"Whalebone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... place for rips Our gloves are stitched with special care, And guarded well the whalebone tips Where first umbrellas need ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... "happy woman" at Worsley [a "happy woman" was the term used by me from my childhood to describe a woman on horseback], and, as sometimes happens, had even too much of my happiness. My friend Lady Francis is made of whalebone and india-rubber in equal proportions, very neatly and elegantly fastened together with the finest steel springs, and is incapable of fatigue from exertion, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... was, to begin with, very largely theoretical. I was able to attack such early necessities of verification as arose with quite little models, using a turntable to get the motion through the air, and cane, whalebone and silk as building material. But a time came when incalculable factors crept in, factors of human capacity and factors of insufficient experimental knowledge, when one must needs guess and try. Then I had to enlarge the scale of my operations, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... penitence she would be glad to assist him in breaking off the match. On the contrary, to find himself arraigned and put on his defense by this tall, slim woman, erect and smartly buckramed in logic and whalebone, was preposterous! But it had the effect ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... sometimes to get in his blow. It did Oliver Vyell good, riding in, to slash twice crosswise on the brute's bandaged face; to feel the whalebone bite and then, as he swung out of saddle, to ram fist and whip-butt together on the ugly mouth, driving ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... rear of the column, surrounded by troopers of the train-des-equipages; then followed more infantry, then cavalry, dragoons, who sat listlessly in their high saddles, carbines bobbing on their broad backs, whalebone plumes ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... children's mother told them that the whale is the largest of all animals, and that it lives on little jellyfish. It swims with its great mouth wide open and catches all the tiny sea creatures in its path. A fringe of whalebone hangs down from the roof of the whale's mouth, and he strains the water out through this and swallows the fish. As the boat went on, the children said, "There she blows," as the sailors do when they see whales ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... in bed for three weeks; flat on her back as much as possible, which was terribly irksome to her, since her strength and vitality were coming back so fast. The irksomeness was added to by a horrible harness largely of whalebone. Rose got the notion, too, that the purpose of all this was not quite wholly hygienic. Harriet had said once: "You know the most distinguished thing about you, Rose, dear—about your looks, I mean—is that lovely boyish line of yours. It will ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... all this?" gasps Mr. MCLAUGHLIN, struggling affrightedly in his suffocating cage of whalebone and alpaca. "What's this here old lady's hoop-skirt doing ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... Holland very young children wear a thin, padded cushion around their heads, surmounted with a framework of whalebone and ribbon, to protect them in case of a fall; and it is the dividing line between babyhood and childhood when they leave it off. Voost had arrived at this dignity several years before; consequently Jacob's insult was ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... a score of long, blunt thorns, tough and black as whalebone, and drove them through a strip of wood in which I had burnt a row of holes to receive them, and made myself a comb, and combed out my long, tangled hair to improve ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... reindeer, With sheep and swine beside; I have tribute from the Finns, Whalebone and reindeer-skins, And ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... a whalebone whale, Hank?" asked the boy, turning to a lithe Yankee sea-dog with a scraggy gray beard who had been busily working over the mechanism of ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... seem inclined to break it. Hamish had caught up a bit of whalebone, which happened to be lying on the drawers, and was twisting it about in his fingers, glancing at Arthur from time to time. Arthur leaned against the chimneypiece, his hands in his pockets, and, in like manner, glanced at him. Not the slightest doubt in the world ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... thin strip of whalebone and showed it to them. The ends were sharp as needle-points. The strip he coiled carefully, till it disappeared in his hand. Then, suddenly releasing it, it sprang straight again. He picked up ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... Amazone—namely, a clothe riding-habit faced with blue, with a short skirt, with open coat and waistcoat, like a man's, hair unpowdered and tied behind, and a large shady feathered hat. Estelle wore a miniature of the same, and rejoiced in her freedom from the whalebone stiffness of her Paris life, skipping about the deck with her brother, like fairies, Lanty said, or, as she preferred to make ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... delighted with the picturesque appearance of the Maltese women, whose national dress is at once nunlike and coquettish. A black petticoat envelopes the form from the waist, and over that is thrown a singular veil, gathered into a hood, and kept out with a piece of whalebone. This covering, which is called the faldetta, is capable of many arrangements, and is generally disposed so as to "keep one eye free to do its worst of witchery." When one of the poorer classes is enabled to clothe herself in a veil and petticoat of silk, she considers that she ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... were two workshops in Albion Villa. Ned's study, as he called it, and the drawing-room. In the former shavings flew, and settled at their ease, and the whirr of the lathe slept not; the latter was all patterns, tapes, hooks and eyes, whalebone, cuttings of muslin, poplin and paper; clouds of lining-muslin, snakes of piping; skeins, shreds; and the floor literally sown with pins, escaped from the fingers of the fair, those taper fingers so typical of the minds of their owners: or they ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... drawn by three horses, one in the shafts, and one on each side. The postillion had ridden on the one on the driving side; he was a little punch fellow, and in a pair of boots like fire-buckets. The travellers consisted of an old French lady and gentleman; Madame in a high crimped cap, and stiff long whalebone stays. Monsieur informed me very courteously of the cause of the accident, whilst Madame alternately curtsied to me and menaced and scolded the postillion. The French postillions, indeed, are the most intolerable ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... door opened. His legs were made of whalebone. But there was a new odor in the hallway.... And something new here in her face. He stood looking at the woman with whom he had lived for seven years and when he said her name it sounded like that of a stranger. His features had a habit of smiling. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... fallen there by chance. This, flying open, discovered a fine yellow petticoat, beautifully edged round the bottom with a narrow piece of half gold lace which was now almost become fringe: beneath this appeared another petticoat stiffened with whalebone, vulgarly called a hoop, which hung six inches at least below the other; and under this again appeared an under-garment of that colour which Ovid ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... over the same river which we now pass at Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which we now call Hainault Forest, came into that which is now the great road, a little on this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so called because the rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in the River Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwell died, 1658, was fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... filled with wonder. "Why should I not make a watch?" thought he. 10. But how was he to get the materials out of which to make the wheels and the mainspring? He soon found how to get them: he made the mainspring out of a piece of whalebone. He then made a wooden clock which kept good time. 11. He began, also, to copy pictures with a pen, and portraits with oil colors. In a few years, while still a small boy, he earned money enough to support his father. ...
— McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... called the half onuella. The upper part, the onuella, of the same material, is drawn into neat gathers for the length of a foot about the center of one of the outer seams. In the seam of one of the remaining divisions is inclosed a piece of whalebone, which is drawn over the head, and forms a perfect arch, leaving the head and ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete. Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up. He represents the Strong. Look at the grim, determined ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Linings: Waist (practice materials): basting, stitching, pressing, binding, boning (whalebone, featherbone); hooks and eyes; ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... every-day life, their price did not cease to fall until they had entirely disappeared. But, if a person wishes to have one made to-day for a masquerade, for the stage, etc., he would pay as much for it as its former price. On the other hand, the price of whalebone has never been again as high as it was in the time when hooped petticoats ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... however, on my pulling a piece of whalebone from the blade of the poor captured creature, one of those little bones which are used for women's corsets. I did not like to do this, as I feared to cause it suffering, and I was sorry for the poor thing, as three of us—Henry, the little Gordon girl, and I—had been skating ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... prevents free motion of the muscles of the chest and spinal column, weakens the muscles thus restrained, and not only prevents the proper expansion of the lungs, but, by weakening the muscles which sustain the spine, induces curvature and disease. Whalebone, wood, steel, and every other unyielding substance, should be banished from the toilet, as ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... dragons, horses, monsters of various kinds, the symbol of the sun, or huge Chinese characters. Among the faces most frequently seen on these kites are those of the national heroes or heroines. Some of the kites are six feet square. Many of them have a thin tense ribbon of whalebone at the top of the kite which vibrates in the wind, making a loud humming noise. The boys frequently name their kites Genji or Heiki, and each contestant endeavors to destroy that of his rival. For this purpose the string for ten or twenty feet near the kite end ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... you, Bub," commented Pike, "the minute she sees you commence to open the cook kit she is rustling for firewood. That little devil is made of whalebone for toughness. Why, even the burros are played out, but she is fresh as a daisy after a ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... kinds, whale fins, whalebone, oil, and blubber, not caught by and cured on board British vessels, when imported into Great Britain, are subject to double aliens duty. The Dutch, as they are still the principal, were then the only fishers in Europe that attempted to supply foreign nations with fish. By this regulation, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... an igloo up there even finer than Upi's—all built of whalebone and ships' timbers. Think of HER in that, Raine—with ME! That's the dream ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... projecting muscular development; the back very slightly arched, and not sloping too suddenly towards the tail, which should be set up tolerably high. This ought to be thick and long, the end well furnished with a double fringe of very long thick hairs or whalebone-looking bristles. The legs should be short in proportion to the height of the animal, but immensely thick, and the upper- portion above the knee ought to exhibit enormous muscle. The knees should be well rounded, and ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... communicate directly with their informants, and certainly believed the story. Dr. Hildebrand, also, a competent German naturalist, believed in it. But Sir John Kirk himself says that "what the priests had to show was most undoubtedly the whalebone of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... grand cordons of his orders blazing about his imperial person—thus dazzling, magnificent, triumphant, the great Galgenstein descended towards Mrs. Catherine. Her cheeks glowed red-hot under her coy velvet mask, her heart thumped against the whalebone prison of her stays. What a delicious storm of vanity was raging in her bosom! What a rush of long-pent recollections burst forth at the sound of that ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sufficiently prepossessing; when, on turning down some nameless street that leads to Tottenham Court-road, I chanced to come behind a staid-looking gentleman, accoutred in a dark brown coat, with an umbrella—the cotton of which had shrunk half-way up the whalebone—held obliquely over his head. Hastily stepping up to him, "Pray, sir," said I, "could you be kind enough to direct me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... peacock, saras crane and bustard they have a long series of nooses, each provided with a wooden peg and all connected with a long string. The tension necessary to keep the nooses open is afforded by a slender slip of antelope's horn (very much resembling whalebone), which forms the core of the loop. Provided with several sets of these nooses, a trained bullock and a shield-like cloth screen dyed buff and pierced with eye-holes, the bird-catcher sets out for the jungle, and on seeing a flock of pea-fowl circles round them under ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Exhibition Prize Goat's-head Crochet Cotton. No. 4 Penelope Hook; 1 long strip of Whalebone; 1 yard of Satin Ribbon 1 inch in width. 2 yards ditto, 2 or ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown
... ribs the whalebone stung, A madness it did seem! And soon it rose on every tongue That Jack Macpherson rode among The creatures of ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... considered intolerably dull and limited. They did not walk about without their clothes—figuratively speaking—it was not then the fashion. They were, on the contrary, heavily draped from head to foot, but underneath the whalebone and padding, strange to say, were real live women's hearts. They knew what it was to hope and despair; they knew what it was to reflect that with each of them life might and ought to have been different; they even knew what it was ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... summer-sister of the same date, the green silk calash,—that funniest and quaintest of all New England feminine headgear,—a great sunshade that could not be called a bonnet, always made of bright green silk shirred on strong lengths of rattan or whalebone, and extendible after the fashion of a chaise top. It could be drawn out over the face by a little green ribbon or "bridle" that was fastened to the extreme front at the top; or it could be pushed in a close-gathered mass on the back of the head These calashes were frequently a foot and a half ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... by this reflection upon the taste of former times, though she seldom presumed to oppose any of her daughter's opinions, could not here refrain from saying a few words in defence of sacks, long waists, and whalebone stays, and she pointed to a row of stays in the margin of one ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... de Medicis that of small collars. Dresses tight at the waist began to be made very full round the hips, by means of large padded rolls, and these were still more enlarged, under the name of vertugadins (corrupted from vertu-gardiens), by a monstrous arrangement of padded whalebone and steel, which subsequently became the ridiculous paniers, which were worn almost down to the commencement of the present century; and the fashion seems likely to come ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... are tipped with white. The two middle tail feathers, instead of being simply elongated and deprived of their webs, are transformed into stiff black ribands, a quarter of an inch wide, but curved like a split quill, and resembling thin half cylinders of horn or whalebone. When a dead bird is laid on its back, it is seen that these ribands take a curve or set, which brings them round so as to meet in a double circle on the neck of the bird; but when they hang downwards, during life, they assume a spiral twist, and form an exceedingly graceful ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... encampments still further confirmed Mackenzie in his belief that he had at length reached the land of the Esquimaux. Round their fireplaces were found scattered pieces of whalebone, and spots were observed where train-oil had been spilt. The deserted huts also corresponded in construction with those which were known to be built elsewhere by the denizens of the far north. Several runners of sledges ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... whaling fleets, long after gas came into use, were one of the greatest sources of our national wealth. To New Bedford, Massachusetts, alone, some three or four hundred ships brought their whale and sperm oil, spermaceti, and whalebone; and at one time that port was accounted the richest city in the United States in proportion to its population. The ship-owners and refiners of that whaling metropolis were slow to believe that their monopoly ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... entered, and I gave a curious and somewhat fearful glance round the place. The shop was set out partly with umbrellas and partly with shoes, but everything seemed dirty and in confusion. Shoe-lasts, umbrella-sticks, and a large quantity of whalebone, were lying in heaps about the floor, while in one corner stood a large pan of dirty water in which they soaked the leather, and which, not being often changed, sent forth a most unpleasant smell; the floor did not appear ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... weary but still energetic travelers started off again. After having gone round the foot of the mountain, they crossed the long prairies where the grass seemed made of whalebone. It was a tangle of darts, a medley of sharp little sticks, and a path had to be cut through either with the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... twenty inches broad, and had a kind of rail-work on each side, and was shod with bone. The construction of it was admirable, and all the parts neatly put together; some with wooden pins, but mostly with thongs or lashings of whalebone, which made me think it was entirely ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... vessels of those days, after long and perilous voyage, made harbor there; the old shipmasters built solid homes on the island shores; its merchants grew rich on the whaling vessels, that went forth to hunt for these monsters of the great deep, and came back laden with oil and blubber and whalebone and ambergris. But all this was changed now. Steam had come to supplant the white wings that had borne the old ships on their wide ocean ways. As Captain Jeb said, "the airth had taken to spouting up ile," and made the long whale hunts needless and unprofitable. ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... cracked; the former being much more necessary to a horsewoman than the latter. The crop should therefore be of a serviceable length. It is the very silly fashion at present to have hunting whips that are less than two feet long. Many are made of whalebone, and are covered with catgut, their special advantage being that their flexibility greatly facilitates the process of cracking. A more serviceable crop for a lady is one of stiff cane, the thick end of the handle of which is made rough, as in Fig. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... has not had a hand in the preparation of such an affair can understand the manifold difficulties which Miss Thorne encountered in her project. Had she not been made throughout of the very finest whalebone, riveted with the best Yorkshire steel, she must have sunk under them. Had not Mr. Plomacy felt how much was justly expected from a man who at one time carried the destinies of Europe in his boot, he would have given way, and his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... disporting in the waves the white whale of aquariums, which is not a whale at all, but a true porpoise (Delphinopterus Catodon, as he is now called by naturalists), having teeth in the jaws, and being destitute of the fringed bone of the whalebone whales. This interesting creature is very abundant in the Arctic Ocean on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, and has its southern limits in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, although one is occasionally seen in the Bay of Fundy, and it is reported to have been observed about Cape ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... respectable young lady, whose flaxen curls lay lovingly over the dreadful shoulders of the beast, which, with ludicrous failure, endeavored to caress the pallid face of the young lady with his hairy jaws, stiff with padding and whalebone, and nicely lined ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... fast to stakes of bone firmly fixed in the ground on each side. When I entered, I found to my surprise that there was plenty of light, which was supplied from windows, composed of small panes of whalebone ground down very thin, and at the further end the head and scull of the animal formed a kitchen, the smoke from the fire escaping through the spiracles ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... extended at both ends to a point, and resting on its side. This shape was given it, according to Mr. Bonflon, that it might offer the least possible resistance to the element in which it was intended to move. In structure it was composed of a strong flexible frame of whalebone and steel, covered with silk, strengthened and rendered air-tight and water-proof by a coating of India-rubber. Its size, of course, would depend on the proposed tonnage of a particular ship. That of the working-model, as nearly as I remember, was about six hundred feet long, by some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... apartments, in which the Cupids and Venuses were painted in a manner so natural, that I recollect the old wizened Countess of Frumpington pinning over the curtains of her bed, and sending her daughter, Lady Blanche Whalebone, to sleep with her waiting-woman, rather than allow her to lie in a chamber hung all over with looking-glasses, after the exact fashion of the Queen's closet ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not. For during the process of drying it must be your pastime constantly to pull and stretch at every square inch of that boundless skin in order to loosen all the fibres. Otherwise it would dry as stiff as whalebone. Now there is nothing on earth that seems to dry slower than buckskin. You wear your fingers down to the first joints, and, wishing to preserve the remainder for future use, you carry the ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... a blue cotton umbrella, though there may have been under it at times and seasons. Skeletons of the species, much faded as to color, much weakened as to whalebone, may still be found here and there in backwoods settlements, where they are known as "umbrells;" there are but few perfect specimens ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... in which the body is also fish-like, the hind-limbs are wanting, the fore-limbs are converted into powerful "flippers" or swimming-paddles, and the terminal extremity of the body is furnished with a horizontal, tail-fin. Many existing Cetaceans (such as the Whalebone Whales) have no true teeth; but others (Dolphins, Porpoises, Sperm Whales) possess simple conical teeth. In strata of Eocene age, however, we find a singular group of Whales, constituting the genus ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... after making it fast, the Catamaran lay moored alongside the cachalot, like some diminutive tender attached to a huge ship of war! There were several reasons why Ben Brace should mount up to the summit of that mountain of whalebone and blubber; and, as soon as the raft had been safely ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... of people, who retired in some disorder. Such a compression of crinoline was never seen as at that moment, when periphery pressed upon periphery, and held many a man captive in the cold embrace of steel and whalebone. The royal party retired to its rooms again and carpenters came in with saws and hammers. The floor repaired, an area was roped off for dancing—as much as could be spared. The Prince opened the dance with Mrs Governor Morgan, after which ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... and thrust his fist into his mouth, as Mynheer put him down upon the floor. Soon he sat erect, and looked with a sweet scowl at the company. With his lace and embroideries, and his crown of blue ribbon and whalebone (for he was not quite past the tumbling age), he looked like the ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... preserved its elasticity almost like steel. Trifling variations in the ingredients, in the proportions, and in the heating, made it either as pliable as kid, tougher than ox-hide, as elastic as whalebone, or as rigid ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... ushered into the house; and so, by degrees, they got at last into a small room with books in it, where Mr Pinch's sister was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit, a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... indeed, those of the footman, and the mystery of the death-chamber began to grow lighter, for it was evident that for some reason he had entered the room in the night. For no good mission, certainly, a short whalebone-handled life-preserver hanging by a twisted thong from ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... of the party had gone into the steerage to examine some of those curious specimens of whalebone work, in the fabrication of which whalemen employ so much patience and time, during their long and often unsuccessful voyages. As Isabella and Morton stood together by the cabin table, the lady opened a bible that was lying there, and seemed for a moment ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the seal so successfully, is hunted in turn for the sake of his thick soft fur, and often falls a victim both to white men and Esquimaux. The latter sometimes kill him by rolling a thick piece of whalebone, about two feet long and four inches wide, into a small coil, and wrapping it in a piece of seal blubber so that it forms a ball. Placed outside the hut, it soon freezes hard. Provided with this frozen bait, the natives search for Ninoo. When they find him, they run away, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a farm near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas 1765, he once more changed his residence, and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in Essex, eight miles from London. In this situation some of their nearest neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, esquire, successively ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... tablespoonfuls of strong spirits of camphor. The reason why it took no more laudanum was because there was no more to take. After this it lay down on its back, and shoved five or six, inches of a silver-headed whalebone cane down its throat; got it fast there, and it was all its mother could do to pull the cane out again, without pulling out some of the child with it. Then, being hungry for glass again, it broke up several wine glasses, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... exactly alike, from the pattern of the Madras handkerchief they wore (according to universal custom) on their heads, to the cut of the French-kid shoe. The dress was far from resembling the European fashion of the time. No tight lacing; no casing in whalebone—nothing like a hoop. A chemisette of the finest cambric appeared within the bodice, and covered the bosom. The short full sleeves were also of white cambric. The bodice, and short full skirt, were of deep ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... which were separately and scientifically described, with the reasons assigned, (as good as could be given,) for their admixture, in the composition of brass." "A lady's parasol, and a gentleman's watch were described in the same manner. The ivory knob, the brass crampet, the bamboo, the whalebone, the silk, were no sooner adverted to, than they were scientifically described. When their attention was called to the seals of the gentleman's watch, they immediately said, 'These are of pure, and those of jeweller's gold,' and described ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... the little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her jib—boom bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts whipping about like a couple of fishing—rods, as she thrashed at it, sending the spray flashing over her mastheads at every pitch; but notwithstanding her weatherly qualities, the heavy ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... block; but when the mate came to shake the cat's-paw out of the downhaul, and we began to boom end the sail, it shook the ship to her center. The boom buckled up and bent like a whipstick, and we looked every moment to see something go; but, being of the short, tough upland spruce, it bent like whalebone, and nothing could break it. The carpenter said it was the best stick he had ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... wears a sack, That hides the outline of her back, I cry, in sore distress, "Alack!" She showed a dainty waist when dressed In jacket; true, the size confessed That whalebone had its shape compressed. Still was her form sweet as her face, But now what change has taken place! This "sack coat" hides all maiden grace. Although men's clothes are always vile, The coat, the trousers and the "tile"! Some sense still lingers in each style. But women's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... to be identical with epidermis, hair, wool, feathers, and whalebone, in yielding 'keratin,' a substance intermediate between albumin and gelatine, and containing from 60 to 80 per cent. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... wore, in the first place, very stiff stays; and those who thought much of being smart, had them laced as tight as they could well bear. Added to these stays, they wore hoops or petticoats well stiffened with whalebone. Some of these hoops were of the form of a bell with the mouth downwards—these were the least ugly; others were made to stand out on each side from the waist, I am afraid to say how far; but those made for grand occasions were nearly as wide as your arm would be, ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... the needle. Both the poles, you find, attract both ends of the needle. Replace the needle by a bit of annealed iron wire; the same effects ensue. Suspend successively little rods of lead, copper, silver, brass, wood, glass, ivory, or whalebone; the magnet produces no sensible effect upon any of the substances. You thence infer a special property in the case of steel and iron. Multiply your experiments, However, and you will find that some other substances, besides iron and steel, are acted upon ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... illustrated. It contains a series of recipes of the rudest and most unscientific character, amongst which the following are the only parts suited to this publication. Aubrey describes in the manuscript an instrument made of whalebone, to be thrust down the throat into the stomach, so as to act as an emetic. He states that this contrivance was invented by "his counsel learned in the law," Judge Rumsey; and proceeds to quote several pages, with references to its advantages, from a work by W. Rumsey, of Gray's ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... forearms rising like springs ingathered, waiting and quivering grievously, and beginning to sweat about it. Then her master gave a shrill, clear whistle, when her ears were bent towards him, and I felt her form beneath me gathering up like whalebone, and her hind legs coming under her, and I knew that I ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... chosen; the breeches apparently buttoned closely at the knee, but in reality they were loose enough to enable a finger and thumb to be passed between them and the stocking, and in the lining of the breeches was a pocket in which the cards had been placed, being held there by two pieces of whalebone, that closed the pocket. The searchers, among whom were Dick and Boldero, did not have it all their own way; four or five men rushed upon them, and endeavored to pull them off Emerson. The din of voices was ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... name was Dr. Pedro Rezio de Aguero, court physician in the island of Barataria. He carried a whalebone rod in his hand, and whenever any dish of food was set before Sancho Panza, the governor, he touched it with his wand, that it might be instantly removed, as unfit for the governor to eat. Partridges were "forbidden by Hippoc'rat[^e]s," olla podridas were ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... that pale golden colour so much celebrated in the Middle Ages, and so very rarely to be seen now. Mistress Margery's attire comprises a black dress, so stiff, partly from its own richness of material, and partly with whalebone, that it is quite capable of standing upright without any assistance from Mistress Margery's person. Its trimming consists of a border of gris, or marten's fur; and over this black petticoat the young lady wears a ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... of firearms. The bows, four feet long, are very stout, and strongly reinforced with cords of sinew along the back. The arrows, a little under a yard in length, are tipped with a well-polished piece of whalebone. A sharp and barbed piece of whale's tooth fits into a hole bored in the end of the bone, and a cord of considerable length is tied to the detachable arrow head, the other end of the cord being wound around and fastened to ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... long slender rod of wood, whalebone, tortoiseshell, horn or cane, with a carved human hand, usually of ivory, mounted at the extremity. Its name suggests the primary use of the implement, but little is known of its history, and it was unquestionably also employed as a kind of rake to keep in order the huge "heads" of powdered ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... when habited for the chase or a merry-making, like the present, the Knight of Whalley affected a sombre colour, and ordinarily wore a quilted doublet of black silk, immense trunk hose of the same material, stiffened with whalebone, puffed out well-wadded sleeves, falling bands, for he eschewed the ruff as savouring of vanity, boots of black flexible leather, ascending to the hose, and armed with spurs with gigantic rowels, a round-crowned small-brimmed black hat, with an ostrich feather ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... merry), a Maori war-club; a casse-te^te, or a war-axe, from a foot to eighteen inches in length, and made of any suitable hard material—stone, hard wood, whalebone. To many people out of New Zealand the word is only known as the name of a little trinket of greenstone (q.v.) made in imitation of the New Zealand weapon in miniature, mounted in gold or silver, and used as a brooch, locket, ear-ring, or ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... with its tag which secured the end of the busk, a piece of wood or whalebone worn by women in front of the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... waistcoat, scarlet and black, the buttons of which were spaded half-guineas; his breeches were of a stuff half velveteen, half corduroy, the cords exceedingly broad. He had leggings of buff cloth, furred at the bottom; and upon his feet were highlows. Under his left arm was a long black whalebone riding-whip, with a red lash, and an immense silver knob. Upon his head was a hat with a high peak, somewhat of the kind which the Spaniards call calane, so much in favour with the bravos of Seville and Madrid. Now, when I have added that Mr. Petulengro had on a very fine ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... new ribaldry, until some one suddenly shot out from behind Cunningham, and before he had recovered from his surprise he saw the fakir sprawling on his back, howling for mercy, while Mahommed Gunga beat the blood out of him with a whalebone riding-whip. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... me, yet I loved him like a brother, and wept as much as would have filled an ink bottle when at last he went off to Edinburgh to study his father's profession. Five years after that did I tide at Birtwhistle's, and when I left had become cock myself, for I was wiry and as tough as whalebone, though I never ran to weight and sinew like my great predecessor. It was in Jubilee Year that I left Birtwhistle's, and then for three years I stayed at home learning the ways of the cattle; but still the ships and the armies were wrestling, and still the great shadow of Bonaparte ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... although nature is so disfigured that they are no longer to be found among us. The Gothic trammels, the innumerable bands which confine our limbs as in a press, were quite unknown. The Greek women were wholly unacquainted with those frames of whalebone in which our women distort rather than display their figures. It seems to me that this abuse, which is carried to an incredible degree of folly in England, must sooner or later lead to the production of a degenerate race. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... is a toothed whale, in contradistinction to those that are supplied with the whalebone-like arrangement that characterizes the right whales: consequently its food consists of fish and perhaps squid. To enable it to capture such prey it must be endowed with remarkable powers of speed. The motor is the great horizontal tail, powerful strokes of which force the animal; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... blubber was cut off in long strips, it was hoisted on board. Here it was cut into pieces, and stowed in casks in the hold. Thus, as the whale was turned round and round, the blubber was stripped off, till the whole coat was removed. The whalebone, of which the gills are formed, being then extracted, the carcase was cast adrift, when it was seen to be surrounded by vast numbers of fish and wild sea-birds, coming from all directions to banquet on the remaining flesh. The operation, which lasted five hours, being concluded, ...
— Archibald Hughson - An Arctic Story • W.H.G. Kingston
... man, but he left much to be desired. He had too much whalebone in his composition, not enough steel, ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... time. Amalia gave her early in the morning long pieces of sacred history and grammar to learn. Josefina retired to a corner and made desperate efforts to commit them to memory. A little before the dinner hour Concha, who was deputed for the task, took a chair, drew out the famous whalebone, and with that in one hand, and the book in the other, she commenced her pedagogic functions. Every time the child hesitated or forgot a word, it cost her a blow from the whalebone on her face, hand, or neck; and as her memory was not very ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... savour of food. It resounds with the dull rumble of cruising drays, which bear the names of well-known brands of groceries; it is faintly salted by an aroma of the docks. One sees great signs announcing cocoanut and whalebone or such unusual wares; there is a fine tang of coffee in the air round about the corner of Beach Street. Here is that vast, massy brick edifice, the New York Central freight station, built 1868, which gives an impression of being about to be torn down. From a dilapidated upper window hangs a faded ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... relative the leviathan, of fifty or sixty feet in length, which boasts of a mouth big enough to hold a jollyboat and crew, who would doubtless find their quarters exceedingly uncomfortable on account of the forest of whalebone hanging down from the roof, the white whale cannot keep under water long without coming up to breathe; but the one Johannes had so cleverly struck nearly carried out the whole of the line, which Steve watched darting out ring by ring over the bows, till, in spite of the riskiness ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... were twenty dogs like mastiffs, with pricked ears and long bushed tails; we found a bone in the pizels of their dogs. Then we went farther and found two sleds made like ours in England. The one was made of fir, spruce, and oaken boards, sawn like inch boards; the other was made all of whalebone, and there hung on the tops of the sleds three heads of beasts which they had killed. We saw here ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... appear, Miss Wimple's Hoop was a shaved-whalebone fact; and the quilted petticoat would never have been missed, but for the officious scrutiny of the eyes, and the provoking prating of the tongues, of a sophisticated few who marvelled greatly at the pliancy and the "perfect set" of Miss Wimple's Alboni,—"and that demure little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... many hundred tons of commerce, and bounding across a wide, semi-fluid morass, previously impassable by man or beast, is beyond all praise and deserving of eternal record. Only conceive a slender bridge of two minute iron rails, several miles in length, level as Waterloo, elastic as whalebone, yet firm as adamant! Along this splendid triumph of human genius—this veritable via triumphalis—the train of carriages bounds with the velocity of the stricken deer; the vibrations of the resilient moss causing the ponderous engine and its enormous suite to glide ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... little drawer inside, supposing it to be intended for that purpose. But he soon finds, after having doubled himself up, like people passing on a coach top under a low gateway, that it would be utterly impossible to remain long in that position, unless the human back were as pliable as a piece of whalebone. After all, perhaps, the bearers are compelled to rest the palanquin on the ground, and the abashed stranger, creeping hastily in, is glad to escape from the ill suppressed smiles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... vessels, of a total tonnage of 9,257 tons, registered in New South Wales, employed in the fishery. In the same year twenty-two vessels arrived in Sydney from the various grounds, their cargoes of whalebone, sealskins, and sperm and black oil valuing altogether about L150,000. Now the whaling trade in Southern Seas is represented by two or three small and poorly equipped ships from Hobart, though the whales—sperm, right, and humpback—are again as plentiful as they were ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke |
