Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




More "Curvature" Quotes from Famous Books



... see that the top of a true billiard-table must, theoretically, be spherical, just like a portion of the orange-peel that George cut out. Of course, the table is so small in proportion to the surface of the earth that the curvature is not appreciable, but it is nevertheless true in theory. A surface that we call level is not the same as our idea of a true ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... are in the habit of shaving off a little from one side of the horns of these animals when still growing, in order to make them curve in that direction and assume fantastic shapes. The stranger the curvature, the more handsome the ox is considered to be, and the longer this ornament of the cattle-pen is spared to beautify the herd. This is a very ancient custom in Africa, for the tributary tribes of Ethiopia are seen, on some of the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... tail, for example, besides varying in length, vary in the proportionate length of each feather, and this causes their outline to vary considerably in shape. The bill also varies in length, width, depth, and curvature. The tarsus varies in length, as does each toe separately and independently; and all this not to a minute degree requiring very careful measurement to detect it at all, but to an amount easily seen without any measurement, as it averages one-sixth of the whole length and often ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... the ribs is the amount of curvature which is imparted to them in the same way that a motor car spring or a road has a camber ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... But farther. Not only the curvature, but even the tapering by straight lines, would be somewhat difficult of execution in the pieced column. Where, indeed, the entire shaft is composed of four or five blocks set one upon another, the diameters may ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... were capable of. A great painter, who flourished many olympiads ago, has, in his volume entitled the Canon, defined the line of beauty. It was here in its perfection: it followed with winning obsequiousness every member, but delighted more especially to swim along that placid and pliant curvature on which Nature had ranged the implements of mastication. Pawing with his cloven hoof, he suddenly changed his countenance from the contemplative to the wrathful. At one effort he rose up to his whole length, breadth, and height: ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... times the men ceased paddling, and looked about them at the scene, as new glimpses opened from behind points, enabling them to see farther down the lake, or to get broader views of the wooded mountains. The only changes, however, were in the new forms of the hills, the varying curvature of the bays, and the wider reaches of the valley south; the whole earth apparently being clothed in a gala-dress ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... children began to work in the mills. Thus far I have seen about a hundred such cases, and can, most decidedly, express the opinion that they are the consequences of overwork. So far as I know they were all mill children, and themselves attributed the evil to this cause. The number of cases of curvature of the spine which have fallen under my observation, and which were evidently consequent upon too protracted standing, was not ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He wrought feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, by his play impeding his father in his labors. When at last the work was done, the artist, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... peculiar position. The thigh is slightly bent and rolls outward. For convenience the child drops the half of the pelvis corresponding to the diseased hip-joint, and naturally raises the other half. From this apparently a curvature of the spinal column results in the lumbar region. Apparently only, for when the child is laid down and the morbid position of the thigh is restored the curvature of the ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum

... turban—hereafter to be particularly alluded to—there was no taking it off and putting it on again with anything like dignity. At any rate, then, here goes a how. But, another difficulty presented itself; my loose frock was so voluminous that I doubted whether any spinal curvature would be perceptible. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... time. A child may be placed on his feet at too early an age, and the bones of his legs form the habit of remaining bent. The Flathead Indian binds a board on the skull of his child, and its head forms the habit of remaining flat on the top. Wrong bodily postures produce curvature of the spine, and pernicious modes of dress deform the bones of the chest. The muscles may be trained into the habit of keeping the shoulders straight or letting them droop; those of the back, to keep the body well up ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... halted and seemed to wave to me. I waved back and found myself weeping. "You fool!" I said to myself, "Go on"; and it was by an effort that I kept on my way instead of running back to her again. Presently the curvature of the slope came up between us and hid her altogether, hid the hotel, hid the lakes and ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... perception, deviate in the slightest degree from a straight line even in a million of years, is a proposition not to be entertained; and yet these ancient astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears, into believing that a decisive curvature had become apparent during the brief period of their astronomical history—during the mere point—during the utter nothingness of two or three thousand years! How incomprehensible, that considerations ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... next halting-place, forma something of a crescent on the west shore of the river, and is distinguished by a seven-storied pagoda at the southern extremity of its curvature. As seen from the east bank, the city and its background of reddish hills, two peaks of which rise to the respectable height of, I should judge, two thousand feet, is not without certain pretensions to beauty. Many of the houses on the river front are built over the water on piles, and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... or two beyond due west, our own Susquehanna being less crooked. The stream was not broad, but its numerous isles, willowy banks, and verdant meadows, formed a line for the eye to follow. Rouen in the distance, with its ebony towers, fantastic roofs, and straggling suburbs, lines its shores, at a curvature where the stream swept away west again, bearing craft of the sea on its bosom. These dark old towers have a sombre, mysterious air, which harmonizes admirably with the recollections that crowd the mind at such a moment! Scarce an isolated dwelling was to be seen, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... money she earns is needed for the support of some one dependent upon her, thus following habits established by generations of virtuous women who cared for feeble folk. I know one such girl living in a disreputable house in Chicago who has adopted a delicate child afflicted with curvature of the spine, whom she boards with respectable people and keeps for many weeks out of each year in an expensive sanitarium that it may receive medical treatment. The mother of the child, an inmate of the house in which the ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams

... Its date, plainly marked upon the panels at the bottom of the front posts, was, he told me, 1111. On {359} examining this astounding date a little closely, I soon perceived that the two middle strokes had a slight curvature, a tendency to approach the shape of an S, which distinguished them from the two exterior lines. The date was, in fact, 1551; yet so small was the difference of the figures, that the mistake was really ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various

... among the young, are now very prevalent among the children taught in the schools. These diseases are attributed to the many hours during which children are required to sit and to the bad positions they assume during those hours. Skoliosis—curvature of the spine—a serious disease, as it produces displacement of the internal organs, nose bleeding, aenemia, chlorosis, nervous irritation, loss of appetite, headache, and myopia, are diseases which are declared by experts to accompany the ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... ... Dreadfully bony! And my face has become..." She turns her face towards him. He sees tears trembling on the lower lashes of her grey eyes, but something has come into the features, some irradiation of love—is it the light of the sunset?—which imparts a tender youthfulness to the curvature of cheek, lips and chin. Her face, indeed, might be of any age: it held the undying beauty of a goddess, in whom knowledge has sweetened to tenderness and divinity has dissolved in a need for compassion; and the youthful assurance of a happy woman ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... dozen or so already, the most palpable engagement rings I think I ever saw. One of them had visible on its inner curvature the four letters MIZP—. He looked at them, saw the posy, and then, glancing at me, laughed affably. "I meant to tell you yesterday, George—I will take these," to the shopman. And we emerged with a superficial amiability; ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells

... use them among bushes, without frequent overthrows, nor to rise afterwards without help. Each shoe weighs about two pounds when unclogged with snow. The northern Indian snow-shoes differ a little from those of the southern Indians, having a greater curvature on the outside of each shoe; one advantage of which is, that when the foot rises the over-balanced side descends and throws off the snow. All the superiority of European art has been unable to improve the native contrivance of ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... of the sea formed by the curvature of the land between two capes or headlands, often used synonymously with gulf; though, in strict accuracy, the term should be applied only to those large recesses which are wider from cape to cape than they are deep. Exposed to sea-winds, a bay is mostly insecure. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... conceded to be pernicious. Formal exercises should never be given to any child without examination and prescription by a physician. Children with heart weakness, enlarged tonsils, adenoid growths, spinal curvature, uneven shoulders, are frequently seen doing exercises for which they are physically unfit, and which but serve to deplete further their already low vitality. Attention might be called to many a class engaged ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... Manning, had first generated the curvature field and overcome gravity, had left his grandson a fortune that approached the five-billion mark. But that had not been all. From his famous ancestor, Manning had inherited a keen, sharp, scientific mind. From his mother's father, Anthony ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... "Curvature of the spine. The doctor says she will outgrow it. Cissy will be quite strong and healthy although she may never have what you would call a good figure. But there is a matter on which I want to speak to you. The fact is, I ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... these schools. I examined her, and found that the little girl could hold her own with many of larger growth. 'Did she go to school to-day?' asked I. 'No,' was the answer, 'she has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine; so now she goes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... the same design with modification in the position of the median figure, and a slight curvature in ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... I. In both these pieces of building, the only line that traces the architrave round the arch, is that of the masonry joint; yet this line is drawn with extremest subtlety, with intention of delighting the eye by its relation of varied curvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as the finest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of the stone is used, in like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cement would spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his fine jointing, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... the strong men wield their axes and hew asunder the tough ropes and spars. Bax, as usual, was prominent in action. He toiled as if for life; and so it was for life, though not his own. Small was the hope, yet it was enough to justify the toil. The curvature of the lifeboat was so great that it was possible a portion of air sufficient to maintain life might be confined within it. And so it turned out. For twenty minutes they toiled; the boat was finally cleared; Bax struck the blow that set it free, and dragged the coxswain out as ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... learning that this image can be viewed with a microscope, and magnified; thus came the telescope revealing unheard of suns and galaxies. The first telescopes colored everything looked at, but by a hundred years of mathematical research, the proper curvature of objectives formed of two glasses was discovered, so that now we have perfect instruments. Great results followed; one can now peer into the profound solitudes of space, bringing to view millions of stars, requiring light 5,000 years to traverse their awful ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... the open sea finally—a broad, empty expanse, with a mirrorlike surface. The curvature of the planet was even more apparent now; it seemed almost as though the water should be sliding back downhill ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... of moral curvature of the spine. When he was inaugurated last December, I chanced to be at the Capital, and heard two old codgers from the piney woods felicitating the State upon having a Governor, 'Fit to tie to; honest as the day is long, and walks so straight, he is powerful swaybacked.' ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... sea, of the whole length of the beach, would rise and advance, growing higher and more distinct as it approached, and then it would break over upon the shore in one long line of foam, white and beautiful, and gracefully curved to adapt itself to the curvature of the shore. At the extremities of the beach, points and promontories of ragged rocks extended out into the water, white with the breakers which foamed and struggled around them. From the whole there arose a continued and solemn ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott

... continued my studies. I had no consciousness of monotony, for, to the intellect, monotony cannot exist: it was one of those emotions I had left behind. One day, however, in the year 2132, a great discovery was made by a man called Zarentzov. It had to do with the curvature of space, quite changing the conceptions that we had all followed since Einstein. I had long ago mastered the last detail of Einstein's theory, as had, in time, the rest of the world. I threw myself immediately into the study of ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker

... forward of a thwart-ship bulkhead that cut the poop in two. The fore part formed a kind of miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst, the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet. Into these we did but glance, the main cabin holding us. It was dark, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... conversation dexterously but not insistently towards hats. He was to suggest trying on various types of hat and to show by his manner and bearing, but without any coarse flattery, the enhanced impression made by the hats he wished to sell. He had several mirrors, adapted by various subtleties of curvature and tint to different types of face and complexion, and much depended on the proper use ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... me of the character of Germanic mysteriousness. We must have been at a great elevation, though the mountains were not prominent objects; on the contrary, the eye ranged until it found the horizon, as at sea, in the curvature of the earth. The rills near us flowed into the Rhine, and, traversing half Europe, emptied themselves into the North Sea; while the stream that wound its way through the valley below, took a south-easterly direction towards ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... little appetite either for food or drink, and dry skin, with cold extremities. She has at times been occasionally worse, and been relieved in some degree by the bark. She began to bend forwards, and to lift up her shoulders. The former seemed owing to a beginning curvature of the spine, the latter was probably caused to facilitate ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... adjacent islands. Figure 1 shows the strongly curved margin of the Celebes species, Papilio gigon, compared with the much straighter margin of Papilio demolion from Singapore and Java. Figure 2 shows the abrupt bend over the base of the wing in Papilio miletus of Celebes, compared with the slight curvature in the common Papilio sarpedon, which has almost exactly the same form from India to New Guinea and Australia. Figure 3 shows the elongated wing of Tachyris zarinda, a native of Celebes, compared with the much shorter wing of Tachyris nero, a very closely allied species found in all the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... Rheumatism—Palsy, curvature of the Spine, Chronic Diseases, Tic-doloureaux, Paralysis Tubercula of the brain, heart, liver, ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... horizontal bones lay like the bars of a gridiron, a mature specimen of a type that Ellen had met in her school-days. There had been several girls at John Thompson's, usually bleached and ill-favoured victims of anaemia or spinal curvature, who had seemed to be compelled by something within themselves to spend their whole energies in trying, by extravagances of hair-ribbon and sidecombs and patent leather belts, the collection of actresses' postcards, and the completest abstention from study, to assert ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... of the church is Perpendicular, the choir aisle windows are very low, and the curvature of the sides of the arches is so slight that they almost appear to be straight lines. The choir roof is flat, and is invisible from the exterior of the church. It is probable that at one time a parapet ran along the ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath

... with nerves new-braced and spirits cheered, We tread the wilderness, whose well-rolled walks, With curvature of slow and easy sweep— Deception innocent—give ample space To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next; Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms We may discern the thresher at his task. Thump after thump resounds the constant flail, That seems to swing uncertain and yet falls Full ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... similar objectionable character are many of the devices which ignorant men connected with the medical profession urge upon the public for the sake of remedying curvature of the spine, restoring the figure, or supporting the abdomen. Not a few of such braces and supporters are seriously dangerous. A good brace, well-fitting, carefully adjusted, suited to the particular case, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... as well here to remark, that if such distortion is timely noticed, it is capable of correction, even after evident curvature has taken place. It is to be remedied by using those means that shall invigorate the frame, and promote the child's general health (a daily plunge into the cold bath, or sponging with cold salt water, will be found signally efficacious), and by avoiding the original cause of the distortion—never ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... of a masonry arch structure as can be found (figs. 8 and 9). The design was made by John Rennie the elder, and the acting engineer was his son, Sir John Rennie. The semi-elliptical shape of the arches the variation of span, the slight curvature of the roadway, and the simple yet bold architectural details, combine to make it a singularly beautiful bridge. The centre arch has a span of 152 ft., and rises 29 ft. 6 in above Trinity high-water mark; the arches on each side of the centre have a span of 140 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... must needs pity your own mishandling of the obstinate wood. Have you courage to smile at the misshapen handiwork, or do you cowardly, discard the deformity you have created? How it grunts and groans as pressure is applied to its stubborn bent limbs! Curvature of the spine is the least of its ills. It limps and creaks when fixed tentatively for trial. Tender-footed, it stands awry, heaving one leg aloft—as crooked and as perverse as Caliban. In good time, botching here, violent constraint there, the chair finds itself or is forced so to ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... little sandy plain two or three acres in extent, which in this land of steep mountains is called a pampa. Were the dwellers on the pampas of Argentina—where a railroad can go for 250 miles in a straight line, except for the curvature of the earth—to see this little bit of flood-plain called Mandor Pampa, they would think some one had been joking or else grossly misusing a word which means to them illimitable space with not a hill in sight. However, to the ancient dwellers in this valley, where level land was so scarce that ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham

... diagram reproduction, on the part of the organism, is represented by a line which repeats the curvature of the parent organism originating at such a point as P in the path of the latter, when the rate of consumption of energy has become constant. The organism A has now ceased to act as a unit. The products of fission each carry on the vital ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... on the features of that king of old; gray haired, prematurely gray; the eyebrows unlike in their curvature, giving a quaint expression to the face, a mild and good-tempered face, but somewhat deficient in character, forming the strongest contrast to that tall commanding figure on his right hand, with the stern and manly features, the greatest of the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... earth's surface makes it impossible for the sides of townships to be truly north and south and at the same time six miles square. The excesses and the deficiencies due to the convergency of meridians and the curvature of the earth are by law added to or deducted from the western and northern ranges of sections and half sections of the townships. While the above has been the rule in laying out public lands for more than a century, there are many ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... notions and dry-goods, flanking the right wall in stacks and bolts, merge into blur, the outline of a white-sateen and corseted woman's torso surmounting the topmost of the shelves with bold curvature. ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... in shape and proportions, radiating in a lunetted, curved base triangle from the middle chamber; the curvature of the enclosing globe forming back wall and roof; the translucent slicings the sides; the circle of floor of the inner ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... of measurement in Purneah was to take the tiger as he lay before he was put on the elephant, and measure from the tip of the nose, over the crest of the skull, along the undulations of the body, to the tip of the tail. That is, we followed the curvature of the spine along the dividing ridge of the back, and always were careful and fair in our attempts. I am of opinion that a tiger over ten feet long is an exceptionally long one, but when I read of sportsmen denying altogether that even that ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... step or setback to the ordinary thickness of about a foot. These walls, as usual in such structures, were about 2 feet thick; they are slightly curved, the front wall markedly so, and the interior corners are well rounded. No reason for this curvature is apparent, and it is certainly not dictated by the occurrence of the rock over which the wall is built, as only the point of this rock comes through the wall in the western side of the front wall. There may have been an opening into the room through ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff

... bacon and could do so truthfully, for its crisp and steaming shavings would have put to shame the efforts of my London cook. Indeed, I should have enjoyed the meal heartily were it not for the lowness of the sofa and table, causing a curvature of the body which made swallowing a more lengthy process than usual, and induced a periodical yearning to get up and stretch—a relief which spelt disaster to the skull. I noticed, too, that Davies spoke with a zest, sinister to me, of the delights of white ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... the meagre narratives which have descended to us, there are slight discrepancies which it is impossible to reconcile. Entering Lake Michigan at its northern extremity through the Straits of Mackinac, they paddled down the eastern coast, passed the mouth of St. Joseph's River, rounded the southern curvature of the lake, and reached the mouth of the Chicago River on the 4th of January, 1682. The winter in that region was short, but very severe. The Chicago River presented a solid surface ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... and gave it a new grace that amounted almost to artifice. A parallel might be found among the products of the so-called art nouveau of to-day, in which old designs are revived with just that added suavity or profusion of curvature that robs them of character. Fig. 16 again might be mistaken almost for a piece of the Chow dynasty, were not the grandeur of its form modified by just so much harmony in the curvature of the body ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... that if sufficient elevation be obtained to overcome the curvature of the earth's surface and to reduce to the minimum the earth's absorption, electric telegraphing or signalling between distant points can be carried on by induction without the use of wires connecting such distant points. This discovery is especially applicable to telegraphing across ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... the doubtful matter. Had the hive of these bees been BEYOND that wood, the angle of intersection would not have been there, but at the hive across the prairie. The reader will understand that creatures which obey an instinct, or such a reason as bees possess, would never make a curvature in their flights without some strong motive for it. Thus, two bees taken from flowers that stood half a mile apart would be certain not to cross each other's tracks, in returning home, until they met at the common hive: ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... His coat was of white cloth, faced with black, and cut in a very antique fashion; and, in lieu of a waistcoat, he wore a buff jerkin. His feet were cased with loose buskins, which, though they rose almost to his knee, could not hide that curvature, known by the appellation of bandy legs. A large string of bandaliers garnished a broad belt that graced his shoulders, from whence depended an instrument of war, which was something between a back-sword and a cutlass; ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... possibility of improving them. His main improvements consisted (1) in lowering the height of the model—that is, the arch of the belly; (2) in making the four corner blocks more massive, and in giving greater curvature to the middle ribs; (3) in altering the setting of the sound holes, giving them a decided inclination to each other at the top; (4) in making the scroll more massive and permanent. Every violin of Stradivari was a special study, modified in various ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... them all if he would. But Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these, but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... are not cambered to the same extent: some have a very small curvature; in others the curve is greatly pronounced. Planes of the former type are generally fitted to racing aeroplanes, because they offer less resistance to the air than do deeply-cambered planes. Indeed, it is in the degree of camber that the various types of flying machine ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... Seilles, a fervid Orleanist, was thanked for having advised the curvature of the route homeward to visit 'the spot of so impressive a monument': as it, was phrased by the Rev. Septimus Barmby; whose exposition to Nesta of the beautiful stained-glass pictures of incidents in the life of the crusading St. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Rainbows" on the north-eastern coast of the Sea of Showers. "From Cape Laplace (9000 feet high) on the western extremity, to Cape Heraclides (4000 feet high) on the eastern extremity, this great bay is about 140 miles across, the depth of its curvature being over eighty miles. It bears a very strong resemblance to many large bays on our sea-coasts in various parts of the world, but I am not aware of any such bay which is bordered by a mass of such ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... raised great stone circles, namely, in the late Pleistocene period, we find that there existed all over Europe and North Asia and the northern part of America another elephant very closely allied to the Indian elephant, but having a bow-like outward curvature of the tusks, their points finally directed towards one another, and a thick growth of coarse hair all over the body. This is "the mammoth," the remains of which are found in every river valley in England, France and Germany, and of which ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... are over 34 ft. high, and diminish from a diameter of 6.15 ft. at the bottom to 4.81 ft. at the top. The outline between these points is convex, but so slightly so that the curve departs at the point of greatest curvature not more than 3/4 in. from the straight line joining the top and bottom. This is, however, just sufficient to correct the tendency to look ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith

... whose blood is without taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply pointed, delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her neck rose from the withers to the head in perfect curvature, hard, devoid of fat, and well cut up under the chops. Her nostrils were full, very full, and thin almost as parchment. The eyes, from which tears might fall or fire flash, were well brought out, soft as a gazelle's, almost human in their intelligence, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... no colour exists in nature without gradation, which is to colours what curvature is to lines. The difference in mere beauty between a gradated and ungradated colour may be seen by laying an even tint of rose-colour on paper, and putting a rose leaf beside it. The victorious beauty of the rose, as compared with other flowers, depends wholly on the delicacy ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... eyes were more accustomed to the queerness of this night upon Wandl, we could ignore the colored light-beams of the landing stage and the disembarking palisade upon which we were standing. Gazing into the distance, the curvature of the surface of this little world was immediately apparent. The reddish firmament of stars came down to meet the sharply-curving surface at a horizon line which seemed about ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... desks that are too low. It has been erroneously maintained by some that the top of the desk should be on the same plane with the elbow when the arm hangs by the side. When the desk is higher, it has been said the tendency is to elevate one shoulder, to depress the other, and to produce a permanent curvature of the spinal column. Although this may have been frequently the result of sitting at a high desk, yet it is not a necessary result. To prevent the projection of one shoulder, and the consequent spinal curvature, both of ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... of the bones was very extraordinary, and the elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles were developed in an unusual degree. Some of the ribs, also, were of a singularly rounded shape and abrupt curvature, which was supposed to indicate great power in the thoracic muscles.* (* Professor Schaaffhausen's "Memoir" translated ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... closely trimmed behind, he could do as much for the apparent shape of his head at the rear. If the forehead needed still more change, the line of implantation could be altered by removing hairs with tweezers; and the same painful but possible means must be used to affect the curvature of the eyebrows. By removing hairs from the tops of the ends, and from the bottom of the middle, he would be able to raise the arch of each eyebrow noticeably. This removal, along with the clearing of hair from the forehead, and thinning the eyelashes by plucking out, would ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... lateral curvature of the spine, and consequent bulging out of the ribs that you have just now described, arise either from delicacy of constitution, from the want of proper exercise, from too much learning, or from too little play, or from not sufficient or proper nourishment for a rapidly-growing body. I am happy ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... whereby a thing is white." Accordingly in defining an accident in the abstract, we do not put the subject as though it were the first part of the definition, viz. the genus; but we give it the second place, which is that of the difference; thus we say that simitas is "a curvature of the nose." But if we take accidents in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates at the accident: for "a white thing" is "something that has whiteness." Accordingly in defining ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... definition arises from the fact that any distortion at the surface of a mirror affects the direction of a ray of light three times as much as the same distortion would do at the surface of a lens. And this applies equally both to permanent errors of curvature and to temporary distortions produced by strains and by inequality of temperature. The perfect achromatism of a reflector is, of course, a great advantage, but the chromatic aberration of refractors is now so well corrected that their inferiority in that respect may ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... with the Pennsylvania Railroad, near Harrison, N. J., to Woodside, Long Island, a distance of 13.66 miles, there is an average of 1.5 curves per mile; the line having a total curvature of 230 degrees. The maximum curvature ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond

... question, how far the development of Ligia is repeated in the other Isopoda, I can only give an unsatisfactory answer. The curvature of the embryo upwards instead of downwards was met with by me as well as by Rathke in Idothea, and likewise in Cassidina, Philoscia, Tanais, and the Bopyridae,—indeed, I failed to find it in none of the Isopoda examined for this purpose. In Cassidina ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller

... muscles, m, and it is by the action of these muscles that the lens is able to become small and thick, or large and thin; that is, to become more or less curved. When we look at near objects, the muscles act in such a way that the lens bulges out, and becomes thick in the middle and of the right curvature to focus the near object upon the screen. When we look at an object several hundred feet away, the muscles change their pull on the lens and flatten it until it is of the proper curvature for the new distance. The adjustment of the muscles is so quick and unconscious ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... the current, Trowbridge essayed to use the air. He believed that this was possible, and that it would be accomplished at no distant date. He believed, however, that such a system could not be operated over considerable distances because of the curvature of the earth. He endeavored to establish communication through the air by induction. He demonstrated that if one coil of wire be set up and a current sent through it, a similar coil facing it will have ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers

... Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene; they have themselves experienced what they teach others; they have been trained to observe, and deal gently and carefully with growing girlhood. They have also studied deformities such as spinal curvature, round shoulders, and flat feet, and are able to take all such ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... thing: It recalls the picture in the joggerfy that proved the earth was round because the hull of a ship disappears before the sails, as it would if the ship was going over a hill. You sweep your eye along where the sky and water meet, and it seems you can note the curvature of the earth. Maybe it is that, and maybe it is all in your own ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... Curved Fire.—"High angle fire," as defined officially, "is fire at elevations greater than 15deg," and "curved fire is fire from howitzers at all angles of elevation not exceeding 15deg." In these cases the curvature of the trajectory becomes considerable, and the formulae employed in direct fire must be modified; the method generally employed is due to Colonel Siacci of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... lot, evidently the leader of them, who bore a close resemblance to the so-called Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. There was the same short, stocky trunk upon which rested an enormous head habitually bent forward into the same curvature as the back, the arms shorter than the legs, and the lower leg considerably shorter than that of modern man, the knees bent forward and never straightened. This creature and one or two others who appeared to be of a lower order than he, yet higher than that of the apes, carried ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and vivid only in the middle of the field. All about that centre the dead fibres and seeds were magnified and distorted by the curvature of the glass. But we could see enough! One after another all down the sunlit slope these miraculous little brown bodies burst and gaped apart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths. that drank in the heat ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... with curvature of the spine in Mr. Mellaire's watch. He's a proper hobo, too, and a land lubber, and don't weigh more'n a hundred pounds, and must be fifty years old, and he's got curvature of the spine, and he's able seaman, if you please, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... gorilla. There were the cradle in which I had lain, as a child, stupefied with soothing syrups; the perambulator, seated in which and propelled from behind, I overthrew the schoolmaster, and in which my infantile spine received its curvature; the nursery-maid, surrendering her lips alternately to me and the gardener; the old home of my youth, with the ivy and the mortgage on it; my eldest brother, who by will succeeded to the family debts; my ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... they may be seen from what follows. He was born at Melassa, but recognizing the natural advantages of Halicarnassus as a fortress, and seeing that it was suitable as a trading centre and that it had a good harbour, he fixed his residence there. The place had a curvature like that of the seats in a theatre. On the lowest tier, along the harbour, was built the forum. About halfway up the curving slope, at the point where the curved cross-aisle is in a theatre, a broad wide ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... species, namely, the summer-forms and those which live in the warm southern climate, exhibit, for instance, in the case of butterflies akin to the sailor, the same features, the elongation and more marked curvature of the fore-rim of the fore-wings and the consequent more extended form, that are produced by the action of artificial heat. Manifestly this is a matter of vital importance for the solution of the question: heat, whether ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... occasionally upon grave matters, which they do not understand, and do not really relish. You may interrupt a discussion on the beauty of a dahlia, by observing that as you know that they take an interest in such things you mention the discovery of a new method of analyzing curves of double curvature. Men who talk only of trifles will rarely be popular with ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... which the man asked was not asked as one interrogates, but as one puts a question that has personal application to himself. The trapper felt this. He looked into the man's face, and studied his countenance a moment; noted the breadth of brow, the large, deep-set eyes, the fine curvature of the chin and cheek; saw the beauty and splendor of it; saw what some might not have seen,—both the beauty of its peaceful mood and the terribleness of the wrath that might surge out of it,—saw all this, and without ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... another large species, of which South Africa is the home. This is remarkable for a noble appearance; but its most striking characteristic is its magnificent horns—each of which is four feet in length, sweeping widely outwards in an elegant spiral curvature. The koodoo loves the shade of the forest, and especially delights to dwell on the banks of rivers—taking freely to the water ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid

... brilliant silver-grey, very much like the central zone of Jupiter. North of this on the one side stretched the long shadow of the rings, and southward other bands of alternating white and gold and deep purple succeeded each other till they were lost in the curvature of the vast planet. The poles were of course invisible since the Astronef was now too near the surface; but on their approach they had seen unmistakable evidence of snow ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... these was Jumieges; it occupied a delightful situation in a peninsula, formed by the curvature of the stream, where the convent had existed from the reign of Clovis II. and had, with only a temporary interruption, caused by the invasion of the Normans, maintained, for eleven centuries, an even course of renown; celebrated alike for ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... Symmetry develops solemnity, but in landscape it must be balanced, not formal. Continuity: as in a succession of pillars or promontories or clouds involving change and relief, or else it would be mere monotonous repetition. Curvature: all beautiful objects are bounded by infinite curves, that is to say, of infinitely changing direction, or else made up of an infinite number of subordinate curves. Radiation: illustrated in leaves and boughs and in the structure of organic bodies. Contrast: of shapes ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... reports and opinions after examination. These opinions can be seen in full in nearly any large medical library. At this time they had diseased and atheromatous arteries, and Chang, who was quite intemperate, had marked spinal curvature, and shortly afterward became hemiplegic. They were both partially blind in their two anterior eyes, possibly from looking outward and obliquely. The point of junction was about the sterno-siphoid angle, a cartilaginous band extending from sternum to sternum. In 1869 Simpson measured ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... these data to calculation, we shall find that the profile of the bow is represented by a logarithmic curve, of which the ordinates increase in arithmetical progression; while the abscissae increase in geometrical progression; and lastly, that the curvature of the profile will be expressed by ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George

... found that the image on the lens grew smaller, the effect being exactly the same as that from a balloon rising. The picture at first appeared slanting at an angle of about thirty degrees, owing to the curvature of the Earth, but by manipulating a small lever close at hand that operated a mirror in the radioscope, this defect ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood

... thing, of course," said Marion ironically. "Yes, you; with color of eyes, hair, length of index finger of the right hand, curvature of thumb, disposition—whether peaceable or otherwise, and ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... flit by on wings and at haphazard instants. They must be caught in air. In this respect one thinks American writers ought to have an advantage over English, for American trousers are made with hip-pockets, in which a small note-book may so comfortably caress the natural curvature ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as a sort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in English literature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful child pining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Or curvature of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... not corrected, all the structures on the affected side of the neck undergo organic shortening, with the result that the deformity becomes accentuated. In advanced cases a lateral curvature, with the convexity towards the normal side, occurs in the cervical region, the vertebrae becoming wedge-shaped from side to side, and a compensatory curve may develop in ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... marble; the outer orders are carried up from the base without any capitals or imposts. The height of the crown of the inner arch above the capitals from which it springs is somewhat less than half the width at the bottom, and the radius of the curvature of the arches is greater than the width. Over the arch is a square-headed two-light window, lighting the room over the entrance. The roof differs from all the other roofs of the church since it is covered with stone ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... decision; and fortunately, our sealer, who was so wary and procrastinating in a bargain, never had occasion to make two drafts on his thoughts, in situations of emergency. As the ship cleared the promontory on the eastern side of the cove, we again opened a curvature of the ice, which gave a little more water to leeward. Tacking was impossible, and the helm was put hard aweather. The bow of the Walrus fell off, and as she rose on the next wave, I thought its send would carry us helplessly down upon the berg. But the good craft, obedient to her ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... presented on the interior surface of these amphitheatres, being notably downward from the exterior plane, a contrary form to that which terrestrial craters present. It follows, therefore, that the general curvature at the bottom of these amphitheatres gives us fear of an inferior diameter to that of ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... the wind shall blow at a future time; they have several ways of doing this, of which however I know but one. "They say, that the Milky-way, is always curved laterally; but sometimes, in one direction, and sometimes in another: And that this curvature is the effect of its being already acted upon by the wind, and its hollow part therefore towards it; so that, if the same curvature continues a night, a corresponding wind certainly blows the next day. Of their rules, I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... common and desirable presentation is with the fore feet first, the nose between the knees, and with the front of the hoofs and knees and the forehead directed upward toward the anus, tail, and croup. (Plate XII, fig. 1.) In this way the natural curvature of the body of the fetus corresponds to the curve of the womb and genital passages, and particularly of the bony pelvis, and the foal passes with much greater ease than if placed with its back downward ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... man with a flowing black beard and, hunched up above his shoulders, was the rounded hump which had given him the name of "Bible-Back." To counterbalance this curvature his head was craned back, giving him a bristling, aggressive air, and as he strode down towards Denver his long, gorilla arms, extended ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... of the Zungwe, where we had left the Zambesi on our way up. Mpande was sorry that he had no canoes of his own to sell, but he would lend us two. He gave us cooked pumpkins and a water-melon. His servant had lateral curvature of the spine. We have often seen cases of humpback, but this was the only case of this kind of curvature we had met with. Mpande accompanied us himself in his own vessel, till we had an opportunity of purchasing a fine large canoe elsewhere. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... the tobacco about half an inch from where the old man lighted it with a match. "Dad is all right, except his back. He slept four nights with a cork life preserver strapped to, his back, coming over, and he has got curvature of the spine, but the doctor has strapped a board to dad's back, and says when his back warps back to fit the board he will be ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... have studied Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene; they have themselves experienced what they teach others; they have been trained to observe, and deal gently and carefully with growing girlhood. They have also studied deformities such as spinal curvature, round shoulders, and flat feet, and are able to take all such cases under ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley

... odious to me. I know that much may be said in its favor—that drainage and gas- pipes come easier to such a shape, and that ground can be better economized. Nevertheless, I prefer a street that is forced to twist itself about. I enjoy the narrowness of Temple Bar and the misshapen curvature of Picket Street. The disreputable dinginess of Hollowell Street is dear to me, and I love to thread my way up the Olympic into Covent Garden. Fifth Avenue in New York is as grand as paint and glass can make it; but I would not live in a palace in Fifth Avenue if the ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... forethought and provision for every contingency which had distinguished the engineer's procedure in the course of the work, he had made frequent experiments to ascertain the actual power which would be required to raise the main chains to their proper curvature. A valley lay convenient for the purpose, a little to the west of the bridge on the Anglesea side. Fifty-seven of the intended vertical suspending rods, each nearly ten feet long and an inch square, having been fastened together, a piece of chain was attached to one end to make the chord ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... suggested the scheme of the study, a number of the other characters, notably Deborah Thayer, Richard Alger, and Cephas Barnard, are instances of the same spiritual disease. Barnabas to me was as much the victim of disease as a man with curvature of the spine; he was incapable of straightening himself to his former stature until he had laid hands upon a more purely unselfish love than he had ever known, through his anxiety for Charlotte, and so raised himself to ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... application to its purpose. These being found, a person naturally looks to see if the use of them will contribute to his physical pleasure as well as his convenience, that the back of a chair is the right height and curvature to fit his back, and the seat is not so deep as to strain his legs; that the table or desk is one he can spread his legs under in natural fashion, and rest his elbows upon with ease; in short, that the furniture conforms to his bodily requirements, ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... that account, however, did the strong men wield their axes and hew asunder the tough ropes and spars. Bax, as usual, was prominent in action. He toiled as if for life; and so it was for life, though not his own. Small was the hope, yet it was enough to justify the toil. The curvature of the lifeboat was so great that it was possible a portion of air sufficient to maintain life might be confined within it. And so it turned out. For twenty minutes they toiled; the boat was finally cleared; Bax struck the blow that set it free, and dragged the coxswain ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... him, ladles water into the hole after every two or three strokes, and thus causes the chips to float out. This operation steadily pursued for about six hours completes the boring. In boring the lower part, the craftsman aims at producing a slight curvature of the tube by very slightly bending the pole and lashing it in the bent position; the pole on being released then straightens itself, and at the same time produces the desired slight curvature of the bore. This curvature is necessary in order to allow for the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... still the same; obedience it refused. His time and labour constantly were lost; Vain proved each effort: mystick skill was crossed; The wind, or rain, or fog, or frost, or snow, Had no effect: still circular 'twould go. The more he tried, the ringlet less inclined To drop the curvature so closely twined. How's this? said Satan, never have I seen Such stubborn stuff wherever I have been; The shades below no demon can produce, That could divine what here would prove of use: 'Twould puzzle hell to break the ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... required him; other matters needed attention too. What brought him to the sudden decision was the fact that he had done for the moment all he could find to do, beginning with the Pension mortgages and ending with little Edouard Tissot, the vigneron's boy who had curvature of the spine and could not afford proper treatment. It was a long list. He was far from satisfied with results, yet he had done his best, in spite of many clumsy mistakes. In the autumn he might return and have a further try. Finances were getting muddled, too, and he realised how small his ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... features of that king of old; gray haired, prematurely gray; the eyebrows unlike in their curvature, giving a quaint expression to the face, a mild and good-tempered face, but somewhat deficient in character, forming the strongest contrast to that tall commanding figure on his right hand, with the stern and manly features, the greatest of the Edwards—a ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... creature, when, in a moment, I found myself amidst a perfect fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large as the first. Some were quite small, but the majority about as big as an average balloon, and with much the same curvature at the top. There was in them a delicacy of texture and colouring which reminded me of the finest Venetian glass. Pale shades of pink and green were the prevailing tints, but all had a lovely iridescence where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms. Some hundreds of them drifted ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants, &c. Hence they also exhibited bas-reliefs on curved surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like such a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we lose sight of that which precedes, and do not ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... character of Germanic mysteriousness. We must have been at a great elevation, though the mountains were not prominent objects; on the contrary, the eye ranged until it found the horizon, as at sea, in the curvature of the earth. The rills near us flowed into the Rhine, and, traversing half Europe, emptied themselves into the North Sea; while the stream that wound its way through the valley below, took a south-easterly direction towards the confines of Asia. One gets grand and pleasing images ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the sea formed by the curvature of the land between two capes or headlands, often used synonymously with gulf; though, in strict accuracy, the term should be applied only to those large recesses which are wider from cape to cape than they are deep. Exposed to sea-winds, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... the several breeds, the development of the bones of the face, in length and breadth and curvature, differs enormously. The shape, as well as the breadth and length of the ramus of the lower jaw, varies in a highly remarkable manner. The caudal and sacral vertebrae vary in number; as does the ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these, but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... it closely trimmed behind, he could do as much for the apparent shape of his head at the rear. If the forehead needed still more change, the line of implantation could be altered by removing hairs with tweezers; and the same painful but possible means must be used to affect the curvature of the eyebrows. By removing hairs from the tops of the ends, and from the bottom of the middle, he would be able to raise the arch of each eyebrow noticeably. This removal, along with the clearing of hair from the forehead, and thinning the eyelashes by plucking out, would contribute ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... interesting relic, and to our eyes appeared of an unusual construction. The corner towers are small and circular; and the intermediate portion of the outer wall is constructed with a swell, or a small curvature outwards. I paced the outside, but have forgotten the measurement. Certainly, it is not more than forty feet square. I tried to gain admittance into the interior, but without success, as the person possessing ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... line, which is illustrated in Fig. Y, page 87 [Transcribers Note: Diagram IV]. First of all, fix the positions of the extremities of the line by means of the vertical and horizontal. And also, as this is a double curve, the point at which the curvature changes from one direction to the other: point C. By drawing lines CA, CB and noting the distances your curves travel from these straight lines, and particularly the relative position of the farthest points ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... of importance in these beds is the curvature, to which, as well as to fracture, they seem to have been subjected. This curvature is not to be confounded with that rippling or undulating character of every portion of the slaty crystalline rocks above described. I am now speaking of all kinds of rocks indifferently;—not of their appearance ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... turned up and secured by a lariat; willow rods of the required dimensions are then cut, heated, and bent into the proper shape for knees, after which their centres are placed at equal distances upon the keel, and firmly tied with cords. The knees are retained in their proper curvature by cords around the ends. After a sufficient number of them have been placed upon the keel, two poles of suitable dimensions are heated, bent around the ends for a gunwale, and firmly lashed to each knee. Smaller willows are then ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... "Not far off," he said abstractedly. "Two thousand miles radius—and the earth itself not a solid ball, but a big globular shell two thousand miles thick. I could rig up a level, I suppose; work out an approximation of the curvature." ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin

... the abstract, we do not put the subject as though it were the first part of the definition, viz. the genus; but we give it the second place, which is that of the difference; thus we say that simitas is "a curvature of the nose." But if we take accidents in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates at the accident: for "a white thing" is "something that has whiteness." Accordingly in defining ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... the muscles of the back, and more especially in the case of the growing girl, is not a thing to be accepted as readily as the weakness of the biceps and the forearm muscles. Various observers find a proportion of between 85 per cent. and 90 per cent. of those suffering from lateral curvature of the spine to be girls, the great majority of these cases occurring between the ages of ten and fifteen. Everywhere it is our duty to prevent such cases, and everywhere physical training will find only too abundant opportunities for endeavouring to correct them. It may be doubted ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... girl, Gervaise,[*] born the following year, was a cripple from birth. Her right thigh was smaller than the left and showed signs of curvature, a curious hereditary result of the brutality which her mother had to endure during her fierce drunken brawls with Macquart. Gervaise remained puny, and Fine, observing her pallor and weakness, put her on a course of aniseed, under the pretext that she required something ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... the outer orders are carried up from the base without any capitals or imposts. The height of the crown of the inner arch above the capitals from which it springs is somewhat less than half the width at the bottom, and the radius of the curvature of the arches is greater than the width. Over the arch is a square-headed two-light window, lighting the room over the entrance. The roof differs from all the other roofs of the church since it is covered with stone tiles, while the others are covered with lead. There are buttresses ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... elbows ... Dreadfully bony! And my face has become..." She turns her face towards him. He sees tears trembling on the lower lashes of her grey eyes, but something has come into the features, some irradiation of love—is it the light of the sunset?—which imparts a tender youthfulness to the curvature of cheek, lips and chin. Her face, indeed, might be of any age: it held the undying beauty of a goddess, in whom knowledge has sweetened to tenderness and divinity has dissolved in a need for compassion; and the youthful assurance ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... the curved form of each ridge became apparent. Lord Avebury says that when the driver, walking on the near side, reached the end of each furrow, he found it easier to turn the team by pulling them round than by pushing them, thus accounting for the slight curvature. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... of bats suspended, and asleep! They were hanging in all possible positions; some with their heads down, some by the claws upon either wing, and some by both, while a great many had merely hooked over the branch the little horny curvature of their tails. Some hung down along the trunk, suspended by a crack in the bark, while others were ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... have stripped him, and find a splendid specimen, square built from the ground up, muscles well developed, his appearance indicative of perfect health. No curvature of spine, disease or irritation of spinal cord; no atrophy of any muscles or evidence of weakness. No impairment ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... only the curvature, but even the tapering by straight lines, would be somewhat difficult of execution in the pieced column. Where, indeed, the entire shaft is composed of four or five blocks set one upon another, the diameters may be ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... ignoring them, because they are the stepping stones to lead us on to better ones. In my early work Dr. Draper suggested a very excellent plan for testing a flat surface, which I briefly describe. It is a well known truth that, if an artificial star is placed in the exact center of curvature of a truly spherical mirror, and an eyepiece be used to examine the image close beside the source of light, the star will be sharply defined, and will bear very high magnification. If the eyepiece is now drawn toward the observer, the star disk begins to expand; and if ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... of the pubis and on the front of the scrotum. The man ran into a low form of fever, with uraemic symptoms; the stench was so great that it was almost impossible to remain in the same room with him; but he finally made a slow and very tedious recovery. In healing there was considerable downward curvature of the penis, which, however, did not prevent him from following his ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... taking it off and putting it on again with anything like dignity. At any rate, then, here goes a how. But, another difficulty presented itself; my loose frock was so voluminous that I doubted whether any spinal curvature would be perceptible. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... themselves greater men because they cannot, it is wholly wasted time to read any words of mine; in the truest and sternest sense they can read no words of mine; for the most familiar I can use—"form," "proportion," "beauty," "curvature," "colour"—are used in a sense which by no effort I can communicate to such readers; and in no building that I praise, is the thing that I praise it ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... be worth while briefly to mention some points. Commencing with the skull, Cuvier has admitted[57] that in form the differences are "plus fortes que celles d'aucunes especes sauvages d'un meme genre naturel." The proportions of the different bones; the curvature of the lower jaw, the position of the condyles with respect to the plane of the teeth (on which F. Cuvier founded his classification), and in mastiffs the shape of its posterior branch; the shape of the zygomatic arch, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... vivid only in the middle of the field. All about that centre the dead fibres and seeds were magnified and distorted by the curvature of the glass. But we could see enough! One after another all down the sunlit slope these miraculous little brown bodies burst and gaped apart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths. ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... gradually far outwards; and the bottom, for a space of some miles, everywhere consists of gravel. I carefully examined the bed of the sea off the Santa Cruz, and found that its inclination was exactly the same, both in amount and in its peculiar curvature, with that of the 355 feet plain at this same place. If, therefore, the coast, with the bed of the adjoining sea, were now suddenly elevated one or two hundred feet, an inland line of cliffs, that is an escarpment, would be formed, with a gravel-capped plain at its foot gently sloping ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... long been observed that school children are more subject to curvature of the spine and other deformities of the skeleton than the children who do not attend school. While this is due largely to faulty positions assumed by the pupils at their work, it has been suggested that the school furniture may be in part to blame for these positions. Investigations ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... prepared to understand the use of the marginal spikes, which form so conspicuous a feature in the appearance of the plant (fig. 12, p. 287), and which at first seemed to me in my ignorance useless appendages. From the inward curvature of the lobes as they approach each other, the tips of the marginal spikes first intercross, and ultimately their bases. Until the edges of the lobes come into contact, elongated spaces between the spikes, varying from the 1/15 to the 1/10 of an inch (1.693 to 2.54 mm.) ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... but they were to be ray projectors of a type never before possible. Space is the transmitter of all rays, and it is in space that those energy forms exist. Arcot had merely to transfer the enormously high energy level of the space-curvature to any form of energy he wanted, and now, with the complete statistics on it, he was able to do that directly. No tubes, no generators, only fields that changed the energy ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... of Boys; on the Physical Education of Girls; Spinal Curvature; Exercise proper for Adults; ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... the maps. Schmidt shows a row of large craters on the outer slope of the E. border. Of these, one is very conspicuous under a low evening sun, by reason of its brilliant walls and interior. In the region between Gauss and Berosus is a number of narrow steep ridges which follow the curvature of ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... ceiling, directly above the one on the floor, was another concave disk, but this one had a far more pronounced curvature. ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak

... horror of lockjaw," he explained. "I never get a jag from a pin but I see myself in the shape of a hoop, semicircular, with my head on one end of a table, my heels on the other, and a doctor standing on my navel trying to reduce the curvature." ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... of these was Jumieges; it occupied a delightful situation in a peninsula, formed by the curvature of the stream, where the convent had existed from the reign of Clovis II. and had, with only a temporary interruption, caused by the invasion of the Normans, maintained, for eleven centuries, an even course of renown; celebrated alike for the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... spurs, it charged insanely toward the bulge of the circular wall. With all its tons and tons of weight it crashed against the stonework. There was a thunderous crackling noise, and the wall sagged in perceptibly, while the metal roof bent to accommodate the new curvature of its supporting beams. ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst

... matter, the three caravels turned eastward, touching at the Isle of Pines and coasting back along the south side of Cuba. The headland where the Admiral first became convinced of the significance of the curvature of the coast, he named Cape of Good Hope,[575] believing it to be much nearer the goal which all were seeking than the other cape of that name, discovered ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... descended to us, there are slight discrepancies which it is impossible to reconcile. Entering Lake Michigan at its northern extremity through the Straits of Mackinac, they paddled down the eastern coast, passed the mouth of St. Joseph's River, rounded the southern curvature of the lake, and reached the mouth of the Chicago River on the 4th of January, 1682. The winter in that region was short, but very severe. The Chicago River presented ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... embroidery, the figure of a crescent. His coat was of white cloth, faced with black, and cut in a very antique fashion; and, in lieu of a waistcoat, he wore a buff jerkin. His feet were cased with loose buskins, which, though they rose almost to his knee, could not hide that curvature, known by the appellation of bandy legs. A large string of bandaliers garnished a broad belt that graced his shoulders, from whence depended an instrument of war, which was something between a back-sword and a cutlass; and a case of ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... 'converter,' then makes a tour of the timber-yard, and looks about for all the odd, crooked, crabbed trunks of oak and elm which he can find; well knowing that if the natural curvature of a tree accords somewhat with the required curvature of a ship's timber, the timber will be stronger than if cut from a straight trunk. He has the mould-pieces for a guide, and searches until he has ferreted out all the timbers wanted. Then he sets the sawyers to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various

... time to time alarming rumours of "spinal curvature" as a result of side-saddle riding, but I have never known a case of this to occur, either to old or young, although the near-side position of the leaping-head has a tendency to develop the muscles of the left leg more than those of the right leg, ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... had been taken to keep the balance between neatness and gracefulness on the one hand and picturesqueness on the other. There were few straight lines, and no long uninterrupted ones; whilst at no one point of view did the same effect of curvature or colour appear twice. Variety in ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... of the natural forces. He found that plants respond visibly, by movements, to environmental stimuli. But the movements induced—'tropic' movements—are extremely diverse. Light, for example, induces sometimes positive curvature, sometimes negative. Gravitation, again, induces one movement in the root, and the opposition in the shoot. Dr. Bose applied himself to find out whether the movements in response to external stimuli, ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... Inspector Mac or the excellent local practitioner has grasped the overwhelming importance of this incident. One dumb-bell, Watson! Consider an athlete with one dumb-bell! Picture to yourself the unilateral development, the imminent danger of a spinal curvature. Shocking, ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... lips, little appetite either for food or drink, and dry skin, with cold extremities. She has at times been occasionally worse, and been relieved in some degree by the bark. She began to bend forwards, and to lift up her shoulders. The former seemed owing to a beginning curvature of the spine, the latter was probably caused to facilitate her ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... man is always man in every acceptation of the word. In every case in which the bones collected have enabled us to judge, he has ever been found to have the hand and foot proper to our species, and that double curvature of the spinal column has been made out, so characteristic that Serres made it the distinctive attribute of his human kingdom. In every case with him, as with us, the skull is more fully developed than ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... around a corner. The upper-lobe-bronchus forceps shown in Fig. 27 have curved jaws so made as to straighten out while passing through the bronchoscope and to spring back into their original shape on up from the lower jaw emerging from the distal end of the bronchoscopic tube, the radius of curvature being regulated by the extent of emergence permitted. They are made in extra-light pattern, 40 cm. long, and the regular model 45 cm. long. The full-curved model, giving 180 degrees and reaching up into the ascending branches, is made in both light and heavy patterns. ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... as can be found (figs. 8 and 9). The design was made by John Rennie the elder, and the acting engineer was his son, Sir John Rennie. The semi-elliptical shape of the arches the variation of span, the slight curvature of the roadway, and the simple yet bold architectural details, combine to make it a singularly beautiful bridge. The centre arch has a span of 152 ft., and rises 29 ft. 6 in above Trinity high-water mark; the arches on each side of the centre have a span of 140 ft. and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... work in the mills. Thus far I have seen about a hundred such cases, and can, most decidedly, express the opinion that they are the consequences of overwork. So far as I know they were all mill children, and themselves attributed the evil to this cause. The number of cases of curvature of the spine which have fallen under my observation, and which were evidently consequent upon too protracted standing, was not less ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... the intellect, monotony cannot exist: it was one of those emotions I had left behind. One day, however, in the year 2132, a great discovery was made by a man called Zarentzov. It had to do with the curvature of space, quite changing the conceptions that we had all followed since Einstein. I had long ago mastered the last detail of Einstein's theory, as had, in time, the rest of the world. I threw myself immediately into the study ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker

... stamp and the go-as-you-please features of a Turkish carpet. Her eyes are a trifle too ferrety, but the osculatory power of her mouth in auld lang syne must have been such as to give Cupid spinal curvature. Her nose retreats somewhat precipitately from the chasm; but whether that be its original pattern, or it has been gradually forced upwards by eager pilgrims to her shrine of adjustable pearls, is a secret hidden in her own heart. Like Willy Wally ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... immediately below those of the lower, but this is not always the case. Sometimes the whole of the upper portion uniting the arcs of the ends is struck from one centre, in which case the arch becomes a three-centred one, being, in fact, half an ellipse. Towards the close of the style the curvature of the upper portion is so slight that it can hardly be distinguished from a straight line, and as the debasement progressed it became really straight. Ogee arches are also found at this period, and foiled arches are very frequent. When the Tudor ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath

... pace quickened as Dantor's guiding light slithered along the gleaming wall. Sometimes it was almost hidden from sight by the curvature of the welded plates and he was forced into a jog trot to keep ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... in the branches, these aberrations are to be seen on the plants during the whole year. Moreover they are in some cases much more numerous than in the first instance. The Cryptomeria of Japan has a variety with twigs resembling ropes. This is not caused by a twisting, but only by a curvature of the needles in such a way that they seem to grow in spiral lines around the twigs. This variety often reverts to the type with widely spread, straight needles. And on many a specimen four, five, or more reverted ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... to size, shape, curvature, bracing and material, are all important. A great deal depends upon the curve of the surfaces. Two machines may have the same extent of surface and develop the same rate of speed, yet one may have a much greater lifting power than the other, provided it has a more ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... perspective," by which relative distances are rendered cognisable with such tender and exquisite beauty. The absence of atmosphere on the Moon causes the most distant objects to appear as close as the nearest; while the comparatively rapid curvature of the moon, owing to its being a globe only one-fourth the diameter of the earth, must necessarily limit very ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... forty-second parallel of latitude. That line, and the country from the Arkansas to the Yellowstone, was explored and developed mainly by private enterprise, and it is by far the most practicable line crossing the continent —the shortest and quickest, of lightest curvature, and lowest grades and summits. It is not, in an engineering point of view, the true line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but in a commercial ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... speaks of a signal answer to his prayer. "While at the home of L.R. in England, I was asked to pray with his daughter, who had spinal curvature. Subsequently L.R. writes, 'We. are full of thankfulness and praise about E. She is quite well and strong, and does everything like her sisters. She has such perfect faith that the Lord had healed her, that she at once put away the ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... land. At the termination of the great hall a massive flight of spiral steps, of Egyptian marble, ascends to the fourth story, forming a balcony at each, where ottomans are placed, and from which a fine view of the curvature presents itself, from whence those who have ascended may descry those ascending. On the second story is a corridor, with moulded juttings and fretwork overhead; these are hung with festoons of jasmines and other delicate flowers, extending its whole length, and lighted by globular lamps, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... may interrupt a discussion on the beauty of a dahlia, by observing that as you know that they take an interest in such things you mention the discovery of a new method of analyzing curves of double curvature. Men who talk only of trifles will rarely be popular with ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... pyramidal form, with a wide base, and a long contracted top. These cells hang perpendicularly in the hive, the point downwards, from which position the royal worm can be supported in the cell, only when the curvature of the posterior part forms two points of support; and that it cannot obtain this support without resting on the lower part, or towards the extremity. Therefore if it attempted to stretch out and spin towards the wide end of the cell, it could not reach both sides from ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber

... description given me of Coleridge whom I shall presently describe. In height he seemed to be five feet eight inches, (he was in reality about an inch and a half taller,) though in the latter part of life, from a lateral curvature in the spine, he shortened gradually from two to three inches. His person was broad and full, and tended even to corpulence; his complexion was fair, though not what painters technically style fair, because it was associated with black ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... conditions had not changed. The lines marked "gold" and "steel" show the relation to heat and temperature and the melting points of these metals. All the inclined lines would be slightly curved if attention had been paid to the changing specific heat, but the curvature would be small. It is worth noting that, with one or two exceptions, the curves of all substances lie between the vertical and that for water. That is to say, that water has a greater capacity for heat than all other substances except ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... hope will every day increase:—"If you lace tightly, nothing can save you from acquiring high shoulders, abnormally large hips, varicose veins in your legs, and a red nose. Surely such penalties, to say nothing of heart disease, spinal curvature, and worse, are sufficiently dreadful to deter either maids or matrons from unduly compressing their waists? No adult woman's waist ought to measure less in circumference than twenty-four inches at the smallest, and even this is permissible to slender figures only. The rule of beauty is that ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various

... that a variation of one twentieth of an inch from the dimensions intended is all that need be allowed—the width of the two ends of the building agreeing to within this amount. The entasis of columns and curvature of what would ordinarily be straight lines is familiar to ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various

... telescopes, microscopes, etc. is carried on to a great extent in Sheffield. Above five gross per day are ground of convex and concave glasses in one shop. Concave basins cast in iron of the radii of curvature of proposed lenses are fixed in rows on a frame, and rubbed with water and emery. A concentric convex basin is then covered with round pieces of plate glass fixed with pitch; and the convex stir face, with its glass ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various

... extremely long tail and for the comparative insignificance of its head. In the northern skies, indeed, the comet of 1843 showed a very straight tail, and it is usually depicted in that way, whereas the comet of 1668 had a tail showing curvature. But pictures of the comet of 1843, as seen in the southern hemisphere, show it with a curved tail, and also the tail appeared forked toward the end during that part of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various

... drama below grew smaller. At the same time the vista widened, so that they saw more and more countryside. It twisted beneath them and the horizon came giddily into view. A few moments later the curvature of the ...
— Double Take • Richard Wilson

... of these bees been BEYOND that wood, the angle of intersection would not have been there, but at the hive across the prairie. The reader will understand that creatures which obey an instinct, or such a reason as bees possess, would never make a curvature in their flights without some strong motive for it. Thus, two bees taken from flowers that stood half a mile apart would be certain not to cross each other's tracks, in returning home, until they met at the common hive: and wherever the intersecting angle in their respective ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for, according to Nature's plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish. The curvature or distortion of the spinal column creates in these outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where the nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal conditions,—where they develop, and whence they are emitted, so to say, in lightning flashes, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... an absolute essential in all cases of imperfect bone structure, such as rachitis, or rickets, constitutional disease of children, osteomalacia, tuberculosis of the bones, deformity of bone structure, such as curvature ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... less crooked. The stream was not broad, but its numerous isles, willowy banks, and verdant meadows, formed a line for the eye to follow. Rouen in the distance, with its ebony towers, fantastic roofs, and straggling suburbs, lines its shores, at a curvature where the stream swept away west again, bearing craft of the sea on its bosom. These dark old towers have a sombre, mysterious air, which harmonizes admirably with the recollections that crowd the mind ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... prints while expanded with moisture is, that in drying the contraction of the paper pulls round the card into a curved form and although by rolling this curvature may be temporarily got rid of, the fiber of the paper is in a strained condition, and the bent state of the mount is, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... mid-day when I emerged from the forest into an open space at the foot of the peninsula. A broad lake of beautiful curvature, with magnificent surroundings, lay before me, glittering in the sunbeams. It was full twelve miles in circumference. A wide belt of sand formed the margin which I was approaching, directly opposite to which, rising seemingly from the very depths of the water, towered the loftiest ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts

... considerable time. This is the case with the bones of the back. Now every person must see that the weight of the child's head and shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous spinal column, may easily bend it. And a curvature, thus given, may, and often ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... cases in practicing expansion we should be careful that there is no increase in the curvature of the spine. The back should remain normal, or become more nearly normal ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... its curvature, has formed this little dent, on a coast possessing, and certainly at present requiring, few harbours, displays, perhaps, the least inviting of all prospects; offering to the view nothing but a shelving beach of dazzling white sand, backed with a few small hummocks beat up ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... receive from these objects cannot have the same focus. How, then, can we account for the evident accommodation of the eye to the varying distances? Various theories have been advanced to explain this adjustment; such as changes in the curvature of the cornea and lens; a movement of the lens, or a general change in the form of the eyeball, by which the axis may be lengthened ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... writer knows, there is nothing in print that tells the man on the job about the details of the turbine in plain language, and how to handle these details when they need handling. The operating engineer does not care why the moving buckets are made of a certain curvature, but he does care about the distance between the moving bucket and the stationary one, and he wants to know how to measure that distance, how to alter the clearance, if necessary, to prevent rubbing. ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins

... a cylindrical basket with open ends, made of brush woven on pickets or stakes as described for hurdles. The usual size is 2 ft. outside diam. and 2 ft. 9 ins. height of wattling. On account of the sharp curvature somewhat better brush is required for gabions than ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... "This is our last extravagance for some time, girls—but we'll celebrate to-night," he cried. "You haven't a little elderberry wine, have you, mother?" he asked. "Riley says that's the stuff for little boys with curvature of the spine—and I'll tell you it put several kinks in mine to ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... Dr. Whitaker in his excellent book, The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven, 'stands upon a beautiful curvature of the Wharf, on a level sufficiently elevated to protect it from inundations, and low enough for every purpose of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... representing the lens, and b the object desired to be represented, the rays (c, c) proceeding from it fall upon the lens, and are transmitted to a point, which varies with the curvature of the glass, where an inverted image (d) of b is very accurately formed. At this point, termed the focus, the sensitive photographic material is placed for the purpose of obtaining ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... the Weeping Willow is the most conspicuous example, unless we except the American Elm; but a remarkable difference may be observed in the drooping character of these two trees. In the Elm we perceive a general arching or curvature of all its branches, from their points of junction with the tree to their extremities; so that two rows of Elms, meeting over an avenue, would represent, more nearly than any other trees disposed in the same manner, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... bones lay like the bars of a gridiron, a mature specimen of a type that Ellen had met in her school-days. There had been several girls at John Thompson's, usually bleached and ill-favoured victims of anaemia or spinal curvature, who had seemed to be compelled by something within themselves to spend their whole energies in trying, by extravagances of hair-ribbon and sidecombs and patent leather belts, the collection of actresses' ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, by his play impeding his father in his labors. When ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Mountain Amphitheatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude; stately, massive, all of granite; glittering in the western sunbeams, like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills; of the greenest was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. To the unconscious Wayfarer thou wert also as an Ammon's Temple, in ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... long could such-or-such an outworn system last? He can never give himself less than one generation to show the full effects of a changed condition. His object is to triangulate from the widest possible base to the furthest point he thinks he can see, which is always far beyond the curvature of the horizon. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... there was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became a heap of fiery ruins. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... two words, and it was possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as a sort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in English literature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful child pining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Or curvature of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... He was a slim fellow, apparently about thirty, in a fresh, well-cut, serge suit. A book was sticking out of one pocket; he returned the map to the other. He had the sallow look of one who has spent years in hot workshops, and a slight curvature of the spine; but his eyes were singularly, audaciously bright, and all ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... contrivance yet discovered, to measure their thickness, and determine the law according to which the colours varied with the thickness of the film. Newton surmounted this difficulty by laying a double convex lens, the radius of the curvature of each side of which was fifty feet, upon the flat surface of a plano-convex object-glass, and in the way he obtained a plate of air, or of space, varying from the thinnest possible edge at the centre of the object-glass where it touched the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... at the severe curvature of the extremities of the cycle-track, which were shaped like the interior of a huge bowl, and while I was demonstrating to them how, from scientific considerations and owing to the centrifugal forces of gravitation, it was not possible ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... the portal in what seemed to be the arc of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... accordance with experience and observation. Professor Hicks in his address to the British Association in 1895 said: "What is called Centrifugal Force is an apparent bodily Force directed outwards from the centre of curvature of the body's path, and having an intensity equal to the distance from the centre multiplied by the square of ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... dip of the visible horizon at different heights from the sea, as calculated from the known curvature of the earth, allowance is made for the refraction of the atmosphere, on a supposition of its being constant, but as it is known to vary, the tabular dip will often be erroneous, and, consequently, altitudes taken under different states of the atmosphere, will exhibit ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... come into contact with the heated glass and the heated liquid, so as to destroy the vitality of any dust germs that may exist in the air. The air itself will re-enter very gradually, and slowly enough to enable any dust to be taken up by the drop of water which the air forces up the curvature of the tube. Ultimately the tube will be dry, but the re-entering of the air will be so slow that the particles of dust will fall upon the sides of the tube. The experiments show that with this kind of vessel, allowing free communication with the air, and the dust not being ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams









Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org




Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |