by a consort, speaks for itself. The immediate cause of the Monitor's foundering (according to Captain Worden's account, which my informant had from his own lips) was a leak sprung, where her protruding stern-armour, coming down flat on the waves with every plunge of the vessel, became loosened from the main hull; but, for ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... calm water a little above Nakhiet Wady Haifa. During certain days in August and September the natives trust themselves to this stream, but only with boats lightly laden; even then their escape is problematical, for they are in hourly danger of foundering. As soon as the inundation begins to fall, the passage becomes more difficult: by the middle of October it is given up, and communication by water between Egypt and the countries above Wady Haifa is suspended until the return of the inundation. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... often asserted, the beginning of the English navy. There had been earlier naval operations under Alfred. One naval engagement was certainly fought under AEthelwulf (851), and earlier ones, possibly in 833 and 840. Nor were the new ships a great success, as we hear of them grounding in action and foundering in a storm. Much, too, was needed in the way of civil re-organization, especially in the districts ravaged by the Danes. In the parts of Mercia acquired by Alfred, the shire system seems now to have been introduced for the first time. This is the one grain of truth ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Philip, one of the four largest ships in the Armada, dismasted and foundering; drifted towards Newport, where camp-marshal Don Francisco de Toledo hoped in, vain for succour. La Motte made a feeble attempt at rescue, but some vessels from the Holland fleet, being much more active, seized the unfortunate galleon, and carried her into Flushing. The captors ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... their passage. Upon that date sudden and violent squalls succeeded each other and culminated in a fearful tempest, the violence of which was so great that the Commodore ordered four guns to be thrown overboard, to avoid foundering. In the morning the weather moderated somewhat, but it was as cold as in England at the same time of year, although in this quarter of the globe the month of November answers to the month of May. As the wind continued to drive the vessel eastward, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... literally wearied with the exertion of keeping my feet and watching those giant seas, I went below and turned in. I slept, but the huge white-crested waves were still rolling before me, and big ships were foundering, and phantom vessels were sailing in the wind's eye, and I heard the bulkheads creaking, the wind whistling, and the waves roaring, as loudly as if I was awake; only I often assigned a wrong sign to the ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... trip in the saddle should learn to care for a horse himself. A horse should never be fed or watered when he is warm unless we continue to drive him immediately afterward. Neglect of this precaution may cause "foundering," which has ruined many a ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... till then, did Wilder relax in his exertions. He had arranged his sails ready to be hoisted in an instant; he had carefully examined that no straggling rope connected the boat to the wreck, to draw them under with the foundering mass; and he had assured himself that food, water, compass, and the imperfect instruments that were there then in use to ascertain the position of a ship, were all perfectly disposed of in their several places, and ready to his hand. When all was in this state of preparation, he disposed of himself ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... and a moment later a short ladder had been laboriously pushed across to Octavian, who lost no time in propping it against the low pigsty wall. Scrambling gingerly along its rungs he was able to lean across the morass that separated him from his slowly foundering offspring and extract her like an unwilling cork from it's slushy embrace. A few minutes later he was listening to the shrill and repeated assurances of the nursemaid that her previous experience of filthy spectacles had been on a ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... houses drop out of the landscape, the lesser spires disappear one by one, until the great shaft is left standing alone,—solitary as the broken statue of Ozymandias in the desert, as the mast of some mighty ship above the waves which have rolled over the foundering vessel. Most persons will, I think, own to a feeling of awe in looking up at it. Few can look down from a great height without creepings and crispations, if they do not get as far as vertigos and that aerial calenture ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... steam launch bore them to a land where the rank grass and rushes grew shoulder high. Having made their way with difficulty to the margin of a lake, they came upon a boat which required incessant bailing to prevent its speedy foundering. One kept the craft afloat while the others fished until evening. They caught nothing, yet upon landing they found five fish floundering under the seats; these swam in through a hole in the bottom of the boat. I say ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... but one like thousands more, Day and night I deplore My people and born own nation, Fast foundering own generation, ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... enough," said old Scofield testily, looking through the stall-window at the horse, with a face anxious enough to show that the dangers of foundering for Coly and for the Union were of about equal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... that as clear as daylight?" interjected Miss Belcher. "Didn't I let him out of the window more than an hour ago? And isn't Hodgson foundering my mare at this moment in chase of him? See here, Jack," she went on judicially, "you've played one or two neat strokes to-night: but one or two neat strokes don't make a professional. You'll have to give up this justicing. ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the day of most tremendous hurricane that ever blew over London and England. From morning to night the wind raged and howled, emptying the streets, unroofing houses, tearing up trees in the parks, foundering ships at sea, and taking even Flanders and the coasts of France within its angry whirl. The storm was felt, within England, as far as Lincolnshire, where, in the vicinity of an old manor-house, a ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... law failed to maintain the integrity of ancient principles, like the absolute power of the father of the family, principles that were no longer in keeping with the social realities, so religion witnessed the foundering of a system of ethics contrary to the moral code that had slowly been established. The idea of collective responsibility contained in a number of beliefs is one instance. If a vestal violated her vow of chastity ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... over. The water was only about a foot in depth, but the black vegetable mud half afloat was unfathomable. I managed to wallow ashore, but poor Jack sank deeper and deeper until only his head was visible in the black abyss, and his Indian fortitude was desperately tried. His foundering so suddenly in the treacherous gulf recalled the story of the Abbot of Aberbrothok's bell, which went down with a gurgling sound while bubbles rose and burst around. I had to go to father for help. He tied a long hemp rope ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... foundering guns, Though dawn was now not far, The darkness filled with a living fear That whispered at the Emperor's ear, "The armies of the dead draw near Beneath ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... heavens and the sea, and that at last the fleet was driven by tempest from Africa to the island Aegimurus, from which, with great difficulty, they got into the right course; and that, the ships almost foundering, the soldiers, without orders from their general, got into boats, just as if they had suffered shipwreck, and escaped to land without arms, and ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... the court and the spectators dispersed to dine and amuse themselves; the reporters rushed off to carry their last copy to the evening newspapers; and the great tide of life swept by on its appointed course. No foundering, ship on its iron-bound coast, no broken heart that sinks beneath its waves, disturbs the law-abiding ebb and flow of the vast ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Bob noticed that it was very warm. It had been so, of course, for several days preceding the wreck, but the thought that they were in a tropical climate had been forgotten in the excitement of the foundering of the ship. Now it was a thing for which to ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... way off, like the boom of a slow wave on a distant beach. At intervals there was the crackle of musketry, like the noise of rockets sent up in the night, and sometimes there were pitiful cries, smothered by the unreverberating snow, like the cries of a drowning man on a foundering ship ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Hastily constructing a raft and placing the now unconscious JILL upon it, he launched it into the seething maelstrom of waters and pushed off. Tossed like a cockle-shell upon the mountainous waves, the tiny craft with its precious freight was in imminent danger of foundering. But OLIVER was made of stern mettle. With dauntless courage he rigged a jury-mast, and placed a telescope to his eye. "Pull for the lagoon, JILL," cried the dauntless OLIVER, and in another moment. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... tug "Seth Low," bound for Hampton Roads. The two days' voyage southwards along the coast was an anxious and trying time, and though the weather was not really bad, the "Monitor" narrowly escaped foundering ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... boats had been almost knocked to pieces. Those which could yet swim were immediately lowered. John Deane jumped into one of the first that reached the water. Ere, however, they could get up to the foundering ship, the sea had washed over her deck. Down—down she went, carrying with her all her wounded and a large number of those who had escaped unhurt. The rest had thrown themselves into the water, some to swim, some holding on to planks or broken spars: ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... the boys had had to restrain their thirst, for the ponies were almost crazy with impatience to get at the water. It required all the boys' management, in fact, to keep them from breaking away and getting at the water. In the heated condition of the little animals, this might have meant a case of foundering. At last Pete let the thirsty creatures take a little water, and afterward they were tethered to a clump of brush, while the boys themselves assuaged their pangs. After their first ravenous thirst was quenched—which was not soon—they took turns in dashing water over each other's ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... of the footlights the beset man darted, and like a desperate swimmer plunging from a foundering bark into a stormy sea he leaped far out and projected himself, a living catapult, along the middle aisle. He struck the tall yellow woman as the irresistible force strikes the supposedly immovable object of the scientists' age-old riddle, but on his side was ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... first it seemed as though even this would be a dangerous task, for the wind blew hard in a contrary direction, and the deeply-laden boats began to be in peril of foundering. But as we stood watching them from the bank, and saw their jeopardy, and some were for recalling them and waiting, the Maid's voice ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... and listened. At first he heard nothing, and made sure that all was over; but presently a faint soft gurgle, like a dying sob, came through the murk. With all his might he dashed toward the sound, and laid hold of a hairy chin just foundering. "Rise up, old chap," he tried to shout, and he gave the horse a breath or two with the broad-brimmed hat above his nose. Then Marmaduke rallied for one last fight, with the surety of a man to help him. He staggered forward to the leading ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... also had some trouble with one of the made-to-order life-boats. Finally, rather disgusted with the way things were going, he decided to cut out the lowering-of-the-boats scene and to have a fire at sea instead of a mere foundering. In a very few minutes, with the aid of "smoke-pots" and "blow-torches" a thrilling burning-ship scene was made, with the people scrambling toward the life-boats. Later, several long-distance views of the burning of a real ocean ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... of Authority" soon began to make good progress, but Condy, once launched upon technical navigation, must have Captain Jack at his elbow continually, to keep him from foundering. In some sea novel he remembered to have come across the expression "garboard streak," and from the context guessed it was to be applied to a detail of a vessel's construction. In an unguarded moment he had written that his schooner's name ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... I, "that can be done; for I happen to have on board the captain, mate, and part of the crew of a ship that was foundering when we fell in with her, and I have no doubt they will all be glad of this opportunity to get home. But this is a very dreadful story you have told me, my good fellow, and I hope you have ample proof of its truth; because, if not, it may go hard with you all when you reach home. You ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... to those sailors who after witnessing the foundering of other ships still put to sea; to those bachelors who after witnessing the shipwreck of virtue in a marriage of another venture upon wedlock. And this is my subject, eternally now, yet ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... him, Janet," said I, as the twa southron chiels gaed thro' the hole, trailing their bagganets alang wi' 'em; "winna the puir tykes hae an unco saft couch o' it, think ye, luckie, O 'tis a gude sight for sair e'en to see 'em foundering and powtering i' the latch o' ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... before made ten inches of water an hour, in a common fresh breeze, we judge from that, and what we have now seen, that a little labouring would employ two pumps; and that in a strong gale, with much sea running, the ship would hardly escape foundering; so that we think she is totally unfit to encounter much ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... and to speak with levity of these limits is in the world the sign of insanity. Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul." It is this Unconscious Personality which sees the Strathmore foundering in mid-ocean, which hears a whisper spoken hundreds of miles off upon the battlefield, and which witnesses, as if it happened before the eyes, a tragedy occurring ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... Our ballast and stores, too, were so strangely shifted that the ship heeled afterwards two streaks to port. Indeed, it was a most tremendous blow, and we were thrown into the utmost consternation from the apprehension of instantly foundering. This was the last effort of that stormy climate, for in a day or two we found the weather more moderate than we had yet experienced since our passing Straits le Maire. And now having cruised in vain for more than a fortnight in quest of the other ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... mariners; Death in their eyes appears, They stare, they lave, they pump, they swear, they pray (Vain efforts!) still the battering waves rush in, Implacable, till, delug'd by the foam, The ship sinks foundering in the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... a schooner, a lifeless and soddened hulk, so heavy and uncontesting that its foundering seemed at hand. The waters poured back and forth at her waist, as though holding her body captive for the assaults of the active seas which came over her broken bulwarks, and plunged ruthlessly about. There was something ironic in the indifference of her defenceless ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... planking and worked its way into the timbers, but one point had cut a hole right through the bottom, and, breaking off, had happily remained fixed. Had it fallen out, no human power could have prevented the ship from foundering. Besides the leak, which was on the starboard side, the ship had sustained very extensive injury on the larboard. The sheathing from the bow on that side was torn off, and a great part of the false keel was gone. The carpenters ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... picture that hung in his hushed room, and a curious figure he seemed—an elegant pale watch-tower, showing for ever what a quiet port literature and the fine arts might offer, in an age of 'progress,' when every one is tossing, struggling, wrecking, and foundering on a sea of commercial speculation or political adventure; when people fight over pictures, and if a man does buy a picture, it is with the burning desire to prove it is a Raphael to his ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... the yards. The advance guard of boarders, a hundred strong, was ordered to the poop, and his grapnel-men were posted, and prompt to obey his command at the very moment of impact. As a result, the foundering Arabella was literally kept afloat by the half-dozen grapnels that in an instant moored her ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... ourselves that there is a thread of something that will not bear calm scrutiny. There is much that is disquieting about the storm, admirably as it begins. I am very doubtful whether it would be possible to keep the boat from foundering in such circumstances, by any amount of breakwater and broken rock. I do not understand the way in which the waves are spoken of, and prefer just to take it as a loose way of speaking, and pass on. And lastly, how does it happen that the sea was quite calm next day? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... experience of any seagoing engineer on this important matter. A groove round the shaft is formed, due to this action, and in some cases the shaft has broken inside the stern tube, breaking not only it, but tearing open the hull, resulting in the foundering of the vessel. Steel has been used for screw shafts, but has not been found so suitable, as it corrodes more rapidly in the presence of salt water and gun metal than iron, and unless protected by a solid liner for the most part of its length, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... founder!" exclaimed the mate. "I had my eye on it when it sank. I've seen some foundering in my day; but this beats all my ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... into something rich and strange.' Other men puffed, snorted, and splashed. George passed through the ocean with the silent dignity of a torpedo. Other men swallowed water, here a mouthful, there a pint, anon, maybe, a quart or so, and returned to the shore like foundering derelicts. George's mouth had all the exclusiveness of a fashionable club. His breast-stroke was a thing to see and wonder at. When he did the crawl, strong men gasped. When he swam on his back, you felt that that was the only possible ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse |
