"Steeper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as they inclined to south-west; and those nearest to the sea, which acted as screens, and received the full unbroken force of the wind, were seriously damaged. As we proceeded towards Lapithus the trees became widely scattered, the slopes were steeper, and the strip of level ground to the sea-margin narrowed to only half a mile. The mountains rose rapidly from this base, and an extra deep tinge of green showed the effect of streams, which in this happy spot of Cyprus are perennial. Many little villages were ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... down the valley until the road turned toward the range and an opening which he followed into a steeper and narrower rift beyond. Here there were no clearings in the rocky underbrush until he reached Richmond Braley's land. A long upturning sweep ended at the house, directly against the base of the mountain; and without decreasing his gait he passed over the faintly traced way, by the triangular sheep ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... afterward overgrown again with grass. Proceeding along this way, which gently ascends, one arrives at last at a bare, treeless region. It is barren heath where grows nothing but heather, mosses, and lichens. It grows ever steeper, the further one ascends; but one always follows a gully resembling a rounded out ditch which is convenient, as one cannot then miss one's way in this extensive, treeless, monotonous region. After a while, rocks as large as churches rise out of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... writer experimented with a two-cell gliding model, precisely similar to a Hargrave kite, as will be confirmed by Mr. Herring. It was frequently tested by launching from the top of a three-story house and glided downward very steadily in all sorts of breezes, but the angle of descent was much steeper than that of birds, and the weight sustained per square foot was less than with single cells, in consequence of the lesser support afforded by the rear cell, which operated upon air already set in motion downward by the ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... conserve the water, first, by leaving the steeper slopes covered with vegetation; second, by keeping the soil loose; and, third, by building reservoirs to hold the floods. We can make use of the conserved water by carrying it in pipes or ditches to those regions where it is needed. We can get rid of too much water by draining the swamps, and building ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... sea—the timber line is far higher up than on this. Nor, again, is it a matter of angle that makes the timber line here so low, for those forests on the Sierra del Cristal were growing luxuriantly over far steeper grades. There is some peculiar local condition just here evidently, or the forest would be up to the bottom of the wall of the crater. I am not unreasonable enough to expect it to grow on that, but its conduct in staying ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... as they seized upon him; he was quite all the two girls could lift, and they actually had to drag him up the steeper part of the ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... still Were in Acone's parish; nor had haply From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte. The city's malady hath ever source In the confusion of its persons, as The body's, in variety of food: And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge, Than the blind lamb; and oftentimes one sword Doth more and better execution, Than five. Mark Luni, Urbisaglia mark, How they are gone, and after them how go Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and 't will seem No longer new or strange ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... this touched Flora as the houses, gliding past, grew older, grayer, with steeper gardens, narrower streets, here and there even trees, lone, sentinel, at the edge of cobbled gutters. From the crest of the last hill they had looked a mile down the long gray throat of the street to where the ferry building ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... No longer could make out the track; 'Twas folly, no doubt, to go onward; 'Twas madness, of course, to go back. The snow slope grew steeper and steeper; The lightning more vividly flared; The thunder rolled deeper and deeper; And ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... priest-cap the only approach was by the irregular, but for some distance nearly parallel, gorges cut out from the soft clay of the bluffs by Sandy Creek and one of its many arms. The course of these streams being toward the Confederate works, the hollows grew deeper and the banks steeper at every step. At most the creeks were but two hundred yards apart, and the ridge that separated them gave barely standing room. Within a few feet of the breastworks the smaller stream and its ravine turned sharply toward the north ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... concentrate all its power into the exertion of a few moments. If it is capable of lifting a given load up a given grade at a certain speed on its lowest gear, it cannot lift twice the load up the same grade, or the same load up a steeper grade in double the time, for its resources are exhausted when the limit of the power developed through the lowest gear is reached. The grade may be only a mud hole, out of which the rear wheels have to rise only two feet to be free, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... the brow of the steeper descent, where the road takes a sudden determination, and plunges abruptly into the valley, Below, the roofs of the little town lay white and sparkling, and straight from a wreath of vapour the ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... barograph in our Weather Bureau station at Galveston. In the jerky, scrawling fashion of a child writing his first copy on a slate, I saw the pen gradually draw what looked like a rough profile map—a long declining plateau, a steep and then a steeper slope, ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... moved among the great rocks. Open sand lay beyond, running off at a steeper pitch to make a throat—a smaller pit in the great pit of the crater itself. Rawson noted it, then forgot it as he stooped for something that lay half hidden, its protruding end shining under the light of the stars, as he had seen it gleam before at ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... the footpath, the spur of the hill yonder looks larger and steeper and more ponderous in the mist; it seems higher than this, a not unusual appearance when the difference in altitude is not very great. The level we are on seems to us beneath the level in the distance, as the future ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... though I did not fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,—the Battle of the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more tortuous and more encumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate, James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no side-wheel steamer less strong than ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... gale was still blowing. He wondered as he went along how the path was so much steeper and rougher than it used to be, not aware how greatly his ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... I thought, "she is going over, she is going to turn the turtle with us!" as I felt the incline of the deck getting steeper and steeper beneath my feet, and I turned and clawed my way aft toward the wheel. On reaching it I found ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... stones over a marshy ascending plain, but what was above, or on either side, I could not see. It was solitude of the most awful kind. There was nothing but the storm, which had already wet me through, and the bleak gray waste of rocks. It grew sleeper and steeper; I could barely trace the path by the rocks which were worn, and the snow threatened soon to cover these. Added to this, although the walking and fresh mountain air had removed my illness, I was still weak from the effects of it, and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... crowding between the foot of the precipice and tide water. Look again how the St. Lawrence turns in a sharp angle at the precipice. Three sides of the city are water,—St. Charles River nearest Wolfe, then the St. Lawrence across the steep face of the rock, then the St. Lawrence again along a still steeper precipice to the far side. Only the rear of the city is vulnerable; but it ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Cap'n Jack up a deep gully. On either hand the sides of the chasm shot up, steeper than the roof of a house, while in ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... began the ascent. How much steeper the acclivities were than they had seemed to be when I came down! My limbs ached before I had gone many rods, and my breath came short. Upward I toiled, and by the time my trail reached the cog-road I was ready to drop from exhaustion. Yet I had not gone more than a ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army stiffened, and their beards ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... of trees, and there was a hard coating of icy snow upon its rocky surface. From the cabins to the summit the slope was gradual, and with some help over the steeper places, the dogs hauled the komatik to the summit with ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... rock, and sky, The sun declined so tenderly, That o'er the scene white moonlight fell, Ere we had bid the day farewell. From Maintz, where many a warrior priest Was wont of yore to fight and feast, The broad stream bore us down its tide, Till where upon its steeper side, Grim Ehrenfels, with turrets brown, On Hatto's wave-worn tower looks down. Here did we rest,—my dearest Y—-, This bowl could all as well as I, Describe that scene, when in the deep, Still, ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... started and ran as fast as they were able; and for a while were in hopes of distancing their pursuer. But further up, the slope grew steeper; and the loose stones became more difficult to clamber over. Their breath, too, was by this time quite gone; and all three were ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... climbed steeper and more rugged paths than these, Miss Abbot," he said. "The Alps, the Pyrenees, the Caucasus, are all familiar ground, and this is but child's ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the tower we had to go through a great many apartments, passages, and corridors, and terminate all by climbing a winding staircase, steeper and narrower than was at all desirable for any but wicked heretics, who ought to be made as uncomfortable as possible. However, by reasonable perseverance, the archbishop, the bishop's lady, and all the noble company present found themselves safely at the top. Our host remarked, I think, that ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and twelve inches "run." Some climbers think this too flat, and perhaps it is in certain situations; but for homes, for easy, leisurely ascent by children and old folks. I think it better than a steeper pitch. All large dwelling-houses, and some small ones, ought to be supplied with "passenger elevators," at least from the first to the second story. Those who take the rooms still higher are usually able to make the ascent in the common way. Such an elevator can undoubtedly be made that will be ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... cried 'lovely!'—and so it was, after the sunshiny fields on a warm June morning. But this was not the fishing ground. The brook must be followed up to the woods whence it came. And soon the banks became higher and broken, the ascent steeper, the trees closer; no longer a mere fringe or veil to the fostering waters. Fields were forgotten; the brook grew wild and lively, and following its course became a matter of some difficulty. Sometimes there was no edge of footing beside the stream; they must take to the stones and ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... and began to climb among loose stones, finally finding solid rock beneath our feet, the path skirting the edge of what seemed to be a deep gash in the earth, and winding about wherever it could find passage. The way grew steeper and steeper, and more difficult to traverse, although, as we thus rose above the tree limit, the shadows became less dense, and we were able dimly to perceive objects a yard or two in advance. I strained my eyes over Barbeau's shoulder, but could gain no glimpse of De Artigny. Then ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Ralph and Ursula dismount (as for him he had been going afoot ever since that first day) and they led the horses up the said scree, which was a hard business, as they were no mountain beasts. And when they were atop of the scree it was harder yet to get them down, for on that side it was steeper; but at last they brought it about, and came down into a little grassy plain or isle in the rock sea, which narrowed toward the eastern end, and the rocks on either side were smooth and glossy, as if the heat had gone out of them suddenly, when the earth-fires ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the river along ground that grew swiftly steeper, conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule was ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... Melchior quietly; and he went on, now down the stony slope of the valley, to reach the river bed near its source, with the sides of the thal seeming to grow steeper and higher, and one of the waterfalls they were near infinitely more beautiful, for they had now reached the point necessary for seeing the lovely iris which spanned the cascade, turning its seething spray into a segment of an arch ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... next march we came in sight of the luminous mountain, which cheered me considerably. It was a curious thing, indeed. A straight-sided cone of light it was, rather steeper than the average volcano. Its point was sharp, its sides smooth as if cut with a mammoth plane. And it shone with a pure white light, with a steady and unchanging milky radiance. It rose out of the black and dull yellow of the ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... ascent, go to the top of the hill by the side of the church and take a general survey of the land. The road extending to the right, under those mulberry trees, is the one to take. Alittle distance along it, at a well with a cistern, anarrow road strikes off to the left and ascends the mountain by a steeper and shorter way. The mountain offers a splendid field for botanists. To see the sun rise from the top, travellers generally start at 11 P.M., and await the appearance of the glorious luminary in the chapel of Ste. Croix, on the summit. Mont Ventoux is the culminating point of the Lure ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... gate, snapping into shivers with her chest the upper bar, which was luckily rotten, and clearing the lower ones in her stride. The blow, and the splintered wood flying about her ears, appeared to frighten her afresh, and she tore up the opposite ascent, which was longer and steeper than the last, like a mad creature. I was glad to perceive, however, that the pace at which she had come, and the distance (which must have been several miles), were beginning to tell—her glossy coat was stained with sweat ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... his forehead. "Not entirely, Stumpy. Be generous, dear! It may have hastened matters a little—only a very little. And even so, what of it, if the journey has been shortened? Perhaps the way has been a little steeper, but it has brought me more quickly to my goal. Stumpy, Stumpy, if it weren't for leaving you, I would go as gladly—as gladly—as ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... down on the other side,' urged Mary. 'It is a little steeper on the Cumberland side, but not ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... ascend in order to reach the next plateau. Another couple of hours' march brought us to the gate's of Begemder. In front of us arose the plateau of Dahonte, only about a couple of miles distant, but we had to ascend a more abrupt precipice than the one we had just passed and climb again a steeper ascent before we could reach it. The valley of the Jiddah, a tributary of the Nile, was between us and our halting-place—a stiff march, as the silver thread we viewed from the narrow passage between ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... has carefully surveyed the extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with the horizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest land in North Truro. Even this vast clay-bank is fast wearing away. Small streams of water trickling down it at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... companion somewhat further than the carriage road extends, the uncle and aunt were not unwilling to partake to a certain extent the spirit of the enterprise. They all, therefore, mounted their horses, and, accompanied by their guide, advanced by the steeper and more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... it happens in the youth of day That mists obscure the sun's imperfect ray, Who, as he's mounting to the dome's extreme, Smites and dispels them with a steeper beam, So you the vapors that begirt your birth Consumed, and manifested all your worth. But still one early vice obstructs the light And sullies all the visible and bright Display of mind and ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... shallow burn, and we used to sit on the brig a long time before venturing to climb. As boys we ran up the brae. As men and women, young and in our prime, we almost forgot that it was there. But the autumn of life comes, and the brae grows steeper; then the winter, and once again we are as the child pausing apprehensively on the brig. Yet are we no longer the child; we look now for no new world at the top, only for a little garden and a tiny house, and a handloom in the house. It is only a garden ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... clear skies as usual, we struck at once into a trail which for seventeen miles might have been a park bridle-path, a little steeper, and in places a little boggy. Our way took us east by north into Soda Butte Canyon, a mile wide below, and narrowing with a gradual rise, until at Miner's Camp it is quite closely bounded by high hillsides, the upper level of the trail being over eight thousand feet above the sea. The ride through ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... could only go round and round the place, looking with despair at the steep sides of the cream-jug, which seemed far larger and steeper than they had done before ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... inland, however, the slope became easy, and towards the right centre and right against which the English attack was directed, the hill was simply a slope broken into natural terraces, on which were many walls and vineyards. Near the sea the river ran between low banks, but inland the bank was much steeper, the south side rising some thirty or forty feet, and enabling its defenders to sweep the ground across which the assailants must advance. While on their left the Russian forces were not advanced in front of the hill which formed their position, on the lower ground they occupied the vineyards ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... no idea to this day beyond that the voyage was ended before dawn. It was all unexpected—we were too excited, and too fearful for our skins to recall the passage of hours. It was darker than I have ever known night to be, and the short waves that made our ship pitch unevenly were growing steeper every minute, when Ranjoor Singh came at last to the head of the ladder and shouted for me. I went to him up the steps, holding to each rail for ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... reach, but we chose the rocky ridges and moraines, trying to avoid the crevassed glaciers, and all went well until the twentieth, when just as we were reaching the steeper gradients a strong wind sprang up, blowing straight down the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... again until we overtook the fugitives or reached Exeter. The road was admirable hereabouts, and we ran so steadily that, but for the hedges flying past, we might have been sitting in armchairs. After Ilminster the road became steeper, though it was yet too early in the ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... farther into the cut. A crosscut-saw may be thought of as a series of knife points, arranged in two parallel rows. Ordinarily the angle of the "face" of each tooth with the line of the teeth is about 65 deg., and slightly steeper than the back of the tooth. The angle of the cutting edge of each tooth may be filed more acute when the saw is to be used for soft ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... the day wore away, and the road led into a more and more mountainous country. The hills were longer and steeper, and the tracts of forest more frequent and solitary. The number of passengers increased too, until the coach was pretty heavily loaded; and sometimes all but the female passengers would get out and walk up the hills. On these occasions ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... end of the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down in the midst of a cloud of snow upon a snow-slope even steeper than the one above. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible, but without a bone broken in his body; and then at last came to gentler slopes, and at last rolled out and lay still, buried amidst a softening heap of the white ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... water of the ocean should be suddenly drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma;[121] while, finally, the island with a fringing reef would have the appearance of ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Street, San Francisco, which is alleged to have a gradient of 34 per cent., with twenty-three persons on board. As 25 per cent. is regarded as the maximum safe gradient for an Abt rack railway, since the cog-wheel is liable to climb out of the rack on any steeper grade, it will be seen that the strain upon the credulity of the hearer of this story is almost as great as that upon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... downward over the edge, he pulled first Desiree, then myself, up after him. The whole performance had occupied a scant two seconds, and, waiting only to pick up the three spears he had thrown up the sloping surface of the rock to another yet higher and steeper. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... the rear door of the smoking-car, with the black bag between his feet. Even experienced travelers found the lunges of the train trying to their nerves as it shot at speed around "hairpin" bends, or hurled itself to the fall of a steeper descent. To Zeke, who for the first time knew the roar and jolt of such travel, this trip was a fearsome thing. To sit movelessly there, while the car reeled recklessly on the edge of abysses, was a supreme trial ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... clear—the nights moonlit. Bitter cold continued. We followed a plain track—sleeping by night where the quarry had slept.... Day after day we pushed on: with no mercy on the complaining dogs—plunging through the drifts, whipping the team up the steeper hills, speeding when the going lay smooth before us.... By and by we drew near. Here and there the snow was significantly trampled. There were signs of confusion and cross purposes. The man was desperately fighting his dogs.... One night, the dogs were strangely restless—sniffing ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... did when we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever it rained hard. After this was a short and steeper hill, and then another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and sunny after the green glooms of ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... slipped his feet into his shoes. Then he let himself cautiously down to the adjoining roof, steeper even than the one on which they had stood. She bent low over the tiles, so that her face was very close to his as he found his footing and ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... sight of this last boat she began rapidly to descend the 300 feet of cliff which separated her from the cove below. The path began in easy zig-zags, which, however, got gradually steeper, and the last thirty feet of the descent consisted of a sheer face of rock, in which were fixed two or three iron stanchions with a rope running from one to the other to serve as a handrail; and the climber must depend for other assistance ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... As the slope becomes steeper, the path merges into long flights of solid stone steps. Near the summit, these steps become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... as a man accidentally finds a lost pocket-book? Ah, no! No man ever became a Christian by accident, or by the relaxing of sin. The embarrassments are all the time increasing. The hosts of darkness are recruiting, and the longer you postpone this matter the steeper the path will become. I ask those men who are before me this morning, whether, in the ten or fifteen years they have passed in the postponement of these matters, they have come any nearer ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... those having hard parts to preserve, were preserved to a future age, excepting those which lived on rocky shores where no sediment or only sand and gravel were accumulating, and excepting those embedded along the steeper coasts, where only a narrow fringe of sediment was accumulating, supposing all this, how poor a notion would a person at a future age have of the Marine Fauna of the present day. Lyell{322} has compared the geological series to a work of which only the few latter but not ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... he had to lean forward to evade the thrashing branches. His horse was blundering horribly, the slope grew steeper still, the ground beneath the dusty snow and fallen leaves was granite hard; but he was scarcely a length away, a few paces more would bring him level, and his right hand was stretched out for a grip ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... ages long ago the hill was much steeper than it now is, and there were no trees or undergrowth. On that side it was impregnable. The river, however, in receding, silted up much earth and boulders at the bend, and has ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... his way, for on the level sands there were no impediments, and when the mountain was reached, a low divide offered him easy passage up the ascent. For the most part the slopes were gradual and in steeper places, ledges of granite, somewhat like giant stairs, assisted him to the highest ridge. From this vantage-point he could see the level plain stretching away on the farther side; he could count the ridges running parallel to the one on which he had paused, ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... occupied for a considerable length of time will usually have their steeper slopes revetted, and be arranged with scarp and counterscarp, galleries, traverses, blindages, &c. Such works hold an intermediary rank ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... Tom, but there is no saying; some of those steps may be a good deal steeper than they look. However, I have no doubt one could find places where it would be possible to climb if there were any use in doing so, but as we should only find ourselves up on bad lands we should gain nothing ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... pine-woods, with moss a foot deep on either side, where the wood was damp with the dividing arms of the stream, and the moss on the trees hung in solemn grey clusters, like banners swinging from the branches. And then the path grew steeper and runnels of water dripped down the rocks, all covered with ferns and saxifrage. Down below on one side lay the rushing stream and the valley where the village was, and up above on the other side rose the great mountains, dark with pine-woods ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... Zerka [Arabic], probably the Jabock of the ancients. The principal part of the city stands on the right bank of the river, where the surface is more level than on the opposite side, although the right bank is steeper than the other. The present ruins prove the magnitude and importance of the ancient city; and the modern name leads to the belief that it was the ancient Gerasa, one of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... valleys; and crossing a wide, open meadow, gradually ascending, came to a range of light-green bluffs. Here, we wended our way down a narrow defile, almost cleaving this quarter of the island to its base. Black crags frowned overhead: among them the shouts of the Islanders reverberated. Yet steeper grew the defile, and more overhanging the crags till at last, the keystone of the arch seemed dropped into its place. We found ourselves in a subterranean tunnel, dimly lighted by a span of white day ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... after refreshing ourselves we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow. I now decended the mountain about 3/4 of a mile which I found much steeper than on the opposite side, to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river. after a short halt of a few minutes we continued our march along the Indian road which lead us over steep hills and ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... undergrowth, and in which we could walk freely. We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope of even rock, extending along the mountain side farther than we ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... immoderately flattened, opening their jaws, extending their arms, and holding forks, chains or javelins in their hands; while the blue of the sea stretched away behind the streets which were rendered still steeper by ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... canoes and camp-stuff over the terrible road that leads to the lake, with much creaking and groaning of wagons, and complaining of men, who declared that the mud grew deeper and the hills steeper every year, and vowed their customary vow never to come that way again. At last our tents were pitched in a green copse of balsam trees, close beside the water. The delightful sense of peace and freedom ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... changed. The slope grew steeper; it was the last lift of land to the divide. The road was sown with stones and scored with ruts. Pepe began to blow; once he groaned. Perforce his speed diminished. The villages were no longer so ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... sticks, sharpened at the end, to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving labor in California,— two Indians to two oxen. Now, the hides were to be got down; and for this purpose we brought the boat round to a place where the hill was steeper, and threw them off, letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we had to let ourselves down and set them a-going again, and in this way became covered with dust, and our clothes torn. After we had the hides all down, we were obliged to take ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... car can do in the way of climbing, but here again the inventor is positive. She will run up a slope as steep as one in six, he says. There is no reason to doubt him; the five-foot model that he used to exhibit could climb much steeper inclines, run along a rope stretched six feet above the ground, or remain at rest upon it while the rope was swung to and fro. It would do all these things while carrying a man; and, for my part, I am willing to take ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... was a poet in his outlook upon life; he seldom painted a scene exactly as he saw it, but transfused it by an imaginative touch into what on rare occasions, with perfect conjuncture of mist and weather, it might possibly become. He gave extra height to church spires, or made precipices steeper than they were, thus to render the impression of the place more explicit than by strict copying of the facts. Yet he could be minutely accurate in his rendering of all effects of sky, cloud, and atmosphere when ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouch and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamers ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and lengthy strips of impenetrable darkness, vast ungainly Titans of shadow. All about them, huge metallic structures, iron girders, inhumanly vast as it seemed to him, interlaced, and the edges of wind-wheels, scarcely moving in the lull, I passed in great shining curves steeper and steeper up into a luminous haze. Wherever the snow-spangled light struck down, beams and girders, and incessant bands running with a halting, indomitable resolution passed upward and downward into the black. And with all that mighty activity, with an ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... the tariff gets a lot steeper compared to taking vitamins. (Since they are naturally-occurring substances, vitamins can't be patented and therefore, aren't big-profit items. Perhaps that's one reason the FDA is so covertly opposed to vitamins.) Right now it would be quite possible to spend many hundred dollars per month ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... morals, habits of thought—broke down. The emancipation of women, for instance, or the easy divorce or the laws about privacy. But at the same time legal control began tightening up again. Government took over more and more functions, taxes got steeper, the individual's life got more and more bound by regulations saying 'thou shalt' ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... again, we commenced ascending over the debris of stony avalanches, the path becoming steeper and steeper, until the far-off summit almost hung over our heads. It was now a zigzag ladder, roughly thrown together, but very firm. The red mare which my friend rode climbed it like a cat, never hesitating, even at an ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... horse, the load clanked behind as the hill descended steeper. The road curved down-hill before him, under banks and hedges, seen only for a few ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... level, low-arched galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... the Cconi was passed just outside the town, at a point where the right bank of the river, growing steeper and steeper, became impracticable, and necessitated a crossing to the left. The ford allowed the peons to stagger through at mid-leg on the uneven pavement afforded by the large pebbles of the bed. At this point the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... had been growing steeper, and at the upper entrance of the little park he came to the first waterfall he had seen. Above this, on the opposite side, was a hole that looked inviting. He decided that a dead tree lying across the river would, at a pinch, serve for a bridge, and he ventured upon it. Beneath his feet the rotting ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... powerful little poem," Quita exclaimed. "As they go on they meet with grisly portents, the track gets steeper, and they are afraid. But by that time it is 'too steep for hill-mounting, and too late for cost-counting; the down-hill path is easy, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... fictitious unit of currency established by foxy old Mammon, was the flat fee for use of the road. Blissfully unaware of this "Transportation Charge," or how it would be paid, numerous phantom pilgrims were sliding down the steeper hills—and having a swell time. Their shouts of glee reached Nick's largish ears despite the lack of air as mortals know it. Clever old Mulcie had installed freezing plants here and there to surface the ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... the other side of the valley. It was a steep climb, and Lucia was tired when she reached the top. She sat down for a while to rest before going on the remainder of the way. The next path that she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill to a tiny plateau above. From it one could look down on Cellino across the valley. When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade of a big rock ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... behind them, and were now climbing the long, winding ascent that led to Staplegrove. As the road grew steeper, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... The ridges were steeper now, and came in more swift succession, as the horsemen plodded wearily along the southern slope of the Rand. Piggie was breathing heavily; and Weldon, clinging to his saddle with the purely mechanical grip of the exhausted rider, halted again and again to rest ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... his horse's back. Well up we came upon the "chaparral," the hacienda herdsman, tawny with sunburn even to his leather garments. He knew by name every animal under his charge, though the owners did not even know the number they possessed. A still steeper climb, during the last of which even the horses had to be abandoned, brought us to a hilltop overlooking the entire lake, with the villages on its edge, and range after range of the mountains of Jalisco and Michoacan. Our animals were more than an ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... this, said Mr. Jack Dane, was merely a preface for what was yet to come, only an immense quarry whence the stones to build Les Baux had been torn. We were still on the road to the real Les Baux; and even as he spoke, the Aigle was clawing her way bravely up a hill steeper than any we had mounted. At the top she turned abruptly, and stopped in a queer, forlorn little place, where to my astonishment our journey ended in front of a small house ambitiously named Hotel Monte Carlo. Then ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Marion M'Naught, and Lady Kenmure, and Lady Culross, for the Cardonesses, father, and mother, and son, and for Hugh Mackail, and such like, if he had tasted nothing more bitter than borrowed bread in Aberdeen, and climbed nothing steeper than a granite stair. 'Paul had need,' Rutherford writes to Lady Kenmure, 'of the devil's service to buffet him, and far more, you and me.' I am downright afraid to go on to tell you how Satan was sent to buffet Samuel Rutherford in his banishment, ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... disappeared he landed in search of his tunic and sword, and after some trouble, found them again. Then he made the best of his way round the lake to the other side. There the wood was wilder, and the shore steeper,—rising more immediately towards the mountains which surrounded the lake on all sides, and kept sending it messages of silvery streams from morning to night, and all night long. He soon found a spot whence he ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... two hours the willing animal went zig-zagging up the rocky slopes. The day was warming; the sun was a naked disk of fire. It was hard climbing. Van had chosen the shorter, steeper way across the range. From time to time, where the barren ascent was exceptionally severe, he swung from the saddle and led the broncho on, to ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... extraordinary turn I will describe in a moment. Let me say, meanwhile, that there was no precipice or rock between me and the river, only a down, down, down through other trees and pastures, not too steep for a man to walk, but steeper than our steep downs and fells in England, where a man hesitates and picks his way. It was so much of a descent, and so long, that one looked above the tree-tops. It was a place where no one would care ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... and steeper stairways than even the abbe's. I was careless about the second and the third floors; and it was not till we had mounted a half dozen crazy pair of stairs, that I began to scrutinize narrowly the doors, and sometimes to ask if this or that chamber was occupied. I made ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... third day Peggy and Robert cantered ahead of the party for a short dash, but the road becoming hilly and steep they were obliged to slow their horses down to a walk. The road ascended the North Mountain here rising by three ridges, each steeper than the former. Below them lay the valley, enclosed on the left by the Valley Mountain with all its garland of woods; and by the Welsh mountains on the right. Hills and rocks, waving with the forests of oak and chestnut, bordered the road and, as their leaves rustled to the wind ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... horses, only a little salt bush. The appearance of a change from the dreary desert lasted only for about one mile from where we camped last night; it then became even worse than before—the sand hills higher, steeper and closer together, the spinifex thicker and higher; we got the horses through it with difficulty. It rained all last night and all day. There is some rising ground to the ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... constructed as to rest on a horizontal base, the oblique sides bearing the relation to each other of two to one. Stevinus found that his chain of balls just balanced when four balls were on the longer side and two on the shorter and steeper side. The balancing of force thus brought about constituted a stable equilibrium, Stevinus being the first to discriminate between such a condition and the unbalanced condition called unstable equilibrium. By this simple experiment was laid the foundation ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams |
