"Propel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... river channel—worse luck!—and the south wind was dead on to it, bringing up the swell from outside; and the swell, that had set that way for days, was so heavy as to drive him back faster than his powerful limbs could propel him in the other direction. At first the launch seemed to want to dance over him, but when he rose on a swirl of water to take his bearings after the first bewilderment, she was a couple of lengths away, cutting the most extraordinary capers in her efforts to put about. Her own lights, and those ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... their respective fluids seem to be carried on in the vessels of plants precisely as in animal bodies by their irritability to the stimulus of their adapted fluids, and not by any mechanical or chemical attraction, for their absorbent vessels propel the juice upwards, which they drink up from the earth, with great violence; I suppose with much greater than is exerted by the lacteals of animals, probably owing to the greater minuteness of these vessels in vegetables and the greater rigidity of their ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... it many yards, and with a sufficient terminal velocity to explode the charge by impact. Also, in the United States, experiments have been made with a compressed air gun of 40 feet in length and 4 inches in diameter (probably by this time replaced by a gun of 8 inches in diameter), to propel a dart through the air, in the front of which dart there is a metallic chamber containing dynamite. Although no doubt the best engineer is the man who does good work with bad materials, yet I presume we should not recommend any member of our profession to select unsuitable materials ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... construction of this part of the work is to make a set of ways, and a sliding platform that will run with ease from one side of the stage to the other. A rope attached to the platform, and fastened to a crank below the stage, will propel the Goddess to her position. The ways and platform can be hidden from view by a strip of board, painted to imitate the floor of the room. A small quantity of the whitish-blue fire may be burned ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... The heart and arteries have no antagonist muscles. Veins absorb the blood, propel it forwards, and distend the heart; contraction of the heart distends the arteries. Vena portarum. II. Glands which take their fluids from the blood. With long necks, with short necks. III. Absorbent system. IV. Heat given out from glandular secretions. ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... vibrations in the ether, cosmic force. Each one of these flying torpedoes contains a highly expensive, intricate mechanism which transforms this invisible vibration-power into material propulsion. The mechanism is adjusted to propel the torpedo at such an altitude in such a direction. We possess no means of setting the machines to stop at a certain place and so tumble earthwards. That's where ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. "Oh, they need help NOW!" she cried. "Come ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... when compared to the great benefits derived. The system is very simple and inexpensive, and the amount of traction secured is entirely within the control of the motor man, as in the electric system. It will be seen that the car here will not, with the traction circuit open, propel itself up hill when one end of the track is raised more than 5 inches above the table; but with the circuit energized it will readily ascend the track as you now see it, with one end about 131/2, inches above ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... flop in the water, and when Bumper turned he saw a queer looking fish swimming toward the shore, using his hind legs instead of fins to propel him along. He had big, staring eyes, and a green head, ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eyespot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims toward the light, while either reflex alone ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... obscure, full of puzzling facts for thought to interpret, and more puzzling breaks for thought to bridge, but, on the whole, exhibiting man as moving and man as moving forward. If we scrutinize the character of this progress, we shall find that the forces which propel society in the direction of improvement, and the ideas we form of the nature of that improvement, are the forces and the ideas of youth. The world, indeed, moves under the impulses of youth to realize the ideals of youth. It has youth for its beginning and youth for its ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the first jest I attempt to utter strangulate me outright, before it escapes from my lips. But really, with respect to abandoning my master, thank the blessed virgin, that is a crime of which no one can accuse me. A man cannot help feeling shy at engaging in broils and combats, if his star doth not propel him thereto,—and that in verity is pretty nearly my case; but if any one is tempted to question my fidelity, this miserable carcass of mine can bear witness to the contrary, by displaying the honorable ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession of all our large tenanted buildings? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... floating about in this fashion, covered by its 'vibratile cilia', as these long filaments, which are capable of vibration are termed. And thus, although the polype itself may be a fixed creature unable to move about, it is able to spread its offspring over great areas. For these creatures not only propel themselves, but while swimming about in the sea for many hours, or perhaps days, it will be obvious that they must be carried hither and thither by the currents of the sea, which not unfrequently ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... nearer. They were of logs hollowed out until they were fairly light, but still seeming too clumsy for safe seagoing craft. In each were several men. One sat in the stern and steered, the others knelt in pairs, each man helping propel the boat by means of a stick some four feet long, more like a pole than a paddle, which he worked with great ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... well advanced. The canoes were formed of the trunks of large trees. In most cases they were hollowed out by means of the ax and fire combined. Sometimes the ends were partially rounded or pointed, but often cut nearly square across—rather a difficult shape to propel fast or to guide properly. These ancient boats have been found in nearly all the principal rivers of Europe, and in many cases, no doubt, come down to much later date than the Neolithic Age. From the remains of fish found in their refuse heaps we are confident ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... other, and a faint aroma of continental trains haunting, between the leaves as it were. Our real knowledge is still limited to the country we have walked over, and we must not approach the country we would appreciate faster than a man may drive a horse or propel a bicycle; or we shall lose the all-important sense of artistic approach. Even to cross the channel by time-table is fatal to that romantic spirit (indispensable to the true magic of travel) which a slow adjustment of the mind to a new social ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Palinurus, they had no difficulty next day in taking observations, and found themselves about five hundred miles W.N.W. of Mizen Head. As it was no use depending on being picked up they made all sail in that direction, and so rapidly did the strong west wind propel them that on taking observations the next day they found themselves nearly one hundred and fifty miles nearer land. It was fortunate that they made such headway, for they had only one day's provisions left, and the water was getting pretty ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... you will not be wet. But you can not remain so. The water will soon float your feet to the surface. You can not swim on your back and make any progress of any consequence, because your feet stick away above the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself with but your heels. If you swim on your face, you kick up the water like a stern-wheel boat. You make no headway. A horse is so top-heavy that he can neither swim nor stand up in the Dead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of San Juan. Vessels are often obliged to put to sea on the menacing aspect of the heavens at this season, to avoid being driven on shore by the heavy squalls and the rolling waves of a boisterous sea, which propel them to destruction. During the remaining months the ports on this coast are safe and commodious, unless when visited by a hurricane, against whose fury no port can offer a shelter, nor any vessel ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... entirely at the mercy of the wind and other elements, and cannot be controlled for direction, but must drift whithersoever the wind or air currents take it. On the other hand, the airship, being provided with engines to propel it through the air, and with rudders and elevators to control it for direction and height, can be steered in whatever direction is desired, and voyages can be made from one place to another—always provided ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... own branches, for the bows, and showed the boys how to hold the arrows, and the distance he could propel them was marvelous. They were not by any manner of means a match, by comparison, with the guns, but they would be dangerous missiles if attacked in the open, and of this fact the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... the vital petroleum sector, through large-scale state enterprises and extensively subsidizes agricultural, fishing, and other sectors. Norway also maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public-sector expenditures to slightly more than 50% of the GDP and results in one of the highest average tax burdens in the world (54%). A small country with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed goods, with an ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Mr. Goschen's remarkable endowments are neutralised by the same limitations. He has infinite ingenuity, but he can neither initiate nor propel; an intrepid debater in council and in action, he is prey ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... To propel our vessels we use electric power, and they move as fast as your quickest railway trains; but nevertheless can be stopped almost instantaneously. The wheels outside the body of the swan, set in motion by internal electric machinery, revolve with extraordinary rapidity. To set the machinery ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises) and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. Norway also maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public sector expenditures to slightly more than 50% of the GDP and results in one of the highest average tax burdens in the world (54%). A small country with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... planks, and built up on keels. They have vireys and barangays, which are certain quick and light vessels that lie low in the water, put together with little wooden nails. These are as slender at the stern as at the bow, and they can hold a number of rowers on both sides, who propel their vessels with bucceyes or paddles, and with gaones [68] on the outside of the vessel; and they time their rowing to the accompaniment of some who sing in their language refrains by which they understand whether to hasten or retard their rowing. [69] Above ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... at the rear end to be used as a rudder. Suspended by a number of slender ropes, which met under the centre of the gas-bag, were the car for the sailors and a small electric engine for driving a powerful screw, the wings of which striking against the air would propel the 'ship' at the rate of some nine feet a second. The baby balloon may be said to have set the example for all modern air-ships, though others something like it had been built before. Two years later Messrs. Tissandier ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... forces, in conjunction, Propel the high poetic function, As in a love-adventure they might play! You meet by accident; you feel, you stay, And by degrees your heart is tangled; Bliss grows apace, and then its course is jangled; You're ravished quite, then comes a touch of woe, And there's a neat romance, completed ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... defects, had the soul of a true golfer. He declined to give up. In grim silence he hacked his ball through the rough till he reached the high road; and then, having played twenty-seven, set himself resolutely to propel it ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... any case, be regarded as showing that the novelist, even yet, was hugging the shore or allowing himself to be taken in tow—that he did not dare to launch out into the deep and trust to his own sails and the wind of nature to propel him—to his own wits and soul to guide. Even Fielding's next venture—the wonderful and almost unique venture of Jonathan Wild—leaves some objection of this sort possible, though, for myself, I should ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... irritated tubes Clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes; And urged by appetencies new select, Imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject. In branching cones the living web expands, Lymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands; 260 Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood, And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood; Leaves, lungs, and gills, the vital ether breathe On earth's green surface, or the waves beneath. So Life's first powers arrest the winds and floods, To bones convert them, or to shells, or woods; Stretch ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... unicellular, and their protoplasm is surrounded by a thin, structureless membrane. This prevents their putting out pseudopodia as organs of motion. Instead of these they have at one end of the ovoid or pear-shaped body a long, whiplash-like process or thread, a flagellum, and by swinging this they propel themselves through the water. These flagellata seem to have a rather marked tendency to form colonies. The first individual gives rise to others by division. But the division is not complete; the new individuals remain connected by the undivided rear end of the body. And such ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... remaining level of scaffolding, and men swarmed on it and fastened it to the swelling hull. As soon as it was fast, other men hurried into it with the white pasty stuff to line it from end to end. The tubes would nearly hide the structure they were designed to propel. But they'd all be burned away when ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... the water she saw a sight that sent her back with a bound. There was a boat mid-lake; two men were in it. One was rowing; the other had a gun in his hand. What should she do? With only a moment's hesitation she plunged into the lake. Her tired legs could not propel the tired ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... directly at the Monitor, and before the latter could get out of her way struck her on the side; but the ram was bent, and her weak engines were insufficient to propel her with the necessary force. Consequently she inflicted no damage on the Monitor, and the action continued, the turret ship directing her fire at the iron roof of the ram, while the latter pointed her guns especially at the turret and pilot-house of the Monitor. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... are to draw the trains along the railroad do not enter these tunnels, there is a large building at this entrance which is to be inhabited by steam engines of a stationary turn of mind, and different constitution from the travelling ones, which are to propel the trains through the tunnels to the terminus in the town, without going out of their houses themselves. The length of the tunnel parallel to the one we passed through is (I believe) two thousand two hundred yards. I wonder if you are ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... the stream, he had rowed directly to the foot of the orchard, and landed at the bars, after floating over forty or fifty yards of water where people were lately making hay. I entered the boat with him, in order to have the benefit of a lesson in rowing and paddling.... I managed, indeed, to propel the boat by rowing with two oars, but the use of the single paddle is quite beyond my present skill. Mr. Thoreau had assured me that it was only necessary to will the boat to go in any particular direction, and she would immediately take that course, as if imbued with the spirit of the steersman. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... new forces begin to work here; the corresponding sounds have, I think, the meaning of continuation and transformation or change: these new forces propel evolution in the upward or ascending ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... savage swimming in the sea found that a floating log supported his weight as he rested from his efforts. By the strokes of his arms or of a club in his hand, he could propel this log in a desired direction; thus the dugout canoe arose, to be steadied by the outrigger as the savage enlarged his experience. A cloth held aloft aided his progress down or across the wind, and it became an integral element of the sailing craft, which evolved through ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... once, even from the highest order of minds. Nature, which by one law of development evolves ideas, hypotheses, modes of inward life, and represses them in turn, has in this way provided that the earlier growth should propel its fibres into the later, and so transmit the whole of its forces in an unbroken continuity of life. Then comes the spectacle of the reserve of the elder generation exquisitely refined by the antagonism of the new. That current of new life ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... are needed, is vastly different from having one special nurse constantly within call; and Peace felt this difference keenly in spite of Gail's daily presence. But as Miss Wayne had predicted, she found her wheel-chair a great diversion and a source of much amusement. It was such fun to be able to propel one's self along the wide corridors and Peace's natural curiosity and investigative habit were never so well satisfied as when she was poking about to see for herself ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... was rapidly approaching from the opposite bank. An athletic aboriginal native, in an attitude that seemed studiedly graceful, was bending to the stout rope, which, attached to either side of the river, served to propel the punt. He had been spearing fish; for his wife, or gin, or queen—for she was born such, and contradicted in her person ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... the testicle) and become free when ripe. The pollen grains cannot move of themselves; the fertilizing cells can. Each fertilizing cell is like an ovum, excepting that it is not so spherical and is lengthened into a sort of lash by which it can propel itself through the water. When the ova are laid by one fish, the other swims over them and the fertilizing fluid is expelled into the water just as the eggs were. There is no union whatever between the ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... hypertrophied in disease, the cavities of the ventricles are probably also generally enlarged, and therefore they propel more blood at each contraction than in normal persons and thus increase the ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... exert a pressure or driving force, which becomes evident in its effects if the body acted upon is sufficiently small. In that case the light pressure will prevail over the attraction of gravitation, and propel the attenuated matter away from the sun in the teeth of its attraction. The earth itself would be driven away if, instead of consisting of a solid globe of immense aggregate mass, it were a cloud of microscopic particles. ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... form for cleaving the water! They often seem to glide rather than propel themselves through its depths. Again, how swiftly the caudal fin moves when with straight unerring motion they dart upon their prey. At times one turns his body sideways, and, with a slow, upward-gliding motion, moves toward some object on the surface which ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... and nothing moved save a distant sail fleeing across the silver sheen to the sea. He remembered what the man had said about bathing and yielding to an irresistible impulse was soon swimming out across the water. It was like a new lease of life to feel the water brimming to his neck again, and to propel himself with strong, graceful strokes through the element where he would. A bird shot up into the air with a wild sweet note, and he felt like answering to its melody. He whistled softly in imitation of its voice, and the ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a youngster who took an interest in their business. Especially interested was I in a rotary engine on "Barker's centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom- ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross injustice; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... Jr., after Jack Merritt had drop-kicked a forty-yard goal, made the excessively rash statement that it was easy. Captain Butch Brewster had indignantly challenged the heedless youth to show him, and the results of Hicks' effort to propel the pigskin over the crossbar were hilarious, for he missed the oval by a foot, nearly dislocated his knee, and, slipping in the mud, he sat down violently with a thud. However, so the excited Theophilus now narrated, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... applied himself with his accustomed energy to the practical working out of another favorite idea. The principle of the Ericsson propeller was first suggested to the inventor by a study of the means employed to propel the inhabitants of the air and deep. He satisfied himself that all such propulsion in Nature is produced by oblique action; though, in common with all practical men, he at first supposed that it was inseparably attended by a loss of power. But when he reflected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a nicety that he could propel himself against a bed of nails and broken glass at just the right velocity to be able to stop himself without so much as scratching his glove. And he could see that there was no ragged stuff on the spot he had selected. The slanting ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... fruits, large and round as cannon-balls, dotted over the branches. The currents were very strong in some places, so that during the greater part of the way the men preferred to travel near the shore, and propel the boat by means of ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... family alone. Our belongings were deposited and two great, black natives were placed at each end of the boat or scow. They were without clothing, save for a short, full skirt of white cloth fastened around their waists on a band. Each used a long pole to propel the scow. We were the only family of women on board the steamer. There was Mr. Biggar and his wife and a bride and her husband, besides several colored women and their husbands coming out to take positions on the Pacific steamers. All the other ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... pistol shut and went after the man who'd dropped down behind a desk. He came upon that man, hopelessly panicked, just as his hands closed on a clumsy gun that was supposed to set off a chemical explosive to propel a ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... cave, for, as I have explained, the channel by which I presume Babemba reached the open lake, was now impracticable. Lastly, we searched to see if there was any fallen log upon which we could possibly propel ourselves to the other side, and found—nothing that could be made to serve, no, nor, as I have said, any dry reeds or brushwood out of which we might ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... gone out one morning, while camping upon the river San Joaquin, to indulge in the sport of fowling. There were three of us, and we possessed two skiffs, but an accident had reduced our sculls to a single pair, which my companion used to propel one of the boats down the stream, after securing the other, with me as its occupant, in the midst of a thicket of tule, where I awaited in ambush the flying flocks. As geese and ducks abounded, and nearly all of my shots told, in a few hours ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... favor of some things of a more mental character, provided they be vicious. A man so neglected in his youth that he cannot spell the names of Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon, or read them if he see them spelt, may feel the strong incitement of ambition. This, instead of raising him, may only propel him forward on the level of his debased condition and society; and it is a favorable supposition that makes him "the best wrestler on the green," or a manful pugilist; for it is probable his grand delight may be, to indulge himself in an oppressive, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... the little one to support and propel itself are to be carefully watched, but not unnecessarily interfered with; neither frightened by expressions of fear, nor rendered ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... is very rapid, usually at the rate of four or five miles an hour, when at its height; and it requires a strong wind to propel a boat with a sail against it. Steam overcomes its force, for boats ply regularly from St. Louis to the towns and landings on its banks within the borders of the state, and return with the produce of the country. Small steamboats have gone ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... resistance to control by any means whatever is what is commonly indicated by restive in the best English speech and literature. Dryden speaks of "the pampered colt" as "restiff to the rein;" but the rein is not used to propel a horse forward, but to hold him in, and it is against this that he is "restiff." A horse may be made restless by flies or by martial music, but with no refractoriness; the restive animal impatiently resists or struggles to break from control, as by bolting, flinging his rider, or otherwise. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... were it was, of course, impossible for them to estimate the strength of the gale, the only apparent movement of the atmosphere being that due to their own passage through it. Though heading to the northward, with the engines making a sufficient number of revolutions per minute to propel them through still air at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards that the adverse wind might be travelling at a higher speed than this, in which event they would actually be driving more or less rapidly astern, notwithstanding their apparent ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... She could propel the chair by means of rims attached to the wheels and, even as she spoke, began to roll herself out of the room. Mary Louise sprang to assist her, but the girl waved her away ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... need to get somewhere to eat before long," cried Jennie Stone. "I am willing to help propel the boat myself, if they'll ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... to propel the delicate craft, which seemed to become sentient, and to move forward in obedience to the wishes of its occupants. He barely dipped the blade into the water, when it skimmed forward like a swallow. After ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... consult psychology. The simplest mental operation, a sensuous perception, is an act of memory, the appliance of a name, an ordinary act of judgment is the play of complicated mechanism, the joint and final result of several millions of wheels which, like those of a clock,[3413] turn and propel blindly, each for itself, each through its own force, and each kept in place and in functional activity by a system of balance and compensation.[3414] If the hands mark the hour with any degree of accuracy it is due to a wonderful if not miraculous conjunction, while hallucination, delirium ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in this case, propels itself by the alternate contraction and expansion of its disk, thus striking the water, and driving itself forward. These movements take place at regular intervals, and serve a double purpose. They not only propel, but at the same time drive the water over the lower surface of the disk. Here is situated a complicated net-work of vessels, and the fluids of the body are thus exposed to the influence of oxygen, and receive the needed aeration. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... canal-boat has been experimented with at Brooklyn to propel her by the reaction of a powerful blower or fan. This was driven first by a ten-horse, and next by a forty-horse stationary engine, and afterwards by a forty-horse oscillator. Each failed to move her from her slip, and ...
— History of Steam on the Erie Canal • Anonymous
... theory is that explosive charges would propel a rocket or space ship more effectively in the (theoretical) emptiness of space, than in our atmosphere. But to my mind it is quite possible that an explosion—a violent expansion of gases causing rapid ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... while the time away and interest his companion, thus diverting her thoughts and preventing her from dwelling too much upon the horrors of their present situation. He therefore set manfully to work and, shaping a course by the run of the sea, proceeded to propel the raft to windward, resting his hand upon its after end and striking out with his legs, in long, steady strokes that could be maintained for a considerable ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to be told what the object was in launching the gig. Fortunately there had been a spare pair of oars in the craft when she came ashore, the big blades being fastened so they could not float away. With these the captain and Tim began to propel the boat toward the sinking craft in which were Mr. Carr and Ned Scudd. The two latter were bailing so fast that they had no chance to row. Bob also went in the gig, but Mr. Tarbill remained on shore, nervously running up and down, wringing his hands and uttering vain ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... one foot used to propel herself gently back and forth. The newly-acquired striped dress was such a tight fit for her rubicund form, that it cracked ominously every time the wearer took a deep breath. But the short-coming of the two fronts over her ample bosom was camouflaged with the plaid ribbon and many pins. The corsage ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... cannon in the bows, and a crew of ten or a dozen in quaint uniforms, who, when wind fails, take to the sweeps, and standing up facing the direction in which they are going, and keeping good time, propel the boat at a fair pace. When at anchor an awning in blue and white stripes affords a commodious shelter. Being official vessels they are spic and span in light yellow varnish, and frequently fly a number of really beautiful flags of marvellous design and brilliant colouring. The tout-ensemble ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... without having made any attempt to use his privilege, repealing the grant to him, and conferring similar privileges on Robert R. Livingston, for the term of twenty years, on a suggestion, made by him, that he was possessor of a mode of applying the steam-engine to propel a boat, on new and advantageous principles. On the 5th of April, 1803, another act was passed, by which it was declared, that the rights and privileges granted to Robert R. Livingston by the last act should be extended to him and Robert Fulton, for twenty years from the passing ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... is represented as traversing heaven each day in a bark ("the good bark of millions of years"); the shades of the dead propel it with long oars; the god stands at the prow to strike the enemy with his lance. The hymn which they chanted in his honor is as follows: "Homage to thee; thou watchest favoringly, thou watchest truly, O master of the two horizons.... Thou treadest the heavens on high, thine enemies ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... was the cheery answer; and then all hands set to work to propel the boat to the Naestone rock, on which the waves were ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... may be seen here also. The knotted thread which breaks if pulled too impatiently; the dropped stitches that make rough, uneven places in the pattern; the sail which was wrongly placed and will not propel the boat; the pile of withered leaves which was not removed, and which the wind scattered over the garden,—are not all these concrete moral lessons ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... propel ourselves forward to the middle of the next century, and to fancy a well-equipped historian armed with the digested learning of Gibbon, endowed with the eye of Carlyle, and say one- fifteenth of his humour (even ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... jalousies; and, on the upper one of these, that on which our apartments opened, my father had caused a hammock to be swung, for the comfort and pleasure of his children. With one foot listlessly dragging on the floor of the portico so as to propel the hammock, and lying partly on my face while I soothed my wide-eyed doll to sleep, I lay swaying in childish fashion when I heard Evelyn's soft step beside me, accompanied by another, firmer, slower, but as gentle if not as light. ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... richer, more joyous life than he has yet known and that every effort brings him nearer to its realization. Thus dwelling on the subject in its various aspects he creates the ardent desire that serves to propel him forward. ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... repealing the act of 1787, giving John Fitch the sole right to use steamboats on the Hudson, and granting the privilege to Chancellor Livingston for a term of twenty years, provided that within a year he should build a boat of twenty tons capacity and propel it by steam at a speed of four miles an hour. John Fitch had disappeared, and with him his idea of applying steam to paddles. He had fitted a steam engine of his own invention into a ferry-boat of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Juaves is at once picturesque and curiously tame. The men spend much of their time on or in the water. They make great dugout canoes from large tree trunks. There are usually no paddles, but poles are used to propel the craft sluggishly over the waters of the lagoon. Few of the men can swim. The fish are chiefly caught with nets, and both seines and throw nets are used. The lagoons are said to abound in alligators, and the men, when fishing, generally carry ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... of the approaching wheel became more audible; it drew near, nearer; but lost the delicacy that distance lent it. Alas! it did not propel the car of a fairy, or the chariot of a heroine, but a cart, whose taxed springs bowed beneath the portly form of an honest yeoman who gave Captain Armine a cheerful good-morrow as he jogged by, and flanked ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... carry from five to six thousand bags of pepper. In ancient times they used to build larger ships than now; but owing to the great numbers of islands and shoals in some places of these seas, they now build them less[1]. Besides their sails, they use oars. occasionally to propel these ships, four men being employed to each oar. The larger ships are usually attended by two or three of a smaller size, able to carry a thousand bags of pepper, and having sixty mariners in each and these smaller ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... why is not this same thing produced when one has been running rapidly for a few minutes? For a very good reason: in this case the rapid inhalations are preceded by the violent throes of the heart to propel the carbonized blood from the overworked tissues and have them set free at the lungs where the air is rushing in at the normal ratio of four to one. This is not an abnormal action, but is of necessity, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... with a closing volley of every text winch figures under the head of "Snow" in the Concordance, the discourse comes to an end; and every liberated urchin goes home with his head full of devout fancies of building a snow-fort, after sunset, from which to propel consecrated missiles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... offense and defense, to make weak children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of the orbit of the planets, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship against the wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent, under oceans that ancient ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... necessary, to know how to swim. The human body in the water weighs little more than a pound; so that one finger placed upon a piece of board, an oar or a paddle, will easily keep the head above water, and the feet and the other hand can be used to propel the body toward the shore. It is all important for the person in the water to breathe and keep a cool head, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... had to convey a fox and a goose and a bag of corn across a river in a boat that would take but one at a time. He could not, with his small party, man a gallivat, which required fifty oarsmen to propel it at speed; while if he seized one of the lighter grabs, he would have no chance whatever of outrunning the gallivats that would be immediately launched in pursuit. It was this problem that had occupied him the whole day during which Diggle ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... 1793, he went to France. There he would—according to his dream—find patronage and fame; but on his arrival in the French capital he found the Reign of Terror just beginning its work. It was not likely that the Revolutionary Tribunal would give heed to an American dreamer and his proposition to propel by steam a boat on the Seine. However, Fitch went to L'Orient and deposited the plans and specifications of his invention with the American consul. Then ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... the passage of the box, and only near the river should we be obliged to cut away the young trees. We demolished the old shanty, and taking half a dozen of the boards, laid down a track towards the river. The ground was nearly level for a short distance, and we used levers to propel the box forward. As fast as one roller ran out in the rear, we placed it forward, and thus managed to keep both ends of the box ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... all the knowledge got of the wrestling river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hours by the river struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It was a relief to his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twist and force onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, this creature who had left his Carmen to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... mass and contraction of other parts, the whole creeps slowly along. Other naked cells (Fig. 12, B; Fig. 16, C) are provided with delicate thread-like processes of protoplasm called "cilia" (sing. cilium), which are in active vibration, and propel ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... longer in demand at home or abroad, and the world had discovered better machinery to propel better ships. As an offset to this pictorial argument, another might have been introduced, exhibiting in the background the mere blacksmiths' shops of the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, as they existed before the era ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... all took the interruption good-naturedly, save Ned Rector. By this time he had grown very much excited. No sooner would he pounce upon the spot where Stacy appeared to be, than the fat boy by a few swift rolls would propel himself well beyond the reach of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... turning of the lane the demon seemed to propel Joseph more violently, till at last he put Azariah out of his head and began to ask himself if he would be guilty of any great sin in going to see the cock-fight? Of any sin greater than that of ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... forerunner, precursor sew, embroider unload, exonerate grave, sepulcher readable, legible tell, narrate kiss, osculate nose, proboscis striking, percussion green, verdant stroke, concussion grass, verdure bowman, archer drive, propel greed, avarice book, volume stingy, parsimonious warrior, belligerent bath, ablution owner, proprietor wrong, incorrect bow, obeisance top, summit kneel, genuflection food, nutrition work, occupation seize, apprehend ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... English bedrooms, exquisitely furnished and enormously expensive. The horticultural department was very poor, except the rhododendrons, which drove me crazy. I only took a chair twice. You pay sixty cents an hour for one with a man to propel it, but can have one for three hours and make your husband (or wife!) wheel you. You do not pay entrance fee for children going in your arms, and I saw boys of eight or nine lugged in by their fathers ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises), and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. The extensive welfare system helps propel public sector expenditures to more than 50% of GDP. A major shipping nation, with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed goods. The country is richly endowed with natural resources - petroleum, hydropower, ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... that she might not sink at all but would be carried out to sea only to be cast ashore at one of the elm-edged points. She felt strangely tempted to put herself to the test. She would lie perfectly still the whole time, she said to herself, and use neither hand nor foot to propel the coffin. She would put herself wholly at the mercy of her judge; he might draw her down or let her escape as ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... at nine hundred miles; but distance was the least repellent feature of this most arduous journey. Barefoot, lest their shoes should injure the frail vessel, each crouched in his canoe, toiling with unpractised hands to propel it. Before him, week after week, he saw the same lank, unkempt hair, the same tawny shoulders, and long, naked arms ceaselessly plying the paddle. The canoes were soon separated; and, for more than a month, the Frenchmen rarely or never met. Brbeuf ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... as soon as I got upon my feet, the slight muscular effort that I made in walking lifted me again into the air, and I found myself once more in equilibrium. At first this discouraged and perplexed me; but observing that I could propel myself with the greatest ease by just fanning the air, as before, with my cap, I concluded that this was a very easy as well as rapid mode of locomotion. As I advanced farther and farther into the cavity, I found that ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... allowed that the heart in contracting sometimes propels and sometimes does not propel, or at most propels but very little, a mere nothing, or an imaginary something: all this, indeed, has already been refuted, and is, besides, contrary both to sense and reason. For if it be a necessary ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... presented by meteors and shooting stars. The natures and distributions of these harmonize with the hypothesis of an exploded planet, and I think with no other hypothesis. The theory of volcanic origin, joined with the remark that the Sun emits jets which might propel them with adequate velocities, seems quite untenable. Such meteoric bodies as have descended to us, forbid absolutely the supposition of solar origin. Nor can they rationally be ascribed to planetary volcanoes. Even were their mineral characters appropriate, which many of them are not (for volcanoes ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... superficially almost irreconcilable; that the majority of those taking part in it are driven into action as the result of the immediate pressure of the conditions of life, and are not always able logically to state the nature of all causes which propel them, or to paint clearly all results of their action; so far from removing it from the category of the vast reorganising movements of humanity, places it in a line with them, showing how vital, spontaneous, and wholly organic and ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... seem like an excess of caution for Kenton to hesitate to propel his boat across this open space when it confronted him. That there was any dusky foe crouching in the woods, with his eyes fixed upon that "clearing" in the water and watching for the appearance of Kenton, was a piece of fine-spun theorizing that entered the realms of the absurd. It was ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... present predicament became a most important one. The first suggestion was that they construct a small and easily managed raft from a portion of the material contained in the Venture. They foresaw that it would be impossible for them to propel even this against the swift current and reach the river, where they might procure relief from some passing boat. Still, even to drift with the current, or at the best to work their way diagonally across it, with the hope ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... still blew strong, but steadily; the blue water of the ocean was rising in mimic mountains, that were crowned with white foam, which the wind, at times, lifted from its kindred element, to propel in mist, through the air, from summit to summit. But the ship rode on these agitated billows with an easy and regular movement that denoted the skill with which her ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her way across the creek. The tide was almost at its height, but even then the current was so strong that they went across almost sideways, and Jeanne heard her companion's breath grow shorter and shorter, as with powerful strokes she did her best to guide and propel the clumsy craft. ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... crank of the sprocket wheel and having a handle at each of its upper corners. It is hinged upon a fulcrum which slides upon the two vertical rods shown in the illustration. It will be seen that this gives a peculiar movement to the handles by which the operators propel the car, but it has been found that the motion is an excellent one, and it is claimed that a higher speed can be obtained with the mechanism here shown than with any other now in use. There is practically no dead center, as in the case where the ordinary ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... the plane of their motion, but at an angle to it, the same principle would, if applied to a steamship, increase its speed. But let us look at the subject from another standpoint. The quadruped has to support the weight of his body, and propel himself forward, with the same force. If the force be applied perpendicularly, the body is elevated, but not moved forward. If the force is applied horizontally, the body moves forward, but soon falls to the ground, because it is not supported. But when the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... however, on the verge of the horizon, an object rose dimly to view, which, after carefully studying for some time, the shipwrecked people agreed was a small island, but, as we have stated, they were powerless to propel their craft thither, and could only gaze and sigh for the refuge that was as much beyond their reach, as though it ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... cellular kite. Bell and Curtiss, with three others, formed in 1907, the Aerial Experimental Association at Bell's country house in Canada, which was fruitful of results, and Curtiss scored several notable triumphs with the craft they designed. But the idea of a machine which could descend and propel itself on water possessed his mind, and in 1911 he exhibited at the aviation meet in Chicago the hydroaeroplane. An incident there set him dreaming of the life-saving systems on great waters. His hydroaeroplane had just returned to its hangar, after a series of maneuvers, when ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... that could be taken on board ship and used to destroy any vessel that came to destroy them. It was fixed with a rotary steam engine and a screw wheel to propel it. It was intended to be guided from the ship or the shore. There were two steel wires fixed to the tiller of the rudder, and the operator could pull on one side or the other and guide the vessel just as a horse is guided with reins. It was so arranged that at night ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... slipping on the logs, and they carry either pike poles or peaveys, Fig. 17. The latter are similar to cant-hooks, except that they have sharp pikes at their ends. So armed, they have to "ride any kind of a log in any water, to propel a log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skilful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft." Altho the logs are carried by the ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... now called the Pamet River, a stream discovered some days previously by a foot expedition under charge of Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless, and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace, while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the passengers, and allow the long-boat to return ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... race through the air with rapid wing-beats and rather labored flight, and compass only short distances. Among the birds of this kind of aerial movement may be mentioned the American meadowlark, the bob-white, and the pheasant. Other species propel themselves in rapid, gliding, and continued flight by means of long, narrow, and pointed wings, like the swifts, swallows, and goatsuckers, while many others, notably herons, hawks, vultures, and eagles, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... more favourite scheme was the application of steam power for the purpose of carriage traction. Savery, the inventor of the working steam-engine, was the first to propose its employment to propel vehicles along the common roads; and in 1759 Dr. Robison, then a young man studying at Glasgow College, threw out the same idea to his friend James Watt; but ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... BULGER set forth on his first round. His first two strokes were dealt on the yielding air; his third carried no inconsiderable parcel of real property to some distance; but his fourth hit the ball, and drove it across the road. "As gude as a better," quoth the orphan boy, and bade BULGER propel the tiny sphere in the direction of a neighbouring rivulet. Into this affluent of the main, BULGER finally hit the ball; but an adroit lad of nine stamped it into the mud, while pretending to look for it, and BULGER had to put down another. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... undergo various modifications—beneath and through which a common plan of formation is discernible. But if I look at the same part physiologically, I see that it is a most beautifully constructed organ of locomotion, by means of which the animal can swiftly propel itself either ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... I shipped the whole outfit by steamer down the Cowlitz River, and took passage with my assistants to Portland, thus reversing the order of travel in 1853. We used steam instead of the brawn of stalwart pioneers and Indians to propel the boat. On the evening of March the first I pitched my tent in the heart of the city of Portland, on ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... praying by wind-power, probably borrowed from the Tibetans, prevails among the Shokas. The Tibetans, with a more intense religion than the Shokas, use for this purpose not only the wind but even water to propel their praying machines. Let me explain these simple mechanical contrivances for prayers. One or more rags or pieces of cloth, usually white, but on occasions red or blue, are fastened and hung by one end to a string stretched across a road, a pass, or ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... of things to men in the navy, but we don't drown them for the sake of their pictures. Suppose I show you around, for at two bells the men will be back from their dinner. Now, aft here, is the gasoline engine, which we use to propel the boat on the surface. We can't use it submerged, however, on account of the exhaust; so, for under-water work, we use a strong storage battery to work a motor. You see the motor back there, and under this deck is the storage battery—large ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... man, kneeling before the customer with a gallantry that would be admirable in a drawing-room, and worth infinitely more than the price of the article he is selling; and he fusses over the gaiters and over the lady's foot, until you wonder if she is not tempted to propel him into a more appropriate sphere. (Laughter). Whatever possessed men to imagine that God designed them to fit ladies' gaiters, is more than I can imagine. (Applause). I am unable to realize how they obtained the revelation that for a woman to thus officiate would take her out ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... cutting across this conductor, and causing the further part to rotate upon the nearer, I could divert the current through any required angle. Thus I could turn the repulsion upon the resistant body (sun or planet), and so propel the vessel in any ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... with my former guide, and Chapman. I felt moved by some singular enthusiasm; the exaltation of the moment possessed me, and unannounced, as yet unquestioned, I rose to my full height upon a narrow rostrum in the platform, and turning from side to side spoke with an elation that seemed to propel my ringing words over the great assembly with the power and shock ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... receivers-general and the receivers of the taille are "at bay" and can no longer keep their engagements. The public income diminishes from month to month; in the social body, the heart, already so feeble, faints; deprived of the blood which no longer reaches it, it ceases to propel to the muscles the vivifying current which restores their waste and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... gun in which the force employed to propel the bullet is the elasticity of compressed atmospheric air. It has attached to it, or constructed in it, a reservoir of compressed air, a portion of which, liberated into the space behind the bullet when the trigger is pulled, propels the bullet from the barrel ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... rifle. He sat near Francois, just by the middle of the little vessel. Lucien, who was altogether a man of peace principles, and but little of a shot compared with either of his brothers, handled the oar—not to propel the canoe, but merely to guide it. In this way the party ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... must be of large dimensions. By doubling all the lineal dimensions of a vessel of given form, her capacity is increased eight fold, that is to say, she can carry eight times as much weight of engines, boilers, armor, and guns. Meanwhile her resistance is only quadrupled; so that to propel each ton of her weight requires but half the power necessary to propel each ton of the weight of a vessel of half the dimensions. High speed is probably quite as important as invulnerability. Light armor is a complete protection against the most destructive shells, and the old wooden frigates ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that instant I had not looked back towards the burning barque. I would rather not have done so. I dreaded to look back; moreover, I was so eagerly employed in helping to propel our floating plank that I had ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... not a man! So the velocipede was constructed for the rider's feet to just reach the ground, and by pressing first one foot on the ground and then the other he managed in this undignified attitude, to propel the thing along! ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... sloops and shallops...." A second common mode of transportation, according to Philip A. Bruce, was "not to draw the cask over the ground by means of horses or oxen, like an enormous clod crusher, the custom of a later period, but to propel it by the application of a steady force from behind." In 1724 Hugh Jones wrote, "The tobacco is rolled, drawn by horses, or carted to convenient Rolling Houses, whence it is conveyed on board the ships in flats or sloops." Thus ...
— Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - "The Sovereign Remedy" • Melvin Herndon
... the work continue,—only an interval of an hour being appropriated to the midday meal. Excursions, too, were made from point to point,—the oars serving to propel the half-constructed craft: the object of these excursions being to pick up such pieces of timber, ropes, or other articles as Snowball had not already secured. The aid of the others now rendered many items available which Snowball had formerly rejected as useless,—because ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... extent. To render our account of this new marvel quite incredible in the outset, we will state on the inventor's authority, that the steam of an ordinary tea-kettle may be made to produce sufficient momentum to propel a steamship of any size across the Atlantic! Or, again, one man may exert a power equal to that of a thousand horses, and that, too, without the aid of steam or any auxiliary other than his own stout arm. It overcomes or disproves the heretofore-received principle in mechanics, of not gaining ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... inequality, and then again harmonical on account of the equality of the motion which they excite in us. For when the motions of the antecedent swifter sounds begin to pause and the two are equalized, the slower sounds overtake the swifter and then propel them. When they overtake them they do not intrude a new and discordant motion, but introduce the beginnings of a slower, which answers to the swifter as it dies away, thus producing a single mixed expression out of high and low, whence arises a pleasure ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... bird which necessity drives to the water to find there prey fitted for its sustenance, opens the digits of its feet when it wishes to strike the water and propel itself along its surface. The skin which unites these digits at their base, by these acts of spreading apart being unceasingly repeated contracts the habit of extending; so that after a while the broad membranes which connect the digits of ducks, geese, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... bent on building boats; seeing that everybody seemed reluctant to help him he went to work himself; he made an immense flat-bottomed bulrush boat of great thickness, and to propel it made two large wheels worked by hand: in fact he had invented a paddle steamer, only the locomotive agent was deficient. We saw it several times on the water; the wheels were rather high up and it required ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... purpose; and prayed that leave might be given to bring in a bill accordingly. This petition was seconded by a message from the king, importing, that his majesty, as far as his interest was concerned, gave his consent that the house might act in this affair as they should think propel. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... brilliantly lit up by millions of minute nautilidae, and from time to time we passed through shoals of large medusae, increasing and decreasing the light which they emitted as they opened or closed their feelers, to propel themselves through the water. They looked like myriads of incandescent lamps floating just below the surface of the water and illuminating everything as they passed with I do not know how many thousand or million candle-power. The effect ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... his Modern Views of Electricity proves that electricity possesses both inertia and momentum, and if electricity possesses these properties, then it also possesses the requisite properties to enable the currents to propel or push any planet around its central body, or a satellite round its primary planet. Therefore the same course of reasoning that applies to the rotating Aether currents, equally applies to the currents of ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... the head and feet begin to sink, so that the teacher must follow close after the pupil to make the pupil keep the back well hollowed and the chest expanded. Beginners will be surprized at the ease with which back strokes propel the body through the water without any undue effort. To one who has never been used to swimming without support it gives a wonderful feeling of exhilaration to propel one's self through the water and then, when tired, to slowly bring the arms back under water ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... of the pedals on a machine of this gear would propel the rider as far as if he were on a high "ordinary" with the pedals attached directly to a wheel 70 inches in diameter. The gearing is raised or lowered by altering the number ratio of the teeth on the two ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... a five-knot breeze, and the water quite smooth, which was very favourable for the line-of-battle ship and ourselves, but not for the merchant vessels, which, with their cargoes, required more wind to propel them through the water. The state of affairs, when the hands were piped ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... are, and even if I could never return to the earth, I should doubtless meet with a warm welcome among the Martians. What a lion I should be!" I looked longingly at the distant planet, the outlines of whose continents and seas appeared most enticing, but when I tried to propel myself in that direction I only kicked against nothingness. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss |
