"Ballast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was the descent that the Parachute appeared to be stationary. Mr. Hampton remembered that a bag of ballast was fastened beneath the car, he stooped over and upset the sand, he also noted by his watch the time he occupied in descending. The earth seemed coming up to him rapidly; the Parachute indicated ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the intellectual side of human nature began, not with the search after a theoretical psychology—for that, Aristotle still sufficed—but with the endeavor to observe and to describe. The indispensable ballast of theory was limited to the popular doctrine of the four temperaments, in its then habitual union with the belief in the influence of the planets. Such conceptions may remain ineradicable in the minds of individuals, without hindering the general progress of the age. It certainly ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... filled too full of coal are dangerous and a great waste of coal, as the jar when running will cause a part of it to fall off; water overflowing from tanks results in washing away the ballast and in cold ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... did not long remain ignorant; nor was he backward in making the best arrangements possible to meet the danger. By shifting the ballast in each of the vessels entirely to one side, he caused them to lean in such a manner as that their artillery could be elevated to a surprising degree, and the shot rise even to the summit of the hill. The guns were then stuffed, rather than loaded, with grape and musket-balls; and the ships, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... a good working day soon made itself felt. The north wind rose, causing the lively Mukhbir, whose ballast, by-the-by, was all on deck, to waddle dangerously for the poor mules; and it was agreed, nem. con., to put into Tor harbour. We found ourselves at ten a.m. (December 12th) within the natural pier of coralline, and we were not alone in our misfortune; an English steamer making Suez ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... next morning, I sent the launch, protected by a party of marines in another boat, to take in ballast, which was wanted. This work was done before breakfast; and after it, she was sent for wood and water, and with her the people employed in this service, under the protection of a serjeant's guard, which was now thought sufficient, as the natives seemed to be pretty well ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... the names of, with maps he had made, stuffed beasts and birds he had killed, and a few live ones which he kept in cages and attended to himself in the empty hold; for we were flying light, you know, without even ballast aboard, and bound ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... wanted," he said, "for I've no notion that jolly-boat will do to go out as far as we shall find it necessary to sound. So I am about to ballast the launch, and get her sails ready; there's no use in mincing matters in such a ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... to advise or to aid him, Columbus must have felt himself alone with the tempest and the night. But his brave heart bore him up, and his wonderful capacity for devising expedients on sudden emergencies did not forsake him. As the stores were consumed, the Nina felt the want of the ballast which Columbus had intended to take on board at the Amazonian Island. "Fill the empty casks with water," he said, "and let them serve as ballast," an expedient which has grown common enough now, but ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... in two or three skiffes lading of stones to ballast our shippe withall. It hyeth here four foot water, and floweth by fits, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... the other, where the flat part of the keel begins. One is usually employed for managing the boat, and both of them when it is stormy. With the second they keep the boat from getting unsteady, which would follow from its lightness, that rudder giving the boat more stiffness and serving as ballast. That is a precaution rendered necessary by its very lightness, the vessels that are lightest being those that require most care by being unsteady. In the middle they have a scaffold, four or six brazas ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of postscript to this earlier one—and the two Sheare brothers. Compared to Wolfe Tone, however, all these were mere amateurs in insurrection, and pale and shadowy dabblers in rebellion. Lord Edward was an amiable warm-hearted visionary, high-minded and gallant, but without much ballast, and to a great degree under the guidance of others. The mainspring of the whole movement, as has been seen, was Protestant and Northern, and now that all hope of constitutional reform was gone, it was resolved to appeal openly to force and to call in the aid of the enemies of England to assist ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... four ballast bags from the balloon was marked: the balloon darted high, wildly high; and with her, seated on the bar, the cord between his thighs, darted high ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... With ballast stored, masts stepped, rigging set up, and sails bent, setting as sweet as could be to her lines and the lumpers beginning to get her ready for the mackerel season, the Fred Withrow was certainly ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... vessel which, by the command of Caligula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with their arms."—B. xvi. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... was the gaieties of Paris and the gaming-tables of Monte Carlo—a sphere which has made short work of fortunes compared with which mine would be insignificant. The pace was fast and furious; I threw out my ballast liberally as I went along, and the harpies, male and female, who surrounded me, picked it up. Bright and fair enough was the prospect as I started on the road to ruin; gloomy the clouds that settled round me as I approached that dismal terminus. Then, when too late, I began ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... having seated himself, and trimmed[187] the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Fox-Hall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the Knight in the triumph ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... over. We had a dull, rainy night, a heavy, broadside swell, and as the steamer had not enough ballast, she rolled frightfully. In this nasty sea we were afraid she might turn turtle, as another steamer had done some months ago. The storm became such that we had to lie at anchor for five days, sheltered by the coast of Gaua. It was with real relief that I left ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... amount to. I've bullied you for having played skittles with my life, my career. So you have! Damn it, so you have! But you've done it out of blind thoughtlessness; and if I'd been a fairly strong man, with some ballast in me, you couldn't have landed me where I am— not you nor fifty Pandora girls! [Sitting erect.] And that— that's the moral of the tale; and— and— [abruptly, to FARNCOMBE] There's nothing more, ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... duty free." "It would," he says, "save our country very great sums, and no way hurt the landed interest. It would lower the price of iron, and consequently of all our manufactures, which would increase the consumpt and sale; it would serve for ballast to our ships from North America, and when tobacco is scarce, fill up part of the tonnage; would increase our exports, and no way interfere with our neighbours in the South."[68] That language might be held indifferently by the mercantilist and ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... she's doin' it all alone. She's pretty as a picture, an' nothin' but a child when he married her four months ago, an' we've took away her natural pervider an' entertainer, an' left her nothin' but her freedom for a ballast wheel. An' I say I wish some of the patriotic people who are jest showerin' every Charlie Turner with attentions would please sprinkle jest a few on Charlie's wife, to help keep her straight an' sweet an' honest for ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... to the safe termination of our voyage. Our vessel (the brig Governor Macquarie) we well knew was a leaky one, though her leaks did not distress us on the outward voyage, she being then only in ballast trim; but now that she was loaded to the water's edge, and the winter coming on, we became greatly alarmed for her. Another disagreeable circumstance was having no bread or flour on board. To obviate ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... English Government further allows and encourages the communities to provide for themselves railways, canals, pawnbroking, theatres, forestry, cinchona farms, irrigation, leper villages, casinos, bathing establishments, and immigration, and to deal in ballast, guano, quinine, opium, salt, and what not. Every one of these functions, with those of the army, navy, police, and courts of justice, were at one time left to private enterprise, and were a source of ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... more quick grew the pace of the white-maned steeds. Soon they left the morning breezes behind, and very soon they knew that these were not the hands of the god, their master, that held the golden reins. Like an air-ship without its accustomed ballast, the chariot rolled unsteadily, and not only the boy's light weight but his light hold on their bridles made them grow mad with a lust for speed. The white foam flew from their mouths like the spume from the giant waves of a furious sea, and their pace was swift as that of a bolt ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... passing between Soller in North Mallorca and Marseille, they aren't to be depended on. By a singular irony of fate, I did come across an old white—painted barque which had just come out of Palma in ballast; but her skipper only told what I knew full well in my own heart, that I might very likely wait three years before I found a craft going the ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... you, if at all, for a lack of mannerism," said Vera briskly. "It's too bad of you. Here I am as so much ballast for your party, and when I begin to make myself useful, you pretend I'm not there. But I am there, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... lighten his task by excluding theology and politics, and indeed but for such self-denial he could scarcely have moved at all in so dense an air. He was able, however, having thrown out so much formidable ballast, to rise above his subject, and gazing at the Victorian Age, as it recedes, he declared it to have been very good. The young men who despise and attack that Age receive no support in any particular ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... traffic-takers, reference-takers. Consider, next, the yet more marked changes implied in railway construction—the cuttings, embankings, tunnellings, diversions of roads; the building of bridges, and stations; the laying down of ballast, sleepers, and rails; the making of engines, tenders, carriages, and waggons: which processes, acting upon numerous trades, increase the importation of timber, the quarrying of stone, the manufacture of iron, the mining of coal, the burning of bricks: institute a variety of special manufactures ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... of; you have stocked in your little heart a great deal of ballast, and neglected the most necessary things. Do you know the author ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... money to the planter on his growing crop; that British and other shipping resorting to Bang-kok for the purchase of produce, are compelled to buy from the King on his own terms, or to leave the port in ballast; and finally, that these proceedings are in direct opposition to the terms of an existing Treaty between Great Britain and Siam. A Consul at Bang-kok, and a visit twice a year from one of the ships of war cruizing in the China Sea and the Straits of Malacca, would put ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... I What men be ye? Gotham's three wise men we be. Whither in your bowl so free? To rake the moon from out the sea. The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine. And our ballast is old wine; And your ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... hag who forms the torrent beds which seam the mountain side; for she gathers great stones in her cloak to make her ballast, when she flies upon the storm; and when about to retire to her mountain cave, she lets them drop progressively as she moves onwards, when they fall with such an unearthly weight that they lay open the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... those veering lists of the ballast aboard which are so disconcerting to the author. The story got out of hand. The old woman silent, indomitable, fed and deeply satisfied for all of her hard and grinding life by her love for the husband whom she had taken from her sister, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... crushed beneath the glorious news— Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's; [8] One envoy's letters, six composer's airs, And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs: Meiners' four volumes upon Womankind, [9] Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, [10] and, to back it, Of Heyne, [11] such as should not ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... have not Leisure, or Skill, or Industry enough to serve themselves, shou'd be allowed no other Instances of Gratitude, than the reproachful Title of Men of low Genius, of which low Genius's it may be observed, that they carry some Ballast, and some valuable Loading in them, which may be despised, but is seldom to be exceeded in any thing truly valuable, by light and fluttering Wits. But it is not to be wonder'd, that Men of Worth are to be trampled upon, for otherwise ...
— An Apology For The Study of Northern Antiquities • Elizabeth Elstob
... the canoes paddled up to the tide pole on the neighbouring reef, and before a boat could reach them, the natives managed to secure the pigs of iron ballast with which it was moored. They communicated with two canoes, coming from the direction of Piron Island, which soon afterwards came under the stern. As one of the stolen pigs was seen partially concealed in the bow of ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... mentioned; the Gentile lies but little more than a cable's length from the shore, so that you can almost look down upon her decks. You perceive that she is a handsome craft of some six or seven hundred tons burthen, standing high out of water, in ballast trim, with a black hull, bright waist, and wales painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... for their little yacht, which did not suit the Captain's notions of sea-worthiness. Williams overruled his objections, and the "Don Juan" was built according to his cherished fancy. "When it was finished," says Trelawny, "it took two tons of iron ballast to bring her down to her bearings, and then she was very crank in a breeze, though not deficient in beam. She was fast, strongly built, and Torbay rigged." She was christened by Lord Byron, not wholly ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assigned. He decked her over with long planks, upborne On massy beams; he made the mast, to which He added suitable the yard; he framed Rudder and helm to regulate her course; With wicker-work he bordered all her length For safety, and much ballast stowed within. Meantime Calypso brought him for a sail Fittest materials, which he also shaped, And to his sail due furniture annexed Of cordage strong, foot-ropes and ropes aloft, Then heaved her down with levers to the deep. —Odyssey, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... Saxon! I mean we'd have had a row over the provisions. It wasn't too hours' run round to Tim Brady's, and I found the old man stowing away half-a-peck of cold boiled potatoes, and big bottles of tea, and goodness knows what. 'Is it for ballast ye're using the potatoes, Barney?' says I. 'Mind your own business, Master Dennis'—(and I could see he was cross as two sticks),—'and leave the provisioning to them that understands it,' says he. 'How many meals d'ye reckon to eat between this and ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... George Washington, rising and standing in the attitude of Webster, "I rises to appoint to order. We took ballast in de prior cases, and why make flesh of one man an' ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... understand it,' answered Gladys. 'He said, "Don't let them take you for a walk on the Ballast Bank." What ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... reasoned upon the improbability of there being one in such a place. And yet, why not? A crab might very well find lodgment in the hold of a ship: it might have been brought aboard in some strange way— among the ballast—or possibly carried aboard by some of the sailors, out of curiosity; it may have been abandoned to its fate, and left to hide itself among the numerous corners and crevices which are found among the timbers of a vessel's hold? It might procure sustenance in ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... Viceadmirall, at their departure from Dominica brought away two young Saluages, which were the chiefe Casiques sonnes of that Countrey and part of Dominica, but they shortly after ran away from them at Santa Cruz Iland, where the Viceadmirall landed to take in ballast. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... at. It was floating bottom downwards, and lid upwards,—just as it might have been placed opposite Ben's own bunk in the forecastle of a frigate,—and it appeared to be kept steadily balanced in this position by the weight of some iron cleeting along the bottom, which acted as ballast. Otherwise the chest sat so high upon the water, as to show that it must either be quite empty or nearly so; for the sennit handles at each end, which were several inches below the level of the lid, hung quite ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... I assured her. But I was feeling hurt all the way up to my topmost hair and down to my tipmost toe. Not that I mind going with the Tyndals, but that Sir Lionel should pick me out as the bit of superfluous ballast to cast to the winds! That was what made me feel cold and old, and alone in the world. I conscientiously told myself that I was the youngest of the party, and the right one to sacrifice; but nothing was much comfort until the thought jumped into my head that ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the opposite side of the hall came a woman's frightened cry, followed by the sound of breaking furniture. The next instant the door was flung open, and Mrs. Smelts, with her baby in her arms, rushed forth. Close behind her rolled Mr. Smelts, his shifted ballast of Christmas cheer threatening ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... the whole, gain or lose by a given degree of conservatism? An increase of knowledge is by no means the only thing that makes for civilization. Men may be highly enlightened, and yet rotten to the very core. How much of the ballast of conservatism and of loyalty to tradition is it well to throw overboard in the interest of accelerated motion? Those who, in our judgment, throw overboard much too much ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... force in that region; and one may observe that whenever a boat comes to the beach a stout fellow in the costume of a man-of-war's man, goes up to it and pries into all its holes and corners, pulling about the ballast-bags and examining the same in a cool matter-of-course manner that must be extremely irritating, one would imagine, to the owner ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... land forces had abandoned Norfolk, and it was necessary to get the ship away before the Union troops arrived and hemmed her in. Her pilots declared that if the ship was lightened they could take her up the James River; and accordingly all hands threw overboard ballast and trappings, until she was lightened three feet. Then the pilots claimed that with the prevalent wind they could not handle her. It was now useless to try to run her through the Union fleet, for the lightening process had exposed three feet of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Ned, as he had a better view of what was going on. "It's sand, that's what it is! Tom is giving battle to the flames with sand from the ballast bags of the dirigible! Hurray? That's the ticket! Sand! The only thing safe to use in case of an explosive ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... relation of properties has enabled incandescent-lamp signals to be connected direct to lines without relays, but compensated against too great a current by causing the resistance in series with the lamp to be increased inversely as the resistance of the filament. Employment of a "ballast" resistance in this way is referred to in Chapter XI. In Fig. 27 is shown its relation to a signal lamp directly in the line. 1 is the carbon-filament lamp; 2 is the ballast. The latter's conductor is fine ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... in which an adventurous navigator might undertake to go beneath the hull of a man-of-war, and affix the torpedoes, so that failure should be impossible. This boat in shape was not unlike a turtle. A system of valves, air-pumps, and ballast enabled the operator to ascend or descend in the water at will. A screw-propeller afforded means of propulsion, and phosphorescent gauges and compasses enabled him to steer with ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... which an entrance is effected. In the fore part of the platform projects a periscope, or lookout, formed by port-holes or lenses through which an electric searchlight can throw its gleam for some distance under water in front of and on each side of the tug. Now relieved of its ballast of water the boat has risen to the surface. Its lid will open and fresh air will penetrate it to every part. In all probability, if it remained submerged during the day it rose at night and towed the Ebba ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... aboard a five masted schooner engaged in the lumber business," went on Jack Jepson. "We were going down to South America, in ballast t' bring back a cargo of hard woods, an' off the Hole in the Wall th' ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... burthen of his calling, and hath studied to make his shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not been hasty to launch forth of his port, the university, but expected the ballast of learning, and the wind of opportunity. Divinity is not the beginning but the end of his studies; to which he takes the ordinary stair, and makes the arts his way. He counts it not prophaneness to be polished with human reading, or to smooth his way by Aristotle to ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... do," he said. "Of course, it would have seemed strange to the mate and to Rogers if I hadn't given them some explanation, especially as we came out in ballast. So I dropped hints that we were out on a survey expedition that couldn't be talked of just now. They probably have the idea that we're looking up a suitable coaling station for the Government, or something of that kind. To carry that ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... with a heap of stones for ballast, and with no great elegance in shape of rigging, comes slowly in from the mouth of the harbor, and is gently run alongside the boat in which the man is painting. A fresh-colored young fellow, with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... there is and has been for this long time a fleet of "heretic" lighters sailing out of Boston Bay, and they have been saying, and they say now, and they mean to keep saying, "Pump out your bilge-water, shovel over your loads of idle ballast, get out your old rotten cargo, and we will carry it out into deep waters and sink it where it will never be seen again; so shall the ark of the world's hope float on the ocean, instead of sticking in the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... scarce, a number of French-Canadians were, at Mr. Brassey's suggestion, brought up in organized gangs, each having an Englishman or an American as their leader. We are told, however, that they proved useless except for very light work. "They could ballast, but they could not excavate. They could not even ballast as the English navvy does, continuously working at filling for the whole day. The only way in which they could be useful was by allowing them to fill the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... to lodge a protest against you, Mr. Annixter, in the matter of keeping your line fence in repair. The sheep were all over the track last night, this side the Long Trestle, and I am afraid they have seriously disturbed our ballast along there. We—the railroad—can't fence along our right of way. The farmers have the prescriptive right of that, so we have to look to you to keep your fence in repair. I am sorry, but I shall have to protest——" Annixter returned to the hammock and stretched ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... ballast of prejudice or sentiment can the profitable ship popularity be kept upright for a little voyage, and this, prevailingly, is all her cargo. But the wise writer, if he is able, as Scott, and Dickens, and Clemens were ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... cottage an old dinghy sail that fits the Moondaisy. Her yard and boom were in his linhay, the sheet and downhaul in Tony's. One oar, the tholepins, and the ballast bags have not yet been found. I bent on the sail, spliced the sheet to the boom; borrowed tholepins from Uncle Jake,[7] ballast bags and a mackerel line with a very rusty hook from Tony, an oar from John—and, ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... they, old man?" he asked, without looking up. The perspiration was streaming down his face, and he held a brace and bit in his hand. Under him was the trap-door which gave access to the ballast below, and through this he had bored a neat hole. The yellow chips were still ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... cheerfully we shall not stand on our rights, but shall give you an equal portion of it with ourselves. At present the gold is of no more value to any of us than so much sand, beyond the fact that if we build a craft, as the senor and I have been talking of doing, the boxes will be found excellent ballast, otherwise it is not worth a thought ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... since I have been in the office, it hath been customary for said Cockle to receive of the masters of vessels entering from Lisbon, casks of wine, boxes of fruit, etc., which was a gratuity for suffering their vessels to be entered with salt or ballast only, and passing over unnoticed such cargoes of wine, fruit, etc., which are prohibited to be imported into His Majesty's Plantations. Part of which wine, fruit, etc., the said James Cockle used to share with Governor Bernard. And I further declare that I used to be the negotiator of this ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to nobility,—and as to my "rise in the world"—if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, it was my cue to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... this officer, a copy of which is also enclosed, confirms everything, extolling the grandeur of the view of the port, the water, wood, and ballast with which it abounds, and although the climate is rather cold, it is healthy and free from the fogs found ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... "I want them for ballast to steady us with all this sail up," said the mate, smiling; and without any pause the second boat was drawn close up astern, four men crept into the leader, and the rope was allowed to run ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... companions, "let the poor lad alone; he hasn't a mind for the drink, perhaps he ain't used to it, and it'll only make him top heavy. You can see he wants ballast; he'll be over on his beam-ends the first squall if he takes the ale and ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... lately, the cemetery of the city; the space enclosed within its marble galleries is filled to the depth of eight or ten feet, with earth from the Holy Land. The vessels which carried the knights of Tuscany to Palestine were filled at Joppa, on returning, with this earth as ballast, and on arriving at Pisa it was deposited in the Cemetery. It has the peculiar property of decomposing all human bodies, in the space of two days. A colonnade of marble encloses it, with windows of the most exquisite sculpture opening on the inside. They ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... somewhat "blocky" above water was doubtless true of her, as of most of her class; but that she was not unshapely below the water-line is quite certain, for the re markable return passage she made to England (in ballast) shows that her lower lines must have been good. She made the run from Plymouth to London on her return voyage in just thirty-one days, a passage that even with the "clipper ships" of later days ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... Men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Name and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... keep them off his pillow: To whom the factor replyed, that they had a strange beast aboard which he made no doubt would rid them of those vermine: which being told the king he rose from his place and imbracing the factor told him if he could shew him such a creature he would ballast his vessel with silver and lade her with gold and pearl. Who apprehending the occasion made very coy of the business, telling him it was a creature of great value and not common. Besides they could not spare her from the ship, in regard when they were asleep yet she was still waking in the night, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... the United States for any foreign port, except vessels under the immediate direction of the President. Foreign armed vessels were exempted as a matter of course from the operation of this act; so also were all vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods at the time when the act was passed. Coasting vessels were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to re-land their goods, wares, or merchandise in some port of ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... just take another look at the water tank valves," said Tom to himself as he prepared to enter the big compartments which received the water ballast. "I want to be sure they work properly and quickly. We've got to depend on them to make us sink when we want to, and, what's more important, to rise to the surface in a hurry. I've got time enough to look them over before dad and Mr. Sharp ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... than half as long as they should, if once thoroughly constructed. Wooden bridges are allowed to rot down for want of protection. Rails are left to be battered to pieces for want of drainage and ballast. One road spends thirty-four thousand dollars a year for "watching cuts," and fifty-five thousand more for removing slides that should never have taken place. Everything is done for the moment, and nothing thoroughly. Who can wonder that this system tells ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... lady,' the Guard was saying. 'You're good ballast. You can keep the train down. That's something. Steady thinking's always best, ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... saddened by his unsatisfactory career. Writing to his friend Moore (5th August) he says: "I hope your eldest son will do well in the distant land to which he has gone. My son is in the Federal army in America, and no comfort. The secret ballast is often applied by a kind hand above, when to outsiders we appear to be sailing gloriously ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... "With ballast on board, but none in his brain, Away went our gallant Gantheaume, On a voyage from Brest to Bertheaume, And then from Bertheaume—to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Crump carefully. "Looked as if he was going out in ballast—except his pockets; there was something in his pockets, I ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... morning of the 4th the Alliance appeared again, and (p. 102) had brought to two very small coasting sloops in ballast, but without having attended properly to my orders of yesterday. The Vengeance joined me soon after, and informed me that in consequence of Captain Landais' orders to the commanders of the two prize ships, they had refused to follow him to the rendezvous. I am to this ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... much the same thing, with all the readers of Notes and Queries, we propose, on Saturday next, treating them to a Christmas Number, rich in articles on Folk Lore, Popular Literature, &c., and to use as ballast for our barque, which will at such occasion be of unwonted lightness, a number of Replies which we have by us imploring ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... gone under the arch, and am clear of all obstructions, I lay the sculls aside, and reclining let the boat drift past a ballast punt moored over the shallowest place, and with a rising load of gravel. One man holds the pole steadying the scoop, while his mate turns a windlass the chain from which drags it along the bottom, filling the bag with pebbles, and finally hauls it to the surface, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... tack held freely in my hand - With ballast snug—I put about, and scudded for the land; Loud hissed the sea beneath her lee—my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... this have been outrun and absorbed by Spain or France. To stand still is to retreat. It is the same with men as it is with races. England's Colonies have been her strength. They have given her poise, reserve, ballast—and enough trouble to prevent either ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... America, the Indies? Dro. Oh sir, vpon her nose, all ore embellished with Rubies, Carbuncles, Saphires, declining their rich Aspect to the hot breath of Spaine, who sent whole Armadoes of Carrects to be ballast ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... swam to the shore, and when the dawn came we saw that the schooner stood high and dry on the reef and that Franka and his men were trying to float her by throwing overboard the iron ballast and putting a kedge anchor out upon the lee side of the reef. And at the same time we saw three boats put off from the mainland. These boats were all painted white, and when I saw them I said to Solepa, 'Be of good heart. Thy husband is not dead, for here are three of his boats ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the coast. Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove, they took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl for him. Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite time being set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he returned from a morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away by that time, curled up in the tonneau ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... some time at an elevation of about 2000 ft., it descended in about two hours at Nesle, a small town about 27 m. from Paris, when Robert left the car, and Charles made a, second ascent by himself. He had intended to have replaced the weight of his companion by a nearly equivalent quantity of ballast; but not having any suitable means of obtaining such at the place of descent, and it being just upon sunset, he gave the word to let go, and the balloon being thus so greatly lightened, ascended very rapidly to a height of about 2 m. After staying ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... only country manufacturing rubber articles, and her best market soon proved to be North America. Probably the first rubber this country saw was brought to New England in clipper ships as ballast in the form of crude lumps and balls. Rubber shoes, water-bottles, powder-flasks, and tobacco-pouches found buyers in the American ports, but rubber shoes were most ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... in good order in the soul. When Job perceived that his friends did not deal with him in an even spirit and orderly manner, he said that they forsook "the fear of the Almighty" (Job 6:14). For this fear keeps a man even in his words and judgment of things. It may be compared to the ballast of the ship, and to the poise of the balance of the scales; it keeps all even, and also makes us steer our course right with respect to the things that pertain ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... assign'd. He deck'd her over with long planks, upborne On massy beams; He made the mast, to which He added suitable the yard;—he framed Rudder and helm to regulate her course, With wicker-work he border'd all her length For safety, and much ballast stow'd within. Meantime, Calypso brought him for a sail Fittest materials, which he also shaped, And to his sail due furniture annex'd 310 Of cordage strong, foot-ropes, and ropes aloft, Then heav'd her down with levers to the Deep. He finish'd all his work ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... grandeur consists in the fact hat he tore himself clear of all those peddling and pitiful compromises, those half humorous concessions, those lazy conventionalisms, with which most people cover their brains as if with wool, and ballast their imagination as ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... bring her home. He had picked ten men from the "George Henry," leaving her fifteen, and with a rough tracing of the American coast drawn on a sheet of foolscap, with his lever watch and a quadrant for his instruments, he squared off for New London. A rough, hard passage they had of it. The ship's ballast was gone, by the bursting of the tanks; she was top-heavy and under manned. He spoke a British whaling bark, and by her sent to Captain Kellett his epaulettes, and to his own owners news that he was coming. They had heavy gales and head winds, were driven as far down as the Bermudas; ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... which were characteristic of the times of Ronsard. So far as poets were concerned, that generation must be regarded as entering on a first romanticism. Theophilus de Vian, a fine but over-prodigal poet, without ballast, did not live long enough to grow wise and acquire self-mastery: Cyrano de Bergerac was a brilliant madman, sometimes sparkling with wit and imagination, but often dirty and ridiculous. Saint-Amant possessed plenty of imagination ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... commonest forms is the field horse-tail (Equisetum arvense), a very abundant and widely distributed species. It grows in low, moist ground, and is often found in great abundance growing in the sand or gravel used as "ballast" for railway tracks. ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... operations been favoured by highwaymen. Fat purses were few in those parts, and if he attempted to rob a farmer homeward bound from fair or tryst—one who, perhaps, like Dandie Dinmont on such an occasion, temporarily carried rather more sail than he had ballast for—a knight of the road would have been quite as likely to take a broken ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... an article of great scarcity in the South. Coming over from Liverpool in ante bellum times as ballast, made it so cheap that little attention was given to the salt industry, and most of our best salt mines were in the hands of the enemy. But the Southern people were equal to any emergency. Men were put along the sea coast and erected great vats into which was put the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... any of the enemy's vessels she may happen to fall in with, who are not strong enough to resist her. We had cleared out for Genoa with a cargo of lead, which lay at the bottom of the hold, and which merely served for ballast. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sound conscience with regard to the affair that you wot of. As for your remaining free, that's all very well to think during the interregnum, but a man without a true love is a ship without ballast, a one-tined fork, half a pair of scissors, an utter flash in the pan.... So you are going home, my dear Morse, and God knows if ever I shall see you again. Pardon, I pray you, anything of levity which you may have been offended at in me. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... one day, on the wharf of Mr. Waters; and seeing two Irishmen unloading a large scow of stone, or ballast I went on board, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished the work, one of the men came to me, aside, and asked me a number of questions, and among them, if I were a slave. I told him "I was a slave, and a slave for life." The good Irishman gave his shoulders ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... cliffs, its deep, safe bay and its velvet sand. What matter? The wind is fair and you are for Calabria with twenty tons of macaroni from Amalfi. There is no time to be lost, either, for you will probably come home in ballast. Past Scalea, then, where tradition says that Judas Iscariot was born and bred and did his first murder. Right ahead is the sharp point of the Diamante, beyond that low shore where the cane brake grows to ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... believe it, Ford. You're blue because Mr. Colbrith has thrown Mr. North into your boat as ballast. I don't blame you: but you mustn't let it ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... hands, and Huger had disappeared without signaling us, when our pilots informed us that Harrison's Bar, which we must cross, drew only eighteen feet of water. Under their advice, on the night of May 11th we lightened ship by throwing overboard all our coal and ballast, thus raising our unprotected decks above water. At last all was ready—and then we found that the wind which had been blowing down-stream all day had swept the water off the bar. When morning dawned ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... friend; there's nothing like plenty of work to help keep a person out of mischief; but, after all, he must have steadiness and good principles. They alone are to be depended on, and I hope your son has got those as ballast." ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... like Oglethorpe, had no special personal sympathy with the peculiar ideas of Wesley; but as a matter of policy they recognized that his influence in the great educational center was needed for moral ballast. And so his services were secured as Greek Professor and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself into an elbow chair, "Stop my hawse-holes," cried he, "I can't think what's the matter, brother; ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and the chain and sail locker was a spacious hold. Six large steel tanks built into the bottom of the hold served for the storage of fresh water and at any time when empty could be filled with seawater, offering a ready means of securing emergency ballast. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... wind, just touching the water here and there. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and nothing whatever to suggest a squall. But as he looked again, a suspicious wisp of white water lifted suddenly from the surface a few yards to windward. Like a flash he remembered that the boat had no ballast in her, and was running with her sheets made fast. Instinctively he leaned forward to let go the foresail, but at the same moment the squall struck the boat like the hammer of Thor. Relieved of the fore canvas, the trap should have come to the wind in an instant. Instead, leaning over ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... property of Mr. Bates. Standing near the side, he had observed Rex and Fair bring up a great pig of iron, erst used as part of the ballast of the brig, and poise it on the rail. Their intention was but too evident; and honest Bates, like a faithful watch-dog, barked to warn his master. Bloodthirsty Cheshire caught him by the throat, and Frere, unheeding, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... new truth when it has gained a certain degree of acceptance, always pass over all at once in masses. They are like the ballast with which every ship is always loaded, at once to keep it upright and enable it to sail properly. If there were no ballast, the ship would not be low enough in the water, and would shift its position at the slightest change in its conditions. This ballast, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... The British Empire, like the Roman, was built up by dull men. It may be we shall be ruined by clever ones. Imagine a regiment of lively and eccentric privates! There never was a statesman yet who had not some ballast of stupidity, and it seems to me that part at least of the essentials of a genius is a certain divine dulness. The people we used to call the masters—Shakespeare, Raphael, Milton, and so forth—had a certain simplicity Crichton lacks. They do not scintillate nearly so much as he does, and ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Boyle. "Reminds me of a skipper I once sailed with, bound from Rotterdam to Hull in ballast. There was a Scotch mist best part of the trip, an' the old man loaded with schnapps to keep out the damp. First time he got a squint of the sun he went as yaller as a Swede turnip. 'It's all up with us, boys,' he said. 'My missus is forty fathoms below. We've just sailed over York.' You ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... was born when I was very young and have been desperately tidy about my morals ever since, but for fear of stumbling just because I'm so bored I have entrenched myself behind a maddening routine. Six months here ought to put ballast into the brain ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... increase the weight of the pole leaving the sun, by increasing the amount of material there for the sun to attract, and to lighten the pole approaching or turning towards the sun, by removing some heavy substance from it, and putting it preferably at the opposite pole. This shifting of ballast is most easily accomplished, as you will readily perceive, by confining and removing water, which is easily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose to apply these aqueous brakes to check the wabbling of the earth, by means of the attraction ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... had left the whaler in such a hurry, that they had only had time to throw into the boat two breakers of water, four empty breakers to fill with saltwater for ballast to the boat, and the iron pitch kettle, with a large sack ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... passengers, two on each side. On such occasions, the driver sits on a little seat over the well, looking to the front, while the passengers' backs are turned toward each other. Having only one passenger, Andy decided to sit on the opposite side of the car to ballast her evenly. After Paul bid good-bye to the coast guard and thanked him for his hospitality, he placed his rubber suit on the forward part of the seat and sprung up behind. Andy seemed in no hurry to get under way. A multitude of knots in the harness required attention and he carefully ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... with himself. He liked to follow the whim of the moment, whither it would lead him. He was romantic; it was one of his agreeablest traits, because spontaneous; and he indulged it the more, as being confident that he had too much solid ballast in the hold to be in danger of upsetting. To-night, at this point of his mental ramble, he found that his cigar had gone out. Had he been thinking aloud? He believed not, and yet there was no telling; he often did so, unconsciously. Were it ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... skipper! Put the whole cargo aboard! This here craft needs ballast; hoist her over the side!" And he reached out his hand for the whole plug of tobacco and took it from Freddie, and gnawed off a corner with ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... will not undertake to say, for certain, that the stout man was paid for doing this; but, as his hands were small and remarkably white, indications that he toiled not with them, and as he made his appearance on deck only when movable ballast was wanted, I am bound to suppose that he secured a living by sitting heavily and throwing himself on for weight, in circumstances under which such actions command a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... be devoted to poetry, both as regarded original verse and the critical appreciation of modern poetry as a whole. Articles on art, music, the drama, were all to find a home in his pages; and there was to be a judicious sprinkling of science to add a little ballast ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; "an' once she gets t' sea she's got ballast enough t' stand up to a sousing breeze. With any sort o' civil weather she ought t' make Ruddy ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... this happened the Woodwards had not been long at Torquay. Mr. Peppermint was made a happy man before Christmas; and therefore Charley was left to drift before the wind without the ballast of any lady's love to keep him in sailing trim. Poor fellow! he had had wealth on one side, beauty and love on another, and on the third all those useful qualities which Miss Geraghty has been described as possessing. He had been thus surrounded ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... reach the Ladrones. There we filled our water-butts, and I took on board a large anchor that I found there that had belonged formerly to the flagship lost there by Ffelipe de Sauzedo; in the other ship we placed four small boat-loads of ballast. All this detained us only a day and a half. On nearing the cape of Spiritu Santo in Tandaya, one of the Philipinas, our progress was impeded by the vendaval, and our pilots also gave us considerable trouble, so that I arrived at Manilla ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... kindly brought on board a basket of ripe apples for me, besides fresh meat, vegetables, bread, butter, and milk. The deck is all bustle with custom-house officers, and men unloading a part of the ship's freight, which consists chiefly of rum, brandy, sugar, and coals, for ballast. We are to leave Quebec by five o'clock this evening. The British America, a superb steam-vessel of three decks, takes us in tow as far as Montreal. I must ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... of an hour. There were forty-five other ships, each capable of carrying some fifty tons of small stones and rubble. These latter cargoes were shot into the water in much the manner that ordinary ballast is unloaded. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... was the only available means of propelling vessels by electrical power, and considering that these batteries might be made to serve the purpose of keel ballast, their weight, which was still considerable, would not be objectionable. The secondary battery was not an entirely new conception. The hydrogen gas battery suggested by Sir Wm. Grove in 1841, and which was shown in operation, realized in the most perfect manner the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... men—vikings, Swedes, and Danes — lost their lives on this bridge. So when Erik saw that King Olaf was gaining the upper hand of him he got his berserks to take down the oars and to fling them over the Serpent's nearer gunwale, together with all logs of wood, spars, ballast stones, and other weighty things that could be found. And as the weight increased so did the Serpent lean over, until at last her bulwarks were almost on a level with ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... professor, living for some reason in London, takes on some adventurous and rich Englishmen, and sets off with them in an airship that is made of a material so light that it can rise vertically into the air if you pump out some of the air in its ballast tanks. It can also plunge into the depths of the ocean, because this special material, aetherium, is so strong that it can withstand water pressure to a ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... one of the candles newly placed on the washstand. He pushed the electric button summoning the steward, and, giving him some money, asked if there was such a thing as a piece of stone on board, carried as ballast, or for any other reason. The steward said he would inquire, and finally returned with a sharpening stone used for the knives in the galley. Bolting his door, Lermontoff began an experiment, and at once forgot ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... more important things to think about," Mr. Skinner retorted icily. As a business man he was opposed to levity in the office. "What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?" ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... equipment had been allowed to fall into disrepair under indifferent supervision and the short-handing of the section gangs—always an impractical directory's first retrenchment when the dividends begin to fail. Lidgerwood had seen how the ballast had been suffered to sink at the rail-joints, and he had read the record of careless supervision at each fresh swing of the train, since it is the section foreman's weakness to spoil the geometrical curve by working it back, little by ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... in cliques at home and within our walls, and later we exported this plague to the camps. Therefore our city, like a great merchantman full of a crowd of every race borne without a pilot these many years through rough water, rolls and shoots hither and thither because it is without ballast. Do not, then, allow her to be longer exposed to the tempest; for you see that she is waterlogged. And do not let her split upon a reef[5]; for her timbers are rotten and will not be able to hold out much longer. But since the gods have taken pity on this land and have set you up as her ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... the resistance of the wings, is thus changed into a perpendicular pressure, acting upwards or downwards according to the position of the wings; by means of which the aeronaut hopes to be enabled to ascend or descend without losing either gas or ballast. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... crew mutinied on New Year's Day in 1681 on the Most Holy Trinity, they clapped their captain in irons and put him down below on the ballast, and elected an old pirate and a "stout seaman," John Watling, in his place. One of the reasons for the revolt was said to be ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... reply to kindly, polite questioning from the elder of the bunch, a man designated by the name Siwash, how he was lately graduated from the Kansas Agricultural College at Manhattan, and how he had taken the road with a grip full of hardware to get enough ballast in his jeans to keep the winter wind ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... head-punching spirit might have saved him with all his ballast, but he didn't have it. The Reverend Robert was a good fellow to everybody—a fairly sound-hearted, decent, handsome fellow, but not a man. To be that, one has to know things at first hand—especially work and trouble. He was a second-hand, school-made thinker. His ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... our turn, and I led the way, with a thong fastened around my body below the armpits, and attached, in like manner, to our stalwart alcalde. Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in everybody's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... been naughty in her life; she was an independent, quick-tempered child; she had determination, and heaps of courage, but she was always supposed to want ballast. It was the fashion in the house to be a little more lenient to Polly's misdemeanors than to any one else's. When a very little child, Nurse had excused ungovernable fits of rage with the injudicious words, "Poor lamb, she ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... altogether exquisite; as well as the contrast of her black and glistering side with those sails, and with the sea. Examine the wayward and delicate play of the dancing waves along her flank, and between her and the brig in ballast, plunging slowly before the wind; I have not often seen anything so perfect in fancy, or ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... least to drive deep and hold on while the boarders poured up and over her side. In addition to this formidable weapon, each carried four guns right forward, besides a heavier piece which was worked on a circular platform amidships, and when not required for service was stowed by the mainmast for ballast. Each galley had two masts, though they were next to useless, for it is easy to see that vessels so laden and open at the decks were fit only for the lightest breezes, and in foul weather must run ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to tak' the Kite round to Liverpool in water-ballast, and McRimmon came to bid's good-bye, yammerin' an' whinin' o'er the acres o' paint he'd lavished on ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... fitted to the top, and by means of it the aeronaut can descend to the earth at will, by allowing some quantity of the gas to escape. The car in which he sits is suspended to the balloon by a network, which covers the whole structure. Sacks of sand are carried in this car as ballast, so that, when descending, if the aeronaut sees that he is likely to be precipitated into the sea or into a lake, he throws over the sand, and his air-carriage, being thus lightened, mounts again and travels away to a more desirable resting-place. The idea of the valve, as well as ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... 30, and the bogies enable it to take the incline better; they also distribute the weight more evenly on the wheels. The gauge of the rails is 15 ft, the wheels are 2 ft. 6 in. in diameter, and have heavy steel tires. The weight on each of the front wheels when running with the ballast, but no load, is about 16 tons. A powerful brake is applied to the wheels when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... staircases, on each of which are six or eight sets of rooms, inhabited by us undergraduates, and here and there a tutor or fellow dropped down amongst us (in the first-floor rooms, of course), not exactly to keep order, but to act as a sort of ballast. This quadrangle is the show part of the college, and is generally respectable and quiet, which is a good deal more than can be said for the inner quadrangle, which you get at through a passage leading out of the other. The rooms ain't half so large or good in the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Feu-Follet lay, to permit a vessel like his prize to touch her; and many things lay on deck, in readiness to be transferred to this tender, previously to beginning to heave. The rocks too, were well garnished with casks, cordage, shot, ballast, and such other articles and could be come at—the armament and ammunition excepted. These last our hero always treated with religious care, for in all he did there was a latent determination resolutely ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... forgive when there is magnanimity, vainglory and probably folly in forgiveness, but will not overlook the most trivial affront when there is every reason for so doing. They have brain, but not ballast, and their whole life is usually a lopsided effort to "play to ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... vessels in the ports of the United States, whether cleared or not cleared, if bound to any foreign port. Exception was made only in favor of foreign ships, which of course could not be held. They might depart with cargo already on board, or in ballast. Vessels cleared coastwise were to be deterred from turning foreign by bonds exacted in double the value of ship and cargo. American export and foreign navigation were thus completely stopped; and ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... truth, fatal to sound theological doctrine, and deadly to the faith. Those clerics who maintain the rights of science in opposition to him are pernicious doctors and pestilent teachers, and the faithful who approve of them are lacking in either mental or moral ballast. ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... thus have the wind with them when they returned home heavily laden, and with these little navigators the difference is an important one. With a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a great hindrance, but fresh and empty-handed they can face it with more ease. Virgil says bees bear gravel stones as ballast, but their only ballast is their honey bag. Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I prefer to get to windward of the woods in which the swarm is supposed to ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... dear to the Provencal palate. It sounds very well in verse, but is not very substantial. On such an occasion men would look for that fundamental dish, the plate of red haricots, seasoned with chopped onions. All in good time; this at least would ballast the stomach. Thus refreshed in the open air, listening to the song of the cigales, the gang of harvesters would take their mid-day rest and gently digest their meal in the shadows of the sheaves. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre |
