"Oblong" Quotes from Famous Books
... the place is that wheels are at a discount and most of the locomotion is done by sliding. The streets and sidewalks are paved with large, oblong pebbles which become highly polished by friction. Over these the sleds, with oxen attached to them, glide with ease, at the rate of three miles an hour. On this account it's the most tiresome place to walk in that I know of. Even most of the natives have stone-bruised ... — A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. If one could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier—an oblong block two or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and two thousand feet thick —he could completely hide the city of New York under it, and Trinity steeple would only stick up into it relatively as far as a shingle-nail would stick up into ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... in drooping foliage, at the summit of their lanky height. There was an endless variety gathered into this limited space, it was a scene which should provoke a regretful tear, for memory's sake, from the patriotic oblong eye ... — The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... examine it as he spoke. It was an oblong case, rather deeper and squarer than a backgammon box, covered with faded orange velvet and fitted with clasps and corners of finely wrought ... — In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... been designated the northern cemetery. The cemetery proper lies on the edge of the sandy tract, and was first detected by the finding of the long-bones of a human skeleton projecting from the soil. The position of individual graves was indicated usually by small, oblong piles of stones; but, as this was not an invariable sign, it was deemed advisable to extend long trenches across the lower part of the dune. As a rule, the deeper the excavations the more numerous and elaborate were the objects revealed. Most of the skeletons were in a poor state of preservation, ... — Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... heads of these stooping women were on a level with their feet, not one stood upright. All that the eye could seize for outline was the dome made by the bent hips, and the backs that closed against the knees as a blade is clasped into a knife handle. The oblong masses that were lifted now and then, from the level of the sabots, resolved themselves into the outlines of women's heads and women's faces. These heads were tied up in cotton kerchiefs or in cotton nightcaps; these being white, together with the long, ... — In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... ovaries is suppressed, and it is the right ovary that alone remains. The two oviducts meet in front of the liver ventral to the oesophagus, and have there a common opening by which the ova are received after being shed into the body cavity. The eggs receive an oblong horny case in the oviduct; in the figure such a case is figured as distending the duct at e. The testes of the male (T. in Figure 2) are partially confluent in the middle line. They communicate through vasa efferentia (v.e.) with the modified anterior part of the kidney, the epididymis (ep.), ... — Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... herb; for there is no less abundance of it than of any other whatsoever. Some of these plants are spherical, some rhomboid, and some of an oblong shape, and all of those either black, bright-coloured, or tawny, rude to the touch, and mantled with a quickly-blasted-away coat, yet such a one as is of a delicious taste and savour to all shrill and sweetly-singing birds, such as linnets, goldfinches, larks, ... — Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... at right angles to the road, facing down upon the church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church, and belfried school-house, form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which the fourth is open to the fields and moors that lie beyond. The area of this oblong is filled up by a crowded churchyard, and a small garden or court in front of the clergyman's house. As the entrance to this from the road is at the side, the path goes round the ... — The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... high; flowers from end of July; makes a dense forest of weak, slender stalks, much branched at the top; spreads fast; leaves serrate, oblong-ovate, rather large; flowers abundant, pale yellow, about 2 inches across; rays nearly always more than ten, in ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... painted, ringed with flowers and crowned with an imposing flagpole from which floated the Star-Spangled Banner. It was a note of gay melody struck athwart the discordant monotony of soiled tent houses, tumble-down huts and oblong, flat-roofed buildings stretching their disorderly array along the road. Coming closer he saw the name, "Pipesville," printed on the door, and knew that this must be the "summer home," as it was called, of San Francisco's beloved ... — Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... deeply enough to cover up the features you have introduced. The new water line, about as shown by the dotted line in figure 11, shows the oblong shape of the depression at a higher level; the solid lines show the shape farther down; the horizontal distance between the two contours at different points shows where the bank is steep and where ... — Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... gay and bright. There was a straw matting on the floor. White muslin half-curtains hung in the windows, upon the sills of which certain plants bearing pink waxen flowers of which Presley did not know the name, grew in oblong green boxes. The walls were unadorned, save by two pictures, one a reproduction of the "Reading from Homer," the other a charcoal drawing of the Mission of San Juan de Guadalajara, which Presley had made himself. By the east window stood the plainest ... — The Octopus • Frank Norris
... be noticed in Fig. 99 that the hole g for the pallet staff in the lever is oblong; this is to allow the lever to be shifted back and forth as relates to roller and fork action. We will not bother about this now, and only call attention to the capabilities of such adjustments when required. At the outset we will conceive the fork F attached to ... — Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... A small, oblong, mortar-shaped vessel of lava. The width three inches, length when unbroken was probably four and a half inches; width of inside two inches, length probably three and one-fourth inches, depth of cavity three-fourths of an inch. On the portion remaining there are four feet; originally there ... — Illustrated Catalogue of the Collections Obtained from the Indians of New Mexico in 1880 • James Stevenson
... the sanctity of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks helped in the process of determining the four-sided ... — The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... The box, however, had been completely disjointed by the action of the water. Inside there were two fine combs in excellent preservation, with the teeth larger on one side than on the other: a small mirror of polished steel, a silver box for cosmetics, an amber hairpin, an oblong piece of soft leather, and a few fragments of a sponge.[140] The most impressive discovery was made after the removal of the water, and the drying of the coffin. The woman had been buried in a shroud of fine white linen, pieces of which were still encrusted and cemented against ... — Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... use is the step cut (sometimes known as trap cut). Fig. 14, (a), (b), and (c), shows the front elevation, the top and the back of a square antique step cut stone. The contour may be round or completely square or oblong or of some other shape, just as a brilliant may have any of these contours. The distinctive feature of the step cutting is the several series of parallel-edged quadrangular facets above and below the girdle and the generally ... — A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... into the dining-room. A table, which looked very imposing with its four legs carved in the shape of lions' paws, and a huge side-board to match, stood in the oblong room, the floor of which had been polished by three men the day before. On the table, which was covered with a fine, starched cloth, stood a silver coffeepot full of aromatic coffee, a sugar basin, a jug of fresh cream, and a bread basket filled with fresh ... — Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... and devoted a smaller room to a collection of pictures valuable for students of the early Vercellese style of painting. Of these there is no need to speak. The great hall is the gem of the Casa Mariano. It has a coved roof, with a large flat oblong space in the centre of the ceiling. The whole of this vault and the lunettes beneath were painted by Lanini; so runs the tradition of the fresco-painter's name; and though much injured by centuries of outrage, and somewhat marred by recent restoration, these frescoes form a precious monument ... — Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... that he observes the dark spectra, will be thoroughly convinced, that they have no motion but what is given to them by the movement of our eyes in pursuit of them. Sometimes the form of the spectrum, when it has been received from a circular luminous body, will become oblong; and sometimes it will be divided into two circular spectra, which is not owing to our changing the angle made by the two optic axises, according to the distance of the clouds or other bodies to which the spectrum is supposed to be contiguous, but to other causes ... — Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... snow; the young trees which had been planted in avenues along the lawns, but which were as yet hardly more than shrubs, glittered with icicles, and above them rose the classic columns of the colonnaded dormitories and professors' houses; while at one end of the oblong square the majestic dome and columns of the Rotunda stood out against the sky. As the entranced Dreamer gazed and gazed, trying to imagine what it must be like by moonlight—what it would be in spring—what (a few years later, when the trees should have grown ... — The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... fine piece of silver plate to work on for a cardinal. It was a little oblong box, copied from the porphyry sarcophagus before the door of the Rotonda. Beside what I copied, I enriched it with so many elegant masks of my invention, that my master went about showing it through the art, and boasting ... — The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... completely was the track made by the buffaloes choked by burnt bodies of all descriptions of animals. At last we reached the summit of the swell, and perceived that we were upon one of the head branches of the Trinity River, forming a kind of oblong lake, a mile broad, but exceedingly shallow; the bottom was of a hard white sandy formation, and as we crossed this beautiful sheet of clear water, the bottom appeared to be studded with ... — Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... front of his enclosure another and larger enclosure also crowded with people, but more expensive people. After a blank interval of thirty minutes a band had begun to play at an incredible distance in front of him, extinguishing the noises of traffic in the street. After another interval an oblong space rather further off even than the band suddenly grew bright, and Edward Henry, by curving his neck first to one side of the pillar and then to the other, had had tantalizing glimpses of the interior of a doll's drawing-room and of ... — The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... Darwin showed that the external differences are correlated with others in the structure of the stigma and in the nature of the pollen. The long-styled flowers have a spherical stigma provided with large stigmatic papillae; the pollen grains are oblong and smaller than those of the short-styled flowers. The number of the seeds produced is smaller and the ovules larger, probably also fewer in number. The short-styled flowers have a smooth compressed stigma and a corolla of somewhat ... — Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... hollow and began to discern through the rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon aware of the nature of the door by ... — The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world. An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret opening—small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet large enough to allow of a written note to pass between ... — Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... fire and one guttering candle; but even through such inadequate illumination the Widder Poll was a figure calculated to stir rich merriment in a satirical mind. Her contour was rather square than oblong, and she was very heavy. In fact, she had begun to announce that her ankles wouldn't bear her much longer, and she should "see the day when she'd have to set by, from mornin' to night, like old Anrutty Green that had the dropsy so many years ... — Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... coral, and live there. They are of various shapes and colors,—some like stars; some fine as a thread, and blue or yellow; others like snails and tiny lobsters. Some people say the real coral-makers are shaped like little oblong bags of jelly, closed at one end, the other open, with six or eight little feelers, like a star, all around it. The other creatures are boarders or visitors: these are the real workers, and, when they sit in their cells and put out their ... — Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... than the last, rarely 100 feet high, with much smoother bark, leaves similar but larger and coarser, compound of fewer leaflets, but the leaflet stalks and the new twigs are covered with sticky down. Leaves 15 to 30 inches long, leaflets 11 to 19 in number and 3 to 5 inches long; fruit oblong, 2 to 3 inches long. New Brunswick and Dakota and ... — Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... considerable interest. Taking the exterior first, we find a remarkable semi-circular tympanum over the door, within the porch on the south. It has a kind of Maltese cross within a circle, with a second circle running through the limbs of the cross. Below this is a small round object, with an oblong on each side of it; and below them, to the east, is an oval figure like a buckle, while below, to the west, is a square, having three-quarter circles at its corners, and semi-circles in the middle of its sides, which form the extremities of a cross, and between the limbs and the sides of ... — Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... well and thickly wrapped up from head to heels. She skimmed across the park and under the boughs like a shade, mounting then the stone steps for pedestrians which were fixed beside the park gates here as at all the lodges. Outside and below her she saw an oblong shape—it was a brougham, and it had been drawn forward close to the bottom of the steps that she might not have an inch further to go on foot than to this barrier. The whole precinct was thronged with trees; half their foliage being overhead, the other half under foot, for the gardeners ... — The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... devouring the solitary ice, and felt a certain pathos about the parti-coloured oblong, a something of the haunting sadness of 'The Last Rose of Summer'. It would make a graceful, serio-comic triolet, he was thinking. But at the last spoonful, his beautiful companion dislocated his rhymes ... — Victorian Short Stories • Various
... Constantinople), showing him on horseback in Turkish dress, with a scourge in his hand; Sigismondo Malatesta, with Madonna Isotta of Rimini on the reverse; and that of Niccolo Piccinino, wearing a large oblong cap on his head, with the said reverse sent to me by Guidi, which I am returning. Besides these, I have also a very beautiful medal of John Palaeologus, Emperor of Constantinople, with that bizarre Greek cap which the Emperors used to wear. This was ... — Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... construction making this possible. In its usual form it consists of four narrow pieces of wood, two somewhat longer than a quilt, and two shorter, perhaps half as long, with holes bored in the ends of each piece. These pieces are made into an oblong frame by fastenings of bolts or pegs, and are commonly supported on the backs of chairs. More pretentious frames are made with round pieces for the sides, and with ends made to stand upon the floor, about the height of a table, these ends having round holes into which the side pieces fit. ... — Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... as Eumaeus was making are still worn in the Abruzzi and elsewhere. An oblong piece of leather forms the sole: holes are cut at the four corners, and through these holes leathern straps are passed, which are bound round the foot and ... — The Odyssey • Homer
... club, the night before the party, a full score of young men, representing the quality, sat at an oblong table and partook of refreshments not sanctioned by the Prophet. They were young men of registered birth and supposititious breeding, even though most of them had very little head back of the ears and wore the hair clipped short ... — The Slim Princess • George Ade
... of the common sort; an oblong oaken box, much battered and bruised, and like the Elgin Marbles, all over inscriptions and carving:—foul anchors, skewered hearts, almanacs, Burton-blocks, love verses, links of cable, Kings of Clubs; ... — Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... themselves at table. The Marechale came in last, giving her arm to a handsome old man, magnificently dressed, whom she placed upon her left hand. She seated herself in a large gilded arm-chair at the middle of one side of the table, which was oblong in form. Another seat, rather more ornamented, was at her right, but it remained empty. The young Marquis d'Effiat, seated in front of his mother, was to assist her in doing the honors of the table. He was not more than twenty years old, and his ... — Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... about studying and imitating the literature of the billboards. He and his brother write newspapers almost entirely devoted to these annoying appeals. You will note, too, the placard at the mouth of the railway tunnel urging the existence of Jinks' Soap upon the passing traveller. The oblong object on the placard represents, no doubt, a cake of this offensive and aggressive commodity. The zoological garden flaunts a placard, "Zoo, two cents pay," and the grocer's picture of a cabbage with "Get Them" is not to be ignored. F. R. W. is more like the London County Council ... — Floor Games; a companion volume to "Little Wars" • H. G. Wells
... as smoothly as possible. For a minute or two the pace is gentle, and is constantly varying. The machine produces little smoke or steam. First in order is the tall chimney; then the boiler, a barrel-like vessel; then an oblong reservoir of water; then a vehicle for coals; and then comes, of a length infinitely extendible, the train of carriages. If all the seats had been filled, our train would have carried about 150 passengers; but a gentleman assured ... — Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on ... — Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... scientific guidance of a young lieutenant of engineers, recently from West Point, where he bad gained credit for great military genius. I saw nothing but confusion in what chiefly interested him; straight lines and zigzags, defence within defence, wall opposed to wall, and ditch intersecting ditch; oblong squares of masonry below the surface of the earth, and huge mounds, or turf-covered hills of stone, above it. On one of these artificial hillocks, a pine-tree has rooted itself, and grown tall ... — Old Ticonderoga, A Picture of The Past - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Harson, "the last of these useful trees—the cow tree, or milk tree—is the most curious one of all. Like the caoutchouc, it is a native of South America; but the sap is a rich fluid that answers for food, like milk. It is a fine-looking tree with oblong, pointed leaves about ten inches in length and a fleshy fruit containing one or two nuts. The sap is the most valuable part; and when incisions are made in the trunk of the tree, there is an abundant flow of thick milk-like sap, which is described as having an agreeable and balmv smell. The German ... — Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... dining room and told them to help themselves.... Then we roamed through the living rooms, the boudoirs, straight through to the washing room and bath; then back through the oblong archway into the little square room beyond the study, where I halted them and said: 'Men, these women will die before they'll tell us where the treasure is at present. The OLD MAN and WOMAN seem utterly indifferent to their fate; we can get nothing out of them. ... — Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... led his daughter was a small oblong one, divided off into compartments similar to those with which we are familiar in eating-houses and restaurants of the poorer class. It formed part of the Home, but was used by the general public as well as by seamen, who wished ... — Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... Tears filled her eyes. After luncheon, we went to see a Roman bath and a Roman crypt, the last discovered within a few months. The bath is back of, and beneath, a crockery shop. We saw first a cold bath. It was merely an oblong stone basin, built round a perpetual spring. A high iron railing now guards it, and we looked into what seemed almost a well, where the Romans used to plunge. . . . The black water reflected the candle and glittered far below. It might be the eye of one of the twentieth legion. We then went into ... — Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... shutters to the windows, nor did they care to draw the inside curtains, so few were the passers-by. The house door was fastened; but the shippen door a little on in the same long low block of building stood open, and a dim light made an oblong upon the snowy ground outside. As Kinraid drew near he heard talking there, and a woman's voice; he threw a passing glance through the window into the fire-lit house-place, and seeing Mrs. Robson asleep by the fireside in ... — Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... so that it could be almost entirely thrown open to the sunshine when so desired or closed tightly against cold or rain. The roof could be rolled up in a bundle in the middle like the curtain of a modern desk. The sides were composed of oblong panels which could be inserted in grooved steel uprights when it was desired to close in the interior of the boat. The motors ... — Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... was of the Doric, It stood to the north of the latter building and close to the northern wall of the Acropolis. The form of the Erechtheum differed from every known example of a Grecian temple. Usually a Grecian temple was an oblong figure with a portico at each extremity. The Erechtheum, on the contrary, though oblong in shape and having a portico at the eastern or principal front, had none at its western end, where, however, a portico projected north ... — A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... Persimmon A C Also 3-lobed Sassafras A C Sometimes opposite, clustered at the ends of the branchlets Dogwoods A D Tremulous habit, oval Poplars A D Lanceolate, finely serrate, sometimes entire Willows A D Ovate-oval, serrate, doubly serrate { Birches { Hornbeams A D Oval, serrate, oblong-lanceolate, veins { Beeches terminating in teeth { Chestnut A D Ovate-oblong, doubly serrate, surface rough Elms A D Ovate to ovate-lanceolate, serrate, surface slightly rough Hackberry A D Outline variable, ovate-oval, sometimes lobed (3-7), ... — Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... wearisome succession of ups and downs. And the loads carried are extraordinary. Baron von Richthofen says, "There is probably no road in the world where such heavy loads are carried by man across high mountains." The oblong package, called "pao," in which the tea is made up, weighs perhaps eighteen pounds, and, according to the German traveller, ten or eleven form an average load. But Baber declares that he had often seen a coolie carrying eighteen pao, and on one occasion ... — A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... submerged and dead condition of the whole reef, and the imperfection of the south-east quarter a mere wreck would probably be left. The Pitt's Bank, situated not far southward, appears to be precisely in this state; it consists of a moderately level, oblong bank of sand, lying from 10 to 20 fathoms beneath the surface, with two sides protected by a narrow ledge of rock which is submerged between 5 and 8 fathoms. A little further south, at about the same distance as the southern rim of the Great ... — Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... get up. An oblong of sunlight squeezing through beneath the drawn blind and slapping itself boldly on the gloomy carpet ... "shame on all sleepy heads. ... — Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... favorites of their sovereign. The Christian temples of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c., displayed the ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal the perfect labors of antiquity. The form of these religious edifices was simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. The timbers were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the roof was covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the columns, the pavement, ... — The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... lake is nowhere deeper than ten or twelve feet, and in some places much less. These gardens are made by driving stakes into the bed of the lake, long enough to project three or four feet above the surface of the water. These stakes are placed at intervals in an oblong form, and are bound together by reeds and rushes twined in and out and across, until a kind of stationary raft is made, on which earth and turf are piled. In this soil seeds are sown, and the crops of melons and ... — Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the smell of the stew came out to the wood-yard through the open door. Lemuel and his friend finished their last stick at the same time, and went in together, and found places side by side at the table in the waiting- room. The attendant within its oblong was serving the men with heavy quart bowls of the steaming broth. He brought half a loaf of light, elastic bread with each, and there were platters of hard-tack set along the board, which every one helped himself from freely, and ... — The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... time. All that was displayed of the furniture of the chambers were some chairs of blue satin, with white and gold backs and legs; and these looked strange enough, seeing that they were placed irregularly round an oblong, rough deal table, which looked as if it had just come from the workshop of some neighboring carpenter. At or near this table several men, nearly all elderly, were sitting, talking carelessly to each other; one of them, indeed, at the ... — Sunrise • William Black
... them, struck most ridiculous attitudes at Edie's word, while an oblong, black box suddenly appeared, affixed upon a tripod, and May MacGreggor, who was out for fun as much as any of the sophomores, began to turn a tiny crank on one ... — Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson
... (Ph. Trans, xiv. 836), and found that though it took two nights to freeze, it was much harder when once frozen than common ice, lasting for three-quarters of an hour under a heat which melted 100 times its bulk of common ice at once. It was marked with oblong squares, and had a salt taste. Ice formed from water with an admixture of sulphuric acid is said to assume ... — Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... stems, isolated leaves, or small groups of leaves, form a letter of the alphabet, sometimes a number. These letters and numbers have meanings which must be looked for in connection with other noticeable signs. If an initial "M" appears, and near to it a small square or oblong leaf, both being near the rim of the cup, it would indicate a letter coming speedily from someone whose name begins with an "M." If the initial appears near the bottom of the cup it shows that the letter will not be ... — Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... long stems, suggesting the thought of dentists' instruments as they might have been in the days of the giants. The joints are most carefully made, more particularly at the knee, where a strong bolt of steel passes through the solid wood. Windows, oblong openings, are left in the sides of the limb, to insure a good supply of air to the extremity of the mutilated limb. Many persons are not aware that all parts of the surface breathe just as the lungs breathe, exhaling ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... of the bag I made a strange discovery. The interior of the bag was fitted with that thin yellow canvas-like material with which nearly all cheap bags, like this one was, are lined. At the bottom of the bag an oblong piece of the lining had apparently been torn clean out. The leather of the bag showed through the slit. Yet the lining round the edges of the gap showed no fraying, no trace of rough usage. On the contrary, the edges were pasted neatly down on ... — The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... the edge curiously fringed with white hairs, afterwards it closes together, loses its hollow, and assumes a flat appearance, and nods somewhat, the back part of it is bearded; Germen beneath the calyx, oblong, usually abortive with us. ... — The Botanical Magazine Vol. 8 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... case, some truly great mind invented the "donkey." This contrivance is simply a stool with one leg. The top of the stool is not round, but oblong, and very small. A hole in the centre receives the solitary leg, which is attached to it by a piece of cord, and can be pulled out when occasion requires, and the machine thrown over the arm as one would throw a cloak or scarf. The beauty of the donkey is, that it forms an excellent seat on ... — The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... triumph of the pastry cook's art was "the rare minced pie," the use of which is of great antiquity. The shape was formerly a narrow oblong, representing the celebrated manger at Bethlehem, and the fruits and spices of which it was composed were symbolic of those that the wise men of the Orient brought as offerings to their new-born King, while to partake of such a pie was considered a proof that ... — Myths and Legends of Christmastide • Bertha F. Herrick
... ear-ring, given her by Aunt Margaret. Her cheeks were pale, but not colorless; her eyes glowed like a tiger's. She was dressed in a black demi-toilet, relieved with glimpses of yellow here and there; an oblong piece cut out in front revealed, through softened edges of lace, the clear, smooth flesh of the neck and bosom. The dream of a perfume hovered about her, and touched the air as she moved. Her wide sleeve fell open, as she raised her ... — Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... candles in the hall, making the vast place seem more vast and ghostly. The east window was discernible only as a vague oblong patch of grey ... — The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... certificates for the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, printed in the oblong borders designed for the pictures in Chaucer's Works. One of these borders was not used in the book, and this is its only appearance. The first certificate was printed in Nov., 1894, and was followed in Jan., 1896, by eleven certificates; in Jan., 1897, by six certificates; ... — The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... beach. "Yer!" he said, "there's a race to Saltmeadow, a veteran's race, for men over fifty. Yu come wi' me, an' I'll go in for it—an' beat the lot, I will. I knows I can." Off we went, Uncle Jake in a high excitement. At the centre of the big oblong ring, two clean-built jumpers, men in the heyday of their strength, were making a local record for the high jump. Uncle Jake shouted out praise and sympathy to them. We found our way to where the veterans were grouped together, encouraging each other to ... — A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... roots." Wishing to investigate further, Bearwarden placed one of the birds they had shot within the bell of another flower, which immediately contracted with such force that they saw drops of blood squeezed out. After some minutes the flower opened, as beautiful as ever, and discharged an oblong ball compressed to about the size of a hen's egg, though the bird that was placed within it had been as large as a small duck. Towards evening these flowers sent up their most beautiful song, to hear which flocks of birds came from far and near, alighting ... — A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... late on Christmas morning. Ten o'clock had struck before Madame Descoings began to bestir herself about the breakfast, which was only ready at half-past eleven. At that hour, the oblong frames containing the winning numbers are hung over the doors of the lottery-offices. If Madame Descoings had paid her stake and held her ticket, she would have gone by half-past nine o'clock to learn her fate at a building ... — The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the labour of making fires to cook the morning meal, while the chiefs, squatting down, formed a ring, or, rather, an oblong circle, on the ground; then one at a time rose up, and made long speeches, which they did in a manner peculiar to themselves. The speaker, during his harangue, keeps running backwards and forwards within the oblong space, using the most violent but appropriate ... — A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... quantity of fermented drink, called in this part Taroba, made from soaked mandioca cakes, and porridge of Manicueira. This latter is a kind of sweet mandioca, very different from the Yuca of the Peruvians and Macasheira of the Brazilians (Manihot Aypi), having oblong juicy roots, which become very sweet a few days after they are gathered. With these simple provisions they regale their helpers. The work is certainly done, but after a very rude fashion; all become soddened with Taroba, and the day ... — The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... the number of ninety-four had assembled in a large oblong building, wattled and plastered, with open windows on all sides; mats arranged on the floor, and a raised platform or bench running round the building for persons who prefer to sit after the English, ... — Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the various parts in life by holes of different shapes upon a table—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong—and the persons acting these parts, by bits of wood of similar shapes, and he says, "we generally find that the triangular person has gotten into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square fellow has squeezed into ... — The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... mud, which they fix against the shingles of our roofs, as nigh the pitch as they can. These aggregates represent nothing, at first view, but coarse and irregular lumps, but if you break them, you will observe, that the inside of them contains a great number of oblong cells, in which they deposit their eggs, and in which they bury themselves in the fall of the year. Thus immured they securely pass through the severity of that season, and on the return of the sun are enabled to perforate their cells, and to open ... — Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... or two long hairs are also found on them. Each of these spikelets consists of four green membranous structures called glumes. The first two glumes are unequal, the first being very small. The second and the third glumes are broadly ovate-oblong with acute tips. Both are of the same height and texture, but the second is 7-nerved and the third 5-nerved. The fourth glume is membranous when young, but later on it becomes thick, coriaceous and rugose at the surface. Just opposite to the fourth glume there is a flat structure with ... — A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... a large tomb, coarse shapes of pottery (XII, 23, 35) were found, and also vertical alabaster jars, fragments of an alabaster table, and of bowls, hairpins of ivory, and an oblong slate palette with two stone rubbers. This was of one of the later shapes of Naqada. There was also a large pot (of the shape XII, 49, but larger), similar to the later ... — El Kab • J.E. Quibell
... necessary if he is to cope successfully with the difficulties awaiting him. His toys should be chosen to instruct as well as amuse, and in this way he should be made familiar with the different forms, the square, the circle, the oblong, the triangle and the pyramid. The Goddard form board and Montessori insets are invaluable at this period. He should be trained to recognize the difference between smooth and rough, soft and hard, light and heavy, thick and thin. He should be given plasticine or clay with which to model, ... — Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... second of the Linnaean orders of fishes, and is a numerous tribe, inhabiting only the depths of the ocean, and seldom visiting the fresh waters. They have a smooth head, and the gill membrane has seven rays. The body is oblong, and covered with deciduous scales. The fins are all inclosed in skin, whilst their rays are unarmed. The ventral fins are slender, and terminate in a point. Their habits are gregarious, and they feed on smaller fish ... — The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... England had her Tyburn, to which the devoted victims of justice were conducted in solemn procession up what is now called Oxford Street. In Edinburgh, a large open street, or rather oblong square, surrounded by high houses, called the Grassmarket, was used for the same melancholy purpose. It was not ill chosen for such a scene, being of considerable extent, and therefore fit to accommodate a great number of spectators, such as are usually assembled by this melancholy ... — The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... she had to pass through the room where the elders and deacons were sitting in council. The bishop, who presided over the assembly, sat on a raised seat at the head of an oblong table, and on his right hand and his left sat a number of elderly men, some of whom seemed to be of Jewish or Egyptian extraction but most of them were Greeks. In these the lofty intellectual brow was conspicuous, in those a bright, ecstatic expression particularly in the eyes. Hannah went past ... — Uarda • Georg Ebers
... treasures; and completed the gloomy ceremony by sacrificing his wives and favorite domestics, to bear him company and do him service in the happy regions beyond the clouds.4 Vast mounds of an irregular, or, more frequently, oblong shape, penetrated by galleries running at right angles to each other, were raised over the dead, whose dried bodies or mummies have been found in considerable numbers, sometimes erect, but more often in the sitting posture, common to the Indian tribes of ... — History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... thing under his arm and partly concealed by the sleeve of his gown. Watching him as he approached the master's desk and spoke with Mr. Colfe, the form-master, Dam noted that he had what appeared to be a long oblong glass box of which the side turned towards him was white ... — Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... Memorandum Book for Peace and War. Second Edition. Oblong 32mo. roan, elastic band and pencil, price 3s. ... — Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... of the voices, I came to a dark, low-ceilinged room with a pine bed, on which lay a withered-looking woman with sparsely lashed eyelids and fine, straight, straw-colored hair. Near her was a small oblong bundle, wrapped round with a bright patch-work quilt; and out of this bundle a cry issued. As I peered into it, a red weazened face stared back at me, the eyes opening startlingly round. I looked long in wonder. The woman sighed; and, my gaze reverting to her, I thought suddenly of what a neighbor ... — The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of what may be called astral systems—that is, systems composed of a multitude of stars, bearing a certain relation to each other. The astral system to which we belong, is conceived to be of an oblong, flattish form, with a space wholly or comparatively vacant in the centre, while the extremity in one direction parts into two. The stars are most thickly sown in the outer parts of this vast ring, ... — Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... out the second door. Gently it slid across the oblong of sunlight, blotting out the figures of the two men from her sight. Baroudi had said that she would be quite in the dark. That was not absolutely true. How and from where she could not determine, a very faint suggestion—it ... — Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... ethereally at its northern end. Dark pines rolled about it, growing smaller and smaller up the hillside until they dwindled with spires clean cut against the azure into a gossamer filigree. Between them and the water stupendous forest shrouded all the valley, save where an oblong of pale verdure ran back from the fringe of boulders and was traversed by the frothing streak of a river whose roar came up hoarsely across the pines ... — Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... well that they cannot keep from making regular lines and symmetrical figures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of throwing up into the air a peck of potatoes and sticking in a tree wherever a potato happens to fall. The pews of this meeting-house were the usual oblong ones, where people sit close together with a ledge before them to support their hymn-books, liable only to occasional contact with the back of the next pew's heads or bonnets, and a place running under the seat ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... with a pocket-handkerchief in which the neutral tints predominated. This operation, preparatory to a rest of ten minutes, having been successfully accomplished, Tarass Bulba Schmidt picked up a tiny oblong bit of paper which had found its way to his feet from one of the girls' tables, took a pinch of the freshly cut tobacco beside him and rolled a cigarette in his palm with one hand while he felt in his pocket for a match with the other. Then, in the ... — A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... she carefully closed and locked the door, went to her bureau, opened the top-drawer, and took from it a small oblong mahogany glove-box. She unlocked the latter, and took out a small parcel, which she unwrapped and laid before ... — The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a hunk of nuncheon and a bundle of her novelettes, and he stole up to an empty garret and squatted on the bare boards. The sun streamed through the skylight window and lay, an oblong patch, in the centre of the floor. John noted the head of a nail that stuck gleaming up. He could hear the pigeons rooketty-cooing on the roof, and every now and then a slithering sound, as they ... — The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... the half-way point he put his load down and shouted clamorously for help, until the black wall of the Harper house showed an oblong of red light and the girl's ... — The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... natives of Brazil called boucan, (whence buccaneer,) on which were frequently shown pieces of human flesh drying along with the rest. It was erected in front of the camp over the usual large fire, in the form of an oblong square. Two stout forked stakes, four or five feet apart and five feet high, were driven into the ground at each end, and then two poles ten feet long were stretched across over the fire, and smaller ones laid transversely on these a foot apart. On the ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... STEAM-PORTS. Oblong passages leading from the nozzle-faces to the inside of the cylinder; by them the steam enters and returns, above and ... — The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the self lies there Mangled or burning. For if it an evil is Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames, Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined On the smooth oblong of an icy slab, Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth ... — Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... embracing it with her legs, flies home with it, often appearing to have a bundle disproportionately large. Each cell is made up of a dozen or more pieces: the larger ones, those that form its walls, like the walls of a paper bag, are oblong, and are turned down at one end, so as to form the bottom; not one thickness of leaf merely, but three or four thicknesses, each fragment of leaf lapping over another. When the cell is completed, it is filled about ... — The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... on the eastern edge of which I had halted the company for a few moments' rest and observation, was lower through the centre than at the sides. It was not unlike an oblong platter, and was absolutely treeless, except that opposite us a bold, pine-clad point jutted out from the western mountain-range about three miles, like a headland into ... — Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... right angles from the wall of the house, in an oblong form—with a bow-window at the farther end, looking into the garden. Before she turned the corner, and showed herself within the range of view from the window Lady Lundie looked back, and signed to Blanche to wait behind the angle of the wall. ... — Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... Obligatory deviga. Oblige (compel) devigi. Oblige (render service) fari komplezon. Obliged, to be devi. Obliging servema. Oblique oblikva. Obliquity oblikveco. Obliterate surstreki. Oblivion forgeso. Oblivious forgesa. Oblong longforma. Obnoxious ofendega. Obscene malbonmora, malcxasta. Obscure mallumigi. Obscure malhela. Obscurity senlumeco, mallumeco. Obsequies enterigiro. Observance (rite) ceremonio—ado. Observant observema. Observation observo—ado. Observatory observatorio. ... — English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Storri received from the San Reve a ground-plan of the Treasury Building. It exhibited in red ink the vault that held the gold reserve. Storri gazed upon that oblong smudge of red and studied its location with the devotion of ... — The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Christian maps, that of St. Sever, possibly of the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon map of the tenth century, the Turin Map of the eleventh, and the Spanish map of the twelfth (1109), represent very crude and simple types of sketches of the world, in which within a square or oblong surrounded by the ocean a few prominent features only, such as the main divisions of countries, are attempted. The Anglo-Saxon example, though greatly superior to the others given here, essentially belongs to this kind of work, where some little truth is preserved by a happy ignorance of the travellers' ... — Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... a species of bulb of oblong form, bearing the indigenous name of "yamph," and if it possesses less nutritive principles than the camas, it is much the better for one thing,—it can ... — Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne |