"Filament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... divine and immortal apart from matter. But neither Thales, nor Theophrastus, nor Pliny the elder, nor any ancient, could conceive of a fact but dimly guessed until the day of Franklin; that this secret of the silent amber was also that of the thunder-cloud, that the essence that drew to it a floating filament is also that which rends an oak, that had splintered their temples and statues, and had not spared even the image of Jupiter Tonans himself. The spectral lights which hung upon the masts of the ancient galleys of the Mediterranean ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... of existence? Why not as well die in the attempt to break up a wretched servitude to a perverted nervous movement as in any other way? I am alone in the world,—alone save for my faithful servant, through whom I seem to hold to the human race as it were by a single filament. My father, who was my instructor, my companion, my dearest and best friend through all my later youth and my earlier manhood, died three years ago and left me my own master, with the means of living as might best please my fancy. This season shall decide my ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... curious to find that fish themselves utilise this system; it is the method adopted by the Angler and the Uranoscopus.[14] The Uranoscopus scaber lives in the Mediterranean. At the end of his lower jaw there is developed a mobile and supple filament which he is able to use with the greatest dexterity. Concealed in the mud, without moving and only allowing the end of his head to emerge, he agitates and vibrates his filament. The little fishes who prowl in the neighbourhood, delighted with the sight of this ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... people were stirring in the streets, and as he slunk along close to the houses, those whom he met turned and looked after him. No one spoke to him or stopped him, as might possibly have been done had he come home at a later hour. Every shred and filament of his poor remorseful heart and soul longed for home and the comfort that his wife alone could give him, and yet at the last corner he stopped for a quaking moment or so in the face of the terror of her unreproachful patience. Then he ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... accumulations of rust and earth in which they are encased. This is especially the case with a darning-needle, which has increased its circumference in places nearly one half, while in other places it is eaten away until only a mere filament of steel remains. The sharp point of a curved sewing-awl has grown with rust until it is larger than the body of the awl. Several fish-hooks have been found, all more or less rust eaten. A brass pistol, single barreled, apparently a century old, was found under the Graves cabin, ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... algae, as in Spirogyra. Here the contents of a cell contract and rearrange themselves only after contact of the cell with one of another filament of the plant. This zygoblast only becomes free after the process of conjugation, as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... days of the glow-lamp platinum wire was found to be unreliable as regards melting, and filaments of carbon are now used. To prevent the wasting away of the carbon by combination with oxygen the filament is enclosed in a glass bulb from which practically all air has been sucked by ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... these proprieties, would find her unendurable. Suddenly, in the tremendous difficulty of holding him against an entire world, his own and of which she was supremely ignorant, it seemed to her that she needed every possible means, every coral blossom and gold filament and finger of paint, the cunning intoxication of subtle dress and color and perfume. With a leaden sense of guilt, but in a fever of impatience, of haste, she stripped off the coarse hemp for her most elaborate satins, her santal and ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the top of the floret be touched, all the filaments which support the cylindrical anther will contrast themselves, and that by thus raising or depressing the anther the whole of the prolific dust is collected on the stigma. He adds, that if one filament be touched after it is separated from the floret, that it will contract like the muscular fibres of animal bodies, his experiments were tried on the Centaurea Calcitrapoides, and on artichokes, and globe-thistles. Discourse on the ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... and they fastened greedily on fresh mulberry leaves that Jenny brought them. Others were but beginning their shrouds. They had sketched them and appeared to be busily weaving in the preliminary bag made of transparent and glittering filament. A few of the creatures began to turn yellow, though as yet they had not devoured their last meal. Jenny picked them up and held them ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... cloth in the container. He hurried a little, because the men in the rocket were shaky and might not practice patience. He took a small emergency-lamp from his spare spacesuit. He carefully cracked its bulb, exposing the filament within. He put the lamp on top of the cotton and sprinkled magnesium marking-powder over everything. Then he went to the air-apparatus and took out a flask of the liquid oxygen used to keep his breathing-air in ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the thought came, the thing happened. The wrenching of the ropes, the insecurity of their fastenings, some blunder on the part of the seamen—whatever it was, the rope loosened like a filament of gauze, and, with its precious burden, dropped into the angry water. Before a breath could be drawn, the black waves churned over ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... composed of a stem or filament, at the summit of which are placed two little sacks called the anther, which contain a fine, microscopic dust, the pollen, which contains the male reproductive element of the flower. This part of the plant corresponds to the male organ of reproduction in animals. ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... cotton is moved laterally, it will be seen that this twisting of the fibre is continued for almost the whole length, and as many as 300 twists have been counted on a single filament. In some, the fibre tapers slightly, becoming more and more cylindrical as the end most remote from the seed is approached, until it is quite solid. These stiff ends soon disappear after the cotton has been treated in the early processes ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... I went without her. She was much mortified at her failure, and suggested a plan to insure her punctuality, in which I readily agreed to collaborate. When she went to bed she attached a piece of string to one of her toes, the other end of the filament being carried underneath doors and along passages to my own room. I was instructed to haul in on my slack at the proper hour; and this I accordingly did, with good-will, and was at once made conscious that I had caught something, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... patient spider, I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... known representative. Among other things to be seen in this picture by Dou is a broom-handle, the size of a pen-holder, on which they say the artist worked assiduously for three days. This does not seem strange when we reflect that every minute filament, the grain, the knots, spots, dents, and finger-marks are all reproduced. Anecdotes of his superhuman patience are recounted which are scarcely credible. It is said he was five days in copying the hand of a Madam Spirings whose portrait he painted. Who knows how long he was painting her ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... books: "Jane Eyre," "Shirley" and "Villette." From the lonely, bleak parsonage on that stony hillside she sent forth her swaying filament of thought and lassoed the world. She lived to know that she had won. Money came to her, all she needed, honors, friends and lavish praise. She was the foremost woman author of her day. Her name was on every tongue. She had met the world in fair fight; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... intervals of rest, Moved not; meanwhile the galaxy displayed Her fires, that like mysterious pulses beat Aloft;—momentous but uneasy bliss! 100 To their full hearts the universe seemed hung On that brief meeting's slender filament! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... cloth called Sinamay is woven [129] from selected hemp fibre. Also in this province and that of Antique (Panay Is.), Pina muslin of pure pine-leaf fibre and Husi of mixed pine-leaf and hemp filament are made. Ilocos Province has a reputation in these Islands for its woollen and dyed cotton fabrics. Taal (Batangas) also produces a special make of cotton stuffs. Pasig, on the river of that name, and Sulipan (Pampanga), are locally known for ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Fish from its colour, when figuring it in 'Tasmanian Friends and Foes' under its former scientific name of Cheironectes Politus. The surface of its skin is hirsute with minute spines, and the lobe at the end of the detached filament of the dorsal fin—called the fintacle—hangs loose. The scientific names of the genus are derived from Grk. brachiown, "the arm," and cheir, "the hand." The armlike pectoral fins are used for holding on to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... begin to throw out minute buds and fine processes, which bridge the gap and form a firmer, but still temporary, connection between the two sides. Each bud begins in the wall of the capillary as a small accumulation of granular protoplasm, which gradually elongates into a filament containing a nucleus. This filament either joins with a neighbouring capillary or with a similar filament, and in time these become hollow and are filled with blood from the vessels that gave them origin. In this way a series ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... But I must not exaggerate. The lashings of the Mole were for you the little cords with which you are so familiar in turfy soil. You have severed them, as well as the hammock of the previous experiment, just as you sever with the blades of your shears any natural filament which stretches across your catacombs. It is, in your calling, an indispensable knack. If you had had to learn it by experience, to think it out before practising it, your race would have disappeared, killed by ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre |
