"Ballast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into a parlour, to bear a hand, ship his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself into an elbow chair, "Stop my hawse-holes," cried he, "I can't think what's the matter, brother; but, egad, my head sings and simmers like a pot ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... slate-gray, and her ballast was so adjusted that with the seven men who manned her on board, one to steer, one to look after the torpedo, and five to turn the propeller crank, her low hatch scarcely rose above the water. In that condition, and especially at night, she looked ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... important article in all our return cargoes; because, being carried as ballast, its freight costs nothing. But on account of some regulations, with which I am not well acquainted, it cannot at present be shipped to advantage from any ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... passed by Congress almost without discussion? Ostensibly it was an act for the protection of American ships, merchandise, and seamen. It forbade the departure of all ships for foreign ports, except vessels under the immediate direction of the President and vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods. Foreign armed vessels were exempted also as a matter of course. Coasting ships were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to reland their freight in some port ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... vessels carrying passengers or cargo, $1.20 per net vessel ton-each 100 cubic feet-of actual earning capacity. 2. On vessels in ballast without passengers or cargo, 40 per cent less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passengers or cargo. 3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hospital ships, and supply ships, 50 cents per displacement ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... of the night, in rubbing my feet and legs to keep them from freezing. * * * In consequence of these chills I have been obliged to wear a laced stocking upon my left leg for nearly thirty years past. My bunk was directly against the ballast-port; and the port not being caulked, when there came a snow-storm the snow would blow through the seams in my bed, but in those cases there was one advantage to me, when I could not otherwise procure ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Brazil was the only country manufacturing rubber articles, and her best market soon proved to be North America. Probably the first rubber this country saw was brought to New England in clipper ships as ballast in the form of crude lumps and balls. Rubber shoes, water-bottles, powder-flasks, and tobacco-pouches found buyers in the American ports, but rubber shoes were most ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... portraits of the men, in every age, whom the University has nurtured to be illustrious,—long vistas of alcoved libraries, where the wisdom and learned folly of all time is shelved,—kitchens, (we throw in this feature by way of ballast, and because it would not be English Oxford without its beef and beer,) with huge fireplaces, capable of roasting a hundred joints at once,—and cavernous cellars, where rows of piled-up hogsheads seethe and fume with that mighty malt-liquor which is the true milk of Alma Mater: make all these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... head gardener up at Claverings, 'e can't get sweet peas like that, try 'ow 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sand ballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the other day, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why a station-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e says, 'but you do. And in your orf time, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... good order in the soul. When Job perceived that his friends did not deal with him in an even spirit and orderly manner, he said that they forsook "the fear of the Almighty" (Job 6:14). For this fear keeps a man even in his words and judgment of things. It may be compared to the ballast of the ship, and to the poise of the balance of the scales; it keeps all even, and also makes us steer our course right with respect to the things that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... my dear, we must keep it secret till the estate be settled; for you know, marrying without an estate is like sailing in a ship without ballast. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... an oldish man with bushy whiskers and a reputed mastery of the French tongue. A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's councils, and endured by the Cabinet as necessary ballast. He did not conceal his dislike for certain of his colleagues, notably Mr. ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... this over again—after you are married and settled. If you had the substantial interests to give you the steadiness and ballast, I think you'd be the very man for your scheme. Yes, something—some such thing as you suggest—must be done to stop the poisoning of public opinion against the country's best and strongest men. The political department of the business interests ought to be ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... one cares to buy the yawl Siren, he may have her for 200 pounds, or a trifle less than the worth of her ballast, as lead goes nowadays. For sufficient reasons—to be disclosed in the course of this narrative—I am unable to give her builder's name, and for reasons quite as sufficient I must admit the figures of her registered tonnage (29.56), cut on the beam of her forecastle, to be a fraud. I will ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... life, Let us suppose, however, that our attention is drawn to this material side of the body; that, so far from sharing in the lightness and subtlety of the principle with which it is animated, the body is no more in our eyes than a heavy and cumbersome vesture, a kind of irksome ballast which holds down to earth a soul eager to rise aloft. Then the body will become to the soul what, as we have just seen, the garment was to the body itself—inert matter dumped down upon living energy. ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... uppermost, his claim is usually allowed for a share of what is going. And the thing seems to me highly reasonable: For in all great changes, the prevailing side is usually so tempestuous, that it wants the ballast of those whom the world calls moderate men, and I call men of discretion; whom people in power may, with little ceremony, load as heavy as they please, drive them through the hardest and deepest roads without danger of foundering, or breaking their backs, and will be ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... saile, and little or no ballast, is easily overset; and that man, whose head hath great abilities, and his heart little or no grace, is in danger ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... cried, "when I'm tired you'll have to take a turn; but don't she go along splendidly with all this water ballast ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the State. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress; the other the ballast, without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the accession of the House of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig conceived that he could not better serve the cause of civil and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had a distinct literary style. As a speaker he was quiet, deliberate, decisive, sure; and he carried enough reserve caloric so that he made his presence felt in any assemblage before he said a word. In oratory it is personality that gives ballast. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... is divided into staircases, on each of which are six or eight sets of rooms, inhabited by us undergraduates, and here and there a tutor or fellow dropped down amongst us (in the first-floor rooms, of course), not exactly to keep order, but to act as a sort of ballast. This quadrangle is the show part of the college, and is generally respectable and quiet, which is a good deal more than can be said for the inner quadrangle, which you get at through a passage leading out of the other. The rooms ain't half so large or good in the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the point from which he started, like those bits of drift-wood which are always bobbing up and down close under the fall or circling round and round in the eddies. The trouble is, such sticks float too lightly on the surface of things; if they carried more heart-ballast, and would sink deeper, the current would bear them on.—Another variety of the Conservative is the man who is really progressive and right-minded, but extremely slow. Give him time, and he is certain to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... lawns and pastures from May till October. We saw one specimen in October. It grew in a waste lot at Kaighn's Point, Camden, N.J. It was solitary, of a brownish-yellow color, the cap 1 inch broad, and the stem 1 inch long. It was growing amidst some ballast ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... concerning the general policy of the British empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh mail which ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ship about three-quarters of an hour. There were forty-five other ships, each capable of carrying some fifty tons of small stones and rubble. These latter cargoes were shot into the water in much the manner that ordinary ballast ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Marble, nodding his head in approbation. "It will touch on love next, and, if trouble do not follow, set me down as an ill-nat'red old bachelor. Love in a man's heart is like getting heated cotton, or shifting ballast, into a ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... nightfall. In these rapids, going or returning, we may safely count, at this season, on a plenty of trout; and, on the borders of the lake beyond, I know of several favorite haunts of the deer, one of which I propose to take into the canoe as ballast to steady it for running the rapids, on ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... working day soon made itself felt. The north wind rose, causing the lively Mukhbir, whose ballast, by-the-by, was all on deck, to waddle dangerously for the poor mules; and it was agreed, nem. con., to put into Tor harbour. We found ourselves at ten a.m. (December 12th) within the natural pier of coralline, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... mince pies, and bottles of wine, and were just sitting down to their Christmas cheer, when the alarm was given that a vessel from Tilbury was flying through the water after them. They had scarcely time to hide themselves in a dark hole among the gravel which was the ballast of their smack, when the chase was over, and Billop, at the head of an armed party, came on board. The hatches were taken up: the conspirators were arrested; and their clothes were strictly examined. Preston, in his agitation, had dropped on the gravel his official seal and the packet of which he ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sailing in ballast tomorrow, sir. She'll go light, and aboard her I should get to Fulta as quickly ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... to the First Church, Niece Louise," he said firmly. "Abe always did. These small-fry craft, like the Mariner's Chapel, are all right, I don't dispute; but they are lacking in ballast. It's in my mind to attend the church that's the most like ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... should no longer fear the pirates; I should return with the cranes, loaded with a supply of lawsuits by way of ballast. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... had been delayed in discharging freight by a series of storms which prevailed at the bay, and was now down at Haparanda Fjord taking in ballast. The probability was that she would not leave for several days. Meantime I was extremely anxious to see a little more of domestic life in Iceland, and made several foot-expeditions to the farm-houses ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... arriving second; but few persons ever knew how Puss and his helper Sandy had tried to injure Frank's airship when it was directly beneath them, by deliberately dropping a sand bag, taken along, singularly enough, as "ballast," but with this very ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... week I was beating the ballast up Broadway when Pete, the Piker, declared himself in and began to chatter about cinches ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; "an' once she gets t' sea she's got ballast enough t' stand up to a sousing breeze. With any sort o' civil weather she ought t' make Ruddy Cove in ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... of her celibate priesthood. And in active warfare it seems to me that such men must enjoy something of the fatalism of Islam. All is not lost, my dear fellow! I hear everywhere the greatest praise of your capacity and talents as an officer. So be brave, and throw the others as mere ballast behind you. You have a guiding star in ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... his—the Post, Tiddy Jacob master, and the Water-dog, Garbrand Peters master—are detained somewhere in the Baltic by his Majesty's forces. They had sailed from London to France; thence to Amsterdam, where one had taken in ballast only, but the other a cargo of herrings, belonging in part to one Peter Heinsberg, a Dutchman; and, so laden, they had been bound for his Majesty's port of Stettin. Probably the Dutch ownership of part of the herring cargo was the cause of the detention ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... in the main those small farmers and semi-peasants who under the old regime were released from the burden of taxation and at the same time excluded from the benefits of education. Among these people the illusions of the higher classes were reflected without the ballast of mentality. Ready to fight on any provocation, yet circumscribed by their own natures, not understanding life, unable to picture to themselves different types and conditions, these people were as prone as children to confuse the world of ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... of mere speculation and fancy, to the sphere of air and fire, where his delighted spirit floats in 'seas of pearl and clouds of amber.' There is no caput mortuum of worn-out, threadbare experience to serve as ballast to his mind; it is all volatile intellectual salt of tartar, that refuses to combine its evanescent, inflammable essence with anything solid or anything lasting. Bubbles are to him the only realities:—touch them, and they vanish. Curiosity is the only proper category of his mind, and though ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... farther than the fine weather about us. Most had been 'round the Horn' before, and we should have known but there was no old 'steady-all' to ballast our cock-a-boat, and we scorned the wisdom of the forecastle. 'Good enough t' be goin' on with,' and 'come day, go day'—were our mottoes in the half-deck. Time enough, by and by, when the weather showed a sign! We had ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... retorted the sheriff easily. "Del, you better relieve Mr. Hardman of his ballast. He ain't really fit to be trusted with a weapon, and him so excitable. That Winchester came awful near going off, friend. You don't want to be so careless when you're playing with firearms. It's a habit that's liable to get ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... been often shipwrecked upon them, more than once your desires—those of a young marrying man—(where, alas, is that time!) have seen their richly laden gondolas go to pieces there: the flower of the cargo went to the bottom, the ballast of the marriage remained. In short, to make use of a colloquial expression, as you talk over your marriage with yourself you say, as you look at Caroline, "She is not what ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... said, 'came here with his son the other night. It would have delighted you to see the old man's pride in him. As he was going away, he patted him on the head, and said, "Take care of him, Lady Blessington, for my sake. He is a clever lad, but wants ballast. I am glad he has the honour to know you, for you will check him sometimes when I am away...." D'Israeli the younger is quite his own character of Vivian Grey, crowded with talent, but very soigne of his curls, and a bit of a coxcomb. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... run to and fro on the haven's banks, and then suddenly came the ringing of a bell from the low tower of the church, and the Danes began to look to their arms, stringing bows, and bringing up the pebble ballast for sling stones, in case the landing should ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... would have sworn falsely as to his native land. Lord Ralles was a little, well-built chap, not half so English as Albert Cullen, quick in manner and thought, being in this the opposite of his brother Captain Ackland, who was heavy enough to rock-ballast a road-bed. Both brothers gave me the impression of being gentlemen, and ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... his writings to make the fortune of a great poet, in spite of their ballast of mediocre and tiresome verses, which the reader should disregard as he goes along. Between him and his contemporary, the haughty recluse Alfred de Vigny, there is not a little resemblance. Needless to say that Lebensohn had no acquaintance ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... companions, "let the poor lad alone; he hasn't a mind for the drink, perhaps he ain't used to it, and it'll only make him top heavy. You can see he wants ballast; he'll be over on his beam-ends the first squall if he takes the ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... pleased God that we got clear of this island, to the no small joy of us all, after we had lived in it for five months. The 20th of that month we fell in with the land near Cape Breton, where we ran into a fresh water river, of which there are many on this coast, and took in wood, water, and ballast. Here the people of the country came to us, being cloathed in furs, with the hair side inwards, and brought with them sundry sorts of furs to sell, together with great quantities of wild ducks; and as some of our company had saved a few small beads, we bought ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... each. Buck-shot and slugs are better than bullets, for the purposes of which we are speaking. Bows and arrows might render good service. The Chinese, in their junks, when they expect a piratical attack, bring up baskets filled with stones from the ballast of the ship, and put them on deck ready at hand. They throw them with great force and precision: the idea is not a bad one. Boiling water and hot sand, if circumstances happened to permit their use, are ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... which nearly swallowed up the debt. Poor Grace was overwhelmed when her mother came home and upbraided her, in her despair, with being a burden. Was she not a burden? Must she not be one henceforth? No, she would take in needlework, labour in the fields, heave ballast among the coarse pauper-girls on the quay-pool, anything rather: but how to meet the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... you will not persist in the folly of swimming against the current, I see no danger whatever in your being submerged. You are strong; you have principles and religion; you adore your children; you love Monsieur de l'Estorade, their father, in them. With all that ballast you ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... didn' considher The 'spense nor nothin'—not a fig! And three lugs at her—that was the rig— And raked a bit, three reg'lar scutchers, And carried her canvas like a ducherss. Chut! the trim is in the boat. Ballast away! but the trim's in the float— In the very make of her! That's ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... country of Olanda, they were preparing twelve or thirteen large vessels with the purpose of coming to the Yndias. He was told that they were to seize Ambueno and the Maluca Islands, and that they were carrying a large number of men, besides lime and cut stone in ballast, to make a fortress. I am much afraid that this is true, because of what I have previously written to your Majesty with reference to the advices which I have received from the king of Tidore. He states that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... and Conde, being united by interest, made a jest of that surly look from which Beaufort's cabal were termed "The Importants," and at the same time artfully made use of the grand appearance which Beaufort (like those who carry more sail than ballast) never failed to assume upon the most trifling occasions. His counsels were unseasonable, his meetings to no purpose, and even his hunting matches became mysterious. In short, Beaufort was arrested at the Louvre by a captain of the Queen's Guards, and carried on the 2d of September, 1643, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... had taken on a political character. The Movement had in the meantime let the demand of the poorest of the people for bread drop, and thrown them over as one would throw over ballast in order to rise more quickly. The institutions themselves would be won, and then they would of course come back to the starting-point and begin again quite differently. It might be rather convenient to turn out those who most hindered the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... without delay, Having no custom-house nor quarantine To ask him awkward questions on the way, About the time and place where he had been: He left his ship to be hove down next day, With orders to the people to careen; So that all hands were busy beyond measure, In getting out goods, ballast, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... her christened without her parents' knowledge. Having been left in narrow circumstances by her husband, she was at present living with Miss Power as chaperon and adviser on practical matters—in a word, as ballast to the management. Beyond her Somerset discerned his new acquaintance Mr. Woodwell, who on sight of Somerset was for hastening up to him and performing a laboured shaking of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... for lumber manufacture exists, and building material therefore must be imported. Pine is purchased from Russia, Scandinavia, and the United States. Stone is purchased wherever it may be obtained as return freight, or as ballast. The coast fisheries yield oysters, herrings, and "anchovies," which are ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... joy, they put out every vessel to catch it; they lowered the sail, and, putting ballast in the center, bellied it into a great vessel to catch it. They used all their spare canvas to catch it. They filled the water-cask with it; they filled the keg that had held the fatal spirit; and all the time they were sucking the wet canvas, and their own clothes, and ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... then go up the Baltic in ballast to some small port—just a sawmill, at the head of a fjord—where I shall have a cargo of timber waiting for you to bring back to London. When can you begin ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say —to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... one while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and, on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting hunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady. Otherwise, he admits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have been prolonged to the point of positive disaster. Gradually the ballast shifted back again, and he regained something that approached his ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... my pocket. With this I tried to cut away the stays which held the mast in its place, hoping that it would then fall out, and relieve the boat of the sails which weighed her down so low in the water. Most fortunately I had not sand-ballast, in tarred bags, as most of our pleasure-boats had, but water-ballast in breakers, which now proved no additional burthen to the boat. It was also fortunate that she was built partly of deal, and had only her lower streaks of jarra wood, which does ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the tree, wedged firmly into the soapbox support with flat irons around the base for ballast. In one corner of the room, a Noah's ark, which later came to an untimely end on a mud-puddle cruise, had spilled its assortment of cardboard animals out on the carpet. Near the doorway lay a red fireman's suit, and in the dining-room, bending over the candy-filled cornucopias ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... blowing twice a gale and nothing happened to either of us. Probably no stiffer class of vessels sails the seas than the big coasters of our side of the North Atlantic. Give them plenty of ballast and there is no capsizing them. We surely had plenty of ballast in us now, and took cheerfully all the hard westerly had to give us, and foamed along. Foamed? We wallowed—like a couple of sailing submarines almost. In that wind ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... their bodies to a faithless sky, But make small journeys with a careful wing, And fly to water at a neighbouring spring; And lest their airy bodies should be cast In restless whirls, the sport of every blast, 250 They carry stones to poise them in their flight, As ballast keeps the unsteady vessel right. But, of all customs that the bees can boast, 'Tis this may challenge admiration most; That none will Hymen's softer joys approve, Nor waste their spirits in luxurious love, But all a long virginity maintain, And bring forth ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... passed without difficulty; and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools which seemed impassable. But the men unloaded the canoes and—'a desperate undertaking'—ran them down the rapids with light ballast. They then came back overland ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... to work. Kits and cans, ballast and blocks, spare spars and tackle, higgledy-piggledy overboard they went, some on the shingle, some splashing into the tide, to be snatched and ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... parallel than in the maxims of La Rochefoucauld. The union of the philosopher, the enthusiast, and the man of the world is fairly unusual in literature, but in Hazlitt's case the union was not productive of any sharp contradictions. His common sense served as a ballast to his buoyant emotions; the natural strength of his feelings loosened the bonds which attached him to his favorite theories; his cynicism, by sharpening his perception of the frailty of human nature, prevented his philanthropic dreams from imposing ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... been settled that to-day should be devoted to an excursion to the forests which are now being opened up by the new line of railway in course of construction. The special train of ballast-trucks which had been provided for us was to have started at ten o'clock, soon after which hour we landed, some delay having been caused at the last moment by the receipt of a message requesting us to send ashore every rug we possessed, ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... on hadn't cleaned out her share of the Stidler estate—not so you'd notice it! She'd been on the spot, Aunt Emma had, watchin' the market. Long before the jinx hit Wall Street she'd cashed in her mill stock for gold ballast, and when property prices started tumblin' she dug up a lard pail from under the syringa bush and begun investin' in bargain counter real estate. Now she owns business blocks, villa plots, and shore frontage in big chunks, ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that the next day should be pleasant, our thoughts turned with the prow of the China to Japan. We were bound for Nagasaki, to get a full supply of coal to drive us across the Pacific, having but twelve hundred tons aboard, and half of that wanted for ballast. It was at the mouth of the harbor of Nagasaki that there was a settlement of Dutch Christians for some hundreds of years. An indiscreet letter captured on the way to Holland by a Portuguese adventurer and maliciously ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... autos at all. We denounce the owner's judgment on oils and take his machine violently away from him in order to prove that it will pull better uphill with the spark retarded. At night, during the summer, we hurry through supper and then go out on the front porch to wait for a chance to act as ballast. ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... it appear that they were better off than they really were. Then there were an extraordinary number who aspired to the rare distinction of shining as divines and as admired preachers of the Gospel. Young men sought to become instructors of others before they had any ballast of character of their own. It was a time of danger and of the threatened loss of great opportunities, making it all the more remarkable that, in the way of social, educational and industrial progress, the negroes are where they are to-day. In those ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... iron under the middle board of the cabin," said Betty. "Uncle Amos said it was there for ballast in case we wanted to use a sail, but I don't see ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... report is the fact that there is still a pretty strong coast-guard force in that region; and one may observe that whenever a boat comes to the beach a stout fellow in the costume of a man-of-war's man, goes up to it and pries into all its holes and corners, pulling about the ballast-bags and examining the same in a cool matter-of-course manner that must be extremely irritating, one would imagine, to the owner ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... knows there is ground under her feet," she observed. "A light heart makes easy ballast, so my father used ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and more important things to think about," Mr. Skinner retorted icily. As a business man he was opposed to levity in the office. "What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?" ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... said Jack, gravely, "that did not occur to me; no doubt you must go. Our boat does require a good deal of ballast; and all that you say, Peterkin, carries so much weight with it, that we won't need stones ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... fellows too often, on some miserable excuse or other. But, at any rate, there's an end of the famous Bonito. I have just heard in the harbour-office that she must have gone on at the very top of high-water; and she is in ballast, too. No human power, they think, can move her from where she is. I only hope it is so. It would be fine to have the notorious Bonito stuck up there as a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... level of the turntable, whether unloaded, partially loaded, or loaded, is happily met by an arrangement of water ballast and pumping. I cannot pass away from the mention of Mr. Eads' work without just reminding you of the successful manner in which he has dealt with the mouth of the Mississippi, by which he has caused that river to scour and maintain ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... returned home heavily laden, and with these little navigators the difference is an important one. With a full cargo, a stiff head- wind is a great hindrance, but fresh and empty-handed, they can face it with more ease. Virgil says bees bear gravel-stones as ballast, but their only ballast is their honey-bag. Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I prefer to get to windward of the woods in which the swarm ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... general vows made in common, each sailor made a special vow; for no one expected to escape, holding themselves for lost, owing to the fearful weather from which they were suffering. The want of ballast increased the danger of the ship, which had become light, owing to the consumption of the provisions and water. On account of the favorable weather enjoyed among the islands, the Admiral had omitted to make provision ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... officer, a copy of which is also enclosed, confirms everything, extolling the grandeur of the view of the port, the water, wood, and ballast with which it abounds, and although the climate is rather cold, it is healthy and free from the fogs ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... Havana to Matamoras, with supplies for General Ampudia," came much more cheerfully back. "We had to run away from Matamoras in ballast to escape the gringos. Their cruisers are around like hawks. You won't get to Vera Cruz if they ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... pursuers were close alongside, when the four guns, which were ready for use, were to be discharged. They hoped this would be sufficient to drive them off. If it should not, a fifty-six pound weight, taken from the ballast in the run, was to be pitched into the boat, as she came alongside, which would break out a hole in its bottom, and sink it before the enemy could get on board; Cyd was then to do duty with his boat-hook, and the others with ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... years of age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In 1812, when Stephenson ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... village, unknown, and almost unseen. But when those of the inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection became acquainted with him, they were rather pleased with the substitute than otherwise, though he had scarcely as yet acquired ballast of character sufficient to steady the consciences of the hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood who, at this time, lived in Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition supplementary support to the mixed race which went to church in the morning ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... about him. I do not think he lived in vain. There are no partisans now. The only songs of the sort that I ever saw with any verve in them were some seditious Irish ones: rather spirited—only they had not grammar enough to ballast them. The writer either was, or wanted to be, transported. We are all very fond of the Guelphs—at least every body in decent society is—and that is just the reason why we are not enthusiastic. We are all ready to ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... now got a freight for the ship, and we hauled into the stream, abreast of the dock-gates, and took in shingle ballast. The Prussian, Dane, second mate, and the English cooper, all left us, in London. We got a Philadelphian, a chap from Maine, who had just been discharged from an English man-of-war, and an Irish lad, in their ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... the discharging from the Smeaton of her cargo of the cast-iron rails and timber. It must not here be omitted to notice that the Smeaton took in ballast from the Bell Rock, consisting of the shivers or chips of stone produced by the workmen in preparing the site of the building, which were now accumulating in great quantities on the rock. These the boats loaded, after discharging the iron. The object in carrying off these ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now that he was going into foreign parts, to be upon his guard against the fair weather of the French politesse, which was no more to be trusted than a whirlpool at sea. He observed that many young men had gone to Paris with good cargoes of sense, and returned with a great deal of canvas, and no ballast at all, whereby they became crank all the days of their lives, and sometimes carried their keels above water. He desired Mr. Jolter to keep his pupil out of the clutches of those sharking priests who lie in wait ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... while he retreats; but the prose writer has conquered like a Roman and settled colonies." We may ask ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works exist at all but in the imagination of the student. For the bulk of the best of books is apt to be made up with ballast; and those in which energy of thought is combined with any stateliness of utterance may be almost counted on the fingers. Looking round in English for a book that should answer Thoreau's two demands of a style like ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... supply of clothing, jewels, and ready cash. Our ship carried twenty-four guns and two hundred Sclavonian soldiers. We sailed from Malamacca to the shores of Istria during the night, and we came to anchor in the harbour of Orsera to take ballast. I landed with several others to take a stroll through the wretched place where I had spent three days nine months before, a recollection which caused me a pleasant sensation when I compared my present position to what it was at that time. What a difference in everything—health, social condition, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... battered, but battling gallantly for life, and making wonderful weather of it. Yet, even as hope told the flattering tale of her certain safety, there came racing up astern a sea, gigantic even in that giant sea, raced her, caught her, and, as it passed ahead, so tilted her bows that the ballast slid aft, and down she sank by the stern, so near to safety that betwixt ship and shore wife might recognise husband and ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... years. This vessel was built at Dieppe and fitted out for a privateer; was taken by the English, and has been plying between Dover and Calais as a packet-boat. She has excellent accommodations and sails fast. I shall copper her, put her in ballast, trim with L1000 or L1500 sterling in cargo, and proceed to the Isle of France and Bourbon, where I expect to sell her, as well as the cargo, at a very handsome profit, and have no doubt of being well paid for ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... fearlessly exprest: "I have really never had any strong feeling of solidarity; in fact, I have only in a way accepted it as a traditional tenet of faith,—and if one had the courage to leave it out of consideration altogether, one would perhaps be rid of the worst ballast with which one's personality is burdened." In another letter he wrote: "I may as well say the one thing I love in freedom is the struggle for its attainment. Its possession does not ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... neck whenever the aeronaut wishes to let gas escape for a descent. He is able to cause a very rapid escape by pulling another cord depending from a "ripping piece" near the top of the bag. In case of emergency this is torn away bodily, leaving a large hole. The ballast (usually sand) carried enables him to maintain a state of equilibrium between the upward pull of the gas and the downward pull of gravity. To sink he lets out gas, to rise he throws out ballast; and this process can be repeated until the ballast is exhausted. The greatest height ever ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... to the mound," said he, speaking very rapidly, "and when we got to the top and lifted off that stone lid—upon my soul, ladies, I believe there is gold enough in that thing to ballast a ship. It isn't filled quite up to the top, and, of course, I could not find out how deep the gold goes down; but I worked a hole in it as far down as my arm would reach, and found nothing but gold bars like this." Then, glancing ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... sort of blackguard fellow eneugh—naebody cares to trouble him—smuggler, when his guns are in ballast—privateer, or pirate faith, when he gets them mounted. He has done more mischief to the revenue folk than ony rogue that ever came ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... practical ship-builders ridiculed, but Cosmo, as original in this as in everything else, declared that, taking into account the buoyancy of levium, no other form would answer as well. He estimated that when its great engines were in place, its immense stores of material for producing power, its ballast, and its supplies of food stowed away, and its cargo of men and animals taken aboard, it would not draw more than ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... America, unless first landed in England: the consequence whereof is, that English ships, which (I shall suppose) are hired to sail from London to Lisbon with corn, and thence proceed to America, have not the liberty to carry salt in place of ballast, and therefore under a necessity to pay above L10 sterling at Lisbon for ballast (that is to say, for sand), which they carry to America, or else return to England in order to get a clearance for the salt, which would be ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... and gave him the position of every train on the line—freights, ballast trains, everything—showed him the answers of the various conductors, the latest reports at the stations where the various trains had passed. All was right. He looked in my face for a second. I scarcely dared look in his. I did not know what was going to happen. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... Chancellor,' the King said, 'it is evident that so grave an office must have a grave fulfiller. And, to ballast thee the better, the Queen of her graciousness hath found thee a weighty helpmeet. So that, before you shall touch the duties and emoluments of this charge you shall, and that even to-night, wed this ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford |
