"Sighting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... calculated to meet the extreme possibilities of slowness on the part of the Spanish division, if coming that way; afterwards they were to go to a given place, and report. It may be added that they remained their full time, and yet missed by a hair's breadth sighting the enemy. The captain of one of them, the Harvard, afterwards told the writer that he believed another stretch to the south would have rewarded him with success. The case was one in which blame could be imputed ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... He adjusted his sighting rings while the sergeant major glided away. Moving around on a no-weight world was more like skating than walking. A regular walk would have lifted Koa into space with every step. Of course, the asteroid had some gravity, but so little that it ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... their condition even more than his companions. He had been indulging in the hope of sighting Jamaica in the course of a few days: and now he could not tell when he might get back to that island. He calculated, too, that the Lilly would have returned there, and that his friends would have become very ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... lapse of less than ten minutes from the first sighting of the Isis screaming toward the spaceport. The guard-ship had been destroyed and the cargo-ship which seemed to flee had apparently been destroyed. When someone had leisure to think, it would appear that the cargo-boat's crew ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... saw the men from Tailholt Mountain, sometimes merely sighting them in the distance, and, again, meeting them face to face at some watering place or on the range. When it happened that Nick Cambert was thus forced to keep up a show of friendly relations with the Cross-Triangle, the few commonplaces of the country were exchanged, but always the ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... Sighting Scilly, Admiral Cornwallis ordered the Kingfisher to convoy the prizes into port, while we stood back to the southward and eastward to look after the French squadron. Several days had passed when the Phaeton, our look-out frigate, made the signal ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... storm. It was very warm. The captain's assurance that the next morning we should want to borrow his overcoat and mittens had no effect in disguising the fact that it was warm. The ladies dressed for dinner, many of them in white; and the only excitement of the afternoon was the "sighting" of the Michigan, United States man-of-war, cruising in lake-waters. A little knot of officers on deck waved their handkerchiefs; a little knot of pretty girls on the Japan were responding eagerly, when a severe and elderly voice ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... of Rheims about his teacher Gerbert (born 946, later Pope Sylvester II, 990-1003). Several instruments made by Gerbert are described in detail; he includes a fine celestial globe made of wood covered with horsehide and having the stars and lines painted in color, and an armillary sphere having sighting tubes similar to those always found on Chinese instruments but never on the Ptolemaic variety. Lastly, he cites "the construction of a sphere, most suitable for recognizing the planets," but unfortunately it is not clear ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... Brea Head, Valentia Island, was soon exchanging signals with the "Majestic," and five minutes later the sighting of the "Majestic" was cabled to the Lloyds of Liverpool and London and back to New York, via Valentia Bay, and it was known that evening in Harrisville that the Harris ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the glasses toward the quarter where they had had their peculiar little adventure that morning. But of course he saw no sign of the unknown party who had fired the shot. The dense forest would naturally prevent their sighting him when miles away. ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... one of us would cry out, on sighting the enemy in the distance; and, in an instant, everything was got ready to receive her. I would take the lines, and Harris and George would sit down beside me, all of us with our backs to the launch, and the boat would drift out ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... Early in October Clemens, receiving a copy of the Times-Herald, partly set by the machine, wrote: "The Herald has just arrived, and that column is healing for sore eyes. It affects me like Columbus sighting land." And ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... instrument for space navigation. The sighting plate thereon is centered around two crossed hairs. Because of the vastness of space, very fine hairs are used. These hairs are obtained from the Glomph-Frog, found only in the heart of the dense Venusian swamps. The hairoscope is a must ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... asserted, adding that innovations have generally been attempted by writers of no great value, and not infrequently by those who failed in those first efforts, unable to profit by their own originality. And it is natural enough that a good many sighting shots should be wasted on a new target before even an accomplished marksman could plump his bullet in the bull's-eye. The historical novel as we know it now must be credited to Scott, who preluded by the rather feeble ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... and reached for Peleg's new gun. He examined the weapon critically, raising it to his shoulder and sighting ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... ship. Then three men, crouching in the bows of different canoes, produced rifles hitherto invisible and began to shoot. The bullets ricochetted across the ripples, and Courtenay saw that the savages did not understand the sighting appliances. They were aiming point-blank at the vessel, in so far as they could be said to aim at anything, and the low trajectory caused the first straight shot to rebound from the surface of the water and strike a plate amidships. The loud clang of the metal was hailed by ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... BATTLE OF JUTLAND WAS FOUGHT This chart must be taken only as a general indication of the courses of the opposing fleets. Sir David Beatty with two squadrons of battle cruisers and one squadron of fast battleships, first steamed southward and southeastward of the German battle cruiser squadron; then, sighting the German battle fleet, turned northward, afterwards bearing eastward and connecting with ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... days they sailed about in the sunny Mediterranean, sighting neither friend nor foe, and then suddenly had encountered the two German cruisers, the Breslau and the Goeben, and the skirmish with these two ships, described at the opening of ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Chauxville returned alone, on horseback. After the sportsmen had separated, each to gain his prearranged position in the forest, he had tripped over his rifle, seriously injuring the delicate sighting mechanism. He found (he told the servant who opened the door for him) that he had just time to return for another rifle before the operation of closing in on the bears was ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... our officer, Mr. Stanley, well-known in the cricket world as a Somerset county man. Our led horses were in a donga in the rear. The position we occupied, I should mention, was at the base of a kopje opposite to that held by the Boers. We were sighting at 2,000, when our captain, Sir Elliot Lees, rode up and said he could not make out where the Devons and Dorsets who should have been on our right, were. As a matter of fact they had retired unknown to us. This the wily Boers had seen and quickly taken advantage of, for Sergeant-Major ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... observer was mounted a vertical scale graduated in millimeters, over which passed a light index-point attached to the silk cord, by means of which the position of the cardboard disc in front was read off. The observer was seated in an adjustable chair with chin and head rests, and a lateral sighting-tube by which the position of the eyeball could be vertically and horizontally aligned. The distance from the center of the eyeball to the surface of the screen opposite was so arranged that, neglecting the radial deflection, a displacement of 1 mm. in either direction was equal to a departure ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... drive brought us out on a high tableland. Veering again to the north, we snailed along through a delightful country, rich in flora and the freshness of the season. From every possible elevation, we scanned the west in the hope of sighting some of the herd which had followed up the main Frio, but in vain. Sweeping northward at a leisurely gait, the third week out we sighted the Blue Mountains, the first familiar landmark on our course. ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... after their departure she abode in expectation of them, but her son returned not and she heard no report of him. So when many days of fruitless waiting had gone by, she arose and going down into the sea, repaired to her mother, who sighting her rose to her and kissed her and embraced her, as did the Mermaids her cousins. Then she questioned her mother of King Badr Basim, and she answered, saying, "O my daughter, of a truth he came hither with his uncle, who took jacinths and jewels and carrying them to King Al-Samandal, demanded ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Vast numbers of pintados were about, also some albatrosses, the first that had made their appearance for several weeks back. In hopes of reaching an anchorage before dark we stood in for Bull Road, East Falkland Island, but after running fourteen miles, and sighting Sealion Islands, this was found impracticable. The ship was kept away to the eastward, and, after wearing several times during the night to avoid closing the land, a course was shaped to take us to the settlement. Passing inside of the Seal Rocks we ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... spent in small ports, where supplies of fresh meat, fish, and fruit, were obtainable. So far no incident had marked the voyage. The weather had continued fine, and they had heard nothing, from ships they had fallen in with, of any Moslem pirates having been seen. A few hours, however, after sighting the coast of Africa, a dark object was ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the ice, and in any case the gale would have made such a proceeding highly dangerous. So we dodged along to the west and north, looking for a suitable opening towards the south. The good run had given me hope of sighting the land on the following day, and the delay was annoying. I was growing anxious to reach land on account of the dogs, which had not been able to get exercise for four weeks, and were becoming run ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... with aircraft. They went up in readiness to shoot, but after the first sighting reports only a few miles offshore, that order was vehemently canceled—someone in charge must have had a grain of sense. The thing was not a plane, rocket or ...
— The Good Neighbors • Edgar Pangborn
... New Zealand, by way of Raratonga, and her tardiness was the chief subject of conversation at our first meeting. A hundred times a day was the semaphore on the hill spied at for the signal of the Noa-Noa's sighting. High up on the expansive green slope which rises a few hundred feet behind the Tiare Hotel is a white pole, and on this are hung various objects which tell the people of Papeete that a vessel is within view of the ancient sentinel of the mount. An elaborate code in the houses ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... stood away to the westward, sighting Cape Ape, the north-western point of Borneo, and then steered south for Java, through the Billiton passage. We were bound for Sourabaya, a large Dutch town towards the east end of Java, opposite the island of Madura. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... seen that Thales, the very earliest of the Greek philosophers, measured the distance of a ship at sea by the application of this principle. Now Aristarchus sights the sun in place of Thales' ship, and, sighting the moon at the same time, measures the angle and establishes the shape of his right-angle triangle. This does not tell him the distance of the sun, to be sure, for he does not know the length of his base-line—that is to say, of the line between ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... of Engine 123, who, with the Cardiff man, his stoker of old, was doing duty at Fort Ellerslie vice two Town Guardsmen permanently resting, "'tis a great perfawrumance the Doc is afther givin' as this day!" He coolly borrowed the gunner's sighting-glasses, and, with his keen eyes glued to them and his ragged elbows propped on the Fort parapet, he scanned the distant solitary figure, dropping the words out slowly one by one. "Twice have I seen the fur fly off av' wan av' thim hairy baboons av' Boers since he starrtud, an' supposin' the air ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... the trees, to the sweet, simple melody of silence in my ears, to green leaves and yellow! Hail to the life-sound I hear; a snout against the grass, a dog sniffing over the ground! A wild hail to the wildcat lying crouched, sighting and ready to spring on a sparrow in the dark, in the dark! Hail to the merciful silence upon earth, to the stars and the half moon; ay, to them and to ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... two and gaze at the kneeling hunter. This affords a splendid though brief chance to take good aim, but the springboks were not inquisitive that day. They did not halt. I had to take a running shot, and the ball fell short, to my intense mortification. I had sighted for three hundred yards. Sighting quickly for five hundred, while the frightened animals were scampering wildly away, I put a ball in the dust just between ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... little hill, in order to locate ourselves, but the horizon either ended abruptly, enclosed by another hill, or else stretched out over new plains. We did not lose courage, however, and continued to advance, while we thought of the travellers on desert islands who climb on promontories in the hope of sighting some ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... a little and bobbed to keep them in alignment. Nelson felt the dryness of his throat as he raised his gun to aim at the incurious machine. "All set?" he asked. From the corner of his eye he could see that Glynnis had raised her gun and was sighting. ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... caller was, whence he came, and whither he went. The whole country is marked out by these intelligence depots. Now it often happens that a Coyote, that has not much else to do will carry a dry bone or some other useless object in its mouth, but sighting the signal-post, will go toward it to get the news, lay down the bone, and afterwards forget to take it along, so that the signal-posts in time become further marked with a curious collection of odds ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... Skelligs to meet it. Northerly winds prevented his reaching the right latitude in time, but it mattered little. The convoy passed in between him and the south of Ireland, and as the enemy had taken a cast down to Ushant, it was able to enter the Channel in safety without sighting an enemy's sail. Ignorant of what had happened, Howe cruised for a week practising the ships "in connected movements so particularly necessary on the present occasion." Then with his fleet in fine condition to carry out preventive tactics in accordance ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... commencing at midnight, the date was April 8th, as stated by Flinders in his published volumes, by both Peron and Louis de Freycinet, and in the log of Le Geographe. A similar difference of dates, which puzzled Labilliere in writing his Early History of Victoria 1 108, occurs as to the first sighting of Port Phillip by Flinders. It is explained in exactly the same way.) the man at the masthead of the Investigator reported a white rock ahead. He was mistaken. Glasses were turned towards it, and as the distance lessened ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Sighting the group of Americans the blood-crazed Mohammedan bounded toward them triumphantly, swinging a kris which no longer gleamed. Bronner had reached the road first and stood in front. His heavy pistol roared six times ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... and a direction line in the crust with a pole. Each moved towards the other and from the mid-point of their two markings extended with their eyes the imaginary lines to an intersecting point some thirty feet from Troy's original sighting. ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... our eyes upon the map, are yet vast in reality, while so mathematically exact are the rules of navigation, and so well known are the prevailing currents, that a steamship may make the voyage from Honolulu to Auckland, a distance of four thousand miles, without sighting land. When Magellan, the Portuguese navigator, first discovered this great ocean, after sailing through the straits which bear his name, he called it the Pacific Ocean, and perhaps it seemed "pacific" ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... get one's sea-legs, and on the last day or two passengers begin to enjoy the sea journey. But this is quite enough of the sea for any one but an amphibian. The three weeks journey from America to Australia gets decidedly monotonous, and long before sighting Sydney Heads and entering the world's "pearl of ports" every one has had his fill of the sea. But lengthen that journey by three and you have had enough sea travel for ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... has become populous. No ships are getting round, and each day adds to our number. Never a brief day passes without our sighting from two or three to a dozen hove-to on port tack or starboard tack. Captain West estimates there must be at least two hundred sail of us. A ship hove-to with preventer tackles on the rudder-head is unmanageable. Each night we take our chance of unavoidable and disastrous collision. And at ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... glad to make the desired repulse of the evil crew from their neighbourhood, and, as members formerly of a volunteer company, understood something of military tactics. The parson also reported that he had nearly fallen in with the advancing attacking force of, he should say, twenty men; but, sighting them ahead, he advanced slowly until he saw them move solidly to his left into the fields, with the evident intention of coming at the house through the strip of bush. The villains could not be far off. "Now, Squiah," ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... which it would find its proper home, these questions had to be left for later. To answer them called for dissecting this unknown monster; to dissect it called for catching it; to catch it called for harpooning it— which was Ned Land's business; to harpoon it called for sighting it— which was the crew's business; and to sight it called for encountering it— which ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... silence like a profanation. Unseen by either of us, Ventnor had slipped to one side where he could cover the core of ruby flame that must have seemed to him the heart of the Disk's rose of fire. He knelt a few yards away, white lipped, eyes cold gray ice, sighting ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... muskets at the approaching foe, pointing them through the loopholes, which had been left for the purpose. Their bayonets were all fixed, in readiness to repel an assault, if the first fire did not check the advance of the Indians. Morgan was sighting the twelve-pounder. On rushed the enemy, as it seemed to me, to certain destruction. I could not believe that they were aware of the presence of the soldiers, and perhaps supposed they were attacking a fort manned by half a dozen persons. None of the Indians who had come down ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... Sighting, as we thought, some balks of timber, floating away on the ebb tide over the outside of Broken Rocks, two of us shoved a small boat down the beach. Our flotsam was a trick of the fading light on the sea, just ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... wilder ones alone, and gave a contract to some professional mustangers to gather them at so much per head. These men never attempt to run them down. They "walk" them down. A light wagon, two mules to pull it, lots of grain, some water and supplies, are what you need. On sighting a band you simply walk your team after them, walk all day and day after day, never giving them a rest. Keep their attention occupied and they will neglect to feed or drink. Gradually they become accustomed to your nearer presence, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, still used by whalemen in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Lil Artha, when their skiff was directly under the suspected tree, to utter a low gasp, and proceed to elevate his gun in a hurry, as though sighting the quarry. ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... the aid of flashes of lightning and the course of the storm, we reached the little ranch and found a haven. A steady rain fell all night, continuing the next day, but we saddled early and rode for our new reservoir on the arroyo. Imagine our surprise on sighting the embankment to see two horsemen ride up from the opposite direction and halt at the dam. Giving rein to our horses and galloping up, we found they were Uncle Lance and Theodore Quayle. Above the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... and, sighting as best he could, fired. A whinnying scream rang out in the confusion, and the mustang plunged forward on his knees and rolled over on his side, stone dead because of the bullet that had bored its ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... 1917 flares were experimented with; they were intended to be used from kite balloons with the object of sighting submarines when on the surface at night. Previously searchlights in destroyers had been used for this purpose. The flares were not much used, however, from kite balloons owing to lack of opportunity, but trials which were carried out with flares from patrol craft, such as trawlers ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... only be used under certain circumstances. To give the arm a point of support on the body, the stock was lengthened and inclined to permit sighting. This was the petrinal or poitrinal. The soldier had in addition a forked ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... perhaps a week after Jeremy's capture, and they had been sighting low bits of land on both bows all day—Dave Herriot came on deck about the middle of the watch and told Curley, the Jamaican second mate, he might go below. He set Job to take soundings and, himself taking the tiller, ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... of place to shoot by first sighting the object aimed at. This was usually impracticable in actual life, because the object was almost always in motion, while the hunter himself was often upon the back of a pony at full gallop. Therefore, it was the off-hand shot that the Indian boy sought to master. ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... our captive up so securely that I felt that there was no possible chance of his escape; then, with Jim at the controls and me at the guns, we fared forth in search of the invaders. Back and forth over the city we flew without sighting another spaceship in the air. Jim gave an exclamation of impatience and swung on a wider circle, which took us out over the water. I kept the searchlights working. Presently, far ahead over the water, a dark spot came into view. I called to Jim and we ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... the hunted man had made good his retreat; and Blythe and I had entered the outskirts of London without once sighting the car in which Dannar Greefe ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... trying to restrain the aborigines from pinching what little British material they have not already pinched. Yesterday he came upon a fatigue party of Gauls staggering down a by-way under the shell of an Armstrong hut. He whooped and gave chase. The Gauls, sighting the A.P.M. brassard, promptly dumped the hut and dived through a wire fence. Sherlock hitched his horse to a post and followed afoot, snorting fire and brimstone. They led him at a smart trot over four acres of boggy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... trap jolted on, at a twist of the road before it bore straight-eastwardly, he caught sight of their diminishing figures side by side and already a goodish way off on a rise of the inland road. It did not occur to them to turn on the chance of sighting him and waving a hand. The two were comrades already, sharing talk, on this their first stage towards the battlefields ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Marrineal lapsing tactfully into the role of attentive listener again, until there appeared in the lower room a dark-faced man of thirty-odd, spruce and alert, who, upon sighting them, came confidently forward. Marrineal ordered him a drink and presented him to the two journalists as Mr. Ely Ives. As Mr. Ives, it appeared, was in the secret of Marrineal's journalistic connection, the talk was resumed, becoming ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... and the first lieutenant remained on the bridge, anxiously sighting in the direction in which the sail had been reported to be. As the captain had instructed the engineer to do, he had caused the fires to be reduced and a change of fuel used so that the smokestack of the Bronx ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... distance back again along the foot of the bluff, and thence, ourselves turning southeastward, we measured off a thousand feet. This brought us down to the lowest of the old lake-benches, about a hundred yards back of the house, when, sighting along the same line with the compass, we found that that faithful little servant pointed us straight to the entrance ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... Carleton read the point to him. When, through his glasses, the old gentleman had verified the reading, he was delighted. Promotion for Carleton was now sure. Before night he was not only dragging the chain, but was sighting the instrument. The result, two days later, was promotion to the charge of the party. What he had learned of land surveying was producing its fruit. In the autumn he was employed as the head of a party to make the preliminary survey of the Concord ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... the head, left shoulder and hands of Deerfoot and the upper part of the bow, whose arrow was on the very point of speeding toward them. Directly over the shaft, with head slightly inclined, like that of a hunter sighting over his gun, were the gleaming eyes and face of the young Shawanoe. It looked as if he had turned his head to one side that he might catch the music made by the twang of the string when it should dart forward with the speed of the rattlesnake ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... the ravine at the other end. They rode through the trees toward them. Molly and Donald came on so leisurely that Plimsoll feared they might have turned back and, with Butch, he risked a look down the trail, sighting them. ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... lightning flashed and thunder roared and thick darkness veiled earth's face. Presently came forth a mighty rushing wind and a voice like an earthquake, the quake of earth on Judgment Day.[FN40] The Prince, seeing these horrors and sighting that which he had never before seen or heard, trembled for terror in every limb; but Mubarak fell to laughing at him and saying, "Fear not, O my lord: for that which thou dreadest is what we seek, for to us it is an earnest of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... connection with the cliff, until one goes around it and finds it 100 feet or more from the former. It leans at an angle from the perpendicular of at least 15 degrees; and lying down at the base on the under side, by the best sighting I could make, it seemed to me that the opposite upper edge was directly over me—that is to say, mechanically speaking, its center of gravity barely falls with the base, and a heave of only a yard or two more would cause it ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Caliph went in to Kut al-Kulub, who rose to him on sighting him and kissed the ground between his hands; when he said to her, "Hath Ala al-Din gone in unto thee?" and she answered, "No, O Commander of the Faithful, I sent to bid him come, but he would not." So the Caliph bade carry her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... scouted the idea of acting Iphigenia, there was nothing for it but steadily to beat over the remaining hundred and fifty miles, which still separated us from Cape Reikianess. After going for two days hard at it, and sighting the Westmann islands, we ran plump into a fog, and lay to. In a few hours, however, it cleared up into a lovely sunny day, with a warm summer breeze just rippling up the water. Before us lay the long wished-for Cape, with the Meal-sack,—a queer stump of basalt, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... surface he was a good citizen, fond of his children, faithful to his wife, devoutly marching to a fair seat in heaven on a path paved by something better than a thousand a year. But here was a man sighting him from below the surface, and though it was an unfair, unaccustomed, not to say un-English, method of regarding one's fellow-man, Mr. Thompson was troubled by it. What though his client exaggerated? Facts were at the bottom ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... often diverted myself with wondering what sort of impression the posture of our schooner would have made on the minds of sailors sighting us from their deck. We looked to be floating out of water, and mariners who regard the devil as a conjuror must have accepted us as one ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... and that way measuring, Sighting from tree to tree, And from the bend of the river. This must be the place where Black Eagle Twelve hundred moons ago Stood with folded arms, While a Pottawatomie father Plunged a knife in his heart, For ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... old a borderer to attempt to draw his weapons while such a man as Kelly was sighting him at ten ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the gorge, with comrades carefully sighting the slopes, Geordie felt the danger would not be very great. A swift rush carried all four over the open space of twenty yards. Three or four shots came zipping from aloft, but the instant ring of Winchesters back of them told that watchful eyes had noted every ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... quickly sighting through his binocular, declares them different—at least, in their array. They are not all men, more than half being women and children, while no warlike insignia can be discerned—neither white ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... heard, and then all was silent till the boat slowly drifted by the lights of the island, answering the sentries' challenges, and then sighting the lights and open portholes of the steamer, to whose side they managed to struggle, answering the challenges as ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... 8 a.m., we sighted a fair-sized steamer of about 3,000 tons, which we sunk, but I cannot say what she looked like, or whether anyone escaped, as we never came to the surface at all, Von Weissman sighting smoke on the western horizon just as he hit her. We accordingly steered in that direction. However, I think she went almost at once as Von Weissman put a dot (black) on the chart as ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... most honorable block of wood which was brought him and talked to Guacanagari. Then at his gesture one brought his presents, a mirror, a rich belt, a knife, a pair of castanets. Guacanagari, it seemed, since the sighting of the ships, had made collection on his part. He gave enough gold to make lustful many an eye looking upon ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... struggle, every sense alert. He found nothing to reward his search—whoever the coward had been, he had disappeared among the rocks, vanishing completely in the black night. The fellow had not even waited to learn the effect of his shot. He had fired pointblank into the lighted room, sighting at Westcott's head, and then ran, assured no doubt the speeding bullet had gone straight to the mark. It was not until he came back to the open door that the miner thought of his companion. What had become of Jose? Could it be that the Mexican was hit? He entered, shrinking ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... simply "outposts" as laid down in Field Service Regulations. Very few of the Company Officers had had any previous experience of this work, but Colonel Wood soon put us straight, and organized things himself. He was absolutely indefatigable and day and night was up in the line sighting good positions and studying the enemy. The latter were distinctly alert as they showed by their behaviour on the 24th and 25th when we not only made no progress, but had several casualties. First, on the extreme right, an "A" Company patrol tried to reconnoitre the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... clear around, with his right hand over his left shoulder. He punched the muzzle of his gun into a crack between two stones, and he pried to open them. The dry clay cement crumbled, the crack widened. Sighting along the barrel he aimed it with the narrow strip of Wades shoulder that was visible above the framework. Then he shot and hit. Wade shrank flatter and closer, hiding himself to better advantage. The rustler made his great blunder then, for in that moment he might have rushed out and ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... Sighting our two Bird boys, of course Puss had known who they were. But the man was positive that they must be spies sent out by the government to learn what the revolutionists might be doing up the Magdalena. And he had threatened all sorts of things, Puss declared, unless a hot pursuit were ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... purposes of his calculation. Just so an astronomer, in dealing with the tidal movements of the ocean, takes no account of the waves made by the wind, or by the pressure of all the steamers which day and night are moving their thousands of tons upon its surface. Just so the marksman, in sighting his rifle, allows for the motion of the wind, but not for the equally real motion of the earth and solar system. Just so a business man's punctuality may overlook an error of five minutes, while a physicist, ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... happened. While he had been sighting on the second seal-creature, the third had attacked the torpoon from the rear by striking it with all the strength of its heavy, muscular body. But it did not follow up its attack. For it had crashed in to the whirling propeller, and now it was hanging well back, its head horribly gashed by ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... the dial is absolutely steady; the needle is extremely sensitive and shows accurately the most minute change of course; the anti-drift arrangement checks the slightest deviation from the straight course; and it is fitted with a revolving sighting arrangement which is of great importance in the adjustment ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... her children, from a home in flames in the Mission Street district, and tramped to the bay in the hope of sighting the ship which she said was about due, of which ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the sunshade into the ground. There was a sharp crack and—well, he found another iron. Of course he tried to explain to Margery that it was an absolute accident and he only wanted to get a sighting post; but that was mere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... port is situated, until they strike the brisas, which is generally at ten or eleven degrees. By this route they sail continually before the wind, and without changing the sails, with fresh and fair brisas, and in other moderate weather, for one thousand eight hundred leguas, without sighting any mainland or island. Then leaving to the south the Barbudos and other islands, and advancing gradually to a latitude of thirteen degrees, they sail until they sight the island of Guan; and above it, in fourteen degrees, that of La Carpana [Seypan]. This voyage ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... their rude shelters of boughs and bark we now know; and perhaps, it was as well for the skilful pilot that he died with his mission unfulfilled, save in fancy. His lieutenant, Torres, came nearer solving the secret of the Southern Seas, and, in fact, reports sighting hills to the southward, which—on slight foundation—are supposed to have been the present Cape York, but more probably were the higher lands of Prince of Wales Island. In all likelihood he saw enough of the natives of the Straits to convince him that no such rich pickings were to be had, as had ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... course she's steering—N.N.E. and by E. That's from Cape Bajoli straight for Marseille. They run both ways between Mallorca and Minorca without touching. Hooray! who says our luck isn't stupendous? Here we are, not having made enough southing, and heading so as to fetch Gibraltar without sighting the islands at all; and then in the nick of time up comes a dea ex machina in the guise of the Eugene Perrier to shove us on the course again. In main-sheet, and then, blow me if we won't have a bottle of that vermouth by way of celebrating the ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... of curvature is not produced in this way, the wooden pipe, still in the rough state as regards its outer surface, is suspended horizontally on loops, and weights are hung upon the muzzle end until, on sighting through the bore, only a half circle of daylight is visible — this being the degree of curvature of the bore desired. The wood is then heated with torches, and on cooling retains the curvature thus impressed ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Upon sighting the road this morning, which I had told them we should do, a loud and continued hurrahing came from all the party, who were overjoyed to behold signs of civilization again; while Billy, who was in advance with me, ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... which heralded these resting times, so that the boss could not catch him laughing. Lee Milligan was scooping sand upon the other side and mumbling to himself, with a glance now and then at the trail, in the hope of sighting a good samaritan with six or eight mules, perhaps. Lee thought that it would take about that many ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... officer wrote up his report of a UFO sighting, but at the last minute, just before sending it, he was told to hold it back. He was a little unhappy about this turn of events, so he went in to see why the group commander had decided to delay sending the report ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... was no advantage—either moral or physical—in my favour. I was broad front to the danger, without the slightest capacity of "dodging" it; whilst there was nothing to excite the nerves of the marksman, or render his aim unsteady. On the contrary, he was sighting me as coolly, as if about to fire at a ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Confederates that morning, and would perhaps have missed. As it fell out, a Confederate captain of artillery, having nothing better to do while awaiting his turn to pull out and be off, amused himself by sighting a field-piece obliquely to his right at what he mistook for some Federal officers on the crest of a hill, and discharged it. The shot flew ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... to navigation was a compass, that I got from the binnacle of a ship lying near the Ville de Saint Remy; and aboard the same vessel I found a very good spyglass, and gladly brought it along with me because it would add to my chances—should I reach open water—not only of sighting a distant ship but of making out how she was standing in time ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... in one heaven-wide storm, great masts and clouds Of sail crept slowly forth, the ships of Spain! From North to South, their tangled spars and shrouds Controlled the slow wind as with bit and rein; Onward they rode in insolent disdain Sighting the little fleet of England there, While o'er the sullen splendour of the main Three solemn guns tolled all their host to prayer, And their great ensign blazoned all the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... observer's gun in the rear cockpit was a weird contraption like a giant catapult. It occupied a great deal of room, was stiff-moving, reduced the speed by about five miles an hour owing to head resistance, refused to be slewed round sideways for sighting at an angle, and constantly collided with the observer's head. We called it the Christmas Tree, the Heath Robinson, the Jabberwock, the Ruddy Limit, and names unprintable. The next three buses were fitted with Scarff mountings, which were as satisfactory ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... saw bunting and recruits, and the crowds outside consulates. But he had no idea of the ceaseless flight of innumerable crammed trains day and night southwards, of the gathering together of Atlantic liners and excursion steamers from all the coasts into an unprecedented Armada, of the sighting of the vanguard of that Armada by an incredulous Boulogne, of the landing of British regiments and guns and aeroplanes in the midst of a Boulogne wonderstruck and delirious, and of the thrill which thereupon ecstatically shivered through ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... through the forest. Wonderful effect on the rescued boys. New fruit and vegetables. The rubber tree. Carricature plant. Sighting Observation Hill. The Old Flag. The change in John. Angel happy. The visit of the boys to the shop. The rambles about the place. A wonderful stimulus. Angel turning the grindstone. Appreciation. The Professor's encomium. Rearranging ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... southwest to make the island of Teneriffe, and they reached the said island on the day of St. Michael, which was September 29th. Thence he made his course to fetch the Cape Verd Islands, and they passed between the islands and the cape without sighting either the one or the other. Having to make for Brazil, and as soon as they sighted the other coast of Brazil, he steered to the southeast along the coast of Cape Frio, which is in 23 deg. south latitude; and from this cape he steered to the west, a matter of thirty leagues, to make ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... moment this fact was brought home to him in a very practical manner. The unknown, sighting the sentry, perhaps more clearly against the dim whiteness of the tents than Kennedy could sight him against the dark wood, dashed in with a rapidity which showed that he knew something of the art of boxing. Kennedy dropped his rifle and flung up his arm. He was altogether ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... soon as he found that all the other preparations for the decisive event had been made, turned his attention to the aiming of the long gun. He had practised with it somewhat before; and in the ambitious spirit of a boy, he had often amused himself by sighting over ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... kind of search the caravan pursued the borders of the river, sometimes on this side and sometimes on that, now passing the two-headed mountain Camanti, now sighting the tufted peak of Basiri, now crossing the torrent called the Garote. In the latter, where the dam and hydraulic works of an old Spanish gold-hunter were still visible in a state of ruin, the sacred golden thirst of Colonel Perez once more attacked him. Two or three pins' heads of the insane ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... landsman; so, although I had the highest admiration for the colonel, coupled with more than a liking for his young daughter, between whom and myself there seemed such a mysterious sympathy on the evening of my sighting the Saint Pierre, when the captain declared we were some hundreds of miles apart, I reluctantly and, so it seemed to me, ungraciously, declined his proposal, telling him I preferred "sticking" to the skipper and ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... to the British coast. Old Hulks insisted that they were too far to the southward, and ordered the schooner to be headed more to the northward. Night was approaching. It was Christmas Eve. The wind was strong, and a heavy snowstorm prevented the possibility of their sighting ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... engineer, who was now sighting through the glasses. In spite of the darkness the binoculars brought out the peculiarities of ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... cities of Fata Morgana ..." said the Parson with a sigh. "But we're all the better for sighting them, even so. What d'you ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... chance that I had—and I was well aware of it. There was small prospect of fishing boats or the like coming out that evening; small likelihood of any coasting steamer sighting a bit of a speck like me. All the same, I was going to keep my chin up as long as possible, and the first thing to do was to take care of my strength. I made shift to divest myself of a heavy pea-jacket that ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... then for us to do some of the same kind of business," replied Howard, sighting his own gun at the savage upon the shore. The distance was too great and his skill too slight to guide the ball with anything like certainty, but it skipped over the water at their very feet, and so alarmed ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... listening as they went to the progress the boar was making among the bamboos on their right. Presently they sighted him, crossing an open space a couple of hundred yards or so ahead of them. On the further side he stopped and began to feed. This was Grantham's opportunity, and, sighting his rifle, he fired. The beast dropped like a stone, well hit, just behind the shoulder. The report, however, had scarcely died away before the little Shan held up his hand to ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... thither, save when drunk. No, the only creatures which resort thither are dogs which subsist no one knows how as predatorily they roam from court to court with tails tucked between their flanks, and bloodless tongues hanging down, and legs ever prepared, on sighting a human being, to bolt into the ravine, or to let down their owners upon subservient bellies in expectation of a probable kick ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... to the north, and which we were to see on our southern journey. Despising the "rotten water" offered in two places by the Umm Jedayl, we pitched camp on the fine gravel of the Sayl Wady el-Jimm. Here I heard for the first time, after sighting it for many weeks, that the latter is the name, not of a mountain,[EN153] but of a Sha'b or "gully" in the Jebel Dibbagh where waters "meet." The Wady Kh'shabriyyah, separating the Umm Jedayl from its northern neighbour, the Dibbagh, looks like a highway; but all declare that it is ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... third day from the date of our sighting the great peak, we found ourselves beneath its shadow. Still following the course of the river which wound through the forests at the base of the peak, we entered the territory of the redoubtable Wambe. This, however, was not accomplished ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... once known him. There were reasons why he had started in a hurry, without a horse or food or a canteen, and these same reasons held good why he could not follow beaten tracks. All yesterday he had traveled without sighting a ranch or meeting a human being. But he knew he must get to water soon—if he were to reach ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... exhibits itself mainly in an increased power of seeing the ball, is one of the most inexplicable things connected with cricket. It has nothing, or very little, to do with actual health. A man may come out of a sick-room with just that extra quickness in sighting the ball that makes all the difference; or he may be in perfect training and play inside straight half-volleys. Mike would not have said that he felt more than ordinarily well that day. Indeed, he was rather painfully ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... steps, and away to the left, as a boy comes running down the alley. Sighting MORE, he stops dead, spins round, and crying shrilly: "'Ere 'e is! That's 'im! 'Ere 'e is!" he bolts back in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... west along the wash. Pan loped Sorrel across to intercept them. They were ragged and motley, altogether a score or more of the broomtails that had earned that unflattering epithet. They had no leader and showed it in their indecision. They were as wild as jack rabbits, and upon sighting Pan they wheeled in their tracks and fled like the wind, down the valley. Pan saw them turn a larger darker-colored herd. This feature was what he had mainly relied upon. Wonderful luck of this kind ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... thing to experience joy at a friend's miss, but this was not an ordinary case, and I felt keen delight when the bullet from the badly sighted rifle missed, striking the ground many yards short. I was sighting carefully from my knee, and I knew I had the lion all right; for though he galloped at a great pace he came on steadily—ears laid back, and uttering terrific coughing grunts—and there was now no question of making allowance for distance, nor, as he was out in the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson |
