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Bottom   Listen
noun
Bottom  n.  
1.
The lowest part of anything; the foot; as, the bottom of a tree or well; the bottom of a hill, a lane, or a page. "Or dive into the bottom of the deep."
2.
The part of anything which is beneath the contents and supports them, as the part of a chair on which a person sits, the circular base or lower head of a cask or tub, or the plank floor of a ship's hold; the under surface. "Barrels with the bottom knocked out." "No two chairs were alike; such high backs and low backs and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms."
3.
That upon which anything rests or is founded, in a literal or a figurative sense; foundation; groundwork.
4.
The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, sea.
5.
The fundament; the buttocks.
6.
An abyss. (Obs.)
7.
Low land formed by alluvial deposits along a river; low-lying ground; a dale; a valley. "The bottoms and the high grounds."
8.
(Naut.) The part of a ship which is ordinarily under water; hence, the vessel itself; a ship. "My ventures are not in one bottom trusted." "Not to sell the teas, but to return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped."
Full bottom, a hull of such shape as permits carrying a large amount of merchandise.
9.
Power of endurance; as, a horse of a good bottom.
10.
Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.
At bottom, At the bottom, at the foundation or basis; in reality. "He was at the bottom a good man."
To be at the bottom of, to be the cause or originator of; to be the source of. (Usually in an opprobrious sense.) "He was at the bottom of many excellent counsels."
To go to the bottom, to sink; esp. to be wrecked.
To touch bottom, to reach the lowest point; to find something on which to rest.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bottom" Quotes from Famous Books



... the ford in dry weather. The bottom here is hard rock and easy to ride over when the river is but waist deep, but below and above this place it is covered with great boulders. The water is six feet deep here now, and the horses would be carried down among the rocks, and would ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... and grace, such noble elevation, purity, and beauty, so shine upon me from some well-remembered spots in the walls of these galleries, as to relieve my tortured memory from legions of whining friars and waxy holy families. I forgive, from the bottom of my soul, whole orchestras of earthy angels, and whole groves of St. Sebastians stuck as full of arrows according to pattern as a lying-in pincushion is stuck with pins. And I am in no humour to quarrel even with that priestly ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... they were far behind us, so that we had to depend on our own exertions alone. I directed the whale-boat to be moored over the place where the accident had happened, and then used the oars on either side of her, to feel along the bottom of the river, in hopes that by these means we should strike upon the articles we had lost. However unlikely such a measure was to prove successful, we recovered in the course of the afternoon, every thing but the still-head, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt

... goodness! he didn't upset anything, even if he was here," murmured Fred to himself. "I wonder what the little imp was up to?" Then a sudden thought struck him and he walked to the clothes closet in the bottom of which he had deposited his suitcase. He found the bag in the closet, but it was placed there in such a way that he was sure it had ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield

... I went in there first," he said. "Heavy as you are, you'd a-been at the bottom by now, if ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... mountain 'himself alone'.' As he gave out this text, his voice 'rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes;' and when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St. John came into my mind, 'of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey.' ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... to pay some little regard to arithmetic, at least; and not to say before the National Assembly in France, lest to its shame it should agree with you, that an addition gives a different sum, according to whether it is added up from the bottom to the top, or from the top to the ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... to keep ourselves, not warm, but a little less cold. The icebergs coming down on the Arctic Current hold the season back, and early June on the Banks is much like April on the Massachusetts coast. We tried to sleep lying down in the bottom of the boat with our heads in a trawl tub, but we were stiff with cold, the boat leaked badly, and it was necessary to get up frequently and bail out the water. The thought also that we might drift within sight or sound of a vessel, or ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... seen them so green that within their depths I was almost sure the fish were lazily resting in the shadows of those sea-plants which grow only on the ocean's bottom; and I have seen them as black as that thunder-cloud which makes us wonder: "Is He angry?" And then again I have watched them when they were of that fiery red and that glinting yellow which one sees only when at night the doors of a great, roaring furnace ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... the sense of "decorative designs," and refers here to ancient paintings or scrawlings on the house walls. The cave is situated in a gorge on the northern slope of the Arroyo Garabato, which drains into the Rio Chico. It is in conglomerate formation, faces east, and lies about 215 feet above the bottom of the gorge. The ascent is steep and somewhat difficult. At a little distance the high, regular walls of the houses, with their many door and window openings, presented a most striking contrast to their surroundings ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... mechanism for ships and mills, and they even ventured to guess what the earth's motive power might be. It was now five minutes of midnight. The chief furnished Ingram an oversuit and the young engineers dropped through manholes and down vertical and spiral ladders into the cellar of the steamer, the bottom of which was thirty feet below the ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... her. In their gropings through the blizzard the three had wandered nearer Calabasas than any one of them dreamed. And on the open desert, far south and east of the upper lava beds, it was Scott's horse that put a foot through the bottom of the overturned wagon box. The suspected mound of snow, with the buried horses scrambling to their feet, rose upright at the crash. Duke crouched, half-conscious, under the rude shelter. Lying where he had placed her, snugly between the horses, Scott found Nan. He spoke to her ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... were prairie country, then deemed unsuited for settlement because of the lack of wood and drinking-water. It was the hardwoods that had been taken up in the northwest, and, for the most part, the tracts a little back from the unhealthful bottom-lands, but in close proximity to the rivers, which were the only means of transportation before the building of good roads. A new island of settlement appeared in the northwestern portion of Illinois and the adjacent regions of Wisconsin and Iowa, due to the opening ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... at the bottom were only as wide as the porch railing, but flared out on both sides in order to hold more earth, and all were painted green. Now in that particular box, shaded by the honeysuckle, I had, with infinite care, coaxed sun-loving dwarf nasturtiums to grow, because their gorgeous colouring looked ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell

... with the creative intent of God, and with his revealed institutions; that a nation cannot be homogeneous, and should not aim at it; that there is a law and scale of gradation, on which the top is privilege and authority, the bottom labor and obedience. These are the radical theories of the respective sections of the land. Men often are profoundly ignorant of the principles which control their policy, as a ship is unconscious of the rudder that steers her. Many are found, both North and South, whose conduct ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... lions there, An' the biggest ollyfunts you ever saw! I would track the fierce gorilla to his equatorial lair, An' beard the cannybull that eats folks raw! I'd chase the pizen snakes And the 'pottimus that makes His nest down at the bottom of unfathomable lakes— If I darst; but ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... California, spruce, and it's coarse and stringy and wet and heavy and smells just like a skunk directly after using. I'm afraid Skinner's going to start you at the bottom—and skunk spruce ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne

... Taf. In the neighbourhood of Newport, which is in the district of Gwentluc, {78} there is a small stream called Nant Pencarn, {79} passable only at certain fords, not so much owing to the depth of its waters, as from the hollowness of its channel and muddy bottom. The public road led formerly to a ford, called Ryd Pencarn, that is, the ford under the head of a rock, from Rhyd, which in the British language signifies a ford, Pen, the head, and Cam, a rock; of which place Merlin ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... my happiness by two thousand leagues, an immense ocean, and villanous English vessels! Those wretched vessels make me very unhappy. One letter, one letter only, have I yet received from you, my love; the others have been lost or taken, and are probably at the bottom of the sea. I must consider our enemy the cause of this dreadful loss; for I am certain you do not neglect to write to me from every port, and by all the despatches sent by Dr. Franklin and Mr. Deane. And yet some ships arrived; ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... girls went on wildly planning Dan's future for him. It was all in a strain of extravagant burlesque. But he could not take his part in it with his usual zest. He laughed and joked too, but at the bottom of his heart was an uneasy remembrance of the different future he had talked over with Mrs. Pasmer so confidently. But he said to himself buoyantly at last that it would come out all right. His mother would give in, or else Alice could ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Florentines had no way to escape him: all which, had it succeeded with him, as without question it had, the very same year that Alexander dy'd, he had made himself master of so great forces, and such reputation, that he would have been able to have stood upon his own bottom, without any dependance of fortune, or resting upon others helps, but only upon his own strength and valor. But Alexander dy'd five years after that he had begun to draw forth his sword: and left him setled only in the State of Romania, with all his other designes in the ayre, sick unto death, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... four legs on a small packing-box and made a bedstead for him. This, with a pillow in the bottom of it, was very comfortable, and instead of taking him home, I borrowed, in the evening, some baby night-clothes from Pomona, and set about ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton

... Homer just transcribed for Theodorus Gaza, of whose Illumination he gives him a very particular description, which answer'd so exactly in every part to that here set forth, that he [Wanley] was fully perswaded it was this very Book, and yet the at the bottom of 1st page order'd to be placed there by Gaza as his own name, gave occasion to Abp. Parker to imagine it might have belonged to Theodore of Canterbury, which however Hody was of opinion could not be of that age. "Th. Gaza," continues Dr. James, "died ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... now we had been uneasy guests in the shack, ready for flight whenever Huey Dunn got around to taking us back to Pierre. But trying to dig out a few things now and then from grips and trunks without unpacking from top to bottom is an unsatisfactory ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... having now passed, Prescott and his comrades unfolded the canvas. At the bottom of the package they found something that caused them to ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock

... I was tired with twenty-four hours' post-travelling [to Dresden], without sleep or refreshment (for I can never sleep in a coach, however fatigued). We passed by moonshine the frightful precipices that divide Bohemia from Saxony, at the bottom of which runs the river Elbe; but I cannot say that I had reason to fear drowning in it, being perfectly convinced that, in case of a tumble, it was utterly impossible to come alive to the bottom. In many places the road is ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville

... refer, has detected in a blue boulder-clay, scooped into precipitous banks by the river Thorsa, fragments both of chalk-flints and a characteristic conglomerate of the Oolite. He has, besides, found it mottled from top to bottom, a full hundred feet over the sea-level, and about two miles inland, with comminuted fragments of existing shells. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... wine, half a pound of sugar, the whites of six eggs, and the juice of four large lemons; boil all these materials together eight or ten minutes. Then strain into the glasses, or jars, in which you intend to keep it. Some lay a few bits of the lemon-peel at the bottom, and let it be strained ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... buildings are to be seen in other parts of the site, but of little interest. The huge fishpond, spoken of by Diodorus as being 7 stadia in circumference (xi. 25), is to be seen at the south-west corner of the city; it is an enormous excavation in the rock with drains in its sides, at the bottom of which there is now a flourishing orange ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... fidelity to its old rights. The extremes of fanciful and vulgar are united when the enchanted Titania awakes and falls in love with a coarse mechanic with an ass's head, who represents, or rather disfigures, the part of a tragical lover. The droll wonder of Bottom's transformation is merely the translation of a metaphor in its literal sense; but in his behaviour during the tender homage of the Fairy Queen we have an amusing proof how much the consciousness of such a head-dress heightens the effect of his usual folly. Theseus ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... when it is more than probable that we are no less obstinate in not embracing some of theirs. For where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all that he holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say that he has examined to the bottom all his own, or other men's opinions? The necessity of believing without knowledge, nay often upon very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves than constrain others. At least, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke

... try to establish contacts with a country of strategic importance or to try to save lives. And certainly it was not wrong to try to secure freedom for our citizens held in barbaric captivity. But we did not achieve what we wished, and serious mistakes were made in trying to do so. We will get to the bottom of this, and I will take whatever action is called for. But in debating the past, we must not deny ourselves the successes of the future. Let it never be said of this generation of Americans that we became so obsessed with failure that we refused to take risks that could ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... heart, walked a little way with her, and the woman inviting him to drink tea at her lodgings, he accepted it readily, and away they went together to the bottom of Salisbury Court, where the woman lived. After tea was over, so many overtures were made that our new-come spark was easily drawn into an amour, and after a considerable time spent in parley, it was at last agreed that he should pass for her husband newly come from sea; and this being ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... account with him; then, after a little, I will affect doubts as to his solvency, and ask for a bill; and we shall then place our young friend in the hands of the Mutual Loan Society, and M. Verminet will easily persuade him to write his name across the bottom of a piece of stamped paper. He will bring it to me; I will accept it, and then we shall have him hard ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... containing the substance. After annealing this, cooling and cleaning the tube, the acid and salt are introduced (the former by means of a long-stemmed funnel) and the tube is inclined and rotated about its axis so that the acid wets its surface about half way up from the bottom. The substance is now weighed out in a piece of thin-walled glass tubing, closed at one end, and about two inches long. Inclining the large tube at a suitable angle, the small one is introduced, closed end first, and allowed to slide down the walls of the large tube until it reaches the place where ...
— Laboratory Manual of Glass-Blowing • Francis C. Frary

... Covenant of God; and—and—I'd hurl y'r traitor leaders—y'r Judas Iscariots huckstering the land's good for paltry silver—I'd hurl y'r grafters an' y'r heelers an' y'r bosses an' y'r strumpet justices, who sell a verdict like a harlot, I'd hurl them to the bottom of Hell! An' may Hell be both deep and hot—old fashioned extra for the pack ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... pretty misfortunes, and so I carried them to Fish Streete, and there treated them with prawns and lobsters, and it beginning to grow darke we away, but the jest is our horses would not draw us up the Hill, but we were fain to 'light and stay till the coachman had made them draw down to the bottom of the Hill, thereby warming their legs, and then they came up cheerfully enough, and we got up and I carried them home, and coming home called at my paper ruler's and there found black Nan, which pleases me mightily, and having saluted her again ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... vehicle is a kind of tarantass, but not such as I have just described. The essentials in both are the same, but those which the Imperial Government provides resemble an enormous cradle on wheels rather than a phaeton. An armful of hay spread over the bottom of the wooden box is supposed to play the part of seats and cushions. You are expected to sit under the arched covering, and extend your legs so that the feet lie beneath the driver's seat; but it is advisable, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... where all our moustaches have taught her kisses and spoiled her taste for them, still knows how to distinguish a man of thirty from a man of sixty? Pshaw! what nonsense! She has seen and known too many of them. Now, I'll wager that, down in the bottom of her heart, she actually prefers an old banker to a young stripling. Does she know or reflect upon that? Have men any age here? Oh, my dear fellow, we grow young as we grow gray, and the whiter our hair becomes ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... scandalum magnatum[20] to punish the offender. They who use this kind of argument seem to be conscious to themselves of somewhat which has deserv'd the poet's lash, and are less concern'd for their public capacity than for their private; at least there is pride at the bottom of their reasoning. If the faults of men in orders are only to be judg'd among themselves, they are all in some sort parties: for, since they say the honor of their order is concern'd in every member ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... are thrown into folds, they will, if strained too much, give way at the summit of the fold. Before doing so, however, they are stretched and consequently loosened, while on the other hand the strata at the bottom of the fold are compressed: the former, therefore, are rendered more susceptible of disintegration, the latter on the contrary acquire greater powers of resistance. Hence denudation will act with more effect on the upper than on the lower portion of the folds, and if continued ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... is almost bright enough to excuse the picturesque headgear, eventually unearthed from the bottom of a tin trunk, and ironed by ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... it's been a bit of a shock for her, them finding the remains of the lady at the bottom of her ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn

... had a covering of tanned or dried buffalo hides. This covering consisted of two hides hanging side by side, with the inner borders slightly overlapping. They were fastened to the passageway at the top and at the outer sides, but were loose at the bottom where they overlapped. This part was raised by a person entering the lodge. A similar covering was placed at the interior ...
— Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements • James Owen Dorsey,

... never dried up although a large flock of sheep drink in it every summer day, one looks down into an immense hollow, a Devil's Punch Bowl very many times magnified,—and spies, far away and far below, a few lonely houses half hidden by trees at the bottom. This is the romantic village of Coombe, and hither I went and found the vicar busy in the garden of the small old picturesque parsonage. Here a very pretty little bird comedy was in progress: a pair of stock-doves which had been taken from a rabbit-hole in the hill ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... cannot be averted by Thomas B. Reed, the idol and recognized leader of the Republican party, forcing the producers of those few ship loads of products to consume them themselves. The whole could be dropped to the bottom of the sea, or sold for their value a hundred fold, and it would not stay the doom of the Republic one swing ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood

... of all kinds, the Crown-Prince looked into, with a sharp intelligent eye;—gave praise, gave censure in the right place; put various things on a straight footing, which were awry when he found them. In fact, it is Papa's second self; looks into the bottom of all things quite as Papa would have done, and is fatal to mendacities, practical or vocal, wherever he meets them. What a joy to Papa: "Here, after all, is one that can replace me, in case of accident. This Apprentice of mine, after all, he has fairly learned the Art; and will continue ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of this term, the gauloi were nearly round; but it is evident that this term must be taken with considerable restriction; a vessel round, or nearly so, could not possibly be navigated. It is most probable that this description refers entirely to the shape of the bottom or hold of the vessel; and that merchant ships were built in this manner, in order that they might carry more goods; whereas the ships for warfare were sharp in the bottom. Of other particulars respecting the construction and equipment of the ships of the Phoenicians, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... worst," and build self-estimation upon the ruins of other men's disadvantages, as if it were any point of praise in us that they are worse, like men that stand upon a height, and measure their own altitude, not from their just intrinsic quantity, but taking the advantage of the bottom, whereby we deceive our own selves. I remember a word of Solomon's, that imports how dangerous a thing it is for a man to reflect upon, or search into his own glory, Prov. xxv. 27. "It is not good to eat much honey, so for men to search their own ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... thus till be came at a place somewhat ascending, and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do, till it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... have thrown myself in also, but that she was not dead and called to me from the bottom of the well, and I was afraid and ran. And one came out of the crops saying that I had killed her and defiled the well, and they took me before an Englishman, white and terrible, living in a tent, and me he sent here. But there were no witnesses, and it is better to die than ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... groped into her dock; the gangways were lifted to her side; the passengers fumbled and stumbled down their incline, and at the bottom the Marches found themselves respectively in the arms of their son and daughter. They all began talking at once, and ignoring and trying to remember the Triscoes to whom the young Marches were presented. Bella did her best to be polite to Agatha, and Tom offered to get ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... to the bottom of the slope, he spurred Thunderbolt to a sharp gait, and quickly covered the intervening space, which was hardly a fourth of a mile. His mustang showed no ill effects from the slight wounds received during the sharp ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... that out," thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the bed-room, took all the bedding off the bedstead, and laid a pea on the bottom; then she took twenty mattresses and laid them on the pea, and then twenty eider-down beds on top ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... brought over from Sidon when he sailed the seas upon that voyage during which he carried off Helen. Hecuba took out the largest robe, and the one that was most beautifully enriched with embroidery, as an offering to Minerva: it glittered like a star, and lay at the very bottom of the chest. With this she went on her way and many matrons ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... dinner and to play whist afterwards, and they duly turned up to time. As the night wore on, the force of the wind gradually increased in intensity, and great gusts struck the building at all angles with such terrific force as to make it reel and tremble from top to bottom. I recollect I was not feeling at all nervous, not realising at the time the very great danger that threatened us all. But one of my chums, a little stout man, well known at that time in the tea trade, of the name of Inskipp, usually a most cheery ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey

... forward. Still, to convince you that you are mistaken, you are at liberty to go through my place from top to bottom. But you must not ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield

... of your cheap rock about that. We fetched that mud for two miles to make that. And look at that wicker bucket. Isn't it great? Hardly leaks at all except through the sides, and perhaps a little through the bottom. She wove that. She's ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock

... believe it is the house at the far end of the lane—now Mr. Bennett's. The street has been cut through the lawn. There are here, as there were then, "old red brick houses" and "the green gate of a garden at the bottom of the yard." Nothing could be more precise, allowing of course for the changes, demolitions, re-buildings, &c., of ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... water. Earlier in the season they are not so lazy and indifferent, but the August languor and drowsiness were now upon them. So we learned by a lucky accident to fish deep for them, even weighting our leaders with a shot, and allowing the flies to sink nearly to the bottom. After a moment's pause we would draw them slowly up, and when half or two thirds of the way to the top the trout would strike, when the sport became lively enough. Most of our fish were taken in this way. There is nothing like the flash ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... at the bottom of the hill which slopes down from 'the Earl's Home'; my float was on the waters, and my back was towards the old hall. I drew up many fish, small and great, which I took from off the hook mechanically and flung upon the bank, for I was almost unconscious of what I was about, for my mind was not ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... about the advertisement, young man. Where that is going to come in is my business. But you can just bet your bottom dollar that I don't intend to lose any money on you. All that you have to do is just what I've told you; and to be well dressed, and walk up and down Broadway for three hours every day, and look in all ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... accessories, a dressing-case with linen, coats, etc. I know little of the service of the stables, but that of the kitchen was organized as follows: There was a conveyance almost in the shape of the coucous on the Place Louis XV. at Paris, with a deep bottom and an enormous body. The bottom contained wines for the Emperor's table and that of the high officers, the ordinary wine being bought at the places where we stopped. In the body of the wagon were the kitchen utensils and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... had tormented the Dauphine day and night, and had made her distrust every one who approached her, and thus separated her from all the world, returned home a year after her mistress's death. Before her departure she played another trick by having a box made with a double bottom, in which she concealed jewels and ready money to the amount of 100,000 francs; and all this time she went about weeping and complaining that, after so many years of faithful service, she was dismissed ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... clouds embattled make, When they afflict this earthly globe; But such as with their terrors shake Man's breast, and to the bottom probe; They make the hypocrite disrobe, They try us all, if false or true; For this one Devil had power on Job; And I was long ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe

... of black oxide of manganese, sulphur, and carbon, plunged in a solution of sal-ammoniac. The oxide of manganese relieves the carbon plate of its hydrogen. The strength of the solution is maintained by spare crystals of sal-ammoniac lying on the bottom of the cell, which is closed to prevent evaporation, but has a venthole for the ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro

... crawled carefully to the edge of the bank. He slightly parted the grass so he could peep through, and found himself directly over a pool with a narrow shoal running out from the opposite bank. The water was so clear he could see the pebbly bottom in all parts, except a dark hole near a bend in the shore close by. He did not see a living thing in the water, not a crawfish, turtle, nor even a frog. He peered round closely, then flipped in one of the bugs he had brought along. A shiny yellow fish flared ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... then," began my companion, as much at his, ease as if he had been before a blackboard, "what will strike you first about this inscription is its repetition in the form of a cross. That is to say that it contains the same word twice, top to bottom, and right to left. The word which it composes has seven letters so the fourth letter, W [Transcriber's Note: Rotated 90 deg. counter-clockwise], comes naturally in the middle. This arrangement which is unique in Tifinar writing, ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... my long and masterly treatise on the Tragic Muse. I remember sending it very well, and there went by the same mail a long and masterly tractate to Gosse about his daddy's life, for which I have been long expecting an acknowledgment, and which is plainly gone to the bottom with the other. If you see Gosse, please mention it. These gems of criticism are now lost literature, like the tomes of Alexandria. I could not do 'em again. And I must ask you to be content with a dull head, a weary hand, and short commons, for to-day, as I am physically tired with hard work ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... reaction takes place in a special crucible lined with magnesia tar, which is baked at a red heat until the tar is driven off and the magnesia left. This lining should last from twelve to fifteen reactions. This magnesia lining ends at the bottom of the crucible in a ring of magnesia stone and this ring carries a magnesia thimble through which the molten steel passes on its way to the mould. It will usually be necessary to renew this thimble after each reaction. This lower opening is closed before ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly

... from the corn, leaving just a single layer against the corn: fold back this single layer of husk and remove all the silk, wiping with a dry cloth. Place two inches of salt in the bottom of a deep crock and stand the ears so that each one will be entirely alone and encased in salt. Stand the tip end down, pack closely with salt and place two-inch layer on top Cover and place in a cool place. It is most important that ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... then my eye turned to the entry before it, the last on the preceding page. It bore the date December 13—under the general date at the top of the page, 1747. The next entry after it was dated March 29. At the bottom of the page, or cover rather, was the attestation of the clergyman to the number of marriages in that year; but there was no such attestation at the bottom of the preceding page. I turned to Mr Coningham, who had stood regarding me, and, pointing to ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... the other boar, now very close to my father. "They'll talk to me! I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it's the last thing ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett

... bringing his cane down upon the desk in a manner he was accustomed to do when provoked: "I will come to the bottom of this business. That several of you were in it, I feel sure. Is there not one of you sufficiently honest to speak, when required ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... it was necessary to start at once if he meant to see her that night, the parson cut short the practising, and, naming another night for meeting, he withdrew. All the singers assisted him on to his cob, and watched him till he disappeared over the edge of the Bottom. ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... beautiful rainbow-tints get into the shell of the fresh-water clam, buried in the mud at the bottom of our dark river?" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... window were other prints, in frames equally veiled in damp and cobwebs and also two bird-cages. The bird-cages Philip approached, and looked into them. The occupants, of course, had long been dead; but at the bottom of the cages was a small heap of yellow feathers, through which the little white bones of the skeletons were to be seen, proving that they had been brought from the Canary Isles; and, at that period, such birds were highly valued. Philip appeared to wish to examine everything before he sought ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... prone on the bottom of his canoe and gripping the thwarts of the rebellious craft beside him, "this must ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... of cold water, put a quart of rock salt, an ounce of salt-petre, quarter of a pound of brown sugar—(some people use molasses, but it is not as good)—no boiling is necessary. Put the beef in the brine. As long as any salt remains at the bottom of the cask it is strong enough. Whenever any scum rises, the brine should be scalded, skimmed, and more sugar, salt and salt-petre added. When a piece of beef is put in the brine, rub a little salt over ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous

... ranch but himself is named after his voice," returned Buck. "His real name is Jackson, but it is seldom used now. Every one knows him as Roaring Bull. He's not a bad fellow at bottom, but something overbearing, and has made a good many enemies since he came to this part of ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... could pull it away, and then, in a moment, I found myself attached to a creature with the strength of a whale and the agility of a flying-fish. He led me rushing up and down the bank like a madman. He played on the surface like a whirlwind, and sulked at the bottom like a stone. He meditated, with ominous delay, in the middle of the deepest pool, and then, darting across the river, flung himself clean out of water and landed far up on the green turf of the opposite shore. My heart ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... Jane. 'Yes, I quite understand. But, though of course the little one's affair is the least important, we had better get to the bottom of that first, and I should like to ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... went together to the river, and found the canoe and the two half-breeds waiting for them. A couple of rugs were spread on the bottom of the canoe rising over the two slanting boards which served as backs to ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... introduced for that purpose in the Bill, that nothing in the Act should affect the supremacy of the British Parliament. In short, the whole discussion here necessarily resolved itself into a mere verbal squabble as to the construction of a clause in a Bill not yet in Committee, and had no bottom or substance. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... shutters, and double bar the door, before they went to bed. They usually slept in the same room. As the clock struck twelve, they were both awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door burst open with a violence that shook the house from top to bottom. ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... competition. American ingenuity, however, is likely to overcome this handicap of high wages. T.C. White, an old raisin grower, has invented a packing plate of metal, with depressions at regular intervals just the size of a big raisin. This plate is put at the bottom of the preliminary packing box, and when the work of packing is complete the box is reversed and the top layer, pressed into the depressions of the plate, bears every mark of the most careful hand manipulation. Mr. Butler used this plate for the first time this season, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various

... was very large, being equal to at least L200,000 of our money, and, since both had rural tastes, it is probable that they were far happier in Nottinghamshire than in their fine town mansion in Clerkenwell Close. Welbeck she admired most, since it was seated "in the bottom of a park environed with woods, and noble, yet melancholy". One wonders if the ghost of this "wise, wittie and learned lady" wanders in those beautiful and amazing precincts, a little bewildered and more than a little angry that any of her beloved spouse's descendants ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist

... I am a circus performer. I should probably have been at the bottom of the river long ago, had I ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... day; and it was with these that he now tested his bars, slowly, conscientiously, and with painful thoroughness, from the bar nearest Killer's cage to that at the end of the gate of his own, which closed on to the partition of the native bears' division. It was the bottom of the bars that Finn always tried, where they entered the floor of the cage. He took each between his teeth and pushed and pulled; sometimes pushing or pulling with his paws as well. And the result, on this night of bright moonlight and great ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... so-called neritic zone,—the oceanic surface, diaphanous and luminous, far from any coast. Next is seen the pelagic zone, much deeper, in which reside the fishes of incessant motion, capable of living without reposing on the bottom. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... exclaimed the landlord, and, taking out his knife, he ripped the leaf out, together with the corresponding one in the back. "The devil's on our side all right, or why did she pass over the space at the bottom of the page and write their two names at the ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... folk, and industrious Swiss, and Germans from the Rhine. Then the Scotch began to come in numbers, and families of Scotch descent from the north of Ireland. The tone of society consequently changed from that of the early days. The ruffian and the shiftless sank to the bottom. There grew up in North Carolina a people, agricultural but without great plantations, ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... of the leech of the mainsail waver for an instant, flap once or twice, and then suddenly collapse, I knew what was coming, and shouting at the top of my voice, "Look out Heck! She'll jibe!" I instinctively threw myself into the bottom of the boat to escape the boom. With a quick, sudden rush, ending in a great crash, the long heavy spar swept across the boat from starboard to port, knocking Bowsher overboard and carrying away the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... a picture of Langley and another. I gave it to Jon. "His wife," I said. "His real wife. I am sure of it, for you will note the inscription on the bottom." ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns

... Negroes care little but for local news, doings of their own race, care but little for the news of the great wide world, it must be conceded a step far in the right direction if they can be interested at all. The Negro press, like all others, had to begin at the bottom and grow, not patterned particularly after any other paper, but fashioned to suit the tastes, conditions and interests of its customers. It is the privilege of the editor, not only to shape public opinion, pointing out the policy that alone will conserve to our best ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... is the prolific mother of wrongs," said Mrs. Gilmer, "and the fact that the woman with the broom is neither sufficiently appreciated nor decently paid brings its own train of evils. It is at the bottom of the distaste girls have for domestic pursuits and the frantic mania of women for seeking some kind of a 'career.'" She ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... equipments of an Indian chief on a treaty-making embassy at Washington, who has been generously decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast to his breech-clout and leathern legging; being grand officer at top, and ragged Indian at bottom. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... afforded me insensibly drew me on to the entrance of the Wildersmouth, which is the name given to a series of recesses formed by the rocks, and semicircular, open at the bottom to the sea, and only to be entered from the sands at low tide. I coasted two or three of them, augmenting my spoil as I proceeded; and perceiving the lady I have- already mentioned composedly engaged with her book, I hurried past to visit the last recess, whither I had never yet ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... watery places, attacking all who came near. This old idea certainly survived in Irish and Highland belief, for the Fians conquered huge dragons or serpents in lochs, or saints chained them to the bottom of the waters. Hence the common place-name of Loch na piast, "Loch of the Monster." In other tales they emerge and devour the impious or feast on the dead.[623] The Dracs of French superstition—river monsters who assume human form and drag down victims to the ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... distance on Sundays and fte-days. Frequently there is one attached to the establishment. We went to see the celebrated water-tank of Casasano, the largest and most beautiful reservoir in this part of the country; the water so pure, that though upwards of thirty feet deep, every blade of grass at the bottom is visible. Even a pin, dropped upon the stones below, is seen shining quite distinctly. A stone wall, level with the water, thirty feet high, encloses it, on which I ventured to walk all round the tank, which is of an oval form, with the assistance of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... a narrow red stripe along the top and the bottom edges; centered is a large white disk bearing the coat of arms; the coat of arms features a shield flanked by two workers in front of a mahogany tree with the related motto SUB UMBRA FLOREO (I Flourish in the Shade) ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Old Billee rode back with the boy ranchers, until they reached the bottom of the reservoir wall. Then, dismounting, Bud, Nort and Dick scrambled up the earth slope on one side until they could look into the storage tank, and at the pipe which, connecting with the old underground water-course, ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... did, son, and I rather think you will feel the same as I did when I tell you whose name is written at the bottom of this little communication," the cattleman ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... found in position on the Big Black. The point was only six miles from that where my advance had rested for the night, and was reached at an early hour. Here the river makes a turn to the west, and has washed close up to the high land; the east side is a low bottom, sometimes overflowed at very high water, but was cleared and in cultivation. A bayou runs irregularly across this low land, the bottom of which, however, is above the surface of the Big Black at ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee.' I thought you would like it to look at while you are in bed. May I rest it against the rail at the bottom of your bed?—then you ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre

... rained with great violence untill 12 oClock, the waves tremendious brakeing with great fury against the rocks and trees on which we were encamped. our Situation is dangerous. we took the advantage of a low tide and moved our camp around a point to a Small wet bottom at the mouth of a Brook, which we had not observed when we Came to this cove; from it being verry thick and obscured by drift trees and thick bushes It would be distressing to See our Situation, all wet and Colde our bedding also wet, (and the robes of ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... recollected that it was my good Friend Sir ROGER'S Voice; and that I had promised to go with him on the Water to Spring-Garden, in case it proved a good Evening. The Knight put me in mind of my Promise from the Bottom of the Stair-Case, but told me that if I was Speculating he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the Children of the Family got about my old Friend, and my Landlady herself, who is a notable prating Gossip, engaged in ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... I know who's almost as beastly rich as myself, and twice as big a fool by nature, and perhaps not a better fellow at bottom—yet who can command the society of all there is of the best in science, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... wooden sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom; mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... to reflect that there are only a few planks between you and the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it makes you ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... everything that stood in her way about the house, without at all discomposing herself about the matter. One night she took the stopper from a barrel of molasses, and came singing off upstairs, while the molasses ran soberly out into the cellar bottom all night, till by morning it was in a state of universal emancipation. Having done this, and also dispatched an entire set of tea things by letting the waiter fall, she one day ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... quart, and another, holding three or four quarts, for the other kinds. The fat that has been skimmed from soups, boiled beef and fowl, should be cooked rather slowly until the sediment falls to the bottom and there is not the shadow of a bubble. It can then be strained into the jar with the other fat; but if strained while bubbles remain, there is water in it, and it will spoil quickly. The fat from sausages can also be strained ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa

... but a perfunctory regard for efficiency, many of these steamers were in a dangerous condition. That they survived voyages was perhaps due more to luck than anything else; year after year, vessel after vessel similarly built and owned had gone down to the bottom of the ocean. Collins had lost many of his ships; so had other steamship companies. The chronicles of sea travel were a long, grewsome succession of tragedies; every little while accounts would come in of ships sunk or mysteriously missing. Thousands of immigrants, inhumanly crowded in the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... life not to know that Don Wenceslas has this time committed the blunder of being a bit too eager. Had he waited a few months longer, and then pulled the string—Dios y diablo! there would have been such a fracas as to turn the Cordilleras bottom up! Now all that is set ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... four such round trips out of a man without a period of rest equal to at least two trips. When it came to this point, he would merely lose his hold from sheer exhaustion and fall from the ladder. And when picked up by the crew at the bottom of the shaft, he was fit for nothing but to be thrown like carrion into the nearest unused pit, walled in with a half-dozen shovelfuls of earth, and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... during the summer, gravel and stones were washed from the higher land over its surface, and in superficial channels. The larger streams may have cut right through the frozen snow, and deposited gravel in lines at the bottom. But on each succeeding autumn, when the running water failed, I imagine that the lines of drainage would have been filled up by blown snow afterwards congealed, and that, owing to great surface accumulations of snow, it would be a mere chance whether ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin



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