"Breakwater" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... harbour of refuge is one of God's many providential dealings with this Mission. It is defended from the storms and heavy rolling swell of the Pacific Ocean by large and lofty islands, forming a breakwater across its entrance, extending as far out to sea as twenty miles, inside of which smaller islands, numbering nearly a hundred, form channels leading up to the foot of the snow-capped mountains, 15 or 18 miles distant, on many of which ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... half speed through the narrow channel in the coral reef which makes the natural breakwater of the harbor. This channel is carefully buoyed on either side, and at night safety-lamps are placed upon each of these little floating beacons, so that a steamship can find her way in even after nightfall. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... late in the afternoon, when the anxious watchers upon the Hoe made out, beyond Drake's Island, two big ships coming in round the western end of the breakwater. Though deep in the water they towered above their escort of destroyers and fast patrol boats. The leading ship was listing badly, her tripod mast with its spotting top hung far over to port, and she was towing stern first a sister ship whose bows were almost hidden under water. The Three ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... Jacqueline finished her rounds. She had read her proclamation in Alincourt hamlet, she had read it in Sainte-Ysole, her drum had aroused the inert loungers on the breakwater at Trinite-on-Sea. Now, with her drum on her shoulder and her sabots swinging in her left hand, she came down the cliffs beside the Chapel of Our Lady of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... rowed slowly round the end of the island, and was made fast in one of the two great harbours that lay inside a long breakwater. The harbour was full of all sorts of ships, so that Cyril and Robert enjoyed themselves much more than their sisters. The breakwater and the quays were heaped with bales and baskets, and crowded with slaves and sailors. Farther along ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... once it seemed certain to sink as it broached to and shipped seas again. But half a dozen bold fishermen rushed with a rope into the short angry surf—to which the polled shingle bank still acted as a powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had collapsed—and they hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her up straight with, "Yo—heave—oh!" and turned her on her side to drain, and then launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail out ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... witnessed the arrival of the Kearsarge at Dover, England, for dispatches, and the day after (Tuesday) her appearance off Cherbourg Breakwater. At anchor in the harbor was seen the celebrated Alabama—a beautiful specimen of naval architecture, eliciting encomiums for evident neatness, good order, and a well-disciplined crew, indicative of efficiency in any duty required. The surgeon of the Kearsarge proceeded on shore and obtained pratique ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... had my husband, who ran off in search of him. And this is the queer part of the story: he brought back the Spaniard's clothes, which he had found under a big stone on a sort of breakwater along the river bank, nearly opposite la Grande Breteche. My husband went so early that no one saw him. After reading the letter, he burnt the clothes, and, in obedience to Count Feredia's wish, we announced that he ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... the forenoon of the 26th of July, to beat up from the Start to Plymouth Sound, against a strong northerly wind. Buonaparte remained upon deck the greater part of the day. When going into the Sound, I pointed out the Breakwater to him, and described the manner in which they were forming it. He said, it was a great national undertaking, and highly honourable to the country; enquired the estimated expense, and seemed surprised, ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... by private treaty, racing B.B. Tarpon (76 winning flags) 120 knt., 60 ft.; Long-Davidson double under-rake rudder, new this season and unstrained. 850 nom. Maginnis motor, Radium relays and Pond generator. Bronze breakwater forward, and treble reinforced forefoot and entry. Talfourd rockered keel: Triple set of Hofman vans, giving maximum lifting surface of 5327 ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... have wept on the least encouragement, but Dick's indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol, restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically bombarded the breakwater. "Got it at last!" he exclaimed, as a lock of weed flew from ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... admission from the Atlantic into the Chagre of a larger class of vessels than those drawing twelve feet might be thus facilitated, according to Mr Lloyd's own avowal a breakwater would still be necessary at the entrance of Limon Bay, which is situated round Point Brujas, about eight geographical miles higher up towards Porto Bello than the mouth of that river, as the heavy sea setting into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... some music from them too; for the rook was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull with his flapping wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin was hopping among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the breakwater, fearless in the faith of his ancestors, and ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... of one hand, redressed some (to me obscure) fault in one of the gables. He rose, stood back, his eyes slowly endorsed the amendment. A few moments later, very suddenly, he scudded away to the adjacent breakwater and gave himself to the task of scraping off it some of the short green sea-weed wherewith he had made the cottage's two gardens so pleasantly realistic, oases so refreshing in the sandy desert. Were the lawns somehow imperfect? Anon, when he darted ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... appointed for life has acted as a breakwater of adamant and reinforced concrete against all labor or capital legislation that has arisen from the passions of the moment. More than once when labor or capital, holding the whip handle in the Commons, would have forced through hasty legislation ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... memorandum with him on the possibility of immediate legislative intervention. The very name of Bombay, which for most people recalls a spacious and dignified landfall, lateen sails, green islands and jutting precipices, a long city of trees and buildings like a bright and various breakwater between the great harbor and the sea, and then exquisite little temples, painted bullock carriages, Towers of Silence, Parsis, and an amazingly kaleidoscopic population,—is for me a reminder of narrow, foetid, plague-stricken ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... they found that they had been driven to the landward shore of a long island, which formed a natural breakwater to a spacious bay, with a narrow entrance at either end. The island was thickly covered with woods, giving shelter to a multitude of wild goats, its only inhabitants. For the Cyclopes have no ships, so that the goats were left in undisturbed possession, ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... good appetite—our wealth is in their strength, not in their starvation. Look around this island of yours, and see what you have to do in it. The sea roars against your harbourless cliffs—you have to build the breakwater, and dig the port of refuge; the unclean pestilence ravins in your streets—you have to bring the full stream from the hills, and to send the free winds through the thoroughfare; the famine blanches your lips and eats away your flesh—you ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... the matter, "since your spread when we opened the railroad—that's six months ago; and the time before that I wore one at MacGolderick's funeral. MacGolderick blew himself up at Puerto Truxillo, shooting rocks for the breakwater. We never found all of him, but we gave what we could get together as fine a funeral as those natives ever saw. The boys, they wanted to make him look respectable, so they asked me to lend them my dress-suit, but I told them I ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... mysterious movements along the shore of the island settlement. The prison boats, which had put off every morning at sunrise to the foot of the timbered ranges on the other side of the harbour, had not appeared for some days. The building of a pier, or breakwater, running from the western point of the settlement, was discontinued; and all hands appeared to be occupied with the newly-built Osprey, which was lying on the slips. Parties of soldiers also daily ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... new county from the sea is going on on the Lincolnshire coast; and there appears to be a prospect of a similar work being undertaken on the western shore—at Liverpool. Mr G. Rennie has prepared a plan for a breakwater five miles long, to be constructed at the mouth of the Mersey, stretching out from Black Rock Point. If carried into execution, it will reclaim a vast extent of sandbanks lying within it, and greatly improve ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... shelter of the deep sea bay, Their sails they furl'd, and lower'd to the hold; Slack'd the retaining shrouds, and quickly struck And stow'd away the mast; then with their sweeps Pull'd for the beach, and cast their anchors out, And made her fast with cables to the shore. Then on the shingly breakwater themselves They landed, and the sacred hecatomb To great Apollo; and Chryseis last. Her to the altar straight Ulysses led, The wise in counsel; in her father's hand He plac'd the maiden, and address'd him thus: ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... always in the habit of bathing, a party of soldiers of the regiment then in garrison went down one sultry afternoon for a swim. It was a lovely spot for bathing; the water was blue, clear and calm, as the reef that stretched far out to sea served as a breakwater to the heavy surf, and preserved the inner water as smooth as a lake. Here were a fine lot of English soldiers stripped to bathe; and although the ruddy hue of British health had long since departed in the languid climate of the East, nevertheless their spirits were as high as those ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... points in front, and with the greatest difficulty the vessel was steered through an opening between them; but in another few minutes she struck heavily, one of her masts went over the side, and she lay fast and immovable. Fortunately, the outside bank of sand acted as a sort of breakwater; had she struck upon this the good ship would have gone to pieces instantly; but although the waves still struck her with considerable force, the captain had good hope that she would not break up. Darkness came on; the tempest seemed to lull. As there was no immediate danger, and all were ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... course, so we decided to spend the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in readiness for the return of our ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... Alfred, who, some time before, had been appointed to the Euryalus, in the course of the summer visited South Africa. After making a tour through Kaffraria, Natal, and the Orange Free State, he returned to Cape Town, where, in September, he laid the foundation stone of the breakwater in Table Bay. In a letter written by the Prince Consort a few weeks earlier to Baron Stockmar, he remarks upon the noteworthy coincidence that almost in the same week in which the elder brother would open the great bridge across ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... slowed down and dropped anchor inside the Breakwater. Sweeping toward her, pushing the white foam in long lines from her bow, her flag of black smoke trailing behind, came the company's tender—out from ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... front Paul spent many happy hours as a small boy. His young eyes gazed with fascination on the warships passing in and out of Plymouth Sound, on the great passenger steamers lying at anchor inside the Breakwater, or steaming up or down the Channel; on the fishing fleet, with its brown sails, setting out to reap the harvest of the sea; and when daylight faded in the short winter days he would watch the Eddystone light—that ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... afterward the communications between the Russian base in Georgia and the Russian garrisons in Turkestan were firmly established. Thereafter the flood of Russian conquest overflowed irresistibly the plains of Central Asia, until it was arrested by another breakwater, the kingdom of Afghanistan. It is true that the North-western Afghan borderlands were comparatively open and easily penetrable by an invading force; but beyond them lie lofty ranges with passes at high altitudes, guarded by a hard-fighting and intractable people, and on the farther side ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... infinite. He is able to believe with passion in things invisible. He can achieve a fantastic confidence in the Unknowable. Here he sits on the breakwater near the Municipal Pier, a fishpole in his hand, staring patiently into the agate-colored water. He can see nothing. The lake is enormous. It contains thousands of ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... the Queen's miniature in his pocket. It made his heart stand still, and then bound forward. He wondered again what he should do with it. If he kept it, Lottie would be sure to find it, and he could not bring himself to the sacrilege of destroying it. He thought he would walk out on the breakwater as far as he could and throw it into the sea, but when he got to the end of the mole he could not do so. He decided that he would give it to Ellen to keep for him, and not let Lottie see it; or perhaps he might pretend he had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... torpedo destroyer Tiger, taken in drydock after her collision with the Portland Breakwater last September; the damage to the Tiger, which is plainly shown in the photograph, is of the same character, though on a smaller scale, as that which was ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... society never paid more than eleven annual dividends, because for many years it saved up its income for building an extension to its harbour, and eventually lost all these savings and L100,000 of Government money besides in a great breakwater, which proved an irremediable engineering failure, and lies now in the ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... could see the Hill and Bill of Portland, in the rear of which was the famous Breakwater, the foundation-stone of which had been laid by the Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria, more than twenty years previously, and although hundreds of prisoners from the great convict settlement at Portland had ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... "What are you doing, Rolling? Are you coming to an anchor already? Have I been asleep six months, and is this the Breakwater ahead? No? Well, do you expect to get to port without canvas on the ship? Split me, but I thought you knew how to sail a boat when you signed on as mate. Don't come any of these grandmother tricks on me, hey? ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... vast expanse about seventy miles across from Sivan Island to Roanoke. On the seaward side stretches a chain of long and narrow islands, forming a natural breakwater north and south from Cape Lookout to Cape Hatteras and from the latter to Cape Henry, near ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... portion of the valley has been encroached upon, and two great portions of the wall of chalk having been removed, one to the east and one to the west, the Isle of Wight stands isolated and acts as a kind of breakwater to the extensive bays, channels, and harbours which have been scooped out of the softer strata by the action of the sea. Sheltered by the Isle of Wight are the Solent and Southampton Water; westward are the bays and harbours ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... was from the South but he married her in Paris. They called me the polyglot bebe at the convent." She confided this as lazily interesting, like the clouds, or the locusts, or the faint chatter of the Adriatic waves around the breakwater ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... comes some such crisis, when the text I would bind upon my reader's mind would act as a breakwater, and save more than one soul from sorrow, perhaps from destruction. In the everyday life of everybody, crises of less moment accentuate experience, and tend to make the nature richer ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... in the year; but it is open to the eastward, and the hurricanes which sometimes occur during July, August, and September, blow the strongest from the southeast, so that vessels will not venture in the bay during the hurricane season. I have landed twice at the Cape in a small boat, and I think a breakwater can be built, at small cost, so as to make a safe harbour at all seasons. Stone can be obtained with great ease from three cones of rocks rising from the sea, and forming the extreme southerly point of the Cape, ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... ourselves, which faced the lake, and on which we had sat and seen the storms gather on Blueberry Island. It was a comfortable seat with the right slant in its back, and I am still proud of having helped to make it. There was the breakwater of logs which were placed with such feats of strength, to prevent the erosion of the waves, and which withstood the big storm of September, 1912, when so many breakwaters were smashed to kindling-wood. We always had intended to make a long box along the top, to plant red geraniums ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... is this same island of Tierra Bomba, by the way, which converts what would otherwise be an open roadstead into a landlocked harbour, for it forms the western side of the harbour, and serves as a natural breakwater, sheltering the roadstead very effectually when the wind happens to blow from the westward. Also, being roughly triangular in shape, its eastern and western sides each measuring about four miles long, and its northern side about ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... killed that the business from that year declined and became unprofitable. Mills' party in the 'Thistle' schooner, of which Davy was mate and navigator, or nurse to Mills, who was not a trained seaman, had their station at Single Corner; Kelly's party was stationed at the neck of land where the breakwater has been constructed. Then there were Dutton's party, with the barque 'African'; Nicholson's, with the barque 'Cheviot', from Hobarton; Chamberlain's, with the barque 'William the Fourth', of Hobarton; the 'Hope' barque, and a brig, both from ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... Breakwater seem to have spite against us," remarked Jack. "That is the second time they have stepped on ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... the best channels in the straits of Bass and Torres, you are hereby required and directed, as soon as she shall be in all respects ready, to repair to Plymouth Sound, in order to obtain a chronometric departure from the west end of the breakwater, and then to proceed, with all convenient expedition, to ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... sweeping attack on the stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists' dreams. He ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a breakwater he returned late in the day, a ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... thirty to sixty yards, and its surface is level and smooth; it is composed of obscurely-stratified hard sandstone. At high water the waves break over it; at low water its summit is left dry, and it might then be mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean workmen. On this coast the currents of the sea tend to throw up in front of the land long spits and bars of loose sand, and on one of these part of the town of Pernambuco stands. In former times a ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Diary (Dec. 30th, 1818) a most amusing blunder of a translator who knew nothing of the technical name for a breakwater. He translated the ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... about and try Salerno again. What could you do in an open felucca with the green water running over? You did your best. Five hours out of that pitch black night you beat up, first trying one harbour and then the other. Amalfi gave in first, just as the waning moon rose, and you got under the breakwater at last. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... launching her; for the wind having shifted to the south, the sea raised across the broad estuary drove directly into the bay. Could they once get her safely through the surf, however, they might obtain shelter under the western point, where a reef running out formed a natural breakwater. They ran her down the beach, but when near the water both Harry and the boatswain hesitated about attempting to launch her. Should they not succeed in getting her quickly through the surf, one of the heavy seas which were breaking ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... read an immense account of it in the Penny Magazine ever so long ago; but whether it is famous for a breakwater, or a harbour, or a cliff, or some dock-yard machinery, I can't recollect; perhaps it's all of them together; we shall find out soon; for travelling, as Mrs M. says, enlarges the mind, and expands ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Captain Ole Peterson arrived at Cape Town. As the steamer which bore him slipped up Table Bay to her pier All Hands And Feet saw a big barkentine, flying the American flag, at anchor just inside the breakwater and rightly conjectured she was his future command. Three hours ashore proved ample time to consummate all of the Retriever's neglected business. He discovered that the man to whom he was to administer a good, sound, commercial thrashing, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... this, the southern side, the banks were low; on the other, a steep chalky cliff almost overhung the river, and jutted out into the lake, curving somewhat towards him. A fort on that cliff would command the entrance to the river; the cliff was a natural breakwater, so that there was a haven at its base. The river appeared broad and deep enough for navigation, so that vessels could pass from the great Lake to the inland water; about six or seven miles, ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... the boat, leavin' me aboard to steer; and they pulled—pulled—like as if they'd pull their hearts out. But it happened a strongish tide was settin' out o' the Sound, and long before we fetched past the breakwater I saw there was no chance to make Cattewater before nightfall, let alone their gettin' to the railway station. I blamed myself that I hadn't thought of it earlier, and so, steppin' forward, I called out to them to ease ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... opened a door with "Private" painted in black letters upon its ground-glass panel. Another bald-headed gentleman, with a grim determination about the mouth, rose up from his table and barred your way. This was Mr. Dyke, the breakwater against which the waves of would-be intruders into the inner seclusion often broke themselves in vain; and unless you had a genuine pass, your ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... islands which forms a natural breakwater to the coast of Dalmatia is broken into two groups by the Punta Planka, the ancient Promontorium Syrtis, south of Sebenico. To the northern group belong Veglia, Cherso, Ossero, Arbe, Pago, and a number of smaller and less important islands, including Ugljan, opposite ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... Height of Land. In front of it the waters of the gulf heave and sparkle far away to where the dim peaks of St. Anne des Monts are traced along the southern horizon. Sheltered a little, but not completely, by the island breakwater of granite, lies the rocky beach of Dead Men's Point, where an English navy was wrecked in a night of storm a hundred ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... colour, ominous of ill-temper beyond the great breakwater to the northward; and it fretted and fumed inshore and made white and ghastly ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... in; with the stately merchantmen riding beyond the throng, and the low breakwater three miles away, and the blue horizon beyond all. Out of that blue from time to time came the low, jarring vibration which told of an unseen gunboat at practice; and from time to time a puff of white smoke from the Picklecombe battery held him listening ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... seen the ship out, and, perched on the extreme end of the breakwater, he remained watching until she was hull down on the horizon. Then he made his way back to the town and the nearest confectioner, and started for home just as Miss Nugent, who was about to pay a call with her aunt, waited, beautifully dressed, in the ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... as the modern fort of the Zobeid chief. Its exact site has not been as yet discovered. Teredon, or Diriaotis, appears to have been first founded by Nebuchadnezzar. It lay on the coast of the Persian Gulf, a little west of the mouth of the Euphrates, and protected by a quay, or a breakwater, from the high tides that rolled in from the Indian Ocean. There is great difficulty in identifying its site, owing to the extreme uncertainty as to the exact position of the coast-line, and the course of the river, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... manned, and worked to a merry tune that struck chill to the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped, and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the actual physical environment to get started, as this recent introduction: "To-day I am sitting on the end of a breakwater, listening to the peaceful noise the Lake makes as it slaps up against the heavy old rocks. The sun is pouring down hot rays upon my arms, bare feet and legs, turning them from ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... down beside the school-house for Dunure. And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers' houses. Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to paddle homeward, rather furiously, and my companion said nothing until we came in sight of the inn. As the canoe glided into the smooth surface behind the breakwater, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... markets and their commerce. Many English ports benefited by this condition of things, but none more than Brisport. It had long ceased to be a fishing village, but was now a large and prosperous town, with a great breakwater in place of the quay on which Mary had stood, and a frontage of terraces and grand hotels where all the grandees of the west country came when they were in need of a change. All these extensions had made Brisport the centre of a busy trade, and her ships found their way into ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... how did these pebbles get three hundred yards across the lake? Hundreds of tons, some of them three feet long: who carried them across? The old Cymry were not likely to amuse themselves by making such a breakwater up here in No-man's-land, two thousand feet above the sea: but somebody or something must have carried them; for stones do not ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... gale,—now blowing out of the north,—hanging to the tangle of spar and cordage which had once been the foremast and its gear. It made a fairly good sea-anchor, with the forestay—strong as any chain—for a cable, and she lay snug under the haphazard breakwater and benefited by the protection, as the seas must first break their heads over the wreckage before reaching her. The mainmast was far away, with all that pertained to it; but the solid, hard-pine jib-boom was still ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... recollect that a boat will lie-to and live through almost any weather, if you can make a bundle of a few spare spars, oars, etc., and secure them to the boat's head, so as to float in front of and across the bow. They will act very sensibly as a breakwater, and will always keep the boat's head towards the wind. Kroomen rig out three oars in a triangle, lash the boat's sail to it, throw overboard, after making fast, and pay out as much line as they can muster. By making a canvas half-deck to an open boat, you much increase ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Connemara, with the ancient towers of Castleclare rising from its mossed lawns studded with immemorial oaks. And Loch Kilbawne among the wild highlands, and Lochs Innsa and Barre, and Ballybarron Harbour, with its Titanic breakwater, and three beacons, and the dun-brown islands bidden in their veil of surf-edged spindrift, shaken by the voices of hidden waters roaring in their ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... constructed of solid concrete, and is connected with the shore by an iron and steel viaduct over 750 ft. in length—which is already completed—will be 19 ft. at low water and 25 ft. at high. This quay and breakwater is shown in perspective, in plan, and in section, and is of a very heavy section, as will be gathered by the scale given immediately below it. Meanwhile the landing of cargo is temporarily carried on at the end of the viaduct, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... strangely, to howl with all my strength; but a howl, however successful, cannot break down a lump of steel. The pains continued. My mouth filled with bile. Soon, thank heaven, my chest would burst. O—oh—oh.... Then we rowed inside the islands that served as a breakwater, ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... searching for that scourge of American shipping, but Semmes had always eluded him, so it may well be believed that Winslow lost no time in getting under way. On Tuesday morning, he reached Cherbourg, and breathed a great sigh of relief as he saw, beyond the breakwater, the flag of the Alabama. He took his station off the port, and kept a close lookout for fear his enemy would again elude him. But the precaution was unnecessary, for Semmes had decided ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... retreat, fastness; acropolis; keep, last resort; ward; prison &c 752; asylum, ark, home, refuge for the destitute; almshouse^; hiding place &c (ambush) 530; sanctum sanctorum &c (privacy) 893 [Lat.]. roadstead, anchorage; breakwater, mole, port, haven; harbor, harbor of refuge; seaport; pier, jetty, embankment, quay. covert, cover, shelter, screen, lee wall, wing, shield, umbrella; barrier; dashboard, dasher [U.S.]. wall &c (inclosure) 232; fort &c (defense) 717. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... found the boat off the north-eastern extremity of the Isle of Pines, and about five miles distant from that curious chain of islets called by the Spaniards the Islas de Mangles, which curves out like a breakwater across the northern face of the island. Their hunger, which had to some extent been appeased by their last plentiful meal of wild raspberries, and which had been altogether forgotten in the excitement of their ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... to find a small harbour of some sort, where we might fit her out after she was afloat. We had not gone far when we came to a point with a reef running almost at right angles with it, which served as a breakwater. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... manufactured goods and agricultural produce are the chief exports. The harbour, with wet and slip dock, occupies both sides of the river from the New Bridge to the sea, and is protected on the south by a pier projecting some distance into the sea, and on the north by a breakwater with a commodious dry dock. There are esplanades to the south and north of the harbour. The town is governed by a provost and council, and unites with Irvine, Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban in returning one member ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... sect that I admire the Puritans. Away with all party lines, all sectional prejudices, all barriers of creed or sect at such a time as this, when all nations and creeds and colors are forming in serried ranks, a close and impervious breakwater, to resist the threatening tide of rebellion and ruin whose sullen roar is in our ears, and when 'heaps of brothers slain' look into the sad face of heaven from fields where they fell, battling heroically to preserve the common heritage. No! a better day is dawning—a day of fairer promise, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... pecuniary expenditure than would now be required for the building of the tomb of Cheops. It is computed that the great pyramid, the solid contents of which when complete were about 3,000,000 cubic yards, could be erected for a million of pounds sterling. The breakwater at Cherbourg, founded in rough water sixty feet deep, at an average distance of more than two miles from the shore, contains double the mass of the pyramid, and many a comparatively unimportant canal has been constructed at twice ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... lighthouse stood out in the water, gleaming white against the dark land behind it. It was only visible by day, however, for it was no longer used as a beacon. The changing of the channel and the building of the breakwater in the harbor of St. Pierre had made it necessary to have the light there and the old one was abandoned. It now stood silent and lonely, gradually falling into decay under the buffeting of wind and waves. Looking south from the island the eye was greeted only by a wide waste of waters; the seemingly ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... abysses. Knowing how suddenly darkness would fall, and not daring to attempt the unknown without light, the travellers looked for a mooring spot. There was a grim abutment at least eighteen hundred feet high; at its base two rocks, which had tumbled ages ago from the summit, formed a rude breakwater; and on this barrier had collected a bed of coarse pebbles, strewn with driftwood. Here they stopped their flight, unloaded the boat and beached it. The drift-wood furnished them a softer bed than usual, and materials ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... to the breakwater!' exclaimed Father Boyle, as the boat pitched finally outside the harbour fence, where a soft calm swell received them with the greeting of civilised sea-nymphs. 'The captain'll have a quieter passage across. You may spy him on the pier. We'll be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dee near the harbour was diverted from the south at a cost of L. 80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres formerly made up) were provided on the north side of the river for the Albert Basin (with a graving dock), quays and warehouses. A breakwater of concrete, 1050 ft. long, was constructed on the south side of the stream as a protection against south-easterly gales. On Girdleness, the southern point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833. Near the harbour mouth are three batteries ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Beadnell Bay, with green and grassy Beadnell just beyond Little Rock. The small fishing harbour at Beadnell has the unique distinction of being the only harbour on the east coast whose mouth faces west, and the short pier, running inland from rocks to shore, acts as a breakwater against the heavy easterly or southeasterly seas and makes the harbour a safe anchorage for fishing craft or small yachts. The rocks around this bay are very interesting, showing the various strata very plainly, ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... stopped as if it had been wiped out from a slate with a damp sponge. Gimblet had no doubt what it was. A boat had been beached here, and that lately. A glance at the stones surrounding the bay showed him that the water was falling, for in quiet little pools, within the outer breakwater of rocks, a damp line showed on the granite a full quarter of an inch above the water. By a rapid calculation of the time it would take for that watermark to dry, the detective was able to form some idea of the rate at which the loch was falling, and he thought he could judge ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... brick edifice stands almost in the centre of the course of the flood, and its preservation from ruin is one of the remarkable features of the occasion. A pile of freight cars lodged at the corner of the building and the breakwater thus formed checked the onslaught of floating battering rams. Mr. Woodruff, with his two sons, remained in the building until the following day. The water came up to the floor of the second story. All night long he witnessed people floating ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... with its 12-pounder gun, steering wheel, compass, and engine-room telegraphs, was placed on the top of the turtle-back and about 25 feet from the bows. It acted as a most excellent breakwater and took the brunt of the heavier seas, and how often the Rapier came back into harbour with her bridge rails flattened down and her deck fittings washed overboard, I really do not know. It was a fairly frequent occurrence, for war is war, and they kept the ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... in the office that sultry afternoon was something to remember long days after. Cranston couldn't help thinking what a blessing it was that the breeze at last was blowing fresh from the lake and the white caps were bounding beyond the breakwater. It was a group worthy of a painter's brush,—Elmendorf's sublime confidence in the criminality of his fellow-man and the unassailable integrity of his own position, Kenyon's attitude of close and appreciative ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... the darkness, and held out his hand without speaking. The boatmen were by now below, holding the boat, which was beating against the piles, though the breakwater screened it from the breakers. Von Koren went down the ladder, jumped into the boat, ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... magnificent stretch of sea and massive promontories of land, but without particularly discerning one feature of the varied perspective. He still saw that inner prospect—the event he hoped for in yonder church. The wide Sound, the Breakwater, the light-house on far-off Eddystone, the dark steam vessels, brigs, barques, and schooners, either floating stilly, or gliding with tiniest motion, were as the dream, then; the dreamed-of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... hand, how General Dumouriez has quitted Normandy and the Cherbourg Breakwater, to come—whither we may guess. It is his second or even third trial at Paris, since this New Era began; but now it is in right earnest, for he has quitted all else. Wiry, elastic unwearied man; whose life was but a battle and a march! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... bare patches of granite, which rose above the great clumps of gorse; and still on, till all before them was sea. Then he began to rapidly descend a gully, where everything that was green was left behind, and they were between two vast walls of rock, almost shut-in by a natural breakwater stretching across, half covered by the sea and sand. Below them, in a natural pool, lay a boat which might have been built and launched to sail upon the tiny dock of stone; for there was apparently no communication ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... concentrate the entire fleet at one harbor. Each of these establishments is protected by having two strong battlements or breakwaters built out, nearly closing the respective harbor entrances. At the end of each breakwater is a tower with parapets for archers, and capstans for dragging a huge chain across the harbor mouth, thus effectively sealing the entrance to any foe.[*] The Zea haven has really the greatest warship capacity, but the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... are very long and lovely, and down on the breakwater our friends enjoyed this one to the full. One might look over the blue expanse of bay and see the faint outlines of the coast of Wales, and then turn and gaze at the picturesque harbor and the quaint, hanging village, in the houses of which, lights were slowly ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... mainland, and got safe to St. Malo. Before the remaining fifteen could follow, the tide changed; and the anchors which had been dropped dragging, these ships were carried to the eastward and to leeward of the enemy. Three sought refuge in Cherbourg, which had then neither breakwater nor port, the remaining twelve at Cape La Hougue; and they were all burned either by their own crews or by the allies. The French thus lost fifteen of the finest ships in their navy, the least of which carried sixty guns; but this was little more than ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... away, during which the flotilla of canoes came into view like a flock of ducks, still so far off that the boys could not hear the sound of paddles. Presently Muata splashed back, and, towing the boat, made across a barrier of reeds that had been banked up, forming a sort of natural breakwater, and most effectually hiding the mouth of the stream he sought. Mr. Hume was awakened, and the entire crew, taking to the water, managed to hoist the boat over the barrier. This done, they climbed on board again, and were soon in the mouth of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... Blue Fleet for manoeuvres. I travelled overland from London by way of Portsmouth, where I fell among friends. When I reached Portland, H.M.S. Caryatid, whose guest I was to have been, had, with Blue Fleet, already sailed for some secret rendezvous off the west coast of Ireland, and Portland breakwater was filled with Red Fleet, my official enemies and joyous acquaintances, who received me with unstinted hospitality. For example, Lieutenant-Commander A.L. Hignett, in charge of three destroyers, ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... came up of a captured cuttle-fish he had seen gasping, almost with a human cough, on the sands of the Lido. It had spoilt the sublimity of that barren stretch of sand and sea, and the curious charm of the white sails that seemed to glide along the very stones of the great breakwater. His soul demanded justice for the uncouth cuttle-fish. He did not understand how people could live in a self-centred spiritual world that shut out the larger part of creation. If suffering purified, what purification did overdriven horses undergo, or starved cats? The miracle of creation—why ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and enthusiasm the few miles to the sea. She reached it at a point where the cliff dwindled into flatness, where the gentle tide rattled on pebbles instead of on sand, where the tall breakwaters contradicted the line of the shore. The furthest breakwater had seaweed like hair waving on the water. At intervals it would seem to be thrust up between two glassy waves, like a victim beckoning for deliverance from the grip of some monster. And then the sea's lips would close on it again. The sea was freckled by ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... magnificent estuaries of the Clyde and Forth, and of the Bristol Channel, not surpassed by any in Europe; the wild and romantic coasts of the Hebrides and Western Highlands; the bold shore of North Wales; the Menai, Conway, and Sunderland bridges; the gigantic works of the Caledonian Canal and Plymouth Breakwater; and numerous other objects, which it is beyond our purpose and power to enumerate. It cannot be surely too much to advise, that Englishmen, who have only slightly and partially seen these things, should subtract something from the length or frequency of their continental journeys, and give the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... picked up the Monmouth previously. The three ships, accompanied by the auxiliary cruiser Otranto, kept a southerly course. The discovery at Pernambuco of twenty-three German merchantmen snugly ensconced behind the breakwater, in neutral harbour, proved very galling. The Straits of Magellan and the cold Tierra del Fuego were at length reached. The squadron was on the scent of three German cruisers, the Leipzig, Dresden, and Nuernberg. It was suspected that they had gone to coal in this remote corner of the oceans. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... They passed the breakwater and dropped anchor in the harbor of Stourwich just as the rising sun was glowing red on the steeple of the town church. The narrow, fishy little streets leading from the quay were deserted, except for one lane, down which sleepy passengers were coming in twos and threes to catch the boat, which ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... before; but the natives, who are like fish in the water, are indifferent to the danger; all they care about is to keep the boat from being stove, and to save her appointments. There was a small lodge of rocks about one hundred yards from the shore, that would answer for the foundation of a breakwater, which it is calculated might be effected at the cost of from three to five hundred pounds, and which certainly would be most desirable for affording protection, and facility to boats, both on ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman |
