"Ballast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... God! she'll never give up the road to Mesopotamia till you have her by the throat and make her drop it. Sir Walter is a pretty bright-eyed citizen, and he sees it right enough. If the worst happens, Kaiser will fling overboard a lot of ballast in Europe, and it will look like a big victory for the Allies, but he won't be beaten if he has the road to the East safe. Germany's like a scorpion: her sting's in her tail, and that tail stretches ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... vividly by the progress of aerial navigation. Balloons are objects too familiar even to our children to cause them any surprise, and every one knows how instantly a balloon, when in the air, rises up higher if a few pounds of ballast are thrown out, or sinks if a little of the gas is allowed to escape. We know of no balancing more delicate than this, of a body floating in ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... are always bobbing up and down close under the fall or circling round and round in the eddies. The trouble is, such sticks float too lightly on the surface of things; if they carried more heart-ballast, and would sink deeper, the current would bear them on.—Another variety of the Conservative is the man who is really progressive and right-minded, but extremely slow. Give him time, and he is certain to form a just judgment, and range himself on the right side at last. He goes with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... had been delayed in discharging freight by a series of storms which prevailed at the bay, and was now down at Haparanda Fjord taking in ballast. The probability was that she would not leave for several days. Meantime I was extremely anxious to see a little more of domestic life in Iceland, and made several foot-expeditions to the farm-houses in the neighborhood ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... an I'm very glad he wos. Notwithstandin', I'm bound for to say it is raither okard as it stands, for we're pretty nigh cleaned out, an' have got to make for the coast in the rainy season, w'ich, it appears to me, is very like settin' sail in a heavy gale without ballast." ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... we took a schooner from Bilboa to Boston with cordage and canvas, and on the 22nd re-took a brig from Quebec to London in ballast; on which day the Amazon parted company and sailed with the prizes ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... blackguard fellow eneugh; naebody cares to trouble him—smuggler, when his guns are in ballast—privateer, or pirate, faith, when he gets them mounted. He has done more mischief to the revenue folk than ony rogue that ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... applies to any plan to preserve the balance by shifting weight or ballast. The center of gravity should be lower than the center of the supporting surfaces, but cannot be made much lower. It is a common mistake to assume that complete stability will be secured by hanging the center of gravity very low on the principle of the parachute. An aeroplane depends upon ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... it does for me is to take off the curse of belonging to the bourgeoisie." But no matter what skeptical name she called it, nor how much she minimized the reality of it, she felt some odd value in it which she would not have gone without. Once she said to herself, "It's ballast, to a person like me," although she did not know exactly what this meant. And another time she said, "Perhaps it's that I'm making an honest effort to do my share." But it was true and real, the fact that after such work the reading of the day's news ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... ship his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself into an elbow chair, "Stop my hawse-holes," cried he, "I can't think what's the matter, brother; but, egad, my head sings and simmers like a pot of chowder. My eyesight ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... interest in their opinions. It struck him that they were the exact counterpart of the new clique of humanity which has sprung up recently on this side of the Irish Sea; advanced thinkers without thought—the products of a little education without the ballast of a brain. Wild, enthusiastic in their desire for change, they know not what they want as the result of the change. Destructive without being constructive, they bemuse themselves with long words, and scorn simplicity. No scheme is too ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... charged, and was swaying to and fro in a wild, fitful manner, that could not have been beheld without trepidation by any of the thirty gentlemen who had so judiciously booked seats in advance. The wickerwork car now secured to the balloon was half filled with ballast and crowded with men, whilst others hung on to the ropes and to each other in ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... down the Pool; the gentlemen pointed out the Docks, the Thames Police-office, and other elegant public edifices; and the young ladies exhibited a proper display of horror at the appearance of the coal-whippers and ballast-heavers. Mr. Hardy told stories to the married ladies, at which they laughed very much in their pocket-handkerchiefs, and hit him on the knuckles with their fans, declaring him to be 'a naughty man—a shocking creature'—and so forth; and Captain Helves gave slight descriptions ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Indies? Dro. Oh sir, vpon her nose, all ore embellished with Rubies, Carbuncles, Saphires, declining their rich Aspect to the hot breath of Spaine, who sent whole Armadoes of Carrects to be ballast at ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... apparitions, like the real world; but gradually getting inside nature, learning more and more to wield her powers, and to make them the instruments of the purposes of man, and the means of his welfare. To common-sense,—which frequently "divines" truths that it cannot prove, and, like ballast in a ship, has often given steadiness to human progress although it is only a dead weight,—the assertion that man knows nothing is as incredible as that he knows all things. If it is replied, that the "things" which we seem to dominate by ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... former is not so entirely removed, but that some remains of it are amalgamated with its successor. A youth whose intellect is thus tossed in a whirlpool of conflicting speculations, resembles a goodly ship newly launched, which, until properly steadied by ballast, reels from side to side, the sport of every undulation of ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... cannot be expected that lime should be supplied in this manner for many buildings, or indeed for any of great extent. Till this difficulty shall be removed by the discovery of chalk or lime-stone, the public buildings must go on very slowly, unless care be taken to send out those articles as ballast in all the ships destined for Port Jackson. In the mean time the materials can only be laid in clay, which makes it necessary to give great thickness to the walls, and even then they are not so firm as might be wished. Good clay for bricks is found near Sydney Cove, and very good ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... men be ye? Gotham's three wise men we be. Whither in your bowl so free? To rake the moon from out the sea. The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine. And our ballast is old wine.— And your ballast ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... am rather proud of my descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to nobility,—and as to my "rise in the world"—if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, it was my cue to ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... excesses. He is of the world, worldly. All his works, all his conduct, tend only to astonish mankind. He is not prompted by any visionary ideas of ameliorating his species. The instinct of self-preservation will serve him as ballast.' ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... and hungry negro—well, cast the lot as one might, the crew of the Spray in a little while would have been hard to find. It is needless to say that I took no more such chances. The tridacna were afterward procured in a safe boat, thirty of them taking the place of three tons of cement ballast, which I threw overboard to ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... to read to you that concerns us all. I am glad to have you here, Kate, as a sort of ballast. It was what excited me so this morning and I was very unreasonable. The doctor threatened to put ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... set to work. Kits and cans, ballast and blocks, spare spars and tackle, higgledy-piggledy overboard they went, some on the shingle, some splashing into the tide, to be snatched and ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... room are two more holds, divided in the same manner as the forward ones, and astern is another compartment, in which all stores are kept. Coal bunkers form a protection for the engines and boilers. Fore and aft the ship, as low down as possible, are a number of ballast tanks, which can be filled with or emptied of water as occasion requires to alter the trim of the ship. Extending over all holds there is a strong iron lower deck, about 8 feet below the upper deck, which is pierced with a hatch over each hold ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... mountains I meet more than one " Bulgarian national express " - pony pack- trains, carrying merchandise to and fro between Sofia and Nisch. Most of these animals are too heavily laden to think of objecting to the appearance of anything on the road, but some of the outfits are returning from Sofia in "ballast" only; and one of these, doubtless overjoyed beyond measure at their unaccustomed lissomeness, breaks through all restraint at my approach, and goes stampeding over the rolling hills, the wild-looking teamsters in full tear after ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to Athens, and returned? That he insults and abuses Antony, whom he was wont to say he loved, and cooeperates with Caesar, whose father he killed? And if chance so favor, he will ere long attack Caesar also. For the fellow is naturally distrustful and turbulent and has no ballast in his soul, and he is always stirring things up and twisting about, turning more ways than the sea-passage to which he fled and got the title of deserter for it, asking all of you to take that man for friend ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... was beating the ballast up Broadway when Pete, the Piker, declared himself in and began to chatter about ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... Arthur Young,[1220] "have been all this day in the Palais-Royal;" the press is so great that an apple thrown from a balcony on the moving floor of heads would not reach the ground. The condition of these heads may be imagined; they are emptier of ballast than any in France, the most inflated with speculative ideas, the most excitable and the most excited. In this pell-mell of improvised politicians no one knows who is speaking; nobody is responsible for what he says. Each is there as in the theater, unknown among the unknown, requiring ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quiet," Festing remarked. "I can't get used to the stillness; I feel as if I was dreaming and would wake up to hear the din of the rivers and the ballast roaring off the gravel cars. However, I have some business to do to-morrow that I'm not keen about. Can one see Knott ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... America. The land of the flea and the home of the dag'—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don't believe it. Something wrong. I know I nearly ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... friend; there's nothing like plenty of work to help keep a person out of mischief; but, after all, he must have steadiness and good principles. They alone are to be depended on, and I hope your son has got those as ballast." ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... true merit consists in their having quickened and strengthened the interest of the reading classes in economic questions. In their day they did an useful work, but they are already forgotten; and, as Sara Coleridge predicted, their political economy has proved too heavy a ballast for vessels that were expected to sail ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... long-unheeded demand of the true sportsman for "no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike. The gas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, but the water-ballast central tank is rendered obligatory. These things work, if not for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane and wholesome waterborne cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by the new rules, so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbish! Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next To see the Dandelions on a Sunday— But what is ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... leaving her fifteen, and with a rough tracing of the American coast drawn on a sheet of foolscap, with his lever watch and a quadrant for his instruments, he squared off for New London. A rough, hard passage they had of it. The ship's ballast was gone, by the bursting of the tanks; she was top-heavy and under manned. He spoke a British whaling bark, and by her sent to Captain Kellett his epaulettes, and to his own owners news that he was coming. They had heavy gales and head winds, ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... the carriages are said to oscillate, from being too heavy at the top, let a few copies of "Martinuzzi" be placed as ballast ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... exclaimed he, when he first came. "Vulcan hath fallen from the clouds and lieth halting below. The apple which was rosy is become green, and the Dutchman who of late flew is now become ship's ballast. Nay, my poor ruin, thank me not for coming; 'tis the common debt the high oweth to the low, the sound to the broken, the poem to the prose; nay, 'tis the duty a knight oweth to his lady's ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the while being briskly agitated. Hen- harriers fly low over heaths or fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a pointer or setting-dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious; they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish, and, when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... two letters from Lovelace to Belford; in which he tells him who Mennell is, and gives an account of many new contrivances and precautions. Women's pockets ballast-bags. Mrs. Sinclair's wardrobe. Good order observed in her house. The lady's caution, he says, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... men—vikings, Swedes, and Danes — lost their lives on this bridge. So when Erik saw that King Olaf was gaining the upper hand of him he got his berserks to take down the oars and to fling them over the Serpent's nearer gunwale, together with all logs of wood, spars, ballast stones, and other weighty things that could be found. And as the weight increased so did the Serpent lean over, until at last her bulwarks were almost on a level with those of the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... are Australian coal, and general merchandise from Europe, but most sailing ships arrive in ballast. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... tops, with the voice of her scientists and artists: "Onward, advance! Follow me!" She carries a huge crew, which delights in adorning her with fresh streamers. Boys and urchins laughing in the rigging; ballast of heavy bourgeoisie; working-men and sailor-men touched with tar; in her cabins the lucky passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke their cigars leaning over the bulwarks; then, on the deck, her ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms with her own sure, radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy, reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered home. She controlled the maid, and suggested the meals—meals which James ate without knowing what he ate. She brought in flowers and books, and, very rarely, a visitor. Visitors ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... we rise and then descend. Every few minutes Lieutenant Mallet, suspended in his cobweb of netting, says to Captain Jovis: "We are descending; throw down half a handful." And the captain, who is talking and laughing with us, with a bag of ballast between his legs, takes a handful of sand out of the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Orleans and Conde, being united by interest, made a jest of that surly look from which Beaufort's cabal were termed "The Importants," and at the same time artfully made use of the grand appearance which Beaufort (like those who carry more sail than ballast) never failed to assume upon the most trifling occasions. His counsels were unseasonable, his meetings to no purpose, and even his hunting matches became mysterious. In short, Beaufort was arrested at the Louvre by a captain of the Queen's Guards, and carried on the 2d ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... on the whole, gain or lose by a given degree of conservatism? An increase of knowledge is by no means the only thing that makes for civilization. Men may be highly enlightened, and yet rotten to the very core. How much of the ballast of conservatism and of loyalty to tradition is it well to throw overboard in the interest of accelerated motion? Those who, in our judgment, throw overboard much too much we have ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... lass. It's all a matter o' feeling. 'Twere vain to tell thee all I feel, how much my heart would wish to say;' but of this I'm certain sure, that I'd never git along without my pipe. It's like compass, helm, and ballast all in one. Is that the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... had an interesting call a week ago from two gentlemen, masters of vessels, and brothers, one of whom, I understand, you know as the "powder boy." I had a little light freight for them; but not finding enough other freight to ballast their craft, they went down the river looking for wheat, and promising to return soon. I hope to see ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... said George Washington, rising and standing in the attitude of Webster, "I rises to appoint to order. We took ballast in de prior cases, and why make flesh of one man an' a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... has no Leads in the Sleeves, and I hope we are not lighter than the French Ladies, so as to want that kind of Ballast; the Petticoat has no Whale-bone; but fits with an Air altogether galant and degage: the Coiffeure is inexpressibly pretty, and in short, the whole Dress has a thousand Beauties in it, which I would not have as ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... masculine, head-punching spirit might have saved him with all his ballast, but he didn't have it. The Reverend Robert was a good fellow to everybody—a fairly sound-hearted, decent, handsome fellow, but not a man. To be that, one has to know things at first hand—especially work and trouble. He was a second-hand, school-made thinker. His ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... in her but ballast, rolled and lurched along, through the bright green waters of the outer bar. I stood leaning against the great mast, steadying myself as best I could, and the tears rolled down my face; for I saw the friendly green hills, ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... falling to with a good appetite. A quarter of an hour later, having finished their meal, the pair passed out on deck, where they found the longboat, with six beakers of fresh water in her to serve as ballast, with her locker full of provisions, with her rudder shipped, and oars, masts, and sails lying upon her thwarts already slung and ready for ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... hard-headed Lanark-weaver, whose energy and common sense had won him the position of a comfortable landholder in Canada West. Added to which qualifications for the best society, Davidson was totally devoid of vulgar assumption, but had sufficient ballast to retain just his own ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... constitutional monarchy, so long as it works well for the majority. But when England had with such terrible convulsions shaken off all those shackles and trappings of royalty, and when the ship, so lightened, had sailed so steadily with no ballast but common sense, does it not seem almost a pity to undo what has been done—to begin again the long procession of good kings and bad kings, foolish or wise—for the sake of such a man as yonder saunterer?" with a glance towards the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... risk of splitting it. The quarrel was furious. Jim had called his commander "a blithering, fat-headed Dutchman, not fit to have charge of a dung barge, much less a square-rigged ship. Captain Kickem of the Pacific would not have carried you as ballast." ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... features of the modern balloon. Thus there was a valve at the top by means of which the gas could be let out as desired; a cord net covered the whole fabric, and from the loop which it formed below the neck of the balloon a car was suspended; and in the car there was a quantity of ballast which could be cast ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... almost unseen. But when those of the inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection became acquainted with him, they were rather pleased with the substitute than otherwise, though he had scarcely as yet acquired ballast of character sufficient to steady the consciences of the hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood who, at this time, lived in Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition supplementary support to the mixed race which went to church in the morning and chapel in the evening, or when there ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... wherein they had this one further piece of remarkable prosperity, that whereas if they had first fallen upon that part of the Spanish wreck where the pieces of eight[4] had been stowed in bags among the ballast they had seen a more laborious and less enriching time of it; now, most happily, they first fell upon that room in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up; and they so prospered in this new fishery that in a little while they had, without the loss of any man's life, brought up thirty-two ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the ballast!" cried one of the aeronauts, and the other, seeing the four bags of what he thought were worthless stones, in his haste and eagerness thrust ...
— The Mysterious Shin Shira • George Edward Farrow
... favoured Noel's addresses," said Nick lightly. "He wants more ballast, to my mind. Whatever Max may be, at least he's solid. He wouldn't ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... intelligence is accomplished; by an analogous action of attention and internal will, it abstracts the dominant characteristics of things, and thus succeeds in associating their images, and keeping them in the foreground of consciousness. It ceases to consider an immense amount of ballast which would render its context formless and confused. Every superior mind distinguishes the essential form from the superfluous, rejecting the latter, and thus it is enabled to achieve its characteristic, clear, delicate, and vital activities. ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... attempt it from the hotel—for which purpose he had introduced himself as a boarder—by opening the disused well secretly at night. These facts were obtained from papers found in the otherwise valueless trunks, weighted with stones for ballast, which Starbuck had brought to the hotel to take away his stolen treasure in, but which he was obliged to leave in his hurried flight. The attempt would have doubtless succeeded but for Polly's ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... terribly bored with Halifax. Picton wanted to go somewhere—where?—"he did not care where." The consequence was a consultation upon the best disposal of a fortnight of waste time, a general survey of the maritime craft of Halifax, the selection of the schooner "Balaklava," bound for Sydney in ballast, and an understanding with the captain, that the old French town of Louisburgh was the point we wished to arrive at, into which harbor we expected to be put safely—three hundred and odd miles from Halifax, and this side of Sydney ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... sparrow o' nights, grows so light from scant feeding that he cannot fly against the wind. If he would go back to his starting point while the March winds are out, he must needs come down close to the ground and yewyaw towards his objective, making leeway like an old boat without ballast or centerboard. ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... balloon, at half-past one o'clock, on Monday, the 7th of November, 1836, intending to proceed to some point on the continent of Europe not very distant from Paris. They were provided with provisions for a fortnight; these, with sand-bags for ballast, cordage, and all needful apparatus for such a journey were placed in the bottom of the car, while all around hung cloaks, carpet bags, barrels of wood and copper, barometers, telescopes, lamps, spirit-flasks, coffee-warmers, &c, for you ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... china was very beautiful and costly. An old tradition is mentioned in the "Life of Nollekens" that the clay was at first brought as ballast in ships from China, and when the Orientals discovered what use was being made of it, they forbade its exportation, and the Englishmen had to be content with their own native clay. Nollekens says that his father worked at the pottery, and that Sir James Thornhill had furnished designs. ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... people would have sworn falsely as to his native land. Lord Ralles was a little, well-built chap, not half so English as Albert Cullen, quick in manner and thought, being in this the opposite of his brother Captain Ackland, who was heavy enough to rock-ballast a road-bed. Both brothers gave me the impression of being gentlemen, and ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... Knight, "you think I am afraid of the trepan? Why now, what if I should say that Dalgarno has more wit than honesty,—the duke more sail than ballast,—the Prince more pride than prudence,—and that the king—" The Lady Mansel held up her finger in a warning manner—"that the king is my very good master, who has given me, for forty years and more, dog's wages, videlicit, bones and beating.—Why now, all this ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... in the shoes in which he usually stood, without provisions and weighted down with heavy padded uniforms (which were designed for winter wear), carrying a heavy rifle and accoutrements, with forty rounds of ball cartridges in his pouch and twenty more in his pockets for ballast. Still he had a stout heart within his breast, and a resolute determination to do his duty in assisting to drive the invaders from the shores of his native land served to impel him onward as he marched through the choking dust of clay roads on a blazing hot June day, gaily joining in the refrain ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... considered a good excuse for his arriving second; but few persons ever knew how Puss and his helper Sandy had tried to injure Frank's airship when it was directly beneath them, by deliberately dropping a sand bag, taken along, singularly enough, as "ballast," but with this ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... lightly of the "nightmare" of the Ice-Age. But the age has gone by in which it could seriously be suggested that the boulders strewn along the east of Scotland—fragments of rock whose home we must seek in Scandinavia—were brought by the vikings as ballast for their ships. Even the more serious controversy, whether the scratches and the boulders which we find on the face of Northern Europe and America were due to floating or land ice, is virtually settled. Several decades of research have detected the unmistakable ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... tackle were rigged, and all was made ready to discharge. It was now, "Come on, McCarthy, or McCarthy, come on!" I didn't care which, I had one right on my side, and I kept that always in view; namely, the right to discharge the cargo where I had first received it; but where the money to buy ballast and pay other charges was to come ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... Ballast weights of stone, iron or bags of sand used to balance the boat. A good way to learn about the parts of a boat is to whittle out a small working model. This is a help, but only the actual experience can teach you how to manage a sail and at the same time steer the boat. Of course, you can learn ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... still believed it was a crab; but as my senses became clearer, I reasoned upon the improbability of there being one in such a place. And yet, why not? A crab might very well find lodgment in the hold of a ship: it might have been brought aboard in some strange way— among the ballast—or possibly carried aboard by some of the sailors, out of curiosity; it may have been abandoned to its fate, and left to hide itself among the numerous corners and crevices which are found among the timbers of a vessel's hold? It might procure sustenance in the bilge-water, ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... have often," he says "toiled the greatest part of the night, in rubbing my feet and legs to keep them from freezing. * * * In consequence of these chills I have been obliged to wear a laced stocking upon my left leg for nearly thirty years past. My bunk was directly against the ballast-port; and the port not being caulked, when there came a snow-storm the snow would blow through the seams in my bed, but in those cases there was one advantage to me, when I could not otherwise procure water to quench my thirst. The provision allowed the sick ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... ever saw. Sanchez he made his headquarters on a cay called Porto Grande. He hed three ships, an' maybe a hundred an' fifty men 'bout the time I got away. The last I saw o' him wus at sea. He'd overhauled an English ship, an' sunk her; an' then the next mornin' we took a Dutch bark in ballast. She wus such a trig sailor Sanchez decided to keep her afloat, an' sent a prize crew aboard ter sail her inter Porto Grande. I wus one o' the fellers picked fer thet job, an' we wus told off under ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... says I—'to be regretted, Mister Lambton!—I take too much ardent spirits! I certainly am not of that opinion, Mister Lambton, and if you are I can only say you are very much mistaken. You shall see yourself,' said I, 'how much ballast an old Kentuckian can take in without sinking under it: devil a diving duck ever swallowed more water than a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... alteration in their theories. But they were facing a new situation, and that new situation became an immense factor in their unconscious growth. Their intellectual and moral problems shifted, as a boat shifts her ballast when the wind blows from a new quarter. The John Cotton preaching in a shed in the new Boston had come to "suffer a sea-change" from the John Cotton who had been rector of St. Botolph's splendid church in Lincolnshire. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... means," returned Biquitous, earnestly; "but you are an enthusiast without ballast. Enthusiasm is a fine, noble quality. The want of ballast is a grievous misfortune. Study mechanics, my boy, a little more than you have yet done, before venturing on further inventions, and don't theorise too much. You have been revelling of ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... that every low-caste native must raise on every occasion. It died down, and Kim lay out behind the little knot of Mahbub's followers, almost under the wheels of a horse-truck, a borrowed blanket for covering. Now a bed among brickbats and ballast-refuse on a damp night, between overcrowded horses and unwashed Baltis, would not appeal to many white boys; but Kim was utterly happy. Change of scene, service, and surroundings were the breath of his little nostrils, and thinking of the neat white cots of St Xavier's all ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... not go. She seemed to shrink from meeting her former friends; and at last, acting upon Griswold's advice, I placed her in the Asylum, going myself hither and thither like a feather tossed about by the gale. Griswold was my ballast, my polar star, and when he said to me, buy a house and have a home, I answered that I would; and when he told me of Grassy Spring, bidding me purchase it, I did so, although I dreaded coming to this neighborhood of all others. I had carefully ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... to the First Church, Niece Louise," he said firmly. "Abe always did. These small-fry craft, like the Mariner's Chapel, are all right, I don't dispute; but they are lacking in ballast. It's in my mind to attend the church that's the most like a well-founded, ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... country very great sums, and no way hurt the landed interest. It would lower the price of iron, and consequently of all our manufactures, which would increase the consumpt and sale; it would serve for ballast to our ships from North America, and when tobacco is scarce, fill up part of the tonnage; would increase our exports, and no way interfere with our neighbours in the South."[68] That language might be held indifferently by the mercantilist and ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... interior is perfectly dry. Having cut a slender stick of pine for the mast, put some little chips of bees-wax into the egg-shell; then put in about as much shot as you think your boat will require for ballast—probably the third of a tea-spoonful will be sufficient. This done, hold the shell in boiling water (end down) till the wax is melted; then put in your mast through the small hole in the top of the shell; remove the shell from the hot water, and hold it upright in cold water till the wax has perfectly ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... storms are nigh, Nor trust their bodies to a faithless sky, But make small journeys with a careful wing, And fly to water at a neighbouring spring; And lest their airy bodies should be cast In restless whirls, the sport of every blast, 250 They carry stones to poise them in their flight, As ballast keeps the unsteady vessel right. But, of all customs that the bees can boast, 'Tis this may challenge admiration most; That none will Hymen's softer joys approve, Nor waste their spirits in luxurious love, But all a long virginity ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... powerless over the Projectile as a baby over a locomotive, they could neither clap brakes to its movement nor switch off its direction. A sailor can turn his ship's head at pleasure; an aeronaut has little trouble, by means of his ballast and his throttle-valve, in giving a vertical movement to his balloon. But nothing of this kind could our travellers attempt. No helm, or ballast, or throttle-valve could avail them now. Nothing in the world could ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... saileth," remarked the man, indicating a large vessel moored in the Great Port, "some Christians go as ballast!" ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... for Fritz's happiness," said Wilhelm. "Does that face look as if it belonged to a happy man? I am afraid of Paris; I should like to see him do as I am doing. The old tempter may awake again. Of our two heads, his carries the less ballast. His dress, and the opera-glass and the rest of it make me anxious. He keeps looking at the lorettes in the house. Oh! if you only knew how hard it is to marry Fritz. He has a horror of 'going a-courting,' as you say; you would have to give him a drop into a family, just as ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... democracy and friendship will come into its own again, and shape our destinies in common towards freedom and humanity. The English-speaking democracies, in firm union, can and ought to be the unshifting ballast of ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... our boat to pieces or upset it; but, finding his efforts unsuccessful, he gracefully accepted the situation, and behaved himself admirably. When storms arose he quietly lay down, and served as so much ballast to steady the boat. "Tom," the guide, kept him well supplied with food from the rich nutritious grasses which grew abundantly along the shore at ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... discharging from the Smeaton of her cargo of the cast-iron rails and timber. It must not here be omitted to notice that the Smeaton took in ballast from the Bell Rock, consisting of the shivers or chips of stone produced by the workmen in preparing the site of the building, which were now accumulating in great quantities on the rock. These the boats loaded, after discharging the iron. The object ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... will be as good as the mackerel-fishing of last spring, which was the best for the past four years. The open boat, which they own in partnership, is a strongly built one about twenty-two feet long, with a lug and foresail of brown canvas and great flat stones for ballast. The whole outfit, including the lobster-pots, cost them twenty-five pounds. The pots have been set and baited with gurnet; during the two hours' interval we are anchored. A curious thing about the craft is the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... casks having been left in her purposely to receive the oil, which was emptied into them by means of a hose. By the end of the third week, this ground-tier was filled, and the craft became stiff, and was in good ballast trim, although the spare water was now entirely pumped out ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... at Havana for passengers and mail. She had made thirty-six such voyages, almost always having a cargo for the American port, and never being permitted to bring freight into Havana. The custom of her agent was to clear her 'in ballast' the day before her arrival. The practice, while contrary to the regulations of Cuban ports, had always been winked at by the authorities. It was well understood that the Black Warrior generally had a cargo aboard, but a detailed manifest of her load had never been required. She had always ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... the next day should be pleasant, our thoughts turned with the prow of the China to Japan. We were bound for Nagasaki, to get a full supply of coal to drive us across the Pacific, having but twelve hundred tons aboard, and half of that wanted for ballast. It was at the mouth of the harbor of Nagasaki that there was a settlement of Dutch Christians for some hundreds of years. An indiscreet letter captured on the way to Holland by a Portuguese adventurer and maliciously sent to Japan, caused ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... scarce, a number of French-Canadians were, at Mr. Brassey's suggestion, brought up in organized gangs, each having an Englishman or an American as their leader. We are told, however, that they proved useless except for very light work. "They could ballast, but they could not excavate. They could not even ballast as the English navvy does, continuously working at filling for the whole day. The only way in which they could be useful was by allowing ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... "I have a swat of work. There is ballast for you, though, over there by the shed." Bob Haines was the ballast indicated. He was putting the final touches on an aeroplane propellor to which he had administered ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... closed abruptly, as such discussions will, when the disputants are at the golden age, and views and opinions are winged, and have not yet become ballast, or, which is ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... large stock for private consumption before the Great Drought set in. The Delorme found that out, then that his ancestral acres bordered on Long Island Sound, and finally that the Sybarite was loafing its head off. What could be more simple, she suggested, than that monsieur should ballast his private yacht with champagne on the homeward voyage, make his landfall some night in the dark of the moon, and put the stuff ashore on his own property before morning. Did he fall for it? Well, I just guess ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... said that the defect could be remedied by placing ballast on the more buoyant side of the canoe to bring it down to the level of the other; or, perhaps, if some more wood were cut away on the heavier side, that it would cause it to rise. He offered to do the work himself, but Felix, in his gloomy mood, would not answer him. Oliver ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... the flood began to make, with orders to sound ahead, that he might know whether there was any possibility of attacking the enemy; but the want of a sufficient depth of water rendered the scheme impracticable. In the meantime, the French threw overboard their cannon, stores, and ballast; and boats and launches from Rochefort were employed in carrying out warps, to drag their ships through the soft mud, as soon as they should be water-borne by the flowing tide. By these means their large ships of war, and many of their transports, escaped into the river Charente; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... a leak, and we were obliged to lie-to under bare poles, the water gained on us with both pumps constantly working. 10 P. M. endeavored to put the ship before the wind to no purpose. At twelve the sand ballast having choked our pumps, and there being seven feet water in the hold, all the casks afloat, and the ballast shifted to leeward, cut away the rigging of the main and mizen masts, both of which went instantly close by the deck, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... very unbalanced young idiot," contradicted Falconer. "I rather like the chap, himself, you know; he has nerve to spare—but no ballast. He might have set all Cairo talking of you." His voice hardened; "I told him that. I told him you wouldn't ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... - a queer old wooden pier, fortunately without the slightest pretensions to architecture, and very picturesque in consequence. Boats are hauled up upon it, ropes are coiled all over it; lobster-pots, nets, masts, oars, spars, sails, ballast, and rickety capstans, make a perfect labyrinth of it. For ever hovering about this pier, with their hands in their pockets, or leaning over the rough bulwark it opposes to the sea, gazing through telescopes which they carry about in the same profound receptacles, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... holding down the wheel—perhaps. The screw is always edging a ship off, and the lighter the ballast the wider the yaw. So you have to keep hitching her over a point to starboard. You trust to me to keep that point, and I trust to God that the north stays ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of forty-three tons burden, on a credit of two years. This vessel was built at Dieppe and fitted out for a privateer; was taken by the English, and has been plying between Dover and Calais as a packet-boat. She has excellent accommodations and sails fast. I shall copper her, put her in ballast, trim with L1000 or L1500 sterling in cargo, and proceed to the Isle of France and Bourbon, where I expect to sell her, as well as the cargo, at a very handsome profit, and have no doubt of being well paid for my twelve months' work, calculating to ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... humanitarian, gone, a curious change came over the spirit of the enterprise he had founded. The aristocrats who at first were merely ballast for the enterprise now made their influence felt. With true British reserve, they announced their belief that the education of the masses involved a dangerous political tendency. Hence the mechanics' school was suspended and the workshops ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... induces girls to remain longer in school, and to do more thorough work, thus securing to them other sources of pleasure than social amusements and the companionship of friends. The process of co-education tends to develop a well-balanced character, and to put into it a trustworthy ballast, which American girls cannot afford to do without. For confirmation of this, one need only read the reports of any school judiciously managed on this plan, or he need only use his eyes in comparing the past school days with those of girls educated in the high schools and private schools of ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... current of air is generated in an aqueduct which bursts its way even through stones unless the water is let in slowly and sparingly from the source at first, and checked at the elbows or turns by bands, or by the weight of sand ballast. All the other arrangements should be made as in the case of lead pipes. And ashes are to be put in beforehand when the water is let in from the source for the first time, so that if any of the joints have not been sufficiently coated, they may ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... frank with him on the subject. If you had an ounce of common-sense in your make-up, you'd see it for yourself. But I always say the clever people are the biggest fools. And Roy's in the same boat—being your son. No ballast. All in the clouds. That's the fruits of Lil's fancy education. And you can't say I didn't warn you. What he needs is discipline—a tight hand. Why not one of the Services? If he gets bitten with India—at his age, it's quite on the cards ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... over the bay; there's nothin' stirrin' there this year, and never will I'm thinkin'. No mortal soul CAN live in Nova Scotia. I do believe that our country was made of a Sunday night, arter all the rest of the univarse was finished. One half of it has got all the ballast of Noah's ark thrown out there; and the other half is eat up by bankers, lawyers, and other great folks. All our money goes to pay salaries, and a poor man has no chance at all.' 'Well,' says I, 'are you done up stock and fluke—a total wrack?' 'No,' says ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton |
