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Descent   Listen
noun
Descent  n.  
1.
The act of descending, or passing downward; change of place from higher to lower.
2.
Incursion; sudden attack; especially, hostile invasion from sea; often followed by upon or on; as, to make a descent upon the enemy. "The United Provinces... ordered public prayer to God, when they feared that the French and English fleets would make a descent upon their coasts."
3.
Progress downward, as in station, virtue, as in station, virtue, and the like, from a higher to a lower state, from a higher to a lower state, from the more to the less important, from the better to the worse, etc.
4.
Derivation, as from an ancestor; procedure by generation; lineage; birth; extraction.
5.
(Law) Transmission of an estate by inheritance, usually, but not necessarily, in the descending line; title to inherit an estate by reason of consanguinity.
6.
Inclination downward; a descending way; inclined or sloping surface; declivity; slope; as, a steep descent.
7.
That which is descended; descendants; issue. "If care of our descent perplex us most, Which must be born to certain woe."
8.
A step or remove downward in any scale of gradation; a degree in the scale of genealogy; a generation. "No man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself."
9.
Lowest place; extreme downward place. (R.) "And from the extremest upward of thy head, To the descent and dust below thy foot."
10.
(Mus.) A passing from a higher to a lower tone.
Synonyms: Declivity; slope; degradation; extraction; lineage; assault; invasion; attack.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Descent" Quotes from Famous Books



... perfectly silent, knowing that a start might produce a false step, and they watched her descent to the ground now with less anxiety. Half-way down had Betty got, when there was a rushing sound of feet, and nurse, with a scream of horror appeared ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... the Norbysee into the Roxersee, which is a descent of 116 feet. The canal winds gracefully through woods and meadows, crossed by pretty roads, and studded with elegant little houses and larger edifices. Distant church-steeples point out the village of ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... ripe fruits, and, intoxicated by the allurements of the lower passions, fail to hear the voice of his heart! He has taken a lofty flight; the azure gates of renown have swung wide open to him. Let him only be cautious about his second descent into ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... in the horny hide of a self-conceit to be pierced by the puncture of no man's pen. It was bad enough while theorists of this breed confined themselves to the suggestion of a possible partnership with Fletcher, a possible interpolation by Jonson; but in the descent from these to the alleged adulteration of the text by Middleton and Rowley we have surely sounded the very lowest depth of folly attainable by the utmost alacrity in sinking which may yet be possible to the bastard brood of Scriblerus. For my part, I shall ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... had always aspired to be an actor. One of the first things he did after settling in Sandusky was to organize an amateur theatrical company, composed entirely of people of German birth or descent. The performances were given in the Turner Hall, in the German tongue, on a makeshift stage with improvised scenery. Frohman became the directing force in the production of Schiller's and other classic German plays, comic as ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... trouble; for it was the temporary union of two antagonistic principles. On the one hand it was said that "the man who tills the land should own it," and therefore rent was an unjust tax (in fact it was seriously argued that men of English and Scotch descent who had hired farms in the nineteenth century had a moral right to keep them for ever rent free because tribal tenure had prevailed amongst the Celts who occupied the country many hundreds of years before); ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... to cause pain, but the poor fellow's lips parted to cry out, and he gave forth an inarticulate sound caused by the sudden descent of the rolled-up pad of black silk vigorously planted in its place by the sturdy ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... always deemed a duty as well as a pleasure to study, I had, before leaving Navy Bay, attired myself in a delicate light blue dress, a white bonnet prettily trimmed, and an equally chaste shawl, the reader can sympathise with my distress. However, I gained the summit, and after an arduous descent, of a few minutes duration, reached the river-side; in a most piteous plight, however, for my pretty dress, from its contact with the Gatun clay, looked as red as if, in the pursuit of science, I had passed it through a strong ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole

... combinations to invent or translate comic passages to please a Roman audience, "now largely consisting of semi-educated men who had lost faith in their own religion, and a host of smaller people of mixed descent and nationality." We do not know enough of the older comedies to be at all sure how far they had gone in this direction, though we are certain, to use the words of Zeller,[749] that it was impossible to transplant ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... prospective duties. He was this day the consummate beau, suave, but monarchical, and his manner of speech partook of his external grandeur. 'Spy me the horizon, and apprise me if somewhere you distinguish a chariot,' he said, as they drew up on the rise of a hill of long descent, where the dusty roadway sank between its brown hedges, and crawled mounting from dry rush-spotted hollows to corn fields on a companion height directly facing them, at a remove of about three-quarters of a mile. Chloe looked forth, while the beau passingly raised his hat for coolness, and murmured, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... responsibility of the assault made by sending a hostile fleet against the harbor of Charleston, to cooeperate with the menacing garrison of Fort Sumter. After the assault was made by the hostile descent of the fleet, the reduction of Fort Sumter was a measure of defense ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... it back," faltered the culprit. He was a slender lad of twenty, with the olive skin, the curling jet-black hair, the liquid-brown eyes, which marked his descent from a southern race. The face was one of singular beauty. The curved lips, the broad brow on which the dusky hair grew low, the oval cheek and rounded chin might well have served for the impersonation of some Spanish beggar-boy or Neapolitan fisher-lad. They were of the subtilely ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... of steep descent, choked in between soaring walls of rock four hundred yards apart, innumerable crystal tons rushed down ninety feet in one magnificent plunge. You saw the long bent crest—shimmering with the changing colors of a peacock's back—smooth ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... The descent of the gully was broken, some eight feet below us, by a small ledge, sloping outward about six feet (as I guess), and screen'd by branches of the wild tamarisk. At the back, in an angle of the solid rock, was now set a pan pierced with holes, and full ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... Twice he came above the ragged timber line, with its wind-shaped army of stunted trees, and over the tiny flowers of the summit lands. At the end of the second day he came out on the edge of a precipitous descent to a prosperous grazing country below. There ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... descent, and Ned found the path he had to follow encumbered by loose gray stones, and full of gins and traps, in the shape of narrow cracks in the rock, and bramble-like canes ever ready to trip him up. However, fortunately, the trees and bushes were ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... trace of African descent in any feature of Salome Muller. She had long, straight, black hair, hazel eyes, thin lips, and a Roman nose. The complexion of her face and neck was as dark as that of the darkest brunette. It appears, however, that, during the twenty-five ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft

... Syriac recension" of Susanna, termed erroneously at one time "the Harklensian" (Speaker's Comm., p. xlvi.). The contrast in v. 56 between Israel and Canaan is made into a stinging reproach, but is hardly to be understood literally as to the Elder's family descent. ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... years Major Narcisse Vigoureux had been, for an unmarried man, an exceedingly happy one. If you ask me how an officer bearing such a name happened in command of a British garrison, I answer that he was not a Frenchman, but a Channel Islander of good Jersey descent; and this again helped him to understand the folk over whom he ruled. The wrong-doers feared him; but they were few. By the rest of the population, including his soldiers, he was beloved, respected, ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... talking against time. He told of the new world his Tao had built, of men harnessing the lightning and flying through the air; of cannon that roared like the thunder and threw death and destruction upon those that the Tao would destroy.... And his eyes watched the slow descent of the dropping sun, while the figure above stirred impatiently ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... of—such a (iyust[)i]) descent. They are called—so and so (iyust[)i]). They are shaking the road which shall never be joyful. The miserable Terrapin has come and fastened himself upon them as they go about. They have lost all strength. They have ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various

... tends. But they alone pursue true good, who rise to intelligible beauty, and so far only tend to good itself; as far as they lay aside the deformed vestments of matter, with which they become connected in their descent. Just as those who penetrate into the holy retreats of sacred mysteries, are first purified and then divest themselves of their garments, until someone by such a process, having dismissed everything foreign from the God, by himself alone, beholds the solitary ...
— An Essay on the Beautiful - From the Greek of Plotinus • Plotinus

... marriage with a man of distinction! From step to step of descent, till here was downright catastrophe. Bitter enough in itself, but most lamentable with reference to the friends of the family. How was it to be explained, this return of Amy to her home for several months, whilst her ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... by which he had ascended. Then, as he lifted her, she let herself go into his arms without resistance. He clasped her hands behind his neck, and she clung there mechanically as he made the swift descent. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... rule, rather a remarkably sure-footed person, and the lanterns of the boys threw ample light upon the steps, yet the first moment of my descent I was considerably surprised to find myself at the bottom of the first whole flight of hard marble steps! I had no recollection of a slip even—one moment I was standing, carefully prepared to descend; the next I was lying on my back at the bottom of a long flight of steps, with the link-boys ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... began another song, but she did not hear it; she was listening to footfalls in the garret above. With a presentiment of what was about to happen she sprang out of bed with a warning cry; but she was too late. There was a splash and rattle on the window-seat, a smothered curse, a quick descent, a triumphant laugh from above. Eulogia stamped her foot with rage. She cautiously raised the window and passed her hand along the outer sill. This time she beat the casement with both hands: they were ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... difficulty perched himself astride the luggage carrier, firmly grasping the rider round the middle. The machine started, but it was evidently in a bad way, for it made poor going till the descent towards the main Auchenlochan road. On the slope it warmed up and they crossed the Garple bridge at a fair pace. There was to be no pleasant April twilight, for the stormy sky had already made dusk, and in a very little the dark would fall. So sombre was the evening that Dickson did not notice ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... campaigns must have preceded the descent into Syria, and I believe this latter to have been anterior to the expedition of Assur-nirari against Arpad in 754 B.C. Assur-nirari probably tried to reconquer the tribes who had just become subject to Sharduris. The descent of this latter into Syria probably took ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... understood, presented themselves to my mind in a vague and undetermined form. I had difficulty in associating any ideas together during this headlong race, which seemed like a vertical descent. To judge by the air which was whistling past me and made a whizzing in my ears, we were moving faster than the fastest express trains. To light a torch under these' conditions would have been impossible; and our last electric apparatus had been shattered by ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... seriously undertake to solve the riddle of man's origin, and go back along the line of his descent, I doubt if we can find the point, or the form, where the natural is supplanted by the supernatural as it is called, where causation ends and miracle begins. Even the first dawn of protozoic life in the primordial seas must have been ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... Old Jack made the descent without slipping and in a few minutes the entire force stood upon the sand. They had made no sound that any one could ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... continually sounding like the murmur in the sea-shell, which, as the poets say, remembering its ancient and august abode, still murmurs as it murmured then. The water fell from a height of 150 feet; the descent was not quite unbroken. A delightful shower of spray fell for many yards outside the basin, inviting to a bath, which we exquisitely enjoyed; the basin was not more than six feet deep. I am quite delighted with this new feature. There were gorges ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... Virginia, in a dairying area in the hills. The last ten miles of the road were not the kind to attract visitors. The road was steep and narrow in places that turned sharply around the hillsides. No guardrails blocked the descent into the steep gullies. It was definitely a region for people who liked solitude. The farms that lay in the valleys of the hills were neat and well-cared for, however. The people Fenwick passed on the road didn't look like the ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... has a letter, is not only a surgeon but also the public executioner, although as yet his services have not been called into request in the latter capacity. It was his father who decapitated Sand. The Heidelberg executioner is noble by right of descent. The origin of his family's nobility is given by M. Dumas ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... from Wills Creek at daybreak of May 30,[32] with the advance unit of the army and, says Orme, "it was night before the whole baggage had got over a mountain about two miles from the camp. The ascent and descent were almost a perpendicular rock; three waggons were entirely destroyed, which were replaced from the camp; and many more were extremely shattered."[33] Braddock went out from the fort and reconnoitered this section of road. Although 300 men and the company of miners had been working ...
— Conestoga Wagons in Braddock's Campaign, 1755 • Don H. Berkebile

... this hole the Gadfly was to creep out on to the hillside, and make his way in the dark to a lonely spot where Martini and a smuggler would be waiting for him. The one great difficulty was that opportunities to unlock the gate after the evening patrol did not occur every night, and the descent from the window could not be made in very clear weather without too great a risk of being observed by the sentinel. Now that there was really a fair chance of success, it ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich

... national president, already spoken of, and standing beside her as a national figure comes Agnes Nestor, of Irish descent, and a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, upon whose slight shoulders rest alike burdens and honors. Both she bears calmly. She is a glove-worker, and the only woman president of an international union. She is both a member of the National Executive Board of the Women's Trade Union ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... in the degrees of the "Monadic Essence"— considered as an Evoluting Energy. Three stages in the elemental side; the mineral kingdom; three stages in the objective physical side—these are the seven links of the evolutionary chain. A descent of spirit into matter, equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a re-ascent from the deepest depths of materiality (the mineral) towards its status quo ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete organisms up to Nirvana—the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... author fairly gives the reins to his thoughts and fancies, and they sweep along the dizziest edges of rhetoric with a jubilant hip! hip! hurrah! We have rarely known so much daring rewarded with so much success. The critic is expecting every moment to see the author break his neck by a sudden descent from the sublime to the ridiculous, but is continually disappointed. The vigor of old Kentucky bounds in the veins and "lives along the heart" of this most stalwart and defiant Kentuckian. He charges ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... poor humanity that the very thought of it would make my heart fail were it not for the great faith that is in me. But the paper is still white, and the pen lies idle waiting for this unnerved hand to gain strength to hold it. For you must know that in my descent into this valley I have met with many a slip and fall, and have suffered the consequences: Apollyon has come forth to bar my way, and I have not done with him yet, nor he with me. I have answered all his sophistical arguments, have resisted all his temptations, and it has come to a life-and-death ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... throne. In the new reign Hertford, as the boy's uncle, was sure to play a great part; and he used his new influence to remove the only effective obstacle to his future greatness. Surrey's talk of his royal blood, the Duke's quartering of the royal arms to mark his Plantagenet descent, and some secret interviews with the French ambassador, were adroitly used to wake Henry's jealousy of the dangers which might beset the throne of his child. Norfolk and his son were alike committed to the Tower at the close of 1546. A month later Surrey was condemned ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... having with him Daedalus and other exiles from Crete for his guides; and none of the Cretans having any knowledge of his coming, but imagining, when they saw his fleet, that they were friends and vessels of their own, he soon made himself master of the port, and, immediately making a descent, reached Gnossus before any notice of his coming, and, in a battle before the gates of the labyrinth, put Deucalion and all his guards to the sword. The government by this means falling to Ariadne, he made a league with her, and received the captives of her, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... brethren, and it became a favourite amusement to lower Dickie down in a basket amongst the frogs and newts. Dickie was both small and brave, two very necessary qualities for her part, for the basket was narrow, and wobbled about a good deal in its descent; but she was used to perilous positions, and ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton

... is pointed out here, in order that women seated upon the river's bank may contemplate in it the course of their own married life, following its ascent or descent, recalling their own adventures to mind, their untold disasters, the foibles which caused their errors, and the peculiar fatalities to which were due an instant of frenzy, a moment of unnecessary despair, or sufferings which they might ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac

... with the instructions of the will, I shall, in giving the particulars of their family descent, first introduce the parentage ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... grace could be expected to be. Unfortunately, this statement involves no definition of what might be considered moral, under the circumstances. Now, there will be disagreeing estimates of what a moral character, upon which there has been no descent of heavenly grace, or where grace has not supervened to essay its recreation, or its moulding anew, should be; and there will also, I think, be divergent views as to a code of morals to be practised which shall comport with the exhibition of a reasonably seemly morality. I cannot, at least, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... the doctor had expressed it. She and the doctor had become great friends while he was taking care of her arm. He had taken a great fancy to her from the start. Sahwah had no German blood in her; she was straight Puritan descent and knew only the few words of the German language she had acquired in school, and pronounced them badly. She reminded him of nothing in the Fatherland, and he was unlike any one she had ever associated with, and yet between these two there had sprung up the warmest ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... clucked above. Sharp turns were in the trail, else it had faced an upright cliff or overshot a precipice; but it was easily followed and, at length, he was above the cedars. Here the horse trail ended, but a moccasin path went on. It turned abruptly from a sheer descent, then followed a narrow knife edge to rise again among the rocks to the last, the final height, a little rocky upland with a lonely standing rock. Here Jim turned to see the plain, to face about and gasp in sudden wonder; for the spell of the mountain seen ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Niemen had completed its mobilization early in August, and was under the command of General Rennenkampf, one of the Russian leaders in Manchuria. In command of the German forces was General von Francois, an officer of Huguenot descent. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... board of which King Olaf Tryggveson was killed in the year 1000, was called "Ormen hin lange," i.e. the long serpent.) I have observed that several English families (undoubtedly of old Scandinavian descent) at this day have ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various

... of pure descent, beholding the beautiful maiden, was pierced with Kama's (Cupid's) shafts and lost his peace of mind. Burnt with the strong flame of desire the king asked that charming maiden, still innocent, though in her full youth, saying, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... agriculture; if this is not denied, then contrast the present highways of the district through which the adopted line will pass, remembering the many steep and rugged hills, with the present much improved Rail-ways where the uniformity of ascent and descent is maintained as a principal object, and permit it to come within your calculating powers to show, what benefit it may contribute to the perfection of a science on which so much wealth and ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... on which the Hauser family were going to return to Loeche, as winter was approaching, and the descent was becoming dangerous. Three mules started first, laden with baggage and led by the three sons. Then the mother, Jean Hauser and her daughter Louise mounted a fourth mule, and set off in their turn, and the father followed ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... Britain occurred in the immediate neighbourhood of the city we call St. Albans. Here in all probability stood the oppidum or stockaded stronghold of Cassivellaunus, who was chosen to lead the tribes of South-Eastern Britain when Julius Caesar in the year 54 B.C. made his second descent on the island. We all know the story, how the Britons gave Caesar so much trouble that, when at last Roman discipline had secured the victory, he, demanding tribute and receiving hostages as guarantees for its payment, left Britain and never cared to ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... the Woggle-Bug, "my father, although of ordinary size, was a famous Bug-Wizard in his day, and claimed descent from the original protoplasm which constituted the nucleus of the present planetary satellite upon which ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum

... pronounce it unendurable. I should have thought so myself if I had had a foreshadowing of it a few years ago. But the human mind can get acclimated to anything. What with constant occupation and a happy consciousness of sustaining and cheering my poor old father in his descent to the grave, I am almost always in a state of serene contentment. In summer, my once extravagant love of beauty satisfies itself in watching the birds, the insects, and the flowers in my little patch of a garden." She has no room for her vases, engravings, and other ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... large flower-pot full of earth, which fell into the street and narrowly missed one of the Confraternity who was amongst the torch-bearers just before the crucifix. It passed so close to the torch as to extinguish the flame in its descent. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... among the guides and trappers of the southwestern wilderness; and if J.C. Fremont is not a French Canadian by birth, the strong efforts made about the time of the last Presidential election to establish him as one had at least the effect of determining his Canadian descent. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... W. ninety six yards; the base of this wall or mound is seventy-five feet, and its height about eight. It then diverges in a course S. 84 degrees W. and continues at the same height and depth to the distance of fifty-three yards, the angle being formed by a sloping descent; at the junction of these two is an appearance of a hornwork of the same height with the first angle: the same wall then pursues a course N. 69 degrees W. for three hundred yards: near its western extremity ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... completely encased in some of the straw which had been jointly contributed by the villagers; the rest of the straw was made into torches. From each side of the wheel the axle-tree projected about three feet, thus furnishing handles to the lads who were to guide it in its descent. The mayor of the neighbouring town of Sierck, who always received a basket of cherries for his services, gave the signal; a lighted torch was applied to the wheel, and as it burst into flame, two young fellows, strong-limbed and swift of foot, seized the handles and began running with it ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... never mistaken in my life. Joseph is indeed a model for the young men of the Age—He is a man of Sentiment—and acts up to the Sentiments he professes—but for the other[,] take my word for't [if] he had any grain of Virtue by descent—he has dissipated it with the rest of his inheritance. Ah! my old Friend, Sir Oliver will be deeply mortified when he finds how Part of ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan

... little distance from the dressing-room to the wings—down a flight of ill-lighted stone stairs which demanded cautious ascent and descent. Theodore had orders to obstruct the maid during her progress as much as he could without rousing ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... to go up fine!" declared Teddy, as he got down and moved the ladder away, so Jack would not use that in his descent. "If we can only make him jump now. Get ready, Trouble, to hold up the ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis

... atmosphere; in which, or between them, are produced four kinds of meteors; lightning, shooting stars, fire-balls, and northern lights. First, the lower region of air, or that which is dense enough to resist by the adhesion of its particles the descent of condensed vapour, or clouds, which may extend from one to three or four miles high. In this region the common lightning is produced from the accumulation or defect of electric matter in those floating fields of vapour ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... his mustang to the descent of the slope, and as he went down, slowly drawing nearer to the other fugitives, his mind alternated between this strange intimation of faith, this subtle uplift of hid spirit, and the growing gloom and shadow in his love for Fay Larkin. Not that he loved her less, ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... again to-day by the princes, and other chief men. In the afternoon the high-priest visited me. He was a fine-looking man—Arab by descent—with a well-developed forehead, and easy, gentlemanly bearing. He wore a sword, and was evidently looked upon with great respect by his attendants. He expressed much sympathy with our cause, and said he ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... from South Mayo tells that on the polling day a curious sight was the descent from the mountains of Partry of one hundred voters, mounted on hardy ponies, who arrived in a body at the polling station with National League cards ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... sufficient glory to De Ruyter, that, with a fleet much inferior to the combined squadrons of France and England, he could fight them without any notable disadvantage; and it was sufficient victory, that he could defeat the project of a descent in Zealand, which, had it taken place, had endangered, in the present circumstances, the total overthrow of the Dutch commonwealth. Prince Rupert was also suspected not to favor the king's projects for subduing Holland, or enlarging his authority at home; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... path of the descent to the lake was so steep and dangerous that we were forced to leave our oxen with a guide, who was to take them to Magungo, and wait for our arrival. We commenced the descent of the steep pass on foot. I led the way, grasping a stout bamboo. My wife, in extreme weakness, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... Among them are Albert the Lotharingian, after whom Lothbury is called. William "de Pontearch" and William Malet, both of whom are mentioned in histories of the Conquest, were citizens. Ansgar, the Staller, who was Portreeve the year of Hastings, appears to have been, like King Harold, of Danish descent. He was described in Edward the Confessor's great charter to Westminster Abbey as "Esgar, minister," so apparently filled several offices, as well as that of Portreeve. We begin about the same time to hear of ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... included all the inmates of a single house, or its occupants may have subdivided into lesser groups; but the presumption is in favor of the larger. Evidence has elsewhere been adduced of the existence of the organization into gentes among the Mayas, with descent in the male line, from which it may be inferred that the occupation of these houses was on the basis of gentile kinship among the families in each, the fathers and their children belonging to the same gens, and the wives and mothers to other gentes. All the facts seem to ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... Rhine and in Italy, and became finally attached to the personnel of Murat, during the occupation of the Peninsula. His title of grandson of the Marechal de Saxe was sometimes helpful, sometimes hurtful. In the eyes of his comrades it won him honor; but Napoleon, on hearing his high descent urged as a claim to consideration, is said to have replied, brusquely,—"I don't want any of those people." In his letters to his mother, he recounts his adventures, military and amorous, with frankness, but without boasting; but his confidences soon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... heauen her hye descent, Making hie Ioue the roote of her large tree; She showes from him how many god-heads went, Archangells, Angells, heauen's posteritie: From thence, she shows the glorious thrid she lent, To Monarks, Emperours, and Kyngs in fee, Annexing as Colatteralls to her line, Honour, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... not only of complete retirement, but of remoteness. Though a lonely situation, it was, however, a beautiful one. The house stood on the brow of a hill, and looked into a deep glen, through the steep descent of which ran a clear and copious rivulet rolling over a stony bed; the rocks were covered with mountain flowers, and wild shrubs—But nothing is more tiresome than a picture in prose: we shall, therefore, beg ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... its descent. Like some great flaming meteor it hurtled earthward. Down, down, down it plunged into the distant valley below. A sheet of fire trailed behind until finally it struck the earth with a crash; there was a burst of smoke and with a start the young ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay

... it was then called, Hamelsham) was the first resting place, after a ride of nearly nine miles. It was an old English settlement in the woods, which had now become the abode of a lord of Norman descent, who had built a castle, and held the town as his dependency. However, the races were no longer in deadly hostility—the knights had their liberties and rights, and so long as they paid their tribute duly, all went as well as in the olden time, before the Conquest; albeit the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... science endure only because they are bound up inseparably with the rest of the universe. It is true that in the universe itself two opposite movements are to be distinguished, as we shall see later on, "descent" and "ascent." The first only unwinds a roll ready prepared. In principle, it might be accomplished almost instantaneously, like releasing a spring. But the ascending movement, which corresponds to an inner work of ripening or creating, endures essentially, and imposes its rhythm on the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... these earliest disciples the belief in the resurrection of Jesus presented itself as a needful guarantee of his Messiahship. Their faith, which must have been shaken by his execution and descent into Sheol, received welcome confirmation by the springing up of the belief that he had been again seen upon the face of the earth. Applying the imagery of Daniel, it became a logical conclusion that he must have ascended into the sky, whence he might shortly be expected to make his ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... scene of their perfidious operations. Actuated by the force of these reflections, Lord Nelson sent to apprize the Ottoman Porte, as well as the Commandant of Coron, that the Toulon fleet had sailed, having a considerable number of troops on board, with the probable intention of making a descent either on the Morea or on Egypt. He also dispatched, on the 25th, the Seahorse to Naples, and Le Tigre to Palermo, with similar intimations. Next day, the Phoebe joined the fleet; who had, on the l9th, seen a French eighty-gun ship get into Ajaccio, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison

... operations in such a country, where the mere keeping a few miles of road in repair requires the constant work of several men. If coal of sufficiently good quality should be found, a tramroad would be made, and would be very easily worked, owing to the regular descent of ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... 50: But one born.—Ver. 447. This was Octavius, the adopted son of Julius Caesar. According to Suetonius, he traced his descent, through his ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... breastwork with the other, and afraid to move; for, to my horror, tramp, tramp came the sound of the approaching sentry to my loft. The perspiration began to ooze out on my face and temples now, and I prepared for a rapid descent, fully expecting the man would see the rope, stop, and, under the impression that I was one of the Boers trying to get into the fort by escalade, would strike me from my hold with the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... not proud nor arrogant; no murmurer. Above all, he must be charitable, and by two maravedis given cheerfully to the poor he shall display as much generosity as the rich man who bestows large alms by sound of bell. Of such a man no one would doubt his honorable descent, and general applause wall be the sure reward of ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... when we were together by appointment, at Saint-Cloud, seated upon the balustrade of the orangery, which covers the descent into the wood of the goulottes, the Regent spoke again to me of the Mississippi, and pressed me to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... spring news came of a great force of British which was being organized in Canada for a descent upon New York through Lake Champlain. Frontier settlers in Tryon County were being ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... closed his telescope and without a word mounted his horse. Where the descent into the second valley began he paused again. To the north through the haze of the morning sun gleamed the snow-capped peaks of the Saw Tooth Range. Apparently not more than an hour's ride distant rose a huge ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... And like a true-grown huntsman sought to speed Myself with hounds of rare and choicest breed, Whose names and natures ere I further go, Because you are my friends, I'll let you know. My first esteemed dog that I did find, Was by descent of old Actaeon's kind; A brach, which if I do not aim amiss, For all the world is just like one of his: She's named Love, and scarce yet knows her duty; Her dam's my lady's pretty beagle Beauty, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... moment up goes the opposite empty seat, and down goes the equestrian between the horse's feet.... In descending, it is still worse; because there is more hurry, more impatience, on arriving at the end of a journey; and an injudicious descent does not visit its effects upon one but upon both travelers; for unless the person who descends be extremely quick in his motions, his seat flies up before he has quite left it, and oversets him, and the opposite weight, of course, goes plump to the ground,—with ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... upwards. Hobhouse went to the highest pinnacle; I did not, but paused within a few yards (at an opening of the cliff.) In coming down, the guide tumbled three times; I fell a laughing, and tumbled too—the descent luckily soft, though steep and slippery; Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various

... God, i.e., is God, (2) that this Word really became man and (3) that the incarnate Word is an inseparable unity. Irenaeus maintains the first statement as well against the "Ebionites" as against the Valentinians who thought that Christ's advent was the descent of one of the many aeons. In opposition to the Ebionites he emphasises the distinction between natural and adopted Sonship, appeals to the Old Testament testimony in favour of the divinity of Christ,[580] and moreover argues that we would still be in the bondage of ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... the foot of the hill. Part of the time the wheels were off the ground, some of the time it was the heifer, but it seemed to me it was the boy who filled air space the greater portion of the period consumed in the descent. This mishap created great consternation not only among the representatives of Uncle Sam, but among the people who had just left the boat. It was my first encounter with the United States Army ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... you your country, I must next, my dear Captain Clutterbuck, make free to mention your own immediate descent. You are not to suppose your land of prodigies so little known to us as the careful concealment of your origin would seem to imply. But you have it in common with many of your country, studiously and anxiously to hide any connexion with it. There ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and was about to cross the marsh, she {55} saw in a vision how the Saviour of the world was to be suspended on that tree, and so would not walk over it. It was buried in the earth on the spot where the Pool of Bethesda was afterward made, so that it was not only the descent of the angel, but the virtues of the buried wood, which gave to the water its healing qualities. At the time of the passion the wood rose and floated on the surface. The Jews took it to make the ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester

... The long descent from the stand gave him time. No trace of emotion showed on his face when he appeared in the paddock. Blacksmith the trainer stood ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her haste to come at him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a rather pale and large- eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful house, with no other ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of his history since I had traced his descent from Abyssinia and King David, whose hair was as straight as my own, Rumanika dwelt on my theological disclosures with the greatest delight, and wished to know what difference existed between the Arabs and ourselves; to which Baraka replied, as the best means of making him ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... she would have to undergo. Then in one breath, without pausing, with cutting words that lashed the pallid face of the royal rake, and striped it red as with a whip, she recalled one after the other all his follies, his rapid descent from pleasure to vice, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... a cartridge placed in the cavity in the cap on top of the pile; the cartridge is exploded by the fall, and in the act of explosion drives down the pile and raises the monkey; during its ascent, and before the completion of its descent, time is found for the removal of the empty cartridge and the insertion of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... U.B.43 for nine months, and seems a capable officer. Socially, I don't think he can boast of much descent, but he has no airs, and treats me with pleasing respect, ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon

... early preaching betrayed the proximity of the theatres, but was for that very reason admirably seasoned to attract his listeners. If he ever did slide down the rail of his pulpit-stairs, as reported, in order to dramatize the swift descent of the soul into iniquity, and then painfully climb up again to show its difficult return, the action was received, doubtless, in its full ethical import, and shook the suburban heart. His blunt and ordinary language, sinning frequently ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... number of lemons in my skirt, I was making a most ungraceful descent, when I heard an unknown ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... trundle to the summit of a sloping pass, and then a winding descent of several miles brings me to a position commanding a view of an extensive valley that looks from this distance as lovely as a dreamy vision of Paradise. An hour later and I am bowling along beneath overhanging ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... behind them some straggling families. The abundant later growth of the Catholic Church in that region was to be from other seed and stock. The region of Louisiana alone, destined a generation later to be included within the boundaries of the great republic, retained organized communities of French descent and language; but, living as they were in utter unbelief and contempt of religion and morality, it would be an unjust reproach on Catholicism to call them Catholic. The work of the gospel had got ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... the decline of life stand somewhat apart from others, and are governed by other motives. What men chiefly seek in them is a guiding hand to lead them gently down the last descent of life. ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... inherited, or taken by descent, from an ancestor. 3. Sat'ed, surfeited, glutted. Hinds, peasants, countrymen. 5. Ad-judged', decided, determined. 8. Be-nign' (pro. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... and valuable presents to Captain Clerke. Amongst the former, were some fish-hooks, which they assured us were made of the bones of our old friend Terreeoboo's father, who had been killed in an unsuccessful descent upon the island of Woahoo; and a fly-flap, presented to him by the prince's sister, the handle of which was a human bone, that had been given her as a trophy by her father-in-law. Young Teavee was not of the company, being engaged, as we were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... to lose. The captain stepped back on to the top round of the ladder, took her in his arms, and began as rapid a descent as was possible ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... Montcalm by descents at different places, twelve hundred men were embarked in transports under the command of general Murray, who made two vigorous, but unsuccessful attempts, to land on the northern shore. In the third he was more fortunate. In a sudden descent on Chambaud, he burnt a valuable magazine filled with military stores, but was still unable to accomplish the main object of the expedition. The ships were secured in such a manner as not to be approached by the fleet or army. Murray was recalled; and on his return brought with him the intelligence ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... thoroughly mean herself, but if Emily had done anything mean, it would positively have shaken her faith and trust in Goodness itself. It would actually have been bad for her, and there is no saying how much lower she might have declined, if one of the few persons she believed in had made a descent. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... ashamed!" she said but yielded to his embrace, and the long kiss they exchanged before these people, amid the sickening odor of the soiled linen and the alcoholic fumes of his breath, was the first downward step in the slow descent of their degradation. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... a careless eye. He rode very slowly; and his steed, with the licence of a spoiled favourite, often halted lazily in his sultry path, as a tuft of herbage, or the bough of some overhanging tree, offered its temptation. At length, as he thus paused, a noise was heard in a copse that clothed the descent of a steep mountain; and the horse started suddenly back, forcing the traveller from his reverie. He looked mechanically upward, and beheld the figure of a man bounding through the trees, with rapid and irregular steps. It was a form that suited well the silence and solitude of the ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... and, amid the sound of bells and the cracking of whips, the carriage reached the national road from Paris to Beauvais, which, from Montsoult, passes around the railway by a rapid descent, from the summit of which is visible, on the right, the Chateau of Franconville; on the left, the village of Nerville perched ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... Coverleys, and hoped I liked the conversation of so much good company who were as silent as myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures, and as he is a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account of them. We were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the knight faced toward one of the pictures, and as we stood before it, he entered into ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various

... for a time and then went shuffling off down Park Row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd he felt relief, and as if he were at last in his own country. He began to see tatters that matched his tatters. In Chatham Square there were aimless men strewn in front of saloons ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... of the port-lock quickly, and swung inner and outer doors open. He glided through, and then, a giant, clumsy figure, poised far out in the air, a soft breeze washing his face as he gazed down at the hill five miles below, judging his descent. As he did not use the infra-red instrument hanging from his neck, the asteroid might not have been there ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... now attack Frank, as he thought of the descent of a heavy man by the frail rope. If it had been he who was to go down, it would have been different, and he would have felt ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn

... his sight, And to all creatures seemed to be The self-existent deity. All heroes, versed in holy lore, To all mankind great love they bore. Fair stores of wisdom all possessed, With princely graces all were blest. But mid those youths of high descent, With lordly light preeminent, Like the full moon unclouded shone Rama, the world's dear paragon. He best the elephant could guide, Urge the fleet car, the charger ride— A master he of bowman's skill, Joying to do his father's will. The ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... study of the organization of societies, units of different orders are discovered. Among the tribes of the Siouan family the primary unit is the clan or gens, which is composed of a number of consanguinei, claiming descent from a common ancestor and having common taboos; the term clan implying descent in the female line, while gens implies descent in the male line. Among the Dakota, as among the cegiha and other groups, the man is the head of ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey

... from an Alpine lake, lying on the western side of the Bolor chain in lat. 37 deg. 40', long. 73 deg. 50'. After a rapid descent from the high elevation of the lake, during which it pursues a somewhat serpentine course, it debouches from the hills upon the plain about long. 69 deg. 20', after receiving the river of Fyzabad, and then proceeds, first west and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... the ridge until we were about opposite the camp. Here we dismounted and tied our horses in a thicket of firs. Silently, almost as shadows, we moved up the ridge and crossing over the crest began the descent through the woods, the moccasined feet of our dusky allies falling noiselessly upon the pine quills. We almost held our breath, lest the least noise, the accidental breaking of a twig, should startle the enemy. Though this was to be my first real Indian fight, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... home in high good humor with himself. He felt that he was a conqueror born, that such things of his desire as did not come could be forced to come. He no longer regarded his passion for the nebulous girl of many personalities as a descent from dignity. Was he not king? Did not his favor give her whatever rank he pleased? Might not a king pick and choose, according to his fancy? Let the smaller fry grow nervous about these matters of caste. ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... should know his preferences and prejudices. If you learn what colors and patterns are most favored in the "Little Italy" of your city, you may be able to employ this bit of knowledge to help you very much in influencing your fellow-residents of Italian descent. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... was no longer to be counted with the living, Orpheus went down to the world of the dead, not going now by that steep descent through the valley of Acherusia, but going down straightway. The silent watchers let him pass, and he went amongst the dead and saw his Eurydice in the throng. Again they were together, Orpheus and ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... have followed Apuleius in giving a symbolic name to the heroine of the tale, in order to suggest its relation to the classical folk-tale of Cupid and Psyche, but not of course to indicate that it is in any sense mythological. The Descent-to-hell incident, which is found both in the classical and in the modern European forms and therefore in my reconstruction is only, after all, the application of a common form to the notion of difficult Tasks, which is of ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... morning to the harbour, and seeing some flat-bottomed boats constructing, asked a French gentleman who accompanied me, perhaps a little triumphantly, if they were intended for a descent on the English coast. He replied, with great composure, that government might deem it expedient (though without any views of succeeding) to sacrifice ten or twenty thousand men in the attempt.—It is no ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... Supreme Judges, twelve relicts of Governors and Generals, and twenty-two ruins left by various happy Colonels, Professors, and Majors, who valued their aristocratic worth from $90 to $900 per week, with weak-kneed hash and dried apples on the side. I admire people of fine descent, but my stomach yearns for pork and beans instead of culture. Am ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... instance of this popular feeling occurred last week, at a large sale in Howard county. The late proprietor, an Irishman by descent, belonging to one of the old Roman Catholic families that have been territorial magnates here for generations, had a great fancy for dividing his land into small holdings, rented by men of proportionately small means, so as to establish a sort of English tenant-system, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... rising behind, with crests already bare. Her eyes were misty as she drove through the familiar village street, past the blacksmith's shop, where Sol Short waved a second good-by with a glowing bar of steel caught from the forge, on towards the Pass and the descent,—it was a haven of peace, this hillside village! Within that circle of snowy hills, in the silent beauty of the Northern winter, she had lived more, lived deeper, than anywhere else in the world. But she should not come back,—there would be no place ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... his sepulchre, one of the most mutable and unreasonable saints in the Calendar. He died A. D. 688, in a hermitage upon the Farne Islands, having resigned the bishopric of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, about two years before. {1} His body was brought to Lindisfarne, where it remained until a descent of the Danes, about 793, when the monastery was nearly destroyed. The monks fled to Scotland, with what they deemed their chief treasure, the relics of St. Cuthbert. The Saint was, however, a most capricious fellow-traveller; which was the more intolerable, ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... 'poached game is always high. The pearls in that watch are costly because it's worth a man's life to get at them. You want me to be your pearl diver. Be it so. You must guarantee me a safe descent,—it's a descent, you know—ha!—you must furnish me the armor of safety; a little gap to breathe through while I'm at my work—the thought of a ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... that the extremity of each punch comes within about one twenty-fifth of an inch of the fabric to be dotted. In this passage of the tube, d, a small rod, i, connected by a lever with the plunger, f, is made to abut against the guide, e, thus causing the descent of the plunger to a sufficient degree to push the velvet "dot" out of the tube and to glue it upon the fabric. The manner in which these operations are performed being now well enough understood, let us for a moment examine the motions of the fabrics to be cut and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various

... a judge, proving himself to possess considerable knowledge of the common law as well as of equity. He died in London on the 15th of February 1899. He married in 1858 Clara Jessie, daughter of Chief Baron Pollock, and left children who could thus claim descent from two of the best-known English legal families of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... forced to speak) of the relationships of plants, we use no metaphor, but state an actual fact; that the groups into which we are forced to arrange them indicate not merely similarity of type, but community of descent— then how wonderful is the kindred between the Spurge and the Hura— indeed, between all the members of the Euphorbiaceous group, so fantastically various in outward form; so abundant, often huge, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... conception; passed a rock bearing an inscription; two brothers, one murdered the other; just the place for it. After a variety of windings, came to an enormous rock; arrived at the foot of the mountain (the Jungfrau) glaciers; torrents, one of these nine hundred feet, visible descent; lodge at the curate's; set out to see the valley; heard an avalanche fall like thunder; glaciers; enormous storm comes on thunder and lightning and hail, all in perfection and beautiful. The torrent is in shape, curving over ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... probably known in Ireland from a very early time, but it had spread over all western Europe by the twelfth century. Henry of Saltrey, a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of that name in England, wrote an account in Latin of the descent of an Irish soldier named Owen into Saint Patrick's Purgatory in 1153; and this story soon became the subject of poetic treatment all over Europe. We have several French versions, one by the celebrated French poetess ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... whole account of the descent to Hades what else does he show but that souls survive after death, and when they drink blood can speak. For he knows that blood is the food and drink of the spirit, but spirit is the same thing as soul or the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... which the Lover is subject; the blast, like the blast of the desert, which sweeps perennially through a frightful solitude of its own making in the mind of the Gamester; the slowly quickening, but ever quickening, descent of appetite down which the Miser is propelled; the agony and cleaving oppression of grief; the ghost-like hauntings of shame; the incubus of revenge; the life-distemper of ambition ... these demonstrate incontestably that the passions of men, (I mean the soul of sensibility ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... treated by the whites, and it would really seem that the way in which Spain has gone to the dogs is a punishment for her cruelties in South America and the Islands. It may be said that from the very moment when the gold began to flow the descent of Spain commenced; in spite of the enormous wealth she acquired she fell gradually from her position as the greatest power ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... cultured voice, and refined withal, nor could his fastidious ear detect the faintest trace of provincialism or vulgarity about it. The intonation was perfect. There is nothing so quick to betray to the sensitive ear any strain of plebeian descent as the voice, and of this no one was more thoroughly aware than Laurence Stanninghame. This man, he decided, was of ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... along the snow-covered ridge, taunting him with merry laughter as she left him clambering in cautious descent down the rock. Jan followed in pursuit, shouting to her in French, in Cree, and in English, and their two voices echoed happily in ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... certain simple yet noble generalizations of physics. We readily recognise the fact that when a hammer falls often on an anvil it heats itself and the metal on which it strikes. Those who have been able to observe the descent of meteoric stones from the heavens have remarked that when they came to the earth they were, on their surfaces at least, exceedingly hot. Any one may observe shining meteors now and then flashing in the sky. These are known commonly to be very ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... his ability to use firearms, and besides, this pistol at that price was a great bargain, and any of the boys might pick it up. Poor Hughie! He did not know how ancient was that argument, nor how frequently it had done duty in smoothing the descent to the lower regions. The pistol was good to look at, the opportunity of securing it was such as might not occur again, and as for the half-dollar, there could be no harm in borrowing that for ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... the descent, holding the cross aloft, chanting solemnly; his Indians, to whom he had given a swift signal, following and lifting up their voices likewise. The mountain on this side was bare, as if from fire, the incline shorter ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... not aforetime been vexed with them in this very New England? For I almost justify Mather's words, when he stigmatizes the necromancy of his day as 'a terrible Plague of Evil Angels,' or, in still plainer speech, as 'a prodigious descent of devils upon divers places near the centre of this Province.' And how better can we characterize this confused and distracting babblement which gives no good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... only a fisherman, and in his youth lacked opportunities for acquiring knowledge or refinement. If Mary and Salome were sisters, the blood of David's line was in John as well as in Jesus. It is something to have back of one's birth a long and noble descent. Besides, John was one of those rare men "who appear to be formed of finer clay than their neighbors, and cast in a gentler mould." Evidently he was by nature a man of sympathetic spirit, one ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller



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