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Axis   Listen
noun
Axis  n.  (Zool.) The spotted deer (Cervus axis or Axis maculata) of India, where it is called hog deer and parrah (Moorish name).






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Axis" Quotes from Famous Books



... excepted, have four sides, as have also the sprit-sails on the bowsprit, jib-boom, &c.; and all, except the sail last mentioned on the mizen, usually lie across the ship, or in planes forming considerable angles with the axis or central line of the ship. There are a number of sails which lie in the same plane with the keel, being attached to the various stays of the masts; these are triangular sails, and those are called stay-sails which are between the masts: those before the fore-mast, and ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... living animal, he will perceive not only all the particulars I have mentioned, viz., the heart becoming erect, and making one continuous motion with its auricles; but farther, a certain obscure undulation and lateral inclination in the direction of the axis of the right ventricle, as if twisting itself slightly in performing its work. And indeed everyone may see, when a horse drinks, that the water is drawn in and transmitted to the stomach at each movement of the throat, which movement produces a sound and yields a pulse both ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... Compared with Goethe we feel that he lacks that serene impartiality of mind which results from breadth of culture; nay, he seems narrow, insular, almost provincial. He reminds us of those saints of Dante who gather brightness by revolving on their own axis. But through this very limitation of range he gains perhaps in intensity and the impressiveness which results from eagerness of personal conviction. If we read Wordsworth through, as I have just done, we ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... in his veins. To these foreign corpuscles he owes the floridness of his outlook, his conception of the excited Englishman. The Englishman takes his authors placidly; he is never in a ferment or a frenzy about anything save politics, religion, or sport: these are the poles and the axis of his life's pivot; he is not an artistic person. Art has never yet taken the centre of the stage in his consciousness; it has never even been accepted as a serious factor of life. All the pother about ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... be conceived as a circle, then Jewish history occupies the position of the diameter, the line passing through its centre, and the history of every other nation is represented by a chord marking off a smaller segment of the circle. The history of the Jewish people is like an axis crossing the history of mankind from one of its poles to the other. As an unbroken thread it runs through the ancient civilization of Egypt and Mesopotamia, down to the present-day culture of France and Germany. Its divisions are measured ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... past Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison that the nation centres and seems destined to centre. One needs but examine a tinted population map to realise that. The other concentrations are provincial and subordinate; they have the same relation to the main axis that Glasgow or Cardiff have to London in the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... passes. I do believe that the wafers are not directly opposite to each other! let me wait a little while longer, that I may be certain. There is no mistake about it,—the right edge of one wafer just touches the left edge of the other. Eureka! Hurrah! I am right. I am right. This big cylinder is the axis of the earth, fixed and immovable; and these huge walls are revolving round it. There's a discovery to make a man immortal! What fools the old geographers were that used to say,—"the axis is an imaginary line, running through," ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark

... Rita, wonderingly. Had the earth slipped from its axis, Tom and his mother would have placed ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... in Thrinaxodon sweeps upward posterodorsally at an angle oblique to the long axis of the ramus. Angular, surangular and articular bones extend backward beneath and medial to the process. The process extends above the most dorsal point of the zygomatic bar, as in Didelphis. The mandibular ramus is ventrally convex ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox

... whole stretch of the skyline from right to left, and from left to right, were rendered impossible. This defect was also overcome in a simple manner. The joints between the first and second vertebrae—the atlas and axis—were so modified that a turning movement could take place between them instead of between the atlas and skull. When we turn or rotate our heads, the atlas, carrying the skull upon it, swings or turns on the axis. When we search for the manner in which this has been accomplished, we see again ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... having hollow horns of material similar to that of which hair and nails are formed, permanently fixed upon the skull in all but one species; none of them have more than the two middle digits functionally developed, one on each side of the axis of the leg; none have the lower ends remaining of the meta-podial bones belonging to the two accessory digits; and none have either incisor or canine teeth in the ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... aim of all true exercise for the improvement of health and the prolonging of life must affect the erectness of the human body and the counterpoise curves of the spine. The axis of the ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... feet above your head, supporting himself by a swift motion of the wings, and simply hitching to right and left in short arcs, as if he were fixed on a pivot, sometimes meanwhile whirling clear around. There he hangs on his invisible axis until you grow tired watching him, and then he darts to his favorite perch on ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... his horse. Alwa and the first four rode him down, and crashed through the four-deep line beyond; the second four pounced on him, gathered him, and followed. Before the lines could form again the whole nine wheeled—as a wind-eddy spins on its own axis—and burst through back again, the horses racing neck and neck, and the sabres cutting down a swath to screech and swear and gurgle in ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... to learn more—for example, why the sides of the pyramid are inclined at an angle of 5l—you must ask the astronomers. The steps to the funereal chamber, on the other hand, are inclined at an angle of 27. This corresponds to the difference between the axis of the universe and ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... if from an eminence, stood, the Palace of Fine Arts. The architect reminded me of the clever planning that had placed this magnificent conception in so commanding a position, looking down into the courts, on what he called "the main axis." ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... month, and the other figured I to XII twice over for the hours. In the centre was a semi-globe representing the earth, round which was a smaller ball, the moon, painted half gold and half black, which revolved during each month, and in turning upon its axis showed the various phases of the luminary that it represented. Between the two circles was a third ball representing the sun, with a fleur-de-lys which pointed to the hours as the sun, according to the ancient theory, daily ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... in length with the progress of the seasons: sometimes but little more than its point is visible; at others, it is seen extending over a space of 120 degrees. Astronomically speaking, the axis of the zodiacal light is said to lie in the plane of the solar equator, with an angle of more than 7 degrees to the ecliptic, which it consequently intersects, the points of intersection becoming its ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... many as a medicine for heart disease. It is applied by inhaling its odor—a style of very much rarefied application. Fill a tube with its vapor. It is invisible as ordinary air in daylight. But pour a beam of direct sunlight from end to end along its major axis. A dense cloud forms along the path of the sunbeam; creation is going on. What the sun may do in the thinner vapors the world goes into when burned up will be for us to find out when we get there. Standing on Popocatepetl we have seen ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... ecliptic of thy life; Revolve upon another axis, man; Let love, the sun of life, beam meltingly Upon thy heart and thaw it into happiness. ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... the last rib, behind. The right kidney usually lies lower than does the left, but even then, the lower part of this kidney is an inch above the upper part of the hip bone, or an inch above a line drawn around the body parallel with the navel. The kidney is about four inches long. The long axis of the kidneys corresponds to that of the twelfth rib; on an average the left kidney lies one-half inch ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Like rolling pearls,— Yet how are these worthy to be named? They are but illustrations for fools. There is the mighty axis of Earth, The never-resting pole of Heaven; Let us grasp their clue, And with them be blended in One, Beyond the bounds of thought, Circling for ever in the great Void, An orbit of a thousand years,— Yes, this is ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... and lessened towards its central core, revolving rapidly on its great axis, the solar mist left behind at irregular intervals concentric rings or belts of cloud-like matter, cast off from its equator; which belts, once more undergoing a similar evolution on their own account, have hardened ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... processes were not greatly modified for many years after Shakespeare's death, so that a representation of the wheel and mill used in 1750 gives a fairly good general idea of the modus operandi. The large wooden wheel, whose axis is the second pillar within the frame, is bent, and makes an elbow under the wheel to receive the impulsion of a bar that serves instead of a turn-handle. On the right side of the frame, where the boy stands, is the turn-handle which sets the wheel in motion by means of ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz

... have two wheels. The lower one is supposed to be fixed and the upper one running round it in the direction of the arrows. Now, how many times does the upper wheel turn on its own axis in making a complete revolution of the other wheel? Do not be in a hurry with your answer, or you are almost certain to be wrong. Experiment with two pennies on the table and the correct answer will surprise you, when you ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... small, thrown at it; a thin jet of water only half an inch in diameter, if discharged at great pressure equivalent to a column of water of 500 metres, cannot be cut even with an axe, it resists as though it were made of the hardest steel; a thin cord, hanging from a vertical axis, and being revolved very quickly, becomes rigid, and if struck with a hammer it resists and resounds like a rod of wood; a thin chain and even a loop of string, if revolved at great speed over a vertical pulley, becomes rigid ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... strongly that my thoughts completely overpowered me, and ere I knew it I was living at the mercy of indescribable emotions. All this continued during many revolutions of the Earth on its axis. I felt as Columbus must have felt when he was moving over strange waters. Then occurred the most notable event of my life. In the twinkling of an eye I was caught away from the Earth and, without any effort of my own, I was darting ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... was our decoy duck: and, in virtue of her handle, she decoyed to a marvel. Indeed, I sold so many Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort: 'The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I concluded at a glance you had the material of a first-class business woman about you; but I reckon I did not know what a traveller meant till you started on the road. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... went to visit the Teatro Olimpico, which was built by Napoleon. It is built in the style of the Roman amphitheatres, but much more of an oval form than the Roman amphitheatres were in general; that is to say, the transverse axis is much longer in proportion to the conjugate diameter than is the case in the Roman amphitheatres, and it is by no means so high. In the time of Napoleon, games were executed in this circus in imitation of the games of the ancients, for Napoleon ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... forms the major axis of the ellipse, which it enters near Koodoos Drift and leaves at Paardeberg Drift, and like most South African rivers runs in a deep channel between banks intersected by the tributary dongas which the rains have scored in the soft soil, and which afford ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... inner visceral membrane (db) partially wraps the rude form of the embryo in its folds. The head (vk) of the embryo is now directed towards the end of the egg on which the hairs are situated; afterwards the embryo revolves on its axis and the head lies next to the opposite end of the egg. Eight tubercles bud out from the under side of the head, of which the foremost and longest are the antennae (as), those succeeding are the mandibles, ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... diaphragm, when dropped front and down, and across the aorta and vena cava by a lowering of the ribs, on both sides of the spine; it would be a complete pressure over coelic axis, with liver supply, renal, pelvic, to a complete abdominal stoppage. Then we have over-due blood for other parts to send off dead corpuscles by asphyxia, with no hope that it can sustain life and health of the parts for which it was designed. Thus we know that nature would not be true to its ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... and squarely to the front, chin drawn in so that the axis of the head and neck is vertical; eyes ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department

... valve stem itself, which must be so connected with the eccentric rod as to admit of being turned; and in most cases the valve stem extends through both ends of the steam chest, so that it must both slide endwise and turn upon its axis in two stuffing boxes, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... water was salt, brackish, or fresh. Some limestones consist almost exclusively of corals, and in many cases it is evident that the present position of each fossil zoophyte has been determined by the manner in which it grew originally. The axis of the coral, for example, if its natural growth is erect, still remains at right angles to the plane of stratification. If the stratum be now horizontal, the round spherical heads of certain species continue uppermost, and ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... of the thorax of the Cirripede is formed within the thorax of the larva, but (together with the pedicels of the anterior cirri) within the cephalic cavity. As a consequence of this, the longitudinal axis of the thorax of the young Cirripede lies almost transversely to the longitudinal axis of the larva; and the Cirripede, from this transverse position of its thorax, comes to be, as it were, internally, almost cut in twain, and the sack thus produced. As soon ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... paper figure, bent over a straight line in it, has the two parts perfectly fitting on each other, the figure is symmetrical about that straight line, which may be called an axis of symmetry. Thus every diameter of a circle is an axis of symmetry: every regular oval has two axes of symmetry at right angles to each other: every regular polygon of an odd number of sides has an axis joining each corner to the middle of the opposite sides: every regular polygon of an even number of sides has axes joining opposite corners, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various

... spectators on the side of the Via Cornelia, to rest upon them the left wing of the church, and built new foundations for the right wing only. His architect seems to have been rather negligent in his measurements, because the tomb of S. Peter did not correspond exactly with the axis of the nave, and was not in the centre of the apse, being some ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani

... his voice cleared his mind and strengthened his resolve. It was odd how the word seemed to shape the act, though one knew how ancillary it really was. As he talked, it was as if the globe had swung around, and he himself were upright on its axis, with Mr. Spence underneath, on his head. Through the ensuing interchange of concise and rapid speech there sounded in Millner's ears the refrain to which he had walked down Fifth Avenue after his first talk with Mr. Spence: "It's too easy—it's ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... astonished eyes of the adventurers saw the great stone door revolve on its axis and swing to one side, leaving a passage open through which they could pass. Goosal ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton

... the cochlea, or screw-pump. The more distant fields of the valley of the Nile, rising above the level of the inundation, have to be watered artificially by pumping out of the canals into ditches at a higher level. For this work Archimedes proposed a spiral tube, twisting round an axis, which was to be put in motion either by the hand or by the force of the stream out of which it was to pump; and this was found so convenient that it soon became the machine most in ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... internal winding of the bobbins, G, while the secondary currents, H, are connected through e and f with the external winding. The same arrangement is repeated for the tertiary currents, M, and the quaternary ones, o, p. In the annexed example all the lines that run parallel with the axis of the streets are closed through the earth, while those that have a direction perpendicular thereto enter the houses of subscribers and form a closed circuit. In the interior of these houses the wires, as well as the induction coils, are insulated and applied to the walls. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... he was rejoiced to see behind him the tragic splendor of the night, and, in front of him, the smile of young hope, the uncertain beauty of the fresh, fevered dawn. And he was at the stationary point of the axis of the pendulum while the clock was beginning to go again. Without following its onward march, he listened joyfully to the beating of the rhythm of life. He joined in the hope of those who denied ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... (UTM) coordinates are used in this report. The first three digits refer to a point on an east- west axis, and the second three digits refer to a point on a north-south axis. The point so designated is the southwest corner of an area 100 ...
— Project Trinity 1945-1946 • Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer

... lintel, joist, travis[obs3], trave[obs3], corner stone, summer, transom; rung, round, step, sill; angle rafter, hip rafter; cantilever, modillion[obs3];; crown post, king post; vertebra. columella[obs3], backbone; keystone; axle, axletree; axis; arch, mainstay. trunnion, pivot, rowlock[obs3]; peg &c. (pendency) 214[obs3]; tiebeam &c. (fastening) 45; thole pin[obs3]. board, ledge, shelf, hob, bracket, trevet[obs3], trivet, arbor, rack; mantel, mantle piece[Fr], mantleshelf[obs3]; slab, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... adduce the arguments relied upon by the Alexandrians to prove the globular form of the earth. They had correct ideas respecting the doctrine of the sphere, its poles, axis, equator, arctic and antarctic circles, equinoctial points, solstices, the distribution of climates, etc. I cannot do more than merely allude to the treatises on Conic Sections and on Maxima and Minima by Apollonius, who is ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... this that whenever we make a nice survey of any object, successively directing the optic axis to each point thereof, there are certain lines and figures described by the motion of the head or eye, which being in truth perceived by feeling, do nevertheless so mix themselves, as it were, with the ideas of sight, that we can scarce think but they ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley

... plate in the dark slide and place in camera; point the camera toward a bright sky, or white cloud, near the sun—not at the sun, as there is considerable difficulty in keeping the direct rays exactly in the axis of the spectroscope—draw the shutter, and give, say, sixty seconds. On development, you will probably obtain a good spectrum at the first trial. The duration of exposure must, of course, depend upon the brightness of the day; but if the experiments are to have relative values, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... unknown. As an analgesic, it is uniform in its action, and this is due to the suspension of the physiological functions of the sensory cells which it comes in contact with. Beyond this, it is an excitant of the cerebro-spinal axis, later it has a peculiar action on the encephalon, manifest in a wide range of psychical phenomena. Beyond this a great variety of widely variable symptoms appear. In some cases all the intellectual faculties are excited to the highest degree. In others a profound lowering of the senses ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... that the lake, mount, etc., as they now stand, are substantially those of the Great Mongol, though Chinese policy or patriotism may have spread the belief that the foreign traces were obliterated. Indeed, if that belief were true, the Mongol Palace must have been very much out of the axis of the City of Kublai, which is in the highest degree improbable. The Bulletin de la Soc. de Geographie for September 1873, contains a paper on Peking by the physician to the French Embassy there. Whatever may be the worth of the meteorological and hygienic details in that paper, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Suppose we place an arrow, A, in front of a convex lens (Fig. 73). The ray AC, parallel to the principal axis, will pass through the lens and emerge as DE. The ray is always bent toward the thick portion of the lens, both at its entrance into the lens and its emergence from ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... found ourselves for a time in comfortable quarters. We placed pickets of two or three hundred men round the place, and fixed a chevaux de frise in the gate, formed of very sharp and pointed swords stuck very thickly into a beam which was made to turn on its axis: rather an awkward instrument to face if one is not used to it. Duty at this place was rather hard, owing to there being so few of us, and such a number on picket or at work building some ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence

... deeper, and ordered Gog and Magog to repeat their labour as before. The canal being a quarter of a mile broad, and three hundred yards in depth, I thought it sufficient, and immediately let in the waters of the sea. I did imagine, that from the rotatory motion of the earth on its axis from west to east the sea would be higher on the eastern than the western coast, and that on the uniting of the two seas there would be a strong current from the east, and it happened just as I expected. The sea came in with tremendous magnificence, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe

... two hundred miles west of the Canaries, Columbus is horrified to find that the compass, his only guide, is failing him, and no longer points to the north star. No one had yet dreamed that the earth turns on its axis. The sailors are ready for mutiny, but Columbus tells them the north star is not exactly in the north. October 1 they are two thousand three hundred miles from land, though Columbus tells the sailors one thousand ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden

... of a machine "for drying linen and muslin by steam." On October 25, 1781, he took out his third patent (the second of the steam-engine series), "for certain new methods of applying the vibrating or reciprocating motion of steam or fire engines, to produce a continued rotative motion round an axis or centre, and thereby to give motion to the wheels of mills or other machines." One of these methods was that commonly known as the sun-and-planet wheels; they were five in all. A favorite employment of his in the workshops at Soho, in the later months of 1783 and earlier ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... of the earth; 2. the common air, or lower stratum of the atmosphere, will be much thinner over the poles than at the line; because if a glass globe be filled with oil and water, and whirled upon its axis, the centrifugal power will carry the heavier fluid to the circumference, and the lighter will in consequence be found round the axis. 3. There may be a place at some certain latitude between the poles and the line on each side the equator, where the inflammable ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... cannot now remember in what work I saw the statement about Peloria affecting the axis, but I know it was one which I thought might be trusted. I consulted also Dr. Falconer, and I think that he agreed to the truth of it; but I cannot now tell where to look for my notes. I had been much struck with finding a Laburnum ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... turbine, is a circular fan with curved iron blades, revolving in an iron case. Water, forced through the blades of this fan by its own weight, causes the wheel to revolve on its axis; and the fan, in turn causes a shaft fitted with pulleys ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson

... "Since Jupiter's axis is almost at right angles to the plane of its orbit," said the doctor, "being inclined only about one degree and a half, instead of twenty-three and a half, as was the earth's till nearly so recently, it will be possible for us to have any climate we wish, from constantly ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... Flattish, somewhat elliptic upland, stair-step from the Mountains, as we called it; tract considerably cut with ditches, carp-husbandries, and their tufts of wood; line from Striegau to Hohenfriedberg being axis or main diameter of it, and in general the line of watershed: there, probably, will the tug of war be. Friedrich, on his Fuchsberg, knows this; the Austrian-Saxon gentlemen, over their wine on the Gallows-Hill, do not yet know it, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... through its axis, and the difficulty is obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... plan and inclination of the ramp. In M. Thomas's restoration of the Khorsabad tower, the last section of the ramp at the top, is parallel to that at the bottom, and the crowning platform is not exactly upon the central axis of the building.[465] In M. Chipiez's restoration the top platform is in the centre, like those below it, and the upper end of his ramp is vertically over the spot where it leaves the ground. This result has been obtained by a peculiar arrangement ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot

... that no motion of the sea, caused by this earth revolving in the solar system, could bring about that end; for let us suppose the axis of the earth to be changed from the present poles, and placed in the equinoctial line, the consequence of this might, indeed, be the formation of a continent of land about each new pole, from whence the sea would run towards the new equator; but all ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... this would never do, and so the missionary had to take him in hand again and give him another lesson. This time he used his large ball-like globe, swung on its axis in its frame, which was supported on three feet. Patiently the minister showed him how the world was like a great ball, round in every direction. Attentively the Indian listened, and carefully examined the globe and the ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... this Jeannette current does not pass right across the Pole? If, for instance, it passes between the Pole and Franz Josef Land, as above intimated? What will the expedition do in that case to reach the earth's axis? Yes, this may seem to be the Achilles' heel of the undertaking; for should the ship be carried past the Pole at more than one degree's distance it may then appear extremely imprudent and unsafe to abandon it in mid-current and face such a long ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... overgrown with reeds. A few years back they set to work to cut a channel through them, but getting tired of the work gave it up. The length of the lagoon appears to be about three to four miles, and about one to one and a half in breadth. Its major axis runs parallel to the coastline, or nearly due east and west. Twenty minutes' paddling brought us round the point of a small headland, where we came in sight of a pretty lake-village built upon piles, at some little distance from the shore, the whole forming a most ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... all except the dome of the boiler. Above the roof is a surface condenser, consisting of 108 copper tubes placed transversely, each of which has an external diameter of 1.45 inches. The boiler is similar to that of an ordinary locomotive; its axis is 3 feet 101/2 inches above the road. The body of the engine is 9 feet 11 inches long, and 7 feet 21/2 inches wide. The axles are 4 feet 11 inches from center to center. The platform extends along each side ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 530, February 27, 1886 • Various

... Bahia de Los Angeles contained at least seven burials: six adults and "fragments of one or more infants" (Annual Report, 1888, p. 128). These burials were extended with an east-west orientation corresponding to the axis of the fissure; the foot bones were to the west, at the mouth of the cave, and the crania were in the tapered interior. The published report does not indicate whether placement was prone ...
— A Burial Cave in Baja California - The Palmer Collection, 1887 • William C. Massey

... chap who made things hum! HE was the drumstick and the drum! HE was the shirt bosom and the starch! HE was the keystone in the arch! HE was the axis of the earth! Nothing existed before his birth! But when he was off from work a Nobody knew that he ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... the surface sides of the base—closer in approximation than Walli's Indivisibles, or Newton's Fluxions, or Liebnitz's Calculus. The door of entrance was some forty-nine feet from its base, and 300 inches East of the centre, so as at once to express the tilt of the earth's axis from the plane of its orbit, and by its height from the ground express the Precession of the Equinoxes. What a witness outwardly, when complete, of polished marble, covering some thirteen and a half acres, within and without clean ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... of the tall arch and spacious porch is lost. Nothing can be distinctly seen at even a moderate distance. You have to get to the place before you become clearly aware of its existence; and if you wish to know anything of its appearance, you have either to turn the head violently off its regular axis, or cross the street and ask somebody for a step ladder. The facade of the building is not very prepossessing; the large arch, which has given way at some of the joints considerably, and has been doing ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... say? Many courses of the sun were needed before men could take the full historic measures of Luther, Calvin, Knox; the measure of Loyola, the Council of Trent, and all the counter-reformation. The center of gravity is forever shifting, the political axis of the world perpetually changing. But we are now far enough off to discern how stupendous a thing was done when, after two cycles of bitter war, one foreign, the other civil and intestine, Pitt and Washington, within a span of less than a score of years, planted the foundations ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... floor, of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth floors; these plans were coloured. Further, in plain black and white, there were a plan of the roof (with tower), a longitudinal section on the central axis, two other sections, three elevations, and a perspective view of the entire edifice. Seventeen ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... spin will be on your own axis. We are to act as escort for a convoy train of fifty wagons and ten times fifty mules. We shall make six miles a day, and our tongues will be wholly corrupted by the language of the mule-drivers. And, in the end, we shall ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... a huge oblate or orange-shaped sphere, spinning on its shorter axis like a humming-top, yet at such a rate of speed as to seem standing still; it goes once round in twenty-four hours, its rotation being both the cause and the measure of day and night. The highest mountains range from four ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... filled in with grass-down firmly felted together. The nest is nearly the shape of an egg, the entrance being on one side, and extending from about the middle to close to the top. The exterior dimensions of the nest are about 51/2 inches for the major axis, and 3 inches for the minor. The entrance-aperture is circular, and about 2 inches in diameter. The thickness of the nest is a little over three eighths of an inch; but the lower portion, which is lined with very fine grass-stems, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume

... is there between Bunge's Neo-Vitalism and Aniela? Nevertheless, even when thinking of things far removed, it all brings me back to her. Science, art, nature, life,—all are carried back to the same denominator. It is the axis around which ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the credulity of mankind, and contrary to reason and common sense. That the sun is a million of times larger than the earth; that light flies from his body at the rate of a hundred thousand miles in the hundredth part of a second; and that the earth is whirling round its axis from day to day with a velocity of a thousand miles every hour, are regarded by him as notions far more improbable and extravagant than the story of the "Wonderful Lamp," and all the other tales of the "Arabian Night's Entertainments." In his hours of leisure from his daily avocations, his thoughts ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... gentleman took the letters and waved them philosophically at the valet. 'Leave me to my thoughts,' he said thickly, but with considerable dignity. 'I am not interested in the squeaky jarring of the world revolving on its rusty axis.' ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... had been so well established and was so widely known long before Mr. Darwin was born, that he can no more be said to have proved it than Newton can be said to have proved the revolution of the earth on its own axis. Every breeder throughout the world had known it for centuries. I ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... bank within the 65-fathom line, as laid down on the Admiralty chart, approaches somewhat a very elongated ellipse, the longer axis running NE. by E. and SW. by W.; but over a broad area to eastward of the center of the bank, soundings of less than 50 fathoms connect it directly with the Middle Ground, which we have here included in the ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich

... which the whole effect of the momentum resides. If the ball of a governor were to be moved in a straight line, the momentum might be said to be concentrated at the centre of gravity of the ball; but inasmuch as, by its revolution round an axis, the part of the ball furthest removed from the axis moves more quickly than the part nearest to it, the momentum cannot be supposed to be concentrated at the centre of gravity, but at a point further removed from the central ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... Tortoise. In this he descended in the form of a tortoise, for the purpose of restoring to man some of the comforts lost during the flood. To this end he stationed himself at the bottom of the ocean, and allowed the point of the great mountain Mandara to be placed upon his back, which served as a hard axis, whereon the gods and demons, with the serpent Vasuki twisted round the mountain for a rope, churned the waters for the recovery of the amrita or nectar, and fourteen other sacred things. 3. The Varaha, or Boar. In this he descended ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... they proceeded to the evocation of Baal-Zeboub, at first by the Conjuration of the Four, but no fiend appeared. The operation was repeated ineffectually a second time, and John Campbell determined upon the Grand Rite, which began by each person spinning on his own axis, and in this manner circumambulating the temple in procession. Whenever they passed an embedded fakir, they obtained an incantation from his lips, but still Baal-Zeboub failed. Thereupon the native Grand Master suggested that the evocation should be performed by the ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... inland flanks, and composed of strata dipping outwards, once extended round a considerable portion of the circumference of the island. The ring appears to have been oval and of vast size; its shorter axis, measured across from the inner sides of the mountains near Port Louis and those near Grand Port, being no less than thirteen geographical miles in length. M. Bailly boldly supposes that this enormous gulf, which has ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin

... forth an Exterminating Angel to change the face of the refractory earth, which in the immensity of this universe is to Him what an unfruitful seed is to Nature. Approaching the globe, this Exterminating Angel, borne by a comet, causes the planet to turn upon its axis, and the lands lately covered by the seas reappear, adorned in freshness and obedient to the laws proclaimed in Genesis; the Word of God is once more powerful on this new earth, which everywhere exhibits the effects of terrestrial waters and celestial flames. The ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... sub-metamorphics is a great volcanic outburst of trap, which is stratified, and is brought to the surface with the general rise of elevation along the face of the hills between Shella and Theriaghat south of Cherrapunji. This has been described as the "Sylhet trap." South of the main axis of this metamorphic and volcanic mass are to be found strata of two well defined series: (1) the cretaceous, and (2) nummulitic. The cretaceous contains several important coalfields. The nummulitic series, which overlies the cretaceous, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... short, right-angle bends. Between them was hung a hollow globe, pivoted on two short tubes projecting from its sides into the upright tubes. Two little L-shaped pipes projected from opposite sides of the globe, at the ends of a diameter, in a plane perpendicular to the axis. On fire being applied to the cauldron, steam was generated. It passed up through the upright, through the pivots, and into the globe, from which it escaped by the two L-shaped nozzles, causing rapid revolution of the ball. In short, the first steam-engine was a turbine. Curiously enough, we have ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams

... customary perspicacity, made it plain that one of the chief causes of temptation was hot weather, which causes immoderate thirst. In order to lessen the amount of thirst in the population he suggested that it might be feasible to shift the axis of the earth, so that the climate of the United States would become perceptibly cooler and the torrid zone would be transferred to the area of the North Pole. This would have the supreme advantage of melting all the northern ice-cap and providing the temperate belts with a new supply of fresh ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... eloquent prophecy about the [78] human mind. The whole of nature he regards as a development of higher forms out of the lower, through shade after shade of systematic change. The dim stir of chemical atoms towards the axis of crystal form, the trance-like life of plants, the animal troubled by strange irritabilities, are stages which anticipate consciousness. All through the ever-increasing movement of life that ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater

... a profound relation between the moral powers and the powers that rule the worlds. So in this Sutra the fixed polestar is the eternal spirit about which all things move, as well as the star toward which points the axis of the earth. Deep mysteries attend both, and the veil of mystery is only to be raised by Meditation, by open-eyed vision of the ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston

... and he never relaxed his mental grip of a subject until it had yielded to his persistent inquisition. It was to these qualities that he owed his discoveries of the aberration of light and the nutation of the earth's axis. The first was announced in 1729. What is meant by it is that, owing to the circumstance of light not being instantaneously transmitted, the heavenly bodies appear shifted from their true places by an amount depending upon the ratio which the velocity of light bears to the speed of the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... his soul break the dendritic contacts between cell and cell; and when he awakes, does it make contacts and switch the impulses evoked by sense stimuli on to one or other tract of the axons, or axis cylinder processes, which form the association pathways? Such a hypothesis is no explanation; it simply puts back the whole question a step further, and leaves it wrapped in mystery. It cannot be fatigue that produces ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... few passers, and of this Lorison was glad. He was not of the world. For a long time he had touched his fellow man only at the gear of a levelled cog-wheel—at right angles, and upon a different axis. He had dropped into a distinctly new orbit. The stroke of ill fortune had acted upon him, in effect, as a blow delivered upon the apex of a certain ingenious toy, the musical top, which, when thus buffeted while ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... Time.[1]—Present time is measured in terms of centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, but the second is the determining power of mechanical measurement, though it is derived mainly by the movement of the earth around the sun and the turning of the earth on its axis. Mechanically we have derived the second as the unit. It is easy for us to think in hours or days or weeks, though it may be the seconds tick off unnoticed {59} and the years glide by unnoticed; but it is difficult ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... and then mixing it with sand which he riddled from the gravel he dug from the garden, he made it into good strong mortar. When its bed was at length made for it, he took the wheel and put in a longer axis, to project on one side beyond the gudgeon-block, or hollow in which it turned; and upon this projecting piece he fixed a large reel. Then, having put the wheel in its place, he asked his father for sixpence, part of which he laid out on a large ball ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald

... Throwing an ephemeral glory about life's vanishing points, Wherein you burn... You of unknown voltage Whirling on your axis... Scrawling vermillion signatures Over the night's velvet hoarding... Insolent, towering ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... lights to be the moon, and that an observatory, or tower with a telescope in it, is located at A, from which the direction of the moon is carefully noted at six o'clock in the morning. Then by six in the evening the earth, spinning round on its axis, will have carried the observatory about 8000 miles away from A, and placed it at, say, B. If the moon's direction be again noted, it is very easy to calculate her distance by a branch of mathematics called trigonometry, which Jack, I have no doubt, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... toward them, then wheeled and sped away in the direction that would lead them off Weary's trail. That is, he sped for ten rods or so. After that he seemed to revolve on an axis, and there was an astonishing number of revolutions to ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... being in truth spherical, have still an infinitude of similar tangents, namely all the straight lines which are drawn from the point B in the surface generated by the straight line BN about the axis BA. It remains, therefore, to demonstrate that there is no difficulty herein: and by the same argument one will see why the incident ray and the reflected ray are always in one and the same plane perpendicular to the reflecting plane. I say then that ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens

... the Forest repose in a basin-like form, the greatest depression being near the centre; the longer axis extending from N. to S. about eleven miles, and the transverse axis, in the widest part, ranging from E. to W. about seven miles. The general observer, if he takes his stand on the edge of hills by which this ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... the last generation, this egg cell must get rid of a part of its chromatin material. This is done by a process shown in Fig. 35. The centrosome divides as in ordinary cell division (Fig. 35), and after rotating on its axis it approaches the surface of the egg (Figs. 36 and 37). The egg now divides (Fig. 38), but the division is of a peculiar kind. Although the chromosomes divide equally the egg itself divides into two very unequal parts, one part ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn

... is made by a dab of clay placed at right angles to the axis of the cylinder, at a distance from the bottom determined by the ordinary length of a cell. This wad is not a complete round; it is more crescent-shaped, leaving a circular space between it and one side of the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... an orderly retreat, and in its turn the southern hemisphere presents the same glorious phenomenon. Once every year the life of the earth pulsates; now there is an abounding vitality, now a desolation. But what is the cause of all this? It is only mechanical. The earth's axis of rotation is inclined to the plane of her orbit of revolution ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... has pointed out the fact that the Galilee porch is not parallel to the axis of the Nave, but has a marked inclination to the north, while the Choir on the other hand (like that of Exeter), inclines to the south. This doubtless was for a symbolical reason. The ground plans of churches, by so frequently assuming a cross form, typify the doctrine ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous

... and frequently eight, inches long; rich-brown, varying from bright cinnamon to red, handsomely marked with delicate pencilings radiating from the axis of growth; the color of the pileus seems to form a binding about the edge of the light-gray pore surface, which is closely punctured ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard

... (about 388-315 B. C.), a pupil of Plato, made a great step forward in astronomy by his declaration that the earth rotates on its own axis once in 24 hours, and by his discovery that Mercury and Venus revolve ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... of these states was strong enough to control and subjugate the rest, alliances were formed. The most favoured union was the north-south axis; it struggled against an east-west league. The alliances were not stable but broke up again and again through bribery or intrigue, which produced new combinations. We must confine ourselves to mentioning the most important of the events that took ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard

... See in her hand the regal sceptre shine, The wealthy heir of Tantalus divine, He most distinguish'd by Dodonean Jove, To approach the tables of the gods above: Her grandsire Atlas, who with mighty pains Th' ethereal axis on his neck sustains: Her other grandsire on the throne on high Rolls the loud-pealing thunder thro' the sky. Her spouse, Amphion, who from Jove too springs, Divinely taught to sweep the sounding strings. Seven sprightly sons the royal bed adorn, Seven daughters beauteous as ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley

... largest movable bridges revolve about a vertical axis. The bridge is carried on a circular base plate with a central pivot and a circular track for a live ring and conical rollers. A circular revolving platform rests on the pivot and rollers. A toothed arc fixed to the revolving platform or to the live ring serves to give ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... of those divisions, which I find answer to an inch of ascent, or descent, of Mercury: This Cylinder I, is movable on a very small Needle, on the end of which is fixt a very light Index KL, all which are so pois'd on the Axis, or Needle, that no part is heavier then another: Then about this Cylinder is wound a small Clew of Silk, with two small steel Bullets at each end of it GH; one of these, which is somewhat the heavier, ought to be ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... thee on a changeful tide, To breast its waves, but not without a guide; Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, As the true current it will falsely feel, Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. Go to ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... to have a thermal insulating quality. Evidently the creature was used to a warmer climate. That served as additional information to help substantiate his observation from space that the areas farther south were the ones containing the major centers of population. The tilt of this planet on its axis would tend to give the weather a cyclic variation, but it appeared that the areas around the poles remained fairly cold even when the incidence of radiation from the primary was ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... sapling, we can of course bend it to all sides in succession, so as to make the tip describe a circle, like that performed by the summit of a spontaneously revolving plant. By this movement the sapling is not in the least twisted round its own axis. I mention this because if a black point be painted on the bark, on the side which is uppermost when the sapling is bent towards the holder's body, as the circle is described, the black point gradually turns round and sinks ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin



Words linked to "Axis" :   neck bone, rotor head, mechanism, stem, major axis, semimajor axis, off-axis reflector, rachis, odontoid process, semiminor axis, axial, rotor shaft, alignment, alliance, x-axis, alinement, optic axis, cervical vertebra, sterling bloc, bloc, stalk, spadix, pin, stele, sterling area, pivot, scheduled territories, y-axis, axis of rotation, principal axis, coalition, line, axis vertebra, coordinate axis, z-axis



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