"Spar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fair company into the country of the sea-people. In that land there grew neither grass nor flowers, bushes nor trees, but the ground was covered with bright-coloured shells and pebbles. There were hills of marble, and rocks of spar. Over all was a cold blue sky with no sun, but a light clear and silvery as that of the harvest moon. The fisherman could see no smoking chimneys, but there were caves in the rocks of spar, and halls in the marble hills, where lived the sea-people—with whom, as old stories ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... ah, the sickle! golden eares are cropt; CERES and BACCHUS bid good-night; Sharpe frosty fingers all your flowrs have topt, And what sithes spar'd, winds shave off quite. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... remarks, he was looking out to try and get some smaller pieces of timber to serve, he said, as paddles. At length they came up with a floating spar—for it must be understood that they were moving faster through the water than the other pieces of wreck, owing to their bodies holding the wind and serving as sails. Jack managed to secure this prize, and Bill directly afterwards got hold of a ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... any consequence came ashore. A stray spar or two, a hen-coop, two or three empty barrels, a child's light straw hat, and a ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... the Guise, but yet those termes might have beene spar'd of the guiserd. Companion! He's jealous, by this light. Are you blind of that side, Duke? Ile to her againe for that. Forth, princely mistresse, 125 for the honour ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... over the windlass, and jumped between the knight-heads out upon the bowsprit. The crew stood abaft the windlass and hauled the jib down, while we got out upon the weather side of the jib-boom, our feet on the foot ropes, holding on by the spar, the great jib flying off to leeward and slatting so as almost to throw us off of the boom. For some time we could do nothing but hold on, and the vessel diving into two huge seas, one after the other, plunged us twice into the water up to our chins. We hardly ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... although strangers to us, sympathizing in what they perceived to be our imminent danger, stepped the light spar which acted as mast, and shook out their scanty rag of canvas in a minute. Considine meanwhile went aft, and steadying her head with an oar, held the small craft up to the wind till she lay completely over, and as she rushed through the water, ran dipping her gun-wale ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... instructed, Paul induced his charge to go with him to the river. The little boy was very timid and refused to embark on a steering oar that Paul found near the shore. A steering oar consists of a plank securely pinned into a spar about thirty feet long and used on stern and bow of a raft to guide it. Paul at last half forcibly seated him on a block of wood on the steering oar and procuring a pole they started on their voyage. All went well until they had passed under the old Aqueduct Bridge. Then a crowd of Pittsburgh ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... rocks: and lo' ye, 'twas a boat bottom side up, and all hands gone down. Wal! wal! the Lord knew what was right: but it's wuss by a deal to see them things than to be in 'em yourself, to my thinkin'. Wal, after a spell I looked agin, and there was somethin' else a-driftin' looked like a spar, it did: and somethin' was lashed to it. My heart! 'twas tossed about like a egg-shell, up and down, and here and thar! 'Twas white, whatever was lashed to it, and I couldn't take my eyes off'n it. 'It can't be ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... summer or winter, Hurricane nights like these, When spar and topsail are rag and splinter Hurled o'er the ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... side, and the seamen upon the other, were stowed like herrings upon "a platform laid across water-casks, whose surface they completely covered when they slept, and at so small a distance below the spar deck that their heads would reach it when seated." To these inconveniences were added the want of any room for exercise on deck, the attacks of innumerable vermin which their predecessors, the slaves, had left behind them, and (as the salted ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... carry a small repair kit attached to one of the thwarts, containing cement, a piece of canvas same as cover of canoe, copper tacks, rivets, and some galvanized nails; a good hatchet and a hammer; a small can of canoe paint, spar varnish, and copper paint for worn places would be a protection against termites and torrential downpours. In concluding the subject of canoes I can state that the traveller in South America will find no difficulty in disposing ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... daylight we mustered at quarters, and found that 16 officers and men were killed, and 120 wounded; the three lower masts badly wounded, every spar wounded, except the spanker-boom; the shrouds cut in all parts, leaving the masts unsupported, which would have fallen had there been the least motion; the running gear entirely cut to pieces; the boats all shot through; the bulwarks ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... and Kerry, on Whit-Monday, a Union Jack was hoisted, not as a political banner, but as an ornament, and the only banner available for the purpose. It was left flying when the cricketers went home, but in the morning it lay prone and dishonoured. The forty-foot spar had been sawn through, and in falling had smashed the palings. Let a chorus of musical Gladstonians march through Ireland bearing the Union Jack and singing "God save the Queen," let them do it, with or without police protection, and I will gladly watch their progress, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... or 4 g. powdered CaF2, i.e. fluor spar or fluorite, into a shallow lead tray, e.g. 4x5 cm, and pour over it 4 or 5 cc. H2SO4. A piece of glass large enough to cover this should previously be warmed and covered on one side with a very thin coat of beeswax. To distribute itevenly, warm the other side ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... I aims ter git ter Hebem when I dies an' I show don't know how ter conjur' nobody. No mam, I ain't never seed no ghost. I allus pray to de Lord dat He spar' me dat trouble an' not let me see nary one. No good in folks plunderin' on dis earth atter dey leave here de ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Will's two ricks approached completion, and all the business of thatch and spar gads and rush ropes began. At his mother's desire he wasted no time, and toiled on, long after his party had returned to Newtake; but with the dusk he made an end for that day, stood up, rested his back, and scanned the darkening scene ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? Last came, and last did go, The Pilot of the Galilean lake, Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain, 110 (The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain) He shook his Miter'd locks, and stern bespake, How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, Anow of such as for their bellies sake, Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold? Of other care they little reck'ning make, Then how to scramble at the shearers feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... ship, at the distance of only ten yards. The action continued, within pistol-shot, till half past three in the afternoon; when Le Genereux, with a light breeze, passed the Leander's bows, and brought itself on the starboard side, where the guns had been all nearly disabled by the wreck of the spar, which had fallen on that side. This necessarily producing a cessation of the Leander's fire, the enemy hailed, to know if the ship had surrendered. Being now a complete wreck; the decks covered with killed and wounded; and Captain Thompson himself badly wounded, without the most distant ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... Phase Law. We know that by phases are designated the homogeneous substances into which a system is divided; thus carbonate of lime, lime, and carbonic acid gas are the three phases of a system which comprises Iceland spar partially dissociated into lime and carbonic acid gas. The number of phases added to the number of independent components—that is to say, bodies whose mass is left arbitrary by the chemical formulas ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... A big spar with its blocks and tackle was run out, and proceedings were commenced with the men for slinging the horses off the deck and lowering them down; but everything was of the roughest kind and perfectly unsuitable, while the horses, ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... brutal madness, reeling over graves Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight, Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite Who haunts foul seaweed forests and their caves. No parting cloud reveals a watery star, My cries are washed away upon the wind, My cramped and blistering hands can find no spar, My eyes with hope o'erstrained, are growing blind. But painted on the sky great visions burn, My voice, oblation ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... drifting in the ocean, clinging to a spar, and were brought here by a sailing vessel. You had a fracture of the skull and you were half drowned. It is supposed that you were one of the passengers of the Abyssinia, which took fire and went down two days after leaving Cape Town, ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... excited tones as they made their way forward. If the object sticking above the gully's edge proved actually to be a mast it was in all probability a spar of the ship they sought. The thought put new life into every one and they hurried forward over the hard snow at their ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... him," replied I; "to-morrow I will send him into the sea after the piece of spar. I've no fear that he will go ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... call of "Time!" the principals would rise from their seconds' knees, advance briskly to the scratch across the center of the ring, and spar away sharply for a little time, until one got in a blow that sent the other to the ground, where he would lie until his second picked him up, carried him back, washed his face off, and gave him a drink. He then rested until the next ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... having shifted, and the current setting out, they were all driven to sea, and amongst them our captain and three sailors. Anxious to save the remainder of the ship's company, and too sanguine of getting safe on shore, he had ventured upon the spar, saying, as he jumped into the sea, 'My lads, I'll save you all.' In a few seconds, he lost his hold of the spar, which he could not regain: he drifted to sea, and perished: and such was also the fate of the three brave volunteers who shared ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... of life is strong in every heart, and when he found himself breathing the air again he threw out his arms wildly and grasped a spar. ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... Sons of Harmony came to cuffs, While feuds arose and family quarrels, That discomposed the mechanics of morals, For screws were loose between brother and brother, While sisters fastened their nails on each other; Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff, And spar, and jar—and breezes as stiff As ever upset a friendship—or skiff! The plighted lovers who used to walk, Refused to meet, and declined to talk: And wished for two moons to reflect the sun, That they mightn't look together on one: While wedded affection ran so low, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... aboue 26 at her arriual in Dartmouth, being lightened in her voyage by diuers meanes some 5 foote. She caried in height 7 seuerall stories, one maine Orlop, three close decks, one fore-castle, and a spar-decke of two floores a piece. The length of the keele was 100 foote, of the maine-mast 121 foot, and the circuite about at the partners 10 foote 7 inches, the maine-yard was 106 foote long. By which perfect commensuration of the parts appeareth the hugenesse of the whole, farre ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... are not the man to be diffident of yourself in such a matter. You must either think that I love you, or that I have been a great hypocrite in pretending to do so. Love you!' They were sitting together on a large spar which was lashed on to the deck, and which had served throughout all the voyage for a seat for second-class passengers There were others now on the farther end of it; but there was a feeling that when Caldigate and Mrs. Smith were together it would not be civil to intrude upon their privacy. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... found I was holding to a spar, which helped me somewhat. And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the harbor. There were four hundred ships of large size, if we may believe the chronicles of the times, and more than a thousand transports. The decks of all these vessels were covered with men; banners were streaming from every mast and spar; and every salient point of the shore was crowded with spectators. The sea was calm, the air serene, and the mighty cloud of canvas which whitened the surface of the water moved slowly on over the gentle swell of the waves, forming a spectacle which, as a picture merely for the eye, ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... moved, what is to be said of her? I can hardly express the painful scene which followed. She lost all control of her senses; she clung to me as if I had been a spar in some stormy sea wherein she drowned; she uttered incoherent cries, she gasped, sobbed, was clean distraught. When I held her, when I kissed her, she struggled like a caught bird, fought furiously, used her teeth, her nails. And yet all the time she was caressing me with every diminutive, every ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... of ill, a danger to the host Great Eragon, far Lochlin's King, was not the man to know The blood mount hot at insult's stroke without an answering blow, His dragon keels were rolled to waves that shouted welcome loud To glittering helm and painted shield beneath each spar and shroud Oh! strong was Eragon in war, in battle victor oft, From many a rank, from many a mast his banner streamed aloft; With forty ships he set to sea, and scores of glancing oars Streaked white his wake on fiord and loch ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... lad, no saying at all. All I know is that your father, the captain, was washed ashore at the same time as I was. As you have heard me say, I owed my life to him. I was pretty nigh gone when I caught sight of him, holding on to a spar. Spent as I was, I managed to give a shout loud enough to catch his ear. He looked round. I waved my hand and shouted, 'Goodbye, Captain!' Then I sank lower and lower, and felt that it was all over, when, half in a dream, I heard your father's ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... lips again. He had to spar for time: to divert for a while the vengeance he knew possessed the other's mind, so that he might find some chance, ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... Mrs Evson," said Power, "you must spar them for ten minutes, for the masters and all the school are impatient to see ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the towing torpedo of the boat in front of us in the line fouled a submerged spar, or a bit of wreckage, and exploded right under our bow. 'If we had been a few yards closer we would never have been there ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... besiegers' eager host Beholds the fainting garrison retire, And rushes joyful to the naked wall, Destruction flashes from th' insidious mine, And sweeps th' exulting conqueror away. Perhaps, in vain the sultan's anger spar'd me, To find a meaner fate from treach'rous ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... had been unshipped, and attempted to be laid between the ship's side and some of the rocks, but without success, for it snapped assunder before it reached them. However, by the light of a lanthorn which a seaman handed through a sky-light of the round-house to the deck, Mr. Meriton discovered a spar which appeared to be laid from the ship's side to the rocks, and on this spar he resolved to ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... and overturned, in which position it is helpless. A turtle detected in shallow water falls a comparatively easy prey, for on being hustled it soon loses heart and endeavours to hide its head, ostrich-like, when it is easily captured. None unacquainted with the skill with which the creature can spar with its flippers, and the effectiveness of these flippers, when used as weapons of defence, should venture to grip a turtle in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... knows not charity. It massacres when it can and adds you to the line of dead things along its edge where you are only remembered by the ebb and flow of the tide. On blue calm mornings, being part of the jetsam, you may glisten in the sun beside a water-logged spar; at night you become a nonentity, of no more consequence along the wavering line of drift than a rotten gull. But if, like Marianne, you have fought skilfully, you may again enter Pont du Sable with a quicker eye, a harder body, and a deeper ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... would she come and sit by him instead—for one dance? ... As soon as two sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey, and the skipper had given the owner the course, all persons seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who were in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued, because Mr. Gilman ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... from some of the cruisers were busy amid the wreckage where here, on a spar, some stunned form clung like a limpet, and there, a-bob in the curling seas, a swimmer in his life-suit tossed under ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... day Ben went to Belem one of father's outstanding ships arrived. She came into the harbor presenting the unusual sight of trying oil on deck. Black and greasy from hull to spar, she was a pleasant sight, for she was full of sperm oil. Little boys ran down to the house to inform us of that fact before she was moored. "Wouldn't Mr. Morgeson be all right now that his luck had changed?" ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... boats for the first time, riding over the breakers with shouting Kanakas, the three small hide-traders lying at anchor in the offing. But now we are the only vessel, and that an unromantic, sail-less, spar-less, engine-driven hulk! ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... rays upon, small objects and, by collecting to a focus the rays of the sun, to set fire to combustible substances. These lenses are cut with a saw and afterwards polished, the powder of crystal being used in both operations. To polish diamonds they make use of the powder of adamantine spar, or the corundum stone. In cutting different kinds of stone into groups of figures, houses, mountains, and sometimes into whole landscapes, they discover more of persevering labour, of a determination to subdue difficulties, which were not worth the subduing, than real ingenuity. Among ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... dis niggah!" chuckled Toby the Bad, maliciously. "Nuff more ob his kind, in all conscience! Reckon we kin spar' much as one! Hyah-yah!" ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... getting foothold on the stump of the mast, threw their weight on the spar projecting over the side, straight as a lance towards a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... no sooner perceived, but they, mounted on generous Steeds, well weapon'd with Lances and Swords, begin to exercise their bloody Butcheries and Strategems, and overrunning their Cities and Towns, spar'd no Age, or Sex, nay not so much as Women with Child, but ripping up their Bellies, tore them alive in pieces. They laid Wagers among themselves, who should with a Sword at one blow cut, or divide a Man in two; ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... were fastened everywhere now, and the uprights all in place. Moths were busy in all directions, showing the way, while bats by the dozen darted like black lightning from corner to corner, making sure that every spar and beam was fixed and steady. So exquisitely woven was the structure that it moved past them overhead without the faintest sound, yet so frail and so elastic that the whirring of the moths sent ripples of quivering movement through ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the hydroplane, ploughing through the cold waves, whizzed toward the yacht, as he climbed out to the small flat stern. A small boat had swung close to the yacht now. A ladder had been lowered from a spar, while a man standing in the little craft missed it. The yacht was gliding past the boat, when another rope ladder was ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... out and Hope, dazed and dumb, followed the others. They found the little room, where they had passed so many homelike hours, sadly demoralized. One of the great windows was shivered to splinters, and through it projected a heavy spar, now safely wedged from further harm, and as they gazed out through the other great panes, it was upon a scene of intense desolation. The deck was quite empty, all the crew being busy below, but it was ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... at Porto Santo some years ago a piece of wood long as a spar but thicker. Pedro Correo, who is my brother-in-law, saw it. It was graved all over, cut by something duller than our knives with beasts and leaves and a figure that Pedro thought was meant for an idol. He and another saw it and agree in their ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... brought one, and, having formed rollers by cutting up a long spar, I raised the fore part of my boat with the bar, and my sons placed a roller ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest. He did not care what the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... water remains nearly transparent, and it's temperature appeas to be quite as cold as that of our best springs. we meet with a beautifull little bird in this neighbourhood about the size and somewhat the shape of the large spar-row. it is reather longer in proportion to it's bulk than the sparrow. it measures 7 inches from the extremity of the beek to that of the tail, the latter occupying 21/2 inches. the beak is reather more than half an inch in length, and is formed much like the Virginia ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... sold him canvas and rope and spar—we know that his price is fair, And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... is the rudimentary flake—or bubble-like condition of the embryo.—The abode of the six (sha/d/ayatana) is the further developed stage of the embryo in which the latter is the abode of the six senses.—Touch (spar/s/a) is the sensations of cold, warmth, &c. on the embryo's part.—Feeling (vedana) the sensations of pleasure and pain resulting therefrom.—Desire (t/ri/sh/n/a) is the wish to enjoy the pleasurable sensations and to shun the painful ones.—Activity ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... the confusing of something essentially simple, like the duplication when one looks through a doubly refracting medium. You think in this latter mood that you have only to turn the crystal of Iceland spar about in order to have the whole thing plain. But you never get it plain. I have been doing my halting utmost to get down sincerely and simply my vision of life and duty. I have permitted myself no defensive restraints; I have shamelessly written my starkest, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... modestly placed over his nose. Ramshaw and Cottle were engaged in deadly strife on the floor, each under the fond delusion that the other was a Classic; while the twin brothers, armed with the better pair of boxing-gloves, were having a friendly spar in ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... beginning to make," said Hastings, pointing to a striped spar-buoy that was slightly tipping up-stream on the edge ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... two men on board a ship who can do that, for there is never any saying what might happen if there is only one. It has made me anxious many a time, when we had a bad spell of weather, as to how the Tiger would get on if I happened to be washed overboard by a sea or killed by a falling spar. Well, Master Embleton, I can see that I shall have no difficulty in making a first-rate sailor of you. Have you ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... supposed, to the shore, he ventured upon it, only to find out that he had laboured under a mistake. He was immediately projected into the sea, and carried with the tide into the cavern; but succeeding in clasping a jagged spar of elevated rock, he gained by its aid a place of temporary safety. It is impossible to tell how many were killed by being thrown against these rocks by the relentless waves, but that numbers were, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... steatite, and quartz. They occur in so many modifications of form, color, and condition that one might speedily form a cabinet of these, if they were taken when met with, and imagine it to be of great value. The first of these is calcite. It occurs as marble, limestone; calcspar, dogtooth spar, nail head spar, stalactites, and a number of other forms, which are only valuable when occurring in perfect crystals or uniquely set upon the rock holding it. The calcspar is extremely abundant at Bergen Hill, where it might be mistaken for many of the other minerals which I describe ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... right arm, I laid out to the flying-jib-boom-end, upon which I took my stand, steadying myself by grasping the royal stay in my left hand. The motion away out there, at the far extremity of that long spar, was tremendous; so much so, indeed, that seasoned as I was to the wild and erratic movements of a ship in heavy weather, the sinkings and soarings and flourishings of that boom-end, as the vessel plunged and staggered down toward the wreck, made me feel distinctly giddy. The wait was not a ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... granitic sand, full of brilliant leaflets of mica. Some deep creeks came from the eastward. To the west and north-west nothing was to be seen but ridges; but high imposing ranges rise to the north and north-east. At one spot, large masses of calcareous spar were scattered over the ground; they were probably derived from a ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away? Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... down the stream she dwelt, 'twould seem, Yet stream nor breeze could bar Her little boat, that to a nook, Dark with the pine-tree's spar, Each evening Ronald saw shoot up As constant as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Sea brake upon the poop and quarter, upon us, as it covered our ship from stern to stem, like a garment or a vast cloud. It filled her brimful for a while within, from the hatches up to the spar deck. . . ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... corresponding and equally bad class of British gun-brigs. The Adams after several changes of form finally became a flush-decked corvette. The Essex had originally mounted twenty-six long 12's on her main-deck, and sixteen 24-pound carronades on her spar-deck; but official wisdom changed this, giving her 46 guns, twenty-four 32-pound carronades, and two long 12's on the main-deck, and sixteen 32-pound carronades with four long 12's on the spar-deck. When Captain Porter had command of her he was deeply sensible of the disadvantages of ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... destination; or chaffed the fishermen, whose boats heaved on the waves at the foot of the promontory. When they were rested, they visited a copper-mine by the side of the head, and filled their pockets with bits of bright quartz or red shining spar, which they found in plenty among ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... yet out of sight when a topmast on the Rosan broke off short in a sudden squall. Bijonah Tanner immediately laid her to and set all hands to work stepping his spare spar, as he would not think of returning to a shipyard. Nat Burns, when he noticed the accident, laid to in turn and announced his intention of standing by the Rosan until she was ready ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... himself up in the gasket on the fore-topsail yard, and dropped off, as though he had fallen, though he clung to the rope, and was brought up with a jerk ten or twelve feet below the spar. Some of his gang, believing he had really fallen, screamed, and the attention of the whole crew was drawn off from their duty. When the fore-topmast staysail and jib were to be set, somebody had fouled the down-hauls, so that they could not be hoisted. There was a kink ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... lusty, as the saying is—that is, in good condition. It's very strange that Mrs Oxbelly has an idea that she is not large. I cannot persuade her to it. That's the reason we always spar in bed. She says it is I, and I know that it is she who takes the largest ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... "just wait till I've had my chow, I'll attend to you proper; now off with you—now!" And he tossed Master Marmaduke off his wrist up into the air. The parrot lit on a spar overhead, just under a sail, and peered down at the company without the least appearance ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... and the farming going to the deuce, don't be tossing head over tip at the tail of the tourist. If you've got the pumping engine inside of you, in plain English, if you've got the indomable character of the rael Manxman, do as I done—go foreign. Then watch your opportunity. What's Shake-spar saying?" Pete paused. "What's that he's saying, now?" Pete scratched his forehead. "Something about a flood, anyway." Pete stretched his hand out vigorously. "'Lay hould of it at the flood,' says he, 'that's the way ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... thick, of solid timber, pierced by embrasures. Through thirty port-holes as many thirty-two pounders are intended to fire red-hot shot, which can be heated with great safety and convenience. Her upper or spar-deck, upon which several thousand men might parade, is encompassed by a bulwark, which affords safe quarters. She is rigged with two stout masts, each of which supports a large lateen yard and sails. She ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... himself confident of timely rescue, kept up their hopes. It was a long and trying night. But it ended at last. Day dawned; the sun arose. Then Ishmael saw some fragments of the wreck that had been tossed upon the rocks and left there by the retiring waves. Among them was a long spar. This he directed the men to drag up upon the deck. The men, who were weak from hunger and numb from cold, could scarcely find power to obey this order. But when they did, Ishmael took off his own shirt and fastened it ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... to have you know, I scorn to get a whore for any prince alive, and yet scorn will not help methinks: my Daughter might have been spar'd, there were enow besides. ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... think heaven and earth was come together, with hell betwixt 'em;—and then it'll all clear up as quiet and calm as a Simsbury Sunday; and you wouldn't know it could be squally, if 'twan't for the sail that you hadn't had a chance to furl was drove to ribbons, and here an' there a stout spar snapped like a cornstalk, or the bulwarks stove by a heavy sea. There's queer things to be heerd, too, in them parts: cries to wind'ard like a drowndin' man, and you can't never find him; noises ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... filled a tumbler, before a word was spoken. Then one of the visitors stepped forward and said, 'Mr. Hardy, I hope you won't go, there has been a mistake; we did not know of this. I am sure many of us are very sorry for what has occurred; stay and look on, we will all of us spar.' I looked at him, and then at my host, to see whether the latter joined in the apology. Not he, he was doing the dignified sulky, and most of the rest seemed to me to be with him. 'Will any of you spar with me?' I said, tauntingly, tossing off the champagne. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... prohibition will not have the desired effect. If attempted to be enforced, it merely throws capitalist society back on the first dangerous alternative policy we have mentioned. But it will give capitalism a breathing spell, and a chance to 'spar for wind' for a while, which is the best it can expect. The general strike will still be utilized to assail the capitalist State ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... felt I'd die between them: but, after all ... And yet, Who kens what green sod's to be broken for him? Queer, that I'll lie, like any innocent Beneath the daisies; but the gowans must wait. Sore-punished, I'm not yet knocked out: life's had My head in chancery; but I'll soon be free To spar another round or so with him, Before he sends me spinning to the ropes. And life would not be life, without ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... of cobalt. The next case is devoted to the Phosphates, or metals mixed with phosphoric acid, including crystals of the phosphate of iron from Fernando Po, Bavaria, and Cornwall; phosphates of manganese; phosphate of copper; yellow and green uranite; phosphates of alumina, including the blue spar, which has been mistaken for lapis-lazuli, and the phosphate of alumina known as turquois, found only in Persia, and esteemed as an ornament. In the two supplemental table cases, 57 A and B, the visitor may notice specimens of Pyromorphite, a combination of phosphate and chloride of lead, and a ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... soon as the frost and snow were gone, Quinbey employed laborers to flatten the ground near his house to the extent of a hundred feet by ten; then, with stakes, he laid out the plan of a ship's deck. Next he contracted with spar makers, ship carpenters, and ship chandlers for material and labor; and before June three masts were erected, each with topmast, top-gallant, and royal mast, the standing rigging of which was set up to strong posts driven into the ground; then followed ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... not any weed but hath its shower, There is not any pool but hath its star; And black and muddy though the waters are, We may not miss the glory of a flower, And winter moons will give them magic power To spin in cylinders of diamond spar; And everything hath beauty near and far, And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour. And I when I encounter on my road A human soul that looketh black and grim, Shall I more ceremonious be than God? Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him Who once beside our deepest woe did bud A patient watching ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... latitood nothin', an' it was the twenty-second o' December, when we was ketched by a reg'lar typhoon which blew straight along, end on, fur a day an' a half. It blew away the storm-sails. It blew away every yard, spar, shroud, an' every strand o' riggin', an' snapped the masts off close to the deck. It blew away all the boats. It blew away the cook's caboose, an' everythin' else on deck. It blew off the hatches, an' sent 'em spinnin' in the ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... force an engagement without delay, but the British fleet retired to Amherstburg because Barclay was waiting for a new and powerful ship, the Detroit, and he preferred to spar for time. The American vessels thereupon anchored off Erie and took on stores. They had fewer than three hundred men aboard, and it was bracing news for Perry to receive word that a hundred officers and men under Commander Jesse D. Elliott were hastening to join ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... proportion to their height; and these stems rising two hundred feet, without a single offshoot or branch upon them, gave the trees the appearance of being still taller than they actually were—just as a thin clean spar, set upright, looks much taller than a hill or a ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... like—and," pointing forward, "that parcel of negroes, now not more than a hundred and fifty, as you see, but then numbering over three hundred souls. Off Cape Horn we had heavy gales. In one moment, by night, three of my best officers, with fifteen sailors, were lost, with the main-yard; the spar snapping under them in the slings, as they sought, with heavers, to beat down the icy sail. To lighten the hull, the heavier sacks of mata were thrown into the sea, with most of the water-pipes lashed on deck at the time. And this last necessity it was, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... pursuing ship might be taken as a reply. And this time the shot went home to its mark; for as the observers turned their glasses upon the chase, her mainmast was seen to totter and fall by the board, cut short off by the deck. Luckily the spar did not go over the side, but lay, fore-and-aft, inboard; otherwise the rigging might have fouled the propeller and brought the ship to a standstill. As it was, she continued her flight as though nothing ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... when it was discovered that the vessel was among breakers; and when she struck he was dashed from the rigging. He could give no account of what further happened, beyond remembering that he was clinging at one time to a spar, and saw his ship backing (as he described it) ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... remained as when I had left it at the hour I sailed away. With the dawn I descended the tower and looked for wreckage upon the rocks, but what I found was only this: a strange dead bird whose hue was as of the azure sky, and a single shattered spar, of a whiteness greater than that of the wave-tips or of the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... all these drawings are finished the pieces of glass must be immersed one by one in a square leaden box or receiver, where they are to be submitted to the action of Hydroflouric Acid Gas, made by acting on Powdered Flour-Spar by Concentrated Sulphuric Acid. When the glasses are sufficiently corroded, they are to be taken out, and the wax is to be removed by first dipping them in warm and then in hot water, or by washing with turpentine or benzine. Various ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... walk down to the Navy Yard early on a summer's morning, and sitting down upon an anchor or spar, would enter into conversation with the surprised and delighted shipwrights. He asked many questions of these artisans, who would take the utmost pains to ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... God's, a thing upheld by God for so many years that I shun danger no longer. It has even come to pass that I am lonely in security, withdrawn from God in houses, and safe in his arms when clinging to a spar in the dark sea. God and our Lord Jesus Christ, his beloved son, have walked on either side of me in mountain passes where robbers lie in wait. We are nearer to God in hunger and thirst than when the mouth is full. In fatigue rather than in rest, and to know oneself to be God's ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... explained by the slow carbonization of the anhydrous lime under the influence of the air; the external layers passing to the state of carbonate of lime or Iceland spar, which, as well known, has great influence on polarized light. This transformation, which takes place without disturbing the crystalline state, does not lead to any general modification of the form of the crystals, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... said Mr Rawlings, "but not quite probable, considering the time that elapsed after our saving him to meeting with the water-logged vessel, and the distance we traversed in the interval. Besides, the boy was lashed to the spar that supported him in the water, and he couldn't have done that, with the wound he had received, by himself; so that gets rid of the theory of his being half-murdered and pitched overboard. Altogether, the story is one of those secrets of the sea that will never be unravelled, unless he comes ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... water, under the name of the Beginning. To his great pride and delight, Captain Blokes appointed the Doctor of Physic to command her. She was well built for sailing, so she was had round to a small Cove in the Southernmost part of Lobos. A small Spar out of the Marquis made a Mainmast for her, and one of our Mizen Topsails was altered to make her a Mainsail. March 21st, All being ready, and the Beginning christened by Captain Blokes emptying a Bowl of hot Punch over her bow, she was victualled from the general store; and the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... in sand and seaweed, a woman with a little boy clasped in her arms! Both had been carefully lashed to a spar, but the child was held to the bosom of the woman, with a pressure closer than any knot that mortal hands could tie. Both were deep sunk in the sand, into which had streamed the woman's long, dark hair, which sparkled with glittering morsels of sand and pebbles, and with those tiny, brilliant, ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... down there we never think of making a fire of anything but driftwood. It makes the most wonderful, magical fire in the world. One could dream out stories for a whole evening from the wood alone. Here is a stick that must have been a part of a spar. Was it blown away from the mast in a gale? Now hold your breath and think if some poor sailor was blown off into the waves with it. Did he catch at this very stick as he sank? Did his wife wait and wait for him at home, till his shipmate came and told her? Here is a little piece of smooth board, ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... morning came at last scarcely a timber or plank of the wreck was to be seen. What hope of escape had either of us? The foaming waters raged around, and we were half perished with cold and hunger. On looking about I found a small spar washed up on the rock, and, fastening our handkerchiefs together, we rigged out a flag, but there was little chance of a boat putting off in such weather and coming near enough to see it. We now knew that we were not far off the Land's End, on one of two rocks called The ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... and under this conviction Arthur rolled himself in the blanket (cut from the spar of the ice-boat), and went into dreamland straight from his brushwood bed, Mr. Holt continuing to sit by the fire gazing into it as before; which sort of gazing, experienced people say, is very bad for the eyes. Perhaps it was that which caused a certain moisture to swell into ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... the cruiser got the range of his guns so perfectly, that a well-aimed ball ripped away our rail and tore a dangerous splinter from the foremast, three feet from deck. It was now perilous to carry a press of sail on the same tack with the weakened spar, whereupon I put the schooner about, and, to my delight, found we ranged ahead a knot faster on this course than the former. The enemy "went about" as quickly as we did, but her balls soon fell short of us, and, before noon, we had crawled so nimbly to windward, that ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... boarding her, when we found she was a Baltimore pilot-boat-built schooner, of about 70 tons burden, laden with flour, and bound for Bermuda. But three days before, in a sudden squall, they had carried away both masts short by the board, and the only spar which they had been able to rig, was a spare topmast which they had jammed into one of the pumps—fortunately she was as tight as a bottle—and stayed it the best way they could. The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of her, and his ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... have been explored for several miles, but I only passed in a few hundred yards. The stalactites here are very beautiful, assuming the structure of satin spar. A very clear stream of water issues out. West of the Gasconade, on Clifty Creek, is a remarkable Natural Bridge which I have elsewhere described in Geological Survey ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... wrestled on the spar Until the morning sun, When one turned smiling to the land. O ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... on many fields and survived the war. While making a voyage on the steamer Vera Cruz he was shipwrecked off the Florida coast, August 29, 1880. He heroically aided others to escape death, and with almost superhuman exertion kept himself afloat on a broken spar for twenty hours, and thus reached shore, only to sink down ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... got killed with a spar when the blow fust come on, and Jim Marvyn he commanded; and Jeduthun says that he seemed to have the spirit of ten men in him; he worked and he watched, and he was everywhere at once, and he kep' 'em all up for three days, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... off the coast of Biscay, and rode it out without the loss of a spar or a yard; indeed, without the slightest accident or rent ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... perfectly free for the toss. For a moment I stood thus, swaying forward at the very edge of the roof, my eyes measuring again and again the hazy, uncertain distance stretching away toward that slight undulating shadow. It was practically impossible to determine where the extreme end of the spar terminated in air, yet as nearly as possible I made selection for my point of aim, and, with three noiseless circles about my head to give it impetus, shot the rope forth into the dense gloom. I ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... the course at length; the sails untried Were spread; the raw crew set at spar and coil. Now round the prow Charybdean waters boil And ever higher surges war's red tide. The mate who should the captain's care divide Has strengthless proved. Where shall, the foe to foil, A man be found able to bear ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... air arose, and Hutter set a large square sail, that had once been the flying top-sail of an Albany sloop, but which having become threadbare in catching the breezes of Tappan, had been condemned and sold. He had a light, tough spar of tamarack that he could raise on occasion, and with a little contrivance, his duck was spread to the wind in a sufficiently professional manner. The effect on the ark was such as to supersede the necessity of rowing; and ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... turning Chance into Design. The bucketing went forward merrily. The Afghan forces were upon the run—the run of wearied wolves who snarl and bite over their shoulders. The red lances dipped by twos and threes, and, with a shriek, up rose the lance-butt, like a spar on a stormy sea, as the trooper cantering forward cleared his point. The Lancers kept between their prey and the steep hills, for all who could were trying to escape from the valley of death. The Highlanders gave the fugitives two hundred yards' law, and then brought them down, gasping and choking ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling |
