"Axis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Forest repose in a basin-like form, the greatest depression being near the centre; the longer axis extending from N. to S. about eleven miles, and the transverse axis, in the widest part, ranging from E. to W. about seven miles. The general observer, if he takes his stand on the edge of hills by which this basin is bounded, will see the enclosing character of the ridge, as ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... other instincts that rule the animal creation. But of all the most numerous are the men, who have ever more their own dearliest beloved self, as the only or main goal or butt of their endeavours straight and steady before their eyes, and whose whole inner world turns on the great axis of self-interest. These form the majority, if not of mankind, yet of those by whom the business of life is carried on; and most expedient it is, that so it should be; nor can we imagine any thing ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates are used in this report. The first three digits refer to a point on an east- west axis, and the second three digits refer to a point on a north-south axis. The point so designated is the southwest corner of an area 100 ...
— Project Trinity 1945-1946 • Carl Maag and Steve Rohrer
... church, and built new foundations for the right wing only. His architect seems to have been rather negligent in his measurements, because the tomb of S. Peter did not correspond exactly with the axis of the nave, and was not in the centre of the apse, being ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... everything seemed likely to get crowded out with the young folks at Outledge but dresses, characters, and rehearsals. The swivel the earth turned on at this moment was the coming Tuesday evening and its performance. And the central axis of that, to nearly every individual interest, was what such particular individual was ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... that we employ at the present day. He also discerned how this mighty globe was isolated in space. He admitted that the diurnal movement of the heavens could be accounted for by the revolution of the earth upon its axis, but unfortunately he assigned reasons for the deliberate rejection of this view. The earth, according to him, was a fixed body; it possessed neither rotation round an axis nor translation through space, but remained constantly at rest in what he supposed to be the centre of the universe. According ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have the resolution ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... movement people must slip off. But then what held it in the air? Cousin Chilian had a globe, but you see there was a strong wire through the middle, fastened to the frame at both ends. Perhaps the earth was fastened somewhere! She liked to make it revolve on its axis, and in imagination she crossed the oceans, and seas, and capes, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the schoolroom globe from its brass axis: "I'm sorry, too," he said; "but I'm tired of lessons. Now, Mrs. Farren, watch me! I'm going to kick a goal from the field. Here, you hold it, Geraldine; Mrs. Farren, you had better try to block it and cheer ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... another little plaything, the thaumatrope. Dr. Paris had invented it in 1827. It shows two pictures, one on the front, one on the rear side of a card. As soon as the card is quickly revolved about a central axis, the two pictures fuse into one. If a horse is on one side and a rider on the other, if a cage is on one and a bird on the other, we see the rider on the horse and the bird in the cage. It cannot ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... there, our blood running cold with unspeakable terror. The fireball, half of it white, half azure blue, and the size of a ten-inch shell, moved slowly about the raft, but revolving on its own axis with astonishing velocity, as if whipped round by the force of the whirlwind. Here it comes, there it glides, now it is up the ragged stump of the mast, thence it lightly leaps on the provision bag, descends with a light bound, and ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... came across old Shuffler, the house-agent, waddling along, with his sound eye rolling buoyantly on its axis, while the artificial orb glared steadily forward in a ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... caution and deliberation, I put my hands behind my back and unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my pantaloons. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however, after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle and was glad to find them remain firm in that position. Holding with my teeth the instrument thus obtained, I proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat; it was at length accomplished. ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... on which is a large cast iron reservoir, capable of holding some thousand gallons of water, for the use of the prison. This reservoir is filled by means of forcing pump machinery below, connected with the principal axis which works the machinery of the mill; this axis or shaft passes under the pavement of the several yards, and working by means of universal joints, at every turn communicates with the tread wheel of ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... chariot-races held in the Hippodrome, now the At Meidan, to the west of the mosque of Sultan Ahmed. So much did the race-course (begun by Severus but completed by Constantine) enter into the life of the people that it has been styled "the axis of the Byzantine world." It was not only the scene of amusement, but on account of its ample accommodation it was also the arena of much of the political life of the city. The factions, which usually contended there in sport, often gathered there in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... and lessened towards its central core, revolving rapidly on its great axis, the solar mist left behind at irregular intervals concentric rings or belts of cloud-like matter, cast off from its equator; which belts, once more undergoing a similar evolution on their own account, have hardened round their private centres of ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... slightly displaced bone, an indurated muscle, or other organ, may produce an excess of blood in one part of the body, thereby causing a deficiency in some other part. A dislocated member will generally show alteration in the form of the joint and axis of the limb; loss of power and proper motion; increased length or shortening of the limb; prominence at one point and depression at another; greatly impaired circulation, and pain due to the obstruction of nerve force in the ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... comes like a great river athwart the plain of our personal and egoistic schemes, a great river with its rapids, with its deep and silent places, a river of uncertain droughts, a river of overwhelming floods, a river no one who would escape drowning may afford to ignore. Moreover, it is the very axis and creator of our world valley, the source of all our power in life, and the irrigator of all things. In the microcosm of each individual, as in the microcosm of the race, this flood is a ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... it would not. Because, very suddenly and very abruptly, there was something the matter with the Plumie ship. The life went out of it. It ceased to accelerate or decelerate. It ceased to steer. It began to turn slowly on an axis somewhere amidships. Its nose swung to one side, with no change in the direction of its motion. It floated onward. It was broadside to its line of travel. It continued to turn. It hurtled stern-first toward the Niccola. It did not swerve. It did ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... supply of pure water is that for the boiler feed, and the condensed steam is pumped directly back to the boiler, as shown in Fig. 48, the delivery from the condensed-water pumps may be carried to an elevation 10 feet above the axis of the glands, where a tank should be provided of sufficient capacity that the water may have time to cool considerably before being used. In most of these cases, if so desired, the oil-cooling water may come from the circulating pumps of the condenser, provided there is sufficient pressure ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... described above in all respects except size, and peculiarities of ground plan attendant on size. The rooms are always rectangular, generally oblong, and arranged without regularity as regards their longer axis. Except the one last described, the ruins consist of compact masses of rooms, without evidences of interior courts, all of very small size, and all located without reference to defense. The last-described ruin differs from the others only in the arrangement of rooms. There ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... would bend to make wicker-ware; at least, none yet found out: and as to the wheel-barrow, I fancied I could make all but the wheel, but that I had no notion of; neither did I know how to go about it: besides, I had no possible way to make iron gudgeons for the spindle or axis of the wheel to run in; so I gave it over: and, for carrying away the earth which I dug out of the cave, I made me a thing like a hod, which the labourers carry mortar in for the brick-layers. This was not so difficult ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... wires A and B are clamped separately below, we may impart a sudden molecular disturbance to either A or B by giving a quick to-and-fro (torsional) vibration round the vertical wire, as axis, by means of the handle. As the wire A is separate from B, disturbance of one will not affect the other. Vibration of A produces a current in one direction, vibration of B in the opposite direction. Thus we have means of verifying every experiment by obtaining corroborative ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... sketches published prior to this work were merely founded on episodes, catastrophes, or descriptive passages from the author's rich store of material. They certainly conveyed the essence of the life of his characters. They disclosed the axis of these people's existence. But they are seldom free from a certain tiresome impressionism—and often make quite undue pretensions. The didactic is too obvious. Gorki is not always satisfied with saying, here is a bit of life. ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... reed or cane, about 14 inches long, possessing the usual six finger-holes. The top end is not stopped with a cork, as in the ordinary Flute, but is thinned off to a feather edge, leaving a sharp circular ring at right angles to the axis of the bore. By blowing across this ring a fair but somewhat feeble ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... three large tombs of the natives, of an oval shape and about twelve feet in the greater axis. Each stood in the centre of an artificial hollow, the mound, or tomb in the middle, being about five feet high; and on each of them were piled numerous withered branches and limbs of trees, no inappropriate ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... plateau-lands, and enter the ocean through deep lateral gorges, formed at some ancient period of elevation and disturbance, when the containing chains were subject to transverse fractures." All four head in the region of tropical rains, the home of the negro proper, extending 35deg. along the major axis of the continent, between Lake Chad (north latitude 14deg. to 15deg.), and the Noka a Batletle or Hottentot Lake, known to the moderns as Ngami (south latitude 20deg. to 21deg.). Consequently all ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the better, the worse,— The glowing angel, the outcast corse. Thou metest him by centuries, And lo! he passes like the breeze; Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, He hides in pure transparency; Thou askest in fountains and in fires, He is the essence that inquires. He is the axis of the star; He is the sparkle of the spar; He is the heart of every creature; He is the meaning of each feature; And his mind is the sky. Than all it holds more deep, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... obliquely, with the fins of the screw as it mounted on an inclined plane. These fins, or arms, are in reality wings, but wings disposed as a helix instead of as a paddle wheel. The helix advances in the direction of its axis. Is the axis vertical? Then it moves vertically. Is the axis horizontal? Then it ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... and purple beds of Lower Cambrian age at Bray Head, Wicklow, Ireland, some very remarkable fossils, which are well known under the name of Oldhamia, but the true nature of which is very doubtful. The commonest form of Oldhamia (fig. 29) consists of a thread-like stem or axis, from which spring at regular intervals bundles of short filamentous branches in a fan-like manner. In the locality where it occurs, the fronds of Oldhamia are very abundant, and are spread over the surfaces of the strata in tangled ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... began to feel weight. The ship was going into rotation. The feeling increased until he felt normally heavy again. There was no other sensation, even though the space cruiser was now spinning on its axis through space at unaltered speed. The centrifugal force produced by the spinning gave them an ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... that the sun is stationary; that the planets revolve around the sun, and that the apparent revolution of the heavens is caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis,—a system now generally received and acknowledged, was persecuted nearly to death. I found, only twenty years ago, a sect of people in Wisconsin, who still disbelieved this great fact, that the ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... attempt to portray the poignant sufferings of the count, who, in spite of his wiliness and worldliness, was passionately attached to his only child,—the central axis upon which all his hopes, his schemes, his ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... but are complementary. He does not turn his eyes to God who has not turned them on himself, and seen there nothing to which to cling, nothing on which to lean. Astronomers tell us that there are double stars revolving round one axis and forming a unity, of which the one is black and the other brilliant. Self-distrust and trust in God are thus knit ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... have again been permitted to associate in our representative character, from the different sections of this Union, to pour into one common stream, the afflictions, the prayers, and sympathies of our oppressed people; the axis of time has brought around this glorious, annual event. And we are again brought to rejoice that the wisdom of Divine Providence has protected us during a year whose autumnal harvest has been a reign ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... for the day, resolving on the morrow to try our luck by digging a deep hole in the garden at the spot which we thought was the axis of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... his voice cleared his mind and strengthened his resolve. It was odd how the word seemed to shape the act, though one knew how ancillary it really was. As he talked, it was as if the globe had swung around, and he himself were upright on its axis, with Mr. Spence underneath, on his head. Through the ensuing interchange of concise and rapid speech there sounded in Millner's ears the refrain to which he had walked down Fifth Avenue after his first talk with ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the outer distance it involved his personal emotions less, while observation was enabled to compass its vastness, and, as it were, perceive the whole spherical mass of the wretched girl's guilt impudently turning on its axis. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... increase of velocity becomes more striking. In converting cast into wrought-iron, a mass of metal, of about a hundredweight, is heated almost to white heat, and placed under a heavy hammer moved by water or steam power. This is raised by a projection on a revolving axis; and if the hammer derived its momentum only from the space through which it fell, it would require a considerably greater time to give a blow. But as it is important that the softened mass of red-hot iron should receive as many blows as possible before it cools, the form of the cam or projection ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... distant hills not only do not appear to move backward, but look by contrast with the fences near at hand as if they were moving forward, or to the left; and thus the whole landscape becomes a mighty wheel revolving about an imaginary axis somewhere ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... mosquitoes with that splendid spectacular of the Grand Rapids at our feet? The great flood (Kitchee Abowstik) is divided into two channels by an island probably half a mile in length, with its long axis parallel to the flow of the river, and this island solves the question of progress. The main channel to the left is impassable; it is certain death that way. Between the island and the right shore is a passage which on ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... The structure, whose axis is nearly always vertical and whose orifice faces upwards so as not to let the honey escape, varies a little in shape according to the supporting base. When set on a horizontal surface, it rises ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... for across the great globe upon which were traced the records of his four unsuccessful expeditions lay the body of Colman Hoyt. He was a heavy man, and he had evidently flung himself at his full weight upon the sharp, arrow-pointed rod that served as the axis of this miniature world; it had pierced to his very heart. The North Pole-at last ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the space between should, of course, not be too small, certainly not less than, say, five centimetres, but much more if possible; especially the two sides of the zinc box, which are at right angles to the axis of the coil, should be sufficiently remote from the latter, as otherwise they might impair its action and be a ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... introduction into practical and general use of Reaping Machines, I have remedied by my improvements, the nature of which consists in placing the driving wheels further back than heretofore, and back of the gearing which communicates motion to the sickle, which is placed in a line back of the axis of the driving wheel, the connexion being formed, etc., and also bringing the driving wheel sufficiently far back to balance the frame of the machine with the raker on it, to make room for him to sit or stand on the frame," etc., etc.—"which cannot be done, if the ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... it is desirable to replace the colored lines indicating the constructions, the axis, projections, etc., by differently punctuated lines made with India ink. However, if the use of colors be obligatory on the original design, one should trace the red lines with very thick vermilion or sienna, the yellow lines with gamboge, and the blue ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... common sights of these parts are the whirlwinds—the tourbillons,—each revolving with terrific rapidity round its own axis and raising to the sky a cylindrical column of dust. They further move along the country in a spasmodic manner, but never so fast that they cannot be avoided. The diameter of the wind columns I observed by the dust carried with it, varied from 3 ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the anterior portion of the labyrinth. It consists of a bony and gradually tapering canal, about one and a half inches in length, which makes two turns and a half, spirally, around a central axis, called the mo-di'o-lus. The modiolus is large near its base, where it corresponds with the first turn of the cochlea, and diminishes in ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... I read books, Or write more verse—or turn fond looks Upon enamels blue, sea-green, And white—on insects rare as seen Upon my Dresden china ware? Or shall I touch the globe, and care To make the heavens turn upon Its axis? No, not one—not one Of all these things care I to do; All wearies me—I think of you. In truth with you my sunshine fled, And gayety with your light tread— Glad noise that set me dreaming still. 'Twas ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... and left handed, are cut upon the cut-off valve stem itself, which must be so connected with the eccentric rod as to admit of being turned; and in most cases the valve stem extends through both ends of the steam chest, so that it must both slide endwise and turn upon its axis in two stuffing boxes, necessarily of comparatively ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... of confidence to pick up an education. For instance, the fact that I was allowed to roam in the various rooms in the evenings permitted me to observe, among other things, how the earth revolved on its axis. I often proved this fact by tapping a large globe with my paw and watching Africa chase Asia and Asia in turn pursue America as it turned ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe
... not necessary to go any lower," I said. "From what I was able to observe during the equinoctial tides, I should think that we are in the axis ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... a single instance. Science informs us that the sun is ninety-five millions of miles distant from, and 111 times broader than, the earth; that we and all the planets revolve round it; and that it revolves on its own axis in 25 days, 14 hours and 4 minutes. With all this, art has nothing whatsoever to do. It has no care to know anything of this kind. But the things which it does care to know, are these: that in the heavens God hath set a tabernacle for the sun, "which is as a bridegroom ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... as well as you can the task on hand, and the next step will become clear;" on the other hand—A man must not only be able to work but to give over working.... If a man wait till he has entirely brushed off his imperfections, he will spin for ever on his axis, advancing no whither.... The French Revolution stands pretty fair in my head, nor do I mean to investigate much more about it, but to splash down what I know in large masses of colours, that it may look like a smoke-and-flame conflagration in ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... ten degrees backward." Here it is manifest that to human vision the sun, and with it the shadow, went backward ten degrees. How this was accomplished we need not attempt to determine. We are not shut up to the supposition that the earth was turned back on her axis ten degrees, nor that the rays of the sun were miraculously deflected ten degrees (which would change his apparent position in the heavens ten degrees), nor to any other particular hypothesis. If God chose that the sun should to human vision ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... framework of the planes consisted of hollow rods made of an aluminum alloy of high tensile strength, and the canvas stretched over the frames was laced with wire of the same material. To stiffen the planes, a bracket was clamped at the axis, and thin wire stays were strung top and bottom, as the masts of a yacht are supported. The airman was in some degree protected from the wind by a strong talc screen, also wire-laced; by means of this, and a light radiator worked by ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... animal, he will perceive not only all the particulars I have mentioned, viz., the heart becoming erect, and making one continuous motion with its auricles; but farther, a certain obscure undulation and lateral inclination in the direction of the axis of the right ventricle, as if twisting itself slightly in performing its work. And indeed everyone may see, when a horse drinks, that the water is drawn in and transmitted to the stomach at each movement of the throat, which movement produces a sound and yields a pulse both to the ear and the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... an inexpressible weight such a silence adds to isolation! And yet it is not an unbroken silence, for then a shrill and harsh sound seems to grate upon the ear. It is as if in this muteness of nature, one could hear the motion of the earth on its axis; then, above his head, in the depths of immensity, the whirling of the celestial spheres and myriads of worlds which gravitate in space. Thought becomes troubled and exhausted before this overwhelming and terrible immobility, and the man who, at such a moment, cannot have recourse to his kind, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... of the mezzanine floor, of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth floors; these plans were coloured. Further, in plain black and white, there were a plan of the roof (with tower), a longitudinal section on the central axis, two other sections, three elevations, and a perspective view of the entire edifice. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... may, perhaps, wish to model an apple, peach, or plum, to place in the hands of some mounted object, such as a monkey. To do this, you take a natural fruit, which oil, and push it half way (on its longest axis) into a bed of damped and hard-pressed sand banked up all round. At some little distance from the edges of the fruit stick two or three small pegs of wood (points downwards) about half-an-inch long, leaving a quarter-of-an-inch out of the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... certain that Joshua's words are absolutely at variance and irreconcileable with the present state of astronomical knowledge? Astronomers allow that the sun is the centre and governing principle of our system, and that it revolves on its axis. What readier means, then, could Joshua have found for staying the motion of our planet, than by commanding the revolving centre, in its inseparable connexion with all planetary ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... dancers, begins also to revolve from right to left— lightly, fantastically—all the tossing of arms and white twinkling of feet keeping faultless time to the measured syllabification of the chant. An immense wheel the dance is, with the Ondo-tori for its axis— always turning slowly upon his rice-mortar, under his open umbrella, as he sings the song ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... less in capacity than the right, by so much space as the heart occupies in the left pulmonary side. The general form of the thorax is that of a cone, I I N N, Plate 1, bicleft through its perpendicular axis, H M. The line of bicleavage is exactly median, and passes through the centre of the sternum in front, and the centres of the dorsal vertebral behind. Between the dorsal vertebral and the sternum, the line of median cleavage is maintained ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... whether or not bodies that fall from a considerable height descend in a vertical direction; for if the earth were at rest the body would describe exactly a vertical line; whereas if it revolved round its axis, the falling body must deviate from the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... cold it is!" He shivered, and buttoned up his coat, and continued, looking about him on the vast snow-field dotted with hummocks of ice which lay bleak and lifeless about him: "Ah, I suppose either the Gulf Stream has got diverted, or the earth's axis has shifted and we ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... his laws should remain in force for a hundred years, and he wrote them upon triangular wooden tablets, which revolved upon an axis in oblong recesses, some small remains of which have been preserved in the prytaneum down to the present day. These, we are told by Aristotle, were called Kurbeis. The comic ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... throw it away would seem stupid, and to keep it was awkward. She held it between her finger and thumb, twirled it round on its axis and twirled it back again, regarding and yet not examining it. Just then she ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... doors were opened. In what had once been a drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal processions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round the frames; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on its own axis and got upside down, and another had fallen off altogether. The room Arthur Clennam's deceased father had occupied for business purposes, when he first remembered him, was so unaltered that he might have been imagined still to keep it invisibly, as his visible relict ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... traces the representatives of all the great types of the animal kingdom to one single source, and that not the Sovereign Intelligence of the Universe, but a mere "ovule in protoplasm," or what may be defined, in its unaggregated form, as an inconceivably small whirligig, having motion on a central axis, but whether an independent motion of its own, or one derived from an Infinite Intelligence, the Darwinian systematizers are not bold enough to aver. They have too many a priori scruples either to assert the one proposition or to deny the other. ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... Between them was hung a hollow globe, pivoted on two short tubes projecting from its sides into the upright tubes. Two little L-shaped pipes projected from opposite sides of the globe, at the ends of a diameter, in a plane perpendicular to the axis. On fire being applied to the cauldron, steam was generated. It passed up through the upright, through the pivots, and into the globe, from which it escaped by the two L-shaped nozzles, causing rapid revolution of the ball. In short, the first steam-engine was a turbine. ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... he said one evening, as we sat watching the Double Cross slowly revolve about its axis. "We must remember that they are a race of children. They have no written records of the past, no anticipations of the future. They live for the present. Childlike, they will grieve deeply, for a day maybe; then another sun will rise, Baahaabaa will ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... is stratified, and is brought to the surface with the general rise of elevation along the face of the hills between Shella and Theriaghat south of Cherrapunji. This has been described as the "Sylhet trap." South of the main axis of this metamorphic and volcanic mass are to be found strata of two well defined series: (1) the cretaceous, and (2) nummulitic. The cretaceous contains several important coalfields. The nummulitic series, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... wheel, embracing grief within grief, multiplied to infinitude; and the wider and more diffusive the circle, the less powerful was the concentration of sickening heart and brain on that which was the more immediate axis of the whole. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... safely stand, and the inside one leaning against a board, and not bearing its own weight. And in laying them on the bench or in lifting them off it, you must first place them so that the middle line of them corresponds with the edge of the bench, or table, and then turn them on that as an axis, quickly, so that they do not bear their own weight longer than necessary ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... divided into three assistant-residencien—the east coast, the west coast and Great Achin. The physical geography (see SUMATRA) is imperfectly understood. Ranges of mountains, roughly parallel to the long axis of the island, and characteristic of the whole of it, appear to occupy the interior, and reach an extreme height of about 12,000 ft. in the south-west of the government. The coasts are low and the rivers insignificant, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... over them, now slowly descending, casting transparent shadows on the ice and snow, now rising high above them, lingering like loving angels guarding the crystal gifts they had bestowed. Although the range as seen from this Glenora mountain-top seems regular in its trend, as if the main axis were simple and continuous, it is, on the contrary, far from simple. In front of the highest ranks of peaks are others of the same form with their own glaciers, and lower peaks before these, and yet lower ones with their ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... a lubber's line. This is how you will proceed. As soon as you are locked in the carriage, light your lamp—better have a book with you in case the light is noticed—take out your watch and put the board on your knee, keeping its long side exactly in a line with the axis of the carriage. Then enter in one narrow column of your notebook the time, in the other the direction shown by the compass, and in the broad column any particulars, including the number of steps the horse makes in ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... seemed to revolve slowly on its axis, but, regaining his self-possession by a supreme effort, he took out his purse and produced the amount. Mrs. Bradshaw, after a few feminine protestations, went upstairs to ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... science; for example, cosmogony, geology, the probable centre of the earth, the vitality and circulation of the blood, hints of magnetism and electricity, a solar system, a plurality of worlds, the earth's shape, inclined axis, situation in space, and connection with other spheres, the separate existence of disembodied life, the laws of optics, much of recondite natural history:—all these can be easily proved to be alluded to in detached, or ingeniously ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... herein and all kindred humanity are those three concentric walls of earth which no being would think of scaling on such a night as this, even were he to hear the most pathetic cries issuing hence that could be uttered by a spectre-chased soul. I reach a central mound or platform—the crown and axis of the whole structure. The view from here by day must be of almost limitless extent. On this raised floor, dais, or rostrum, harps have probably twanged more or less tuneful notes in celebration of daring, strength, or cruelty; of worship, superstition, love, birth, and death; ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... prodigious velocity and, what was worse, its path lay so directly in the course of the Projectile that a collision seemed inevitable. As it moved onward, from west to east, they could easily see that it rotated on its axis, like all heavenly bodies; in fact, it somewhat resembled a Moon on a small scale, describing its regular orbit around ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... kennels of an Alpine and Cuban Dog: the Armadillo house, with a pair of eight-banded inmates: near the latter a sty or cage is preparing for Porcupines. At this extremity of the grounds, is the Deer paddock, with about forty specimens, among which the Axis or spotted varieties are very beautiful. We now reach a picturesque group of rock-work, (See the third Cut), the lower part of which is intended for Beavers, the upper craigs being at present occupied by Vultures and Eagles. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... of these strange and regular variations of brightness was supposed by HERSCHEL to be the rotation of the star bodily on an axis, by which revolution different parts of its surface, of different brilliancy, were successively and periodically presented to us. This explanation it might have been difficult to receive, when the periods of the known variables were so ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... the 12th, our one full day at Lubuagan, broke clear, bright, and hot, and so the day remained. Events during the next few hours had no particular axis. We looked on mostly, though, of course, here as elsewhere, business there was to be dispatched. The upper terrace was the scene of crowded activity, being packed with people from sunrise to sunset. Dancing went on the whole day; the sound of the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... centre, being in the heart of the earth, cannot be seen; but we may mark upon the surface two opposite points that correspond to it. A rod passing through these three points, and extending from one side of the heavens to the other, shall be the axis of the earth, and of the sun's apparent daily motion. A spherical top, turning on its point, shall represent the heavens revolving on their axis; the two extremities of the top are the two poles. The child will be interested in knowing one of ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the first discoveries of modern astronomy that this movement is only apparent. The apparent creeping of the stars across the heavens at night is accounted for by the fact that the earth turns upon its axis once in every twenty-four hours. When we remember the size of the earth we see that this ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... its longer axis at about twice the speed of an Earth-watch's second hand. Now the dome was sliding under, out of their sight, the craggy rock belly coming up to take its place. Nine hundred miles away was Earth—rather, less than that, for the body was now free to accept the ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... inanimate, calls man to labor. If old ocean did not ebb and flow, and roll its waves, it would stagnate, and become so noxious that no animal could live on the face of the earth. If the earth did not pursue its laborious course around its axis, one half of its inhabitants would be shrouded in perpetual night, while the other half would be scorched to death with the ever-accumulating intensity of the sun's rays. Can you find any thing, in all the vast creation of God, that is idle? The sluggard, of all God's works, ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... that we can sweep our eyes along the whole stretch of the skyline from right to left, and from left to right, were rendered impossible. This defect was also overcome in a simple manner. The joints between the first and second vertebrae—the atlas and axis—were so modified that a turning movement could take place between them instead of between the atlas and skull. When we turn or rotate our heads, the atlas, carrying the skull upon it, swings or turns on the axis. When ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... increase in the area covered by the cells of the rete Malpighii—i.e., by the development of secondary laminar ridges. If a section from a foal at term be examined, the processes will be found far advanced into the corium, and, occupying the axis of each process, will be seen a horny plate, continuous with the horn of the wall. No line of demarcation can be observed between the horn so formed and the intertubular material of the wall. They merge into and blend with each other, with ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... however, at the contact of this extraordinary pupil or fellow-inquirer, though in a very different guise or attitude towards himself, as matters no longer to be reasoned upon and understood, but to be seen rather, to be looked at and heard. Did not he see the angle of the earth's axis with the ecliptic, the deflexions of the stars from their proper orbits with fatal results here below, and the earth—wicked, unscriptural truth!—moving round the sun, and those flashes of the eternal and unorbed light such as bring water, flowers, living things, out of the rocks, the dust? ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... of astronomy I have confined myself to the discoveries made since the revival of learning. Long ago, on the banks of the Ganges, ages before Copernicus lived, Aryabhatta taught that the earth is a sphere and revolves on its own axis. This, however, does not detract from the glory of the great German. The discovery of the Hindoo had been lost in the midnight of Europe—in the age of faith—and Copernicus was as much a discoverer as though Aryabhatta had ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... abduco to lead away.] A muscle which moves certain parts, by separating them from the axis of the body. ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... Traveling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours, we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveler; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still; ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... surrounded with a quay a foot in width adjoining [but below the level of] the platform and has a little island in the middle. Around the platform and the quay are contrived docks for ducks. On the island is a little column arranged to turn on its axis and carrying a wheel-shaped table with hollow drum-like dishes fashioned at the ends of the spokes two and a half feet wide and a palm in depth. This is turned by a boy whose business that is, so that meat and drink is put before all my bird guests in turn. From the ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... during which he incessantly asked for information. For the science of astronomy he evinced an early taste. When a very little boy, I began to teach him the names and positions of the principal constellations, the revolutions of the earth on its axis, and the fixity of the polar star. I believe we were the first to notice a comet in 1845, which was only a short time visible here, having a south declination, and which we afterwards knew to have been a fine object in ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... vertebrate stem and the characteristic organisation of this extensive group (to which man belongs) was the detection of the axial rod, or the chorda dorsalis. There is a long, round, cylindrical rod of cartilage which runs down the longer axis of the vertebrate embryo; it appears at an early stage, and is the first sketch of the spinal column, the solid skeletal axis of the vertebrate. In the lowest of the vertebrates, the amphioxus, the internal skeleton consists only of ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... replied Clewe. "If my method of arctic exploration solves the great problem of the pole, I shall be satisfied with the glory I get from the conception. The mere journey to the northern end of the earth's axis is of slight importance. I shall be glad to have Sammy go first, and have as many follow him as may choose ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... of work for you, Merle, there is no life without activity. 'The idle man,' as someone observes, 'spins on his own axis in the dark.' 'A man of mere capacity undeveloped,' as Emerson says, 'is only an organised daydream with a skin on it.' Just listen to this," opening a book that lay near her. "'Action and enjoyment ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... described in general terms as plants having a woody axis, overlaid with thick masses of cellular tissue forming the fleshy stems. These are extremely various in character and form, being globose, cylindrical, columnar or flattened into leafy expansions or thick joint-like divisions, the surface ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the common tangent of the circular waves in the plane of this figure, but that these waves, being in truth spherical, have still an infinitude of similar tangents, namely all the straight lines which are drawn from the point B in the surface generated by the straight line BN about the axis BA. It remains, therefore, to demonstrate that there is no difficulty herein: and by the same argument one will see why the incident ray and the reflected ray are always in one and the same plane perpendicular to the reflecting plane. I say then that the wave AC, being ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... government was built. To use a figure suggested by the calamity which has lately befallen one of the most beloved of our cities, there is a theory that earthquakes are caused by a necessary movement on the part of the globe to regain its axis. Whether or not the theory be true, it has its political application. In America to-day we are trying—whatever the cost—to regain the true axis established for us by the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mass of the earth and would leave behind animals and objects thrown into the air. This also disproves the suggestion made by some, that the earth, while immovable in space, turns round on its own axis." (Ptolemy, Digest of argument of Book 1 of ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... thought that this old globe of ours is nothing more nor less than a golf ball, brambled with mountains and valleys, and scarred with ravines where the gods in their play have topped their drives. The spin around its axis causes it to slice about the sun. This strikes me as rather poetic, and when I write a golf epic I shall elaborate ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... you directly why I've come to London," repeated Mrs. Peckover, backing majestically from the tea-table, and rolling round easily on her own axis in the direction of the couch, to ask for the fullest particulars of the state of Mrs. ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... expected. He walks up to the top of the mountain, an' turns to the four corners of the heavens, to thry if he can see it; an' when he finds that he cannot, he goes back to Beal Derg. who, afther the other touches him, starts up and axis him, 'Is the time come?' He replies, 'No; the man is, but the hour is not!' an' that instant they're both asleep again. Now, you see, while the soger is on the mountain top, the mouth of the cave is open, an' any one may go in that might happen to see it. ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... apparatus appendix axis datum erratum focus formula genus larva medium memorandum nebula radius series species ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... which, in gentle mockery, she had spoken to him of this man or of that, a smile which was all tenderness for himself; he recalled the gravity of her head which she seemed to have lifted from its axis to let it droop and fall, as though against her will, upon his lips, as she had done on that first evening in the carriage; her languishing gaze at him while she lay nestling in his arms, her bended head seeming to recede between her shoulders, as ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... porphyry formation of Patagonia; singular metamorphic rocks; pseudo-dikes. Falkland Islands, Palaeozoic fossils of. Tierra del Fuego, clay-slate formation, cretaceous fossils of; cleavage and foliation; form of land. Chonos Archipelago, mica-schists, foliation disturbed by granitic axis; dikes. Chiloe. Concepcion, dikes, successive formation of. Central and Northern Chile. Concluding remarks on cleavage and foliation. Their close analogy and similar origin. Stratification of metamorphic schists. Foliation of intrusive rocks. ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... much sleep that night, and before dawn there was no doubt left in our mind about the outside cattle coming in. It seemed as though every beast on the run must have come in to the Stirling that night for a drink. Every water-hole out-bush is as the axis of a great circle, cattle pads narrowing into it like the spokes of a wheel, from every point of the compass, and along these pads around the Stirling mob after mob of cattle came in in single file, treading carelessly, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... heel or ash sapling, refused to obey their riders' intimations to move; while others again, brought stiff, wrong-headed ponies to the charge—obstinate, impracticable little brutes, who seemed to prefer revolving on their own axis, and describing absurd rotatory motions, to proceeding in the direct and proper course pointed out to them. Dick could scarcely forbear laughing at these ridiculous man[oe]uvres; but his attention was chiefly attracted towards three ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the planet on which we had been living is the one you now know as the Moon, and the distance to the earth is comparatively small. The sand dunes now have hardened and the tidal sway of its surface can be felt only slightly. The moon no longer turns on its axis and it has no sweetly scented cyanide in its atmosphere. It has no atmosphere of any sort. But it stands now as it did when I left it, glorious in death. Since I departed, no living thing has ...
— Lonesome Hearts • Russell Robert Winterbotham
... open left hand, palm to the front, toward the left and away from the body slowly (motion of the buffalo when chased). Move right hand on wrist as axis, rapidly (man on pony chasing buffalo); then extend left hand to the left, draw right arm as if drawing a bow, snap the forefinger and middle finger of left hand, and thrust the right forefinger over the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... muffled roar of the surf breaking on a far-away coral reef. On entering the enclosure the youths threw down their weapons before them, and with the help of the initiated men divested themselves of the huge folds of native cloth in which they were enveloped, each man revolving slowly on his axis, while his attendant pulled at the bandage and gathered in the slack. The weapons and the cloth were the offerings presented by the novices to the ancestral spirits for the purpose of rendering themselves acceptable to these powerful beings. The offerings were ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... to a marvel. Indeed, I sold so many Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort: 'The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I concluded at a glance you had the material of a first-class business woman about you; but I reckon ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... of Man and various Apes, drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same length in each case, thereby displaying the varying proportions of the facial bones. The line 'b' indicates the plane of the tentorium, which separates the cerebrum from the cerebellum; 'd', the axis of the occipital outlet of the skull. The extent of cerebral cavity behind 'c', which is a perpendicular erected on 'b' at the point where the tentorium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree to which the cerebrum ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... cannot now remember in what work I saw the statement about Peloria affecting the axis, but I know it was one which I thought might be trusted. I consulted also Dr. Falconer, and I think that he agreed to the truth of it; but I cannot now tell where to look for my notes. I had been much struck with finding a Laburnum tree with the terminal flowers alone in each raceme peloric, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... in consequence of the axis of the earth not being perpendicular to the plane of its orbit round the sun, the poles are alternately directed more or less towards that great luminary during one part of the year, and away ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is simply that of a body turning entirely round upon its own centre. The only centre around which the moon performs a revolution is very far from its own proper axis, being situated at the centre of the earth, the focus of its orbit, and as it has no other rotating motion around the earth, it cannot revolve on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... an idealist, you dream how life should be, and not as it is in truth! I have listened to you, thinking that you would present some forcible argument upon which to found your pretensions, but I hear only the ravings of a lover, who believes the world turns upon the axis of his happiness. Let me tell you that love is an ephemera, which merrily sports in the sunlight a few short hours, and dies at sunset. Should a king forfeit his word for such a short-lived bliss? Should he reward a man to whom he is indebted by depriving him of a rich son-in-law, who is ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... Psalmists and the Prophets desired to teach was not the daily rotation of the earth upon its axis, nor its yearly revolution round the sun, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... plain that one of the chief causes of temptation was hot weather, which causes immoderate thirst. In order to lessen the amount of thirst in the population he suggested that it might be feasible to shift the axis of the earth, so that the climate of the United States would become perceptibly cooler and the torrid zone would be transferred to the area of the North Pole. This would have the supreme advantage of melting all the northern ice-cap and providing the temperate ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Pym was born. The church has some unusual features, for a single roof covers nave, aisles, and chancel; and there is no chancel arch. The whole building is very lofty, and it has good E. and W. windows. The tower, which will be seen to be out of line with the axis of the nave, is richly ornamented with niches. Note externally the turret above the rood staircase, and the series of consecration crosses (12) on the E. and S. wall of the chancel; and in the interior observe ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... know that a whirlwind is a column of air which turns upon its own axis, and which advances comparatively slowly, for, as a rule, a person can keep up with it at a walking pace. This whirling column of air is both caused and set in ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... artistic sense, this group is incomplete without the Palace of Fine Arts on the west and Machinery Hall on the east. (p. 105, 106.) Balancing each other in the general scheme, they form the necessary terminals of the axis of the Exposition plan. This matter of balance has been carefully thought out everywhere, and affords a fine example of the co-operation of the many architects who worked out the vast general design. The ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... man knows what he has to do and will be ready when the moment comes; and now the moment has come, for on one side there foams along a mad surge of water, and on the other the angry whirlpool twists and turns in smooth green hollowing curves round an axis of air, whirling round it with a strength that would snap our birch bark into fragments and suck us down into great depths below. All that can be gained by the back-current has been gained, and now it is time to quit it; but where? for there is often only the choice of the whirlpool ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... up his arms towards Heaven as he spoke, and at the moment came such a rattling peal of thunder, that the very earth seemed to shake upon its axis. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... they set to work to cut a channel through them, but getting tired of the work gave it up. The length of the lagoon appears to be about three to four miles, and about one to one and a half in breadth. Its major axis runs parallel to the coastline, or nearly due east and west. Twenty minutes' paddling brought us round the point of a small headland, where we came in sight of a pretty lake-village built upon piles, at some little distance from the shore, the whole ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... of the world, he was rejoiced to see behind him the tragic splendor of the night, and, in front of him, the smile of young hope, the uncertain beauty of the fresh, fevered dawn. And he was at the stationary point of the axis of the pendulum while the clock was beginning to go again. Without following its onward march, he listened joyfully to the beating of the rhythm of life. He joined in the hope of those who denied his past agonies. What would be, would be, as he had dreamed. Ten years before, in night ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... "By the by, Pratt, Kate has us completely. What fools we two are! Mr. Rumgudgeon, the matter stands thus: the earth, you know, is twenty-four thousand miles in circumference. Now this globe of the earth turns upon its own axis—revolves—spins round—these twenty-four thousand miles of extent, going from west to east, in precisely twenty-four hours. Do you ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... parachute." It consisted of an oviform body to which were pivoted two upright slats carrying above the body nine long superposed flat blades spaced about one-third of their width apart. When this apparatus was properly set at an angle to the longitudinal axis of the body and dropped from a balloon, it travelled back against the wind for a considerable distance before alighting. The course could be varied by a rudder. No practical application seems to have been made of this device by the French ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... Religion and government appear to me the two subjects which of all others should belong to the common talk of people who enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, one moment. The earth is a great factory-wheel, which, at every revolution on its axis, receives fifty thousand raw souls and turns off nearly the same number worked up more or less completely. There must be somewhere a population of two hundred thousand million, perhaps ten or a hundred times as many, earth-born intelligences. Life, as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... now becomes readily understandable. "Since 1922 my invention consisted in eliminating the highly complicated compressor and in injecting directly such a highly diffused fuel spray so that a quick first ignition could be depended upon. By means of rotating the air column around the cylinder axis, fresh air was constantly led along the fuel spray to achieve completely sootless burning-up.... In 1930 I sold my ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... pressed it hard on the floor, said good-bye to them all, and dived. I got half-way round, and was supporting myself upside down by one toe and the slippery end of the poker, when it suddenly occurred to me that the earth was revolving at an incredible speed on its own axis, and that, in addition, we were hurtling at thousands of miles a minute round the sun. It seemed impossible in these circumstances that I should keep my balance any longer; and as soon as I realised this the poker began to slip. I was in no sort of position ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... with the end of her spinnerets; then, with her front tarsi, she sets her victim spinning. The Squirrel, in the moving cylinder of his cage, does not display a more graceful or nimbler dexterity. A cross-bar of the sticky spiral serves as an axis for the tiny machine, which turns, turns swiftly, like a spit. It is a treat to the eyes to ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the position of the child, for several weeks before birth, is one in which its long axis is parallel to the long axis of her body. This remains true no matter whether the head or the buttocks are to precede at the time of birth. In ninety-seven out of a hundred cases, however, the head lies lowermost and consequently is the first portion of the child to ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... was that in time, just as a slight and negligible body cannot be in the sphere of a powerful motion without being affected by it, so Rosalie began to move sympathetically to the wheel but on her own axis. She moved round with the wheel but she was not of the wheel and she never became really incorporated with the wheel. The spokes were revolving with incredible rapidity when she first, began to notice them and they always remained ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... somewhat peculiar to frontier stations of the day. The enclosure of Fort Cushing was diamond-shaped. The entrance gate was at the eastern apex. The hospital and surgeons' quarters stood on a line with this gate, their front perpendicular to the long axis of the diamond. Their "rear elevations," therefore, were not far from officers' row. From the front of Sumter's house, around by way of the main gate to the doctor's door—the first to the left ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... been if, instead of turning on its axis once in twenty-four hours, the earth had taken a year about it; if the year had been nearly four hundred years; if man's life had been no longer than it is, and for the initial steps of astronomy there ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... would never do, and so the missionary had to take him in hand again and give him another lesson. This time he used his large ball-like globe, swung on its axis in its frame, which was supported on three feet. Patiently the minister showed him how the world was like a great ball, round in every direction. Attentively the Indian listened, and carefully examined the globe and the frame ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... and cartilages, the thoracic cage enlarges from before back; but being elastic, the hoops will give a little and cause some expansion from side to side; moreover, when the ribs are raised, each one is rotated on its axis in such a way that the lower border tends towards eversion; the total effect of this rotation is a lateral expansion of the whole thorax. Between the ribs and the cartilages the space is filled by the intercostal muscles ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... extremes of temperature from 14 to 16 inches; the vertical rise and fall in the centre of the main span ranges between 2 ft. 3 in. and 2 ft. 9 in.; and before the suspenders were attached to the cable it actually revolved on its own axis through an arc of thirty degrees, when exposed to the sun shining upon it on one side. You do not perceive this motion, and you would know nothing about it unless you watched the gauges ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... beheld the globe hanging in space, a vast independent world and yet a mere speck among countless myriads of other worlds. Its rotations were so vivid in my mind that I seemed to hear it hum as it spun round and round its axis. The phenomena producing day and night and the four seasons were as real to me as the things that took place in my restaurant. The earth was being disclosed to my mental vision as a whole and in detail. Order was coming out of chaos. Continents, seas, islands, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... suddenly in his ear from behind, roused Archie from his reflections. Indeed, it roused him so effectually that he jumped a clear inch off the ground and bit his tongue. Revolving on his axis, he found himself confronting a middle-aged man with a face like a horse. The man was dressed in something of an old-world style. His clothes had an English cut. He had a drooping grey moustache. He also wore a grey bowler hat flattened at the crown—but ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... where she still lay; but that she would probably be hove off without much difficulty at high water, provided the external ice did not prevent it. I also learned from Captain Hoppner that a part of one of the propelling wheels had been destroyed, the chock through which its axis passed being forced in considerably, and the palm broken off one of the bower anchors. Most of this damage, however, was either of no very material importance, or could easily be repaired. A large party of hands from the Hecla being sent round ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... or begun a few years earlier, and that the nave was built between 1434 and 1450. The south porch and the west crypt (beneath the original Lady Chapel) are almost contemporary (p. 34), belonging to the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now the axis of the tower is parallel to the axis and walls of the nave, while the centre line of the choir is deflected towards the north about 7 deg.. Notwithstanding this, however, owing to the tower not being central with the nave, the axis of the choir, if prolonged, runs directly ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse |
