"Breakwater" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... summits of the hills, and feathering down to the shingle on the beach. And from this lovely spot you will witness one of the most splendid panoramas in the world. You will see—I hardly know what you will not see—you will see Ram Head, and Cawsand Bay; and then you will see the Breakwater, and Drake's Island, and the Devil's Bridge below you; and the town of Plymouth and its fortifications, and the Hoe; and then you will come to the Devil's Point, round which the tide runs devilish strong; and then you will see the New Victualling Office,—about which Sir James Gordon used ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... spread when we opened the railroad—that's six months ago; and the time before that I wore one at MacGolderick's funeral. MacGolderick blew himself up at Puerto Truxillo, shooting rocks for the breakwater. We never found all of him, but we gave what we could get together as fine a funeral as those natives ever saw. The boys, they wanted to make him look respectable, so they asked me to lend them my dress-suit, but I told them I meant to wear it myself. That's how I came to wear a dress-suit at a ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... front, and with the greatest difficulty the vessel was steered through an opening between them; but in another few minutes she struck heavily, one of her masts went over the side, and she lay fast and immovable. Fortunately, the outside bank of sand acted as a sort of breakwater; had she struck upon this the good ship would have gone to pieces instantly; but although the waves still struck her with considerable force, the captain had good hope that she would not break up. Darkness came on; the tempest seemed to lull. As there was no immediate ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... .not answer for the safety of his life, Napoleon refused the offer. Upon the arrival of despatches from London the 'Bellerophon' got under weigh for Plymouth Sound on the 26th of July. This movement tended still further to disconcert the ex-Emperor and his followers. In passing the breakwater Bonaparte could not withhold his admiration of that work, which he considered highly honourable to the public spirit of the nation, and, alluding to his own improvements at Cherbourg, expressed his apprehensions that they would now be ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... feasible. Kyak is an open harbor, and he says no breakwater can be built there to withstand the storms. He still clings to that belief, although the Trust is actually building one. If they succeed we're cooked. Meanwhile he's rushing work and straining every nerve to raise more money. Now you come along with a proposal ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... terrible Gharbi set in. The port of Makn, which has been described in "The Gold-Mines of Midian,"[EN113] can hardly be called safe; on the other hand, its floor has not been surveyed, and a single brise-lame seawards would convert it into a dock. I should propose a gallegiante, a floating breakwater, tree-trunks in bundles strongly bound together with iron cramps and bands, connected by stout rings and staples and made fast by anchors to the bottom. And, at any rate, on the Sinaitic shore opposite, at the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... far distant from the shore. It varies in width from thirty to sixty yards, and its surface is level and smooth; it is composed of obscurely-stratified hard sandstone. At high water the waves break over it; at low water its summit is left dry, and it might then be mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean workmen. On this coast the currents of the sea tend to throw up in front of the land long spits and bars of loose sand, and on one of these part of the town of Pernambuco stands. In former times a long spit of this nature seems ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... length, ever suffers degradation at the same time along its whole indented length; and we {287} must remember that almost all strata contain harder layers or nodules, which from long resisting attrition form a breakwater at the base. We may at least confidently believe that no rocky coast 500 feet in height commonly yields at the rate of a foot per century; for this would be the same in amount as a cliff one yard in height retreating ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... the eastward, and the hurricanes which sometimes occur during July, August, and September, blow the strongest from the southeast, so that vessels will not venture in the bay during the hurricane season. I have landed twice at the Cape in a small boat, and I think a breakwater can be built, at small cost, so as to make a safe harbour at all seasons. Stone can be obtained with great ease from three cones of rocks rising from the sea, and forming the extreme southerly point of the Cape, called the Frayles. Looking ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... for the wind having shifted to the south, the sea raised across the broad estuary drove directly into the bay. Could they once get her safely through the surf, however, they might obtain shelter under the western point, where a reef running out formed a natural breakwater. They ran her down the beach, but when near the water both Harry and the boatswain hesitated about attempting to launch her. Should they not succeed in getting her quickly through the surf, one of the heavy seas which were ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... Kearsarge having made her appearance off the eastern entrance of the breakwater, at about 11 A.M. Sent an order on shore immediately for coal (one hundred tons), and sent down the yards on the mizen-mast, and the topgallant yards, and otherwise ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... half speed through the narrow channel in the coral reef which makes the natural breakwater of the harbor. This channel is carefully buoyed on either side, and at night safety-lamps are placed upon each of these little floating beacons, so that a steamship can find her way in even after nightfall. Though the volcanic ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... the sky was very clear to the southward, and the land could be traced to a great distance until it faded in the south-west. But the ship had come up with the solid floe-ice once more, and had to give way and steam along its edge. This floating breakwater held us off and frustrated all attempts to reach the goal ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Lizard already referred to, and saw many of the sights in the neighbourhood. After visiting Penzance on the conclusion of our work we saw Cape Cornwall (where Whewell overturned me in a gig), and returned homewards by way of Truro, Plymouth (where we saw the watering-place and breakwater: also the Dockyard, and descended in one of the working diving-bells), Exeter, Salisbury, and Portsmouth. In returning from Camborne in 1826 I lost the principal of our papers. It was an odd thing that, in going through Exeter on our way to Camborne in 1828, I found them complete at ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... but it no longer ran in crested ridges and a vague dark line crossed the foam ahead. Sometimes part of the line vanished and reappeared like a row of dots with broad gaps between. Lister knew it was breakwater. On the other side anchor-lights tossed, and in the background a dull, reflected illumination indicated a town. Then the gong rang and Lister went back to the platform. In a few minutes he would get the signal to stop ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... for a little while really happy. Later on I took a tram back to Genoa, and walked up to the tall lighthouse on the further side of the town, and looked westward at the great curve of the shore, beyond the breakwater and ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... unconditional self-surrender, with a mighty, almost invincible Germany.... The Pan-Germans are right, the Czechs are an arrow in the side of Germany, and such they wish to and must and will remain. Their firm and unchangeable hope is that they will succeed in making of themselves an impenetrable breakwater. They hope for no foreign help; they neither wish for it nor ask for it. They have only one desire, namely, that non-German Europe may also at last show that it understands the meaning ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... glorious record than that which crowned with laurel the American arms at Chateau-Thierry. Here the American Marines and divisions comprising both volunteers and selected soldiers, were thrown before the German tide of invasion like a huge khaki-colored breakwater. Germany knew that a test of its empire had come. To break the wall of American might it threw into the van of the attack the Prussian Guard backed by the most formidable troops of the German and Austrian empires. The object was ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... eight years' existence the society never paid more than eleven annual dividends, because for many years it saved up its income for building an extension to its harbour, and eventually lost all these savings and L100,000 of Government money besides in a great breakwater, which proved an irremediable engineering failure, and lies now in the bottom ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... plain clothes. They took train from Waterloo at two in the afternoon, and reached Weymouth at six. When they crossed the strip of sea, the best of the day was gone, and a fresh breeze blew across the breakwater. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... that of Oban. A quiet bay has its secure island-breakwater in front; a line of tall, well-built houses, not in the least rural in their aspect, but that seem rather as if they had been transported from the centre of some stately city entire and at once, sweeps round its inner inflection, like a bent bow; and an amphitheatre of mingled rock and wood rises ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... it lessened a trifle, and came off from the larboard quarter. Daybreak found the boat off the north-eastern extremity of the Isle of Pines, and about five miles distant from that curious chain of islets called by the Spaniards the Islas de Mangles, which curves out like a breakwater across the northern face of the island. Their hunger, which had to some extent been appeased by their last plentiful meal of wild raspberries, and which had been altogether forgotten in the excitement of their subsequent flight now ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... ye! read an immense account of it in the Penny Magazine ever so long ago; but whether it is famous for a breakwater, or a harbour, or a cliff, or some dock-yard machinery, I can't recollect; perhaps it's all of them together; we shall find out soon; for travelling, as Mrs M. says, enlarges the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... triangular bay, hemmed on either side by shores, either cliff or steep earth-bank, of no great height. The grey houses of Pulteney extend along the southerly shore almost to the cape; and it is about half-way down this shore—no, six-sevenths way down—that the new breakwater extends athwart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a whistle—and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... colour, ominous of ill-temper beyond the great breakwater to the northward; and it fretted and fumed inshore and made white and ghastly faces ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... folded up his map, put it in his pocket, passed Evans carefully, and began to paddle. His movements were languid, like those of a man whose strength was nearly exhausted. Evans sat with his eyes half closed, watching the frothy breakwater of the coral creep nearer and nearer. The sky was like a furnace now, for the sun was near the zenith. Though they were so near the Treasure he did not feel the exaltation he had anticipated. The intense excitement of the struggle for the plan, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... celebrated engineer and architect, who built Waterloo and Southwark Bridges, Plymouth Breakwater, &c., was for a short time in the employ ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Dock. By the Harbour Act of 1868, the Dee near the harbour was diverted from the south at a cost of L. 80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres formerly made up) were provided on the north side of the river for the Albert Basin (with a graving dock), quays and warehouses. A breakwater of concrete, 1050 ft. long, was constructed on the south side of the stream as a protection against south-easterly gales. On Girdleness, the southern point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833. Near the harbour mouth are ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... twilights are very long and lovely, and down on the breakwater our friends enjoyed this one to the full. One might look over the blue expanse of bay and see the faint outlines of the coast of Wales, and then turn and gaze at the picturesque harbor and the quaint, hanging village, in the houses of which, lights were slowly beginning to twinkle, ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... sheltered by the land on three sides, while on the North it is sheltered by a large breakwater, which is protected and leaves passage for vessels. The passages are guarded by forts placed on islands intervening between the breakwater and the mainland, and themselves united to the mainland ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... their effect on the Establishment is very remarkable. In a letter to his friend Isaac Williams he says: 'Everything I hear makes me fear that latitudinarian opinions are spreading furiously in the Church of England. I grieve deeply at it. The Anglican Church has been a most useful breakwater against Scepticism. The time might come when you, as well as I, might expect that it would be said above, "Why cumbereth it the ground?" but at present it upholds far more truth in England than any other form of religion ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... convenience of steam-boats shall render the passage from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, like a trip across the Channel. But it is to be observed that whatever disadvantages the island may possess, its natural position is of the highest importance, since it lies as a breakwater at the bottom of St. Vincent's Gulf, and prevents the effects of the heavy southerly seas from being felt in it. There is, perhaps, no gulf, whether it is entered by the eastern or western passage, the navigation of which is so easy ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... seconds East of Sydney. This is the district from which all the coal used in New South Wales is brought, and a good harbour is therefore of importance. A party of convicts were employed in building a breakwater, connecting a cliffy island at the entrance with the south point of the river, for the purpose of deepening the mouth, but I much question whether it will answer, as the silt that is washed down by ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... accessories of a suburb of Berlin, and called it a seaport. It is not a seaport; in a fair gale you can't land a barrel of corks at the pier. But given time and they would have built in the face of nature a two million pounds breakwater and everything complete. Yes, they are a thorough people; they are human ants as regards work. Nevertheless, it is not colonising. ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... with a damp sponge. Gimblet had no doubt what it was. A boat had been beached here, and that lately. A glance at the stones surrounding the bay showed him that the water was falling, for in quiet little pools, within the outer breakwater of rocks, a damp line showed on the granite a full quarter of an inch above the water. By a rapid calculation of the time it would take for that watermark to dry, the detective was able to form some idea of the rate at which the loch was falling, and he thought he could judge the ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... was, surely enough, hidden from them as they came south, but plain to view now at the back of a huge mass of rock which acted as a breakwater; and there, in quite a recess, was a patch of yellow sand, over which the sea glided gently, while behind the rock the water seemed ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... searchlights aimed at it from a circle of hidden stations. The many-colored fan of enormous rays, the Scintillator, which stands against the sky behind the Exposition, is produced by a searchlight battery of thirty-six great projectors mounted on the breakwater of the Yacht Harbor. It is manned nightly by a company of marines, who manipulate ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion; for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with them, heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater across a small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was still busily engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan; who, such was her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... regularly spaced bursts of smoke along a little smear in the desert earth two thousand yards away—no connection at all with the strong voices overhead coming and going. It was as impersonal as the drive of the sea along a breakwater. ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... out firmly before him against the pitiless blue of sea and sky. He wandered over the hot stone causeway, but found no one. The revenue officers were away, and not a labourer, not a sailor, was visible. Beyond the breakwater little tufts of silvery foam flashed on the rollers, and a solitary steamer steered steadily for the horizon. He could see the Greek flag at her stern, and his eyes filled with tears. Ah, how little his friends in Athens thought of the man who had come to find fame and fortune in ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... hour they reached Capernaum. The wind had, by this time, greatly abated; although the sea still ran high. The ship was soon alongside a landing jetty, which ran out a considerable distance, and formed a breakwater protecting the shipping from the heavy sea which broke there when the wind was, as at present, ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... of three years, nearly sixteen, hard of body, weighing a hundred and thirty pounds, he judged it time to go home and open the books. So he took his first long voyage, signing on as boy on a windjammer bound around the Horn from the Delaware Breakwater to San Francisco. It was a hard voyage, of one hundred and eighty days, but at the end he weighed ten pounds the more for having ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... change of monsoons, the roadstead is unsafe. Larger vessels are then obliged to seek protection in the port of Cavite, seven miles further down the coast; but during the north-east monsoons they can safely anchor half a league from the coast. All ships under three hundred tons burden pass the breakwater and enter the Pasig, where, as far as the bridge, they lie in serried rows, extending from the shore to the middle of the stream, and bear witness by their numbers, as well as by the bustle and stir going on amongst them, to the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... that rose to his middle. In an instant he would have been swept away, for the current was very fierce, had not those who followed sprang down at his side and behind him. For a moment they managed to keep their feet till others came, giving them support and being themselves protected by a breakwater built of the men who had gone first. Then, forming in a double line, each man linked his arms round the middle of his comrade in front, as Kaffir girls link themselves in a dance, and very slowly this human chain began to struggle forward along the back of the ridge. ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... his thoughts, he embarked upon a sweeping attack on the stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists' dreams. He ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a breakwater he returned late in the day, a ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... —— outer breakwater to beyond the —— there was a line of mines which left between the land and them a channel less than half a mile wide. A gunboat with torpedo pilots aboard was moored at the south end, and vessels prior to the war and during the armistice were compelled to ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... knew what headland this might be; but Thorbeorn knew it was not Ericsfrith, which he had intended to make. They rounded it, however, without mishap, and had a fair wind when they were beyond it. At last they could see a shore with a rough breakwater of stones; and presently upon that shore some men standing together. They cast anchor and let down their sails, and before all was shipshape a boat came rowing out to them, with a man in the stern in a blue cloak. The ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied with water by a great aqueduct, tunnelled for nearly a mile through a mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or wholly constructed ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of his spade, partly with the palm of one hand, redressed some (to me obscure) fault in one of the gables. He rose, stood back, his eyes slowly endorsed the amendment. A few moments later, very suddenly, he scudded away to the adjacent breakwater and gave himself to the task of scraping off it some of the short green sea-weed wherewith he had made the cottage's two gardens so pleasantly realistic, oases so refreshing in the sandy desert. Were the lawns somehow imperfect? Anon, when he darted back, I saw what it was that his taste ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Ohio Railway station. This brick edifice stands almost in the centre of the course of the flood, and its preservation from ruin is one of the remarkable features of the occasion. A pile of freight cars lodged at the corner of the building and the breakwater thus formed checked the onslaught of floating battering rams. Mr. Woodruff, with his two sons, remained in the building until the following day. The water came up to the floor of the second story. All night long he witnessed people floating ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Inside the breakwater the sea was almost as smooth as a mirror. The water was wonderfully transparent, and they could see hundreds of tropical fish swimming lazily at a great depth. On the beach the waves lapped in musical ripples, ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... at the mouth of a verdurous gorge; and lies pitched so far as the very waterside, a picturesque jumble of wall and roof. Its banked edges bristle and stand up in the bight of a vaster bay, with a crooked breakwater, like a bent finger, beckoning passing sails to its harbourage—an invitation which most are coy of accepting. For the attractions of King's Cobb are—comparatively—limited, and its nearest station is a full six miles distant along ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... of the deep sea bay, Their sails they furl'd, and lower'd to the hold; Slack'd the retaining shrouds, and quickly struck And stow'd away the mast; then with their sweeps Pull'd for the beach, and cast their anchors out, And made her fast with cables to the shore. Then on the shingly breakwater themselves They landed, and the sacred hecatomb To great Apollo; and Chryseis last. Her to the altar straight Ulysses led, The wise in counsel; in her father's hand He plac'd the maiden, and address'd him thus: "Chryses, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... worked to a merry tune that struck chill to the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped, and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas and ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... jest to teach us t' git under the lee o' the great wrack o' Love an' Pity, 't made hisself lost for us; ay, an' so to make a wrack o' our own happiness for the poor an' weak, 't's out a-tossin' shelterless, to lead 'em to the true Breakwater. That 's life, that 's the sea, that 's the lesson. Till we pass on, up ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... 6th.—After breakfast our excellent architect came to fetch us for our expedition to the breakwater. My father complained of being dreadfully bilious, a bad preparation for the purpose. I wanted to stay at home with him, or at all events to put off the party for an hour or two; but he would not hear of either plan. So as soon as I was ready we ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... harbor of this city is almost closed, on one side, by a bold majestic promontory called Point Loma; and on the other, by a natural breakwater, in the form of a crescent, twelve miles long, upon the outer rim of which the ocean beats a ceaseless monody. At one extremity of this silver strand, directly opposite Point Loma and close to the rhythmic surf, stands the Hotel Coronado; its west front facing the Pacific, its east side looking ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... set the canoes to rocking madly, while the crowd cheered and shouted. After the launching, the schooners were towed out to sea, and down the coast, to be fitted elsewhere. We boys followed them in canoes as far as the breakwater, and watched them disappear. Soon their sails would be set, and they would join the white adventurers out ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... There are cornices on all sides, with steps to ascend to the top, where a long inscription proclaims the name, rank, and virtues of the founder, with dates of the commencement of the island and the shrine. The whole of the space, extending to the low stone breakwater that surrounds the island, is paved with the same kind of brick, and encloses, in addition to the P'hra-Cha-dei ("The Lord's Delight"), a smaller temple with a brass image of the sitting Buddha. It also affords accommodation to the numerous retinue of princes, nobles, retainers, and pages ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... of them mere rocks, form a sort of sheltered strait, or roadstead, of which the island of Rion, with Cape Morgion on the mainland opposite, are the extreme points. Pomègue and Ratoneau are connected by a breakwater. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... out of the season; so I turned my back upon it and gained, by a circuit in the course of which there were sundry water-side items to observe, the other side of the cheery little port, where there is a long breakwater and a still longer sea-wall, on which I walked a while, to inhale the strong, salt breath of the Bay of Biscay. La Rochelle serves, in the months of July and August, as a station de bains for a modest provincial society; and, putting aside the question ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... founded by Hasdrubal (the uncle of Hannibal) 243 B.C. The city is situated on a promontory running out into the sea, and possesses one of the finest harbours in the world, protected by an island as by a natural breakwater. But it had a weak side, and this had been betrayed by fishermen to Scipio. During ebb-tide the water of the shallow pool W. of the town fell so much that it was fordable and the bottom was firm. Of this Scipio took advantage. He first made a feint attack ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... his Diary (Dec. 30th, 1818) a most amusing blunder of a translator who knew nothing of the technical name for a breakwater. He translated the line in ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... islands which forms a natural breakwater to the coast of Dalmatia is broken into two groups by the Punta Planka, the ancient Promontorium Syrtis, south of Sebenico. To the northern group belong Veglia, Cherso, Ossero, Arbe, Pago, and a number of smaller and less important islands, including ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... Plymouth Harbour. As they entered the mouth of the breakwater, the tender came alongside to convey them ashore. Guy looked over the bulwarks and saw Cyril waiting for him. In a fervour of delight at the sight of the green fields and the soft hills of old England—the beautiful Hoe, and the solid stone houses, and the familiar face turned ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... mind to penetrate into the steerage at once and make sure of my runaway; but when I contemplated the distance of deck between where I now stood and where I had seen him disappear; and when, moreover, as the boat's head quitted the lee of the breakwater a big billow from the open leapt up at her and washed her from stem to stern, something within me urged me to go below at once, and postpone ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... by a bench on the breakwater he sat down, tired already of walking and out of humor with his stroll before he ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers' houses. Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay on the beach to the tidemark. It was daubed on to the sills ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Cherbourg, England trembled more than if he had launched fifty frigates. And well she might. For what is Cherbourg? Nothing less than an immense permanent addition to the French power of naval production. Here, protected from the sea by a breakwater miles in extent, and which might have been the work of the Titans, and girdled by almost impregnable fortifications, is more than a safe harbor for all the fleets of the world. For here are docks for the repairs I dare not say of how many vessels, and ship-houses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... been his bedroom; for not only did he describe the exact measurements between various points, but the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the currents, and the prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by running out a pier here, and a breakwater there—by filling up this, and deepening that—safe anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while the headlands could be easily fortified, and 'at a moderate cost,' I quote himself, 'of say twenty two or three millions of francs, while ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... never to speak of Tangier and the mole again. I spent many years upon the devising and construction of that great breakwater. It could have sheltered every ship of his Majesty's navy. It was wife and children to me. My heart lay very close to it. I fancied indeed my heart was disrupted with the disruption of the mole, and it has at all events, lain ever since as heavy as ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... beautiful country and enjoyed the excitement of an elephant hunt and of killing some of those colossal creatures of the jungle. Colombo was reached again, three days later, and another state banquet attended in the evening. On the following day the new Breakwater was inaugurated by the Prince and in the evening a farewell banquet received and the city left amid scenes of brilliant illumination and ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... French naval port. Until warships became floating fortresses Villefranche was useful to France. Now it sees only torpedo-boats and destroyers, and the lack of direct communication with the interior has prevented its commercial development. Better an artificial breakwater with no Alps behind than a natural ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... who, some time before, had been appointed to the Euryalus, in the course of the summer visited South Africa. After making a tour through Kaffraria, Natal, and the Orange Free State, he returned to Cape Town, where, in September, he laid the foundation stone of the breakwater in Table Bay. In a letter written by the Prince Consort a few weeks earlier to Baron Stockmar, he remarks upon the noteworthy coincidence that almost in the same week in which the elder brother would open the great bridge ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... gratuitous, because I seriously doubt whether I have such authority under any circumstances, and if I had I would not exercise it without express congressional approval. Indeed, as you know, I have already declined, without Mexican consent, to order a troop of Cavalry to protect the breakwater we are constructing just across the border in Mexico at the mouth of the Colorado River to save the Imperial Valley, although the insurrectos had scattered the Mexican troops and were taking our horses and supplies and frightening our workmen away. My determined purpose, however, is to be in a position ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... and more than once it seemed certain to sink as it broached to and shipped seas again. But half a dozen bold fishermen rushed with a rope into the short angry surf—to which the polled shingle bank still acted as a powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had collapsed—and they hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her up straight with, "Yo—heave—oh!" and turned her on her side to drain, and then launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... happened that in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day. The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman, Vlaming, substituted a new one for it; and Vlaming's plate, in turn, remained till 1817, when the French ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... leading instance, and would benefit the citizens of all such States. No one State, therefore, in such cases, would assume the whole expense, nor was the co-operation of several States to be expected. Take the instance of the Delaware breakwater. It will cost several millions of money. Would Pennsylvania alone ever have constructed it? Certainly never, while this Union lasts, because it is not for her sole benefit. Would Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware have united to accomplish ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... my naval career I was a sufferer to sea-sickness, which began on this brig. No sooner had we passed the Plymouth Breakwater Lighthouse, when the brig would begin rolling, and I would repair to the lee-scupper. In connection with this part of my story I must not omit to say a kind word for the captain. When many of us poor boys lay strewn along the deck like stricken ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... that night the lights of the fleet were all about us, ahead and behind. At breakfast next morning—four o'clock—we were off Delaware Breakwater, and that afternoon at two we began the mast-head watch for fish. And on that fine April day it was a handsome sight—forty sail of seiners in sight, spread out and ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... of the cliff beyond the large idol, is much destroyed; on this, the force of the current would have acted: a breakwater occurring along the ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... weather as she ran along the south coast, anchoring under Portland for a day, while the party examined the works of the breakwater and paid a visit to the quarries, where the convicts were at work. She put into Torquay, Dartmouth and Plymouth, spending a day in the two former ports and two at the last named. They looked into Fowey, and stopped two days at Falmouth, and then, ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... approached each other so closely that the river Sly had but a few yards of rocky channel through which to pour itself into the sea. The Golden Fortune, therefore, backed by towering woodlands, looked out to sea at one side, across to the breakwater headland on another, and on its land side commanded a complete view of the gay little haven, with its white houses built terrace on terrace upon its wooded slopes, connected by flights of zigzag steps, by which the apparently inaccessible shelves ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... way. Into this the gig is directed, and pulled through with vigorous strokes. Five minutes afterward her keel grates upon a beach, against which, despite the tumbling swell outside, there is scarce so much as a ripple. There is no better breakwater than a ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... garden and a number of fruit trees. In this orchard was situated the thatched roof dwelling where Martial had wished to retire, with Francois and Amandine. From this place the island terminated at its point by a breakwater, formed of large piles, to prevent the washing away ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... it seems that Rosenthall was one. He must have let it out to Purvis in his cups. Anyhow, I heard Purvis taunting him with it, and threatening him with the breakwater at Capetown; and I begin to think our friends are friend and foe. But about to-morrow night: there's nothing subtle in my plan. It's simply to get in while these fellows are out on the loose, and to lie low till they come back, and longer. If possible, we must doctor ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... the ocean sailor finds a great bay, perhaps miles in extent, entered by a gateway thousands of yards across, offering a harbor of refuge in time of storm, the lake navigator has to run into the narrow mouth of a river, or round under the lee of a government breakwater hidden from sight under the crested waves and offering but a precarious shelter at best. Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee—most of the lake ports have witnessed such scenes of shipwreck and death right at the doorway of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... utter a word. McIntosh, the pilot from Burghead, expired from sheer cold and exhaustion. None who saw him perish soon forgot the fearful agony of his daughter as she bade her father farewell from the parapet of the breakwater. After renewed efforts a boat was got over the breakwater, and at great risk succeeded in saving the other men, who were in a very ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... I cast anchor at Fayal, exactly eighteen days from Cape Sable. The American consul, in a smart boat, came alongside before the Spray reached the breakwater, and a young naval officer, who feared for the safety of my vessel, boarded, and offered his services as pilot. The youngster, I have no good reason to doubt, could have handled a man-of-war, but the Spray was too small for the amount of uniform he wore. However, after fouling all ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... The breakwater gone, that wash of sound which had lapped around his senses rushed in upon them. Lingering traces of the touch of Sleep still offered resistance—a droning hum. The wash surged ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... kings. I got there before Their Majesties, on a most lovely day, and had everything arranged. The table was set in view of the sea; the English ships were plainly visible on the distant horizon; certainly they were far from suspecting Napoleon's presence. There was still a strong battery on the breakwater to protect the roadstead and the harbor. I do not think that our neighbors would have ventured to salute us at closer quarters, even if they had been better informed. At a signal from the Emperor ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... be'n helpin' me nicely wid the washin', an' I 'm going ter give ye a holiday. Ye can take yer hook an' line an' go fishin' on the breakwater. I 'll fix ye a lunch, an' ye need n't come back till night. An' there 's half a dollar; ye can buy yerself a pipe er terbacky. But be careful an' don't waste it," she added, for fear she was ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... granite, which rose above the great clumps of gorse; and still on, till all before them was sea. Then he began to rapidly descend a gully, where everything that was green was left behind, and they were between two vast walls of rock, almost shut-in by a natural breakwater stretching across, half covered by the sea and sand. Below them, in a natural pool, lay a boat which might have been built and launched to sail upon the tiny dock of stone; for there was apparently no communication with the sea, so well was it shut off from ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... an uncertain, troubled movement among Cap'n Abe's hearers. Even the fishfly stopped droning. Cap'n Beecher looked longingly through the doorway from which the sea could be observed as well as a strip of that natural breakwater called "The Neck," a barrier between the tumbling Atlantic and the quiet bay around which the main village of Cardhaven ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... but in that case the danger, if the wind blew from the north, would be immense. You cannot increase the port seaward; for though the water touching the shore is not absolutely fathomless, it is extremely deep, and you cannot make any artificial harbour or breakwater. Unquestionably, in the interior the port might be increased, but it can only be increased by first-rate engineers, and by the expenditure of millions of capital; and if we were to calculate the completion of the port by the precedents which exist in many countries, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the very torrent of the man's meditative and solitary passion, a very Phlegethon of agony and fury and ravenous hunger after the achievement of a desperate expiation, comes the sudden touch of sarcasm which serves as a momentary breakwater to the raging tide of his reflections, and reveals the else unfathomable bitterness of a spiritual Marah that no plummet even of his own sinking can sound, and no infusion of less fiery sorrow or less venomous remembrance can sweeten. The mourner falls to scoffing, the ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... beach lay yet broad. Far toward St. Helier's the curve of the port showed the high sea-wall, for this same innocent-looking tide that ebbs and leaves behind miles of sandy stretches and rocks, can return with force sufficient to dash over even the lofty breakwater and surprise the placid Jerseymen at times, by scattering large ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... use of the outrigger proved right, for the craft was seaworthy. It answered readily to the dip of their paddles as they headed in a curve, keeping the first of the islands between them and the open sea for a breakwater. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... assumed the name Berkat and ruled the country with vigour. He built a mosque and converted many of his subjects, so that from his reign Bruni may be considered a Mohammedan town. To defend the capital he sank forty junks filled with stone in the river, and thus formed the breakwater which still bars the entrance to large ships. This work rose above the water level, and in former times bristled with cannon. Sultan Berkat was succeeded by his son Suleiman, whose ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... to the harbour and saw the craft on which he had undertaken to embark he was seized with a sudden faintness. Even the toughest seafarer would have thought twice before venturing beyond the breakwater in such an unsavoury derelict; and Reginald, be it remembered, had only once in his life made a sea voyage, and that in the peaceful security of an ironclad. His heart ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... if you please," said Edward sternly, as he pulled the little boat up to the edge of the breakwater. A vision of Mrs. Thomas shot into Owen's mind. If the boatman did not believe in him, what chance had he with the housekeeper? He wished he had brought the lawyer down with him, and then he wished that he was back ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... doctor cheered them up, but if it hadn't been for the raft ahead, which broke the seas, I believe that we must have gone down. I had heard of boats being saved by hanging on under the lee of a dead whale, but I had not supposed that a few oars lashed together would have served as an effectual breakwater. ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... western end. The new town has risen above the ruins of its wealthy, iniquitous predecessor, suddenly overwhelmed by an earthquake, and in a few seconds sunk many fathoms deep beneath the ocean. The spit forms a natural breakwater to the magnificent harbour of Port Royal, or Kingston, capable of containing in its spacious basin the fleets of all the world. The batteries of Port Royal completely command its entrance, aided by the guns of Fort Augusta and the Rock Fort on the opposite side. ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... recollect that a boat will lie-to and live through almost any weather, if you can make a bundle of a few spare spars, oars, etc., and secure them to the boat's head, so as to float in front of and across the bow. They will act very sensibly as a breakwater, and will always keep the boat's head towards the wind. Kroomen rig out three oars in a triangle, lash the boat's sail to it, throw overboard, after making fast, and pay out as much line as they can muster. By making a canvas ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... after sunset before Jacqueline finished her rounds. She had read her proclamation in Alincourt hamlet, she had read it in Sainte-Ysole, her drum had aroused the inert loungers on the breakwater at Trinite-on-Sea. Now, with her drum on her shoulder and her sabots swinging in her left hand, she came down the cliffs beside the Chapel of Our Lady of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... with them. When they got beyond the breakwater the sail was set, the Marchesino took the helm, and the boat slipped through the smooth sea, rounded the rocks on which the old fort stands to stare at Capri, radiant now as a magic isle in the curiously ethereal light of evening, and headed ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens |
