"Conformation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of man, four inhabitants called Andrew, or Dandie, Oliver. They were distinguished as Dandie Eassil-gate, Dandie Wassilgate, Dandie Thumbie, and Dandie Dumbie. The two first had their names from living eastward and westward in the street of the village; the third from something peculiar in the conformation of his thumb; the fourth ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... or skill—it is unnecessary to decide which—has associated symmetry with quality and conformation, as a point of great importance in animals calculated for fattening; and there is no doubt that, to a certain extent, this is so. The beast must be a system of mathematical lines. To the advocate of symmetry, the setting-on of a tail will be a condemning fault; indeed the ridge of ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... of spirits blest or otherwise—especially otherwise. There was a long, oppressive silence: then they began to sing. What remarkable voices they have, especially the men—so full, so rich, so deep and sonorous! If the mental development of the negro is to involve change in his physical conformation, it is to be hoped it will not interfere with his chest and lungs, nor with that wonderful cavern in the back of his mouth and at the base of the nose. Some should be kept barbarians that they may continue to be vocal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... an architect, Brought to survey these grey walls, which though so thick, Might have from time acquired some slight defect; Who after rummaging the Abbey through thick And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect New buildings of correctest conformation, And throw down old—which he ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... river seemed to describe a big loop, I had left it three days before, seeing plainly by the conformation of the country that we should strike it again sooner or later. We were marching once more by compass. My men, who had no faith whatever in the magnetic needle, were again almost paralysed with fear that we might not encounter the stream again. A thousand ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Beneath this plain attire Mademoiselle de Verneuil could distinguish at a glance the elegant shape and nameless something that tells of natural nobility. The face of the young man, which was rather ordinary at first sight, soon attracted the eye by the conformation of certain features which revealed a soul capable of great things. A bronzed skin, curly fair hair, sparkling blue eyes, a delicate nose, motions full of ease, all disclosed a life guided by noble sentiments and trained to the habit of command. But the most characteristic signs of his nature ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... mistake was holding their position on the ridge of the Aisne. It could not have retreated without fearful loss as that ridge was the last conformation of any military value in the practically flat country ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... by the Germans was very difficult owing to the peculiar conformation of the course of the river Scheldt at the point of attack. This made especially difficult the laying of concrete foundations for ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... on which we are lies between three large rivers, and, owing to the conformation of the country and the winding of the rivers, its fourth side is a narrow neck of land not more than a mile and a half wide. Here there is a very lofty and rugged range, and it is the spot agreed on as our final rendezvous, being some fifteen miles ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... of broken quartz were strewed over the ground. All the water-holes along the low ridges and within the bed of the river, were full of water; and the district seemed to be one of those which, from their peculiar conformation of surface, are more frequently favoured by thunder-storms. Native companions flew down the river, and flights of ducks held their course in the same direction. With the hope of finding a good supply of water lower ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... of persons barely escaping with their lives by hastily climbing up the side of the canyons, beyond the reach of the roaring waters, and of others being overwhelmed and drowned. Such a flood, caused by a cloud-burst, may have buried the alleged Gunsight Lead and have changed the conformation of ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... I scarcely know why this should have the effect, but certainly it appears that, be the calm ever so complete, or dead, as the term is, a vessel generally forges ahead, or steals along imperceptibly in the direction she is looking to; possibly from the conformation of the hull. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... strong light that fell upon her face, Mr. Gray had an opportunity to examine her features more closely. Her eyes, which were dark and singularly brilliant, were half closed, either from some peculiar conformation of the lids, or an habitual effort to conceal expression. Her skin was colorless with that satin-like lustre that belongs to some brunettes, relieved by one or two freckles that were scarcely blemishes. Her ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the west of the double basin that the untoward effects of the territorial conformation were chiefly felt. The valley of the Euphrates is not like that of the Nile, a canal hollowed out between two clearly marked banks. From the northern boundary of the alluvial plain to the southern, the slope is very slight, while from east to west, ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... Buckland . . . writing of a species of rock-fish, says—'I found that it had a beautiful contrivance in the conformation of its mouth. It has the power of prolongating both its jaws to nearly the extent of half-an-inch from their natural position. This is done by a most beautiful bit of mechanism, somewhat on the principle ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... of mine, viz. That since we have some reason (if there be any credit to be given to the report of things that our philosophy cannot account for) to imagine, that Spirits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk, figure, and conformation of parts—whether one great advantage some of them have over us may not lie in this, that they can so frame and shape to themselves organs of sensation or perception, as to suit them to their present design, and the circumstances of the object they would consider. For how much ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... of his friends to a silver saucepan, in which it was his delight to eat potted lampreys. That he loved too well to eat is certain; but that his sensuality shortened his life will not be hastily concluded, when it is remembered that a conformation so irregular lasted six-and-fifty years, notwithstanding such pertinacious diligence of study and meditation. In all his intercourse with mankind he had great delight in artifice, and endeavoured to attain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we dare to open another leaf, and explore what parts go to its conformation, we shall find also an intellectual quality. To the leaders of men, the brain as well as the flesh and the heart must furnish a proportion. Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... man of about three-and-forty,—dark-eyed, sallow, with short, prominent features, a massive conformation of jaw, and thick, sensual, but resolute lips; this man was the Prince di —. His form, above the middle height, and rather inclined to corpulence, was clad in a loose dressing-robe of rich brocade. On a table before him lay an old-fashioned sword and hat, a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of the structure and functions of the affected parts is necessary to proceed in cases of lameness; likewise, the age, conformation and temperament of the subject need to be taken into consideration; the presence or absence of complications demand the attention; the kind of care the subject will probably receive directly influences the outcome; and the character of service expected of the subject, too, ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... in the Pterosaurs, the wing-membrane is borne by a single immensely-extended finger (fig. 178). No trace of the actual wing-membrane itself has, of course, been found fossilised; but we could determine that the "Pterodactyles" possessed the power of flight, quite apart from the extraordinary conformation of the hand. The proofs of this are to be found partly in the fact that the breast-bone was furnished with an elevated ridge or keel, serving for the attachment of the great muscles of flight, and still more in the fact that the bones were hollow and were filled with air—a peculiarity wholly ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... defence of Hamburgh. We passed through, and found an entire regiment under arms, close by the Custom—house. Somehow or other, I had drank deep of that John Bull prejudice, which delights to disparage the physical conformation of our Gallic neighbours, and hugs itself with the absurd notion, "that on one pair of English legs doth march three Frenchmen." But when I saw the weather—beaten soldierlike veterans, who formed this compact ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... some rich mines near here soon. Stay; it can do you no harm. I will tell you something: three days ago I followed up the river, and about twenty miles above this spot I became attracted by the conformation of the country, and remarked it as being very similar to some very famous spots in South America. 'Here,' I said to myself, 'Maximilian, you have your volcanic disturbance, your granite, your clay, slate, and sandstone upheaved, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... of the pleasure we receive from considering bodily advantages, is their utility to the person himself, who is possessed of them. It is certain, that a considerable part of the beauty of men, as well as of other animals, consists in such a conformation of members, as we find by experience to be attended with strength and agility, and to capacitate the creature for any action or exercise. Broad shoulders, a lank belly, firm joints, taper legs; all these are beautiful in our species because they are signs of force and vigour, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... said of Reynolds, as Macaulay said of Horace Walpole: "The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great; and whatever was ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... after half an hour's arduous labour—for chart drawing was not one of Dyer's strong points—he produced a sketch that, rough as it was, promised to be of the utmost value to the adventurers. For it showed how, owing to the conformation of the land, Hawkins, with his small squadron, had, a year ago, been able to keep the whole of the Spanish fleet from entering the harbour until he had concluded an agreement with the treacherous Viceroy to permit ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... arm made a long clutch forward and grasped the upper jaw of the gavial. During the struggle this had been frequently wide agape, almost pointing vertically upward, as is customary with reptiles of the lizard kind, the singular conformation of the cervical vertebrae enabling them to open their jaws thus widely. One might have supposed that, in thus taking hold, the gorilla had got its hand into a terrible trap, and that in another instant its fingers would be caught between the quickly-closing teeth ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... than two hundred. Von Buch compares the Lofodens to the jaws of a shark, and most travellers since his time have resuscitated the comparison, but I did not find it so remarkably applicable. There are shark tooth peaks here and there, it is true, but the peculiar conformation of Norway—extensive plateaus, forming the summit-level of the mountains—extends also to these islands, whose only valleys are those which open to the sea, and whose interiors are uninhabitable snowy tracts, mostly above the line ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... suited to their commercial and piratical purposes. This little island had been occupied by a few Spaniards as early as 1591; but their numbers were so small as not to interfere with the object of the buccaneers, while its rocky conformation afforded peculiar facilities for defence in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not care ever to catch Miss Primleigh costumed as Miss Hamm was. In confidence I may confide to my diary that I do not believe the former would appear to the best advantage in such habiliments as I have briefly touched upon, she being of a somewhat angular physical conformation, although not until now do I recall having been ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... decides in favour of actions, which he knows must be detrimental to himself; man sometimes kills himself; therefore he is free." I deny it. Is man master of reasoning well or ill? Do not his reason and wisdom depend upon the opinions he has formed, or upon the conformation of his machine? As neither one nor the other depends upon his will, they are no proof of liberty. "If I lay a wager, that I shall do, or not do a thing, am I not free? Does it not depend upon me to do it or not?" No, I answer; the ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... to observe the peculiarity which the consciousness of superior knowledge impressed upon the conversation and personal appearance of this decaying race. Whatever might have been the original conformation of their physical structure, it was sure, by the force of acquired habit, to transform itself into a stiff, erect, consequential, and unbending manner, ludicrously characteristic of an inflated sense of their extraordinary knowledge, and a proud and commiserating contempt of the ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... we had reached the summit, which may have been two hundred yards long. It was hog-backed in shape, with a kind of depression in the middle cleared of stones, either by the hand of man or nature, and not unlike a large circus in its general conformation. ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... associating it with men more than women would occur to no one but a professor of history. It strikes us merely as the only natural and convenient solution of the dress necessity, which is essentially the same for both sexes, since their bodily conformation is ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... bleached to a chalky gray. His lips were colorless, his fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at Alexandra sullenly, blinked as if he had come from a dark place, and one eyebrow twitched continually. She felt at once that this interview was a terrible ordeal to him. His shaved head, showing the conformation of his skull, gave him a criminal look which he had not had during ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... first to wheel and strike his horse into a gallop, which he did with the remark that he knew where the right passage was located. His companions were almost beside him. The canyon was of that peculiar conformation that, while it terminated directly in front, it contained an abrupt angle between where the party had halted and the mining settlement. At that point it was so wide that the little stream, which might have served for a guide, was lost sight of. Had they followed the brook, they would not have ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... the animal it is necessary to observe the condition or state of nutrition, the conformation, so far as it may indicate the constitution, and the temperament. By observing the condition of nutrition one may be able to determine to a certain extent the effect that the disease has already had upon the animal and to estimate the amount of strength that remains and that will ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the conformation of the brain, and the general character of its different regions. It is important that he should as soon as possible begin the study of heads, and learn to judge correctly their development. When he can do this, he has an inexhaustible source of knowledge continually ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... prevent us from making any assertions respecting the primitive character, in race or physical conformation, of these cave-dwellers. Indeed. Prof. Huxley, in a very careful and elaborate paper upon the Neanderthal and Engis skulls, places an average skull of a modern native of Australia about half-way between those ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... characteristics, from the flat-nosed savage, and the short-haired and broad-faced Laotian, to the more classic profile of the Rajpoot, armed with sword and shield, and the bearded Moor. A panorama in life-size of the diverse nationalities, it yet displays, in the physical conformation of each race, a remarkable predominance of the Hellenic type—not in the features and profiles alone, but equally in the fine attitudes ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... leadership of President Enright, never fails in the administration of justice. Doctor Peets will be glad to exhibit this memento mori to all who care to call. Doctor Peets, who is eminent as a phrenologist, avers that said skull is remarkable for its thickness, and that its conformation points to the possession by Bear Creek, while he wore it, of the most powerful natural inclinations to crime. From these discoveries of Doctor Peets, the committee which suspended this felon to the windmill is to be congratulated on acting just in time. It seems plain ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... attempt to unearth what is left of Shakespeare's bodily frame, the thought of doing reverently and openly what she would have done by stealth has been entertained by psychologists, artists, and others who would like to know what were his cranial developments, and to judge from the conformation of the skull and face which of the various portraits is probably the true one. There is little doubt that but for the curse invoked upon the person who should disturb his bones, in the well-known lines on the slab which covers him, he would rest, like Napoleon, like Washington, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... continent, similar in character and course, and coeval or anterior in date, to that which has left like indications in so many parts of the Eastern hemisphere. There the records are more scattered and more varied, as from the size and conformation of the continents and the greater diversities of climate we might have expected them to be; and those at least of a later period are, from the nature of the case, more easy of interpretation in the light of legend, tradition and written history. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... The Mandya's cranial conformation differs, according to Montano, from that of the Manbo only in one particular, namely, in the straightness of the middle part of the antero-posterior curve of the cranium. In other respects his cranium is similar to that of the Manbo. The face ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... protecting eye of that Providence who has condescended to call Himself the stranger's friend. At this moment the extreme beauty of a small moss in fructification caught his eye. Though the whole plant was not much larger than the top of one of his fingers, he could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves, and capsules without admiration. "Can that Being," he thought, "who brought this plant to perfection look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? Surely not." He started ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... responsible for their acts. Their apparent moral obliquity is, in reality, a mental deficiency, for which they are not any more to blame than you or I. I have seen men who had been guilty—yes, even convicted of most heinous crimes, who from the very conformation of their heads revealed certain things that, to say the least, should have been considered in ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... had much considered the real experimental cases in history. For instance, suppose the condition of a people known as respects (1) civilization, as respects (2) relation to the sovereign, (3) the prevailing mode of its industry, (4) its special circumstances as to taxation, (5) its physical conformation and temperament, (6) its local circumstances as to neighbours warlike or not warlike, (7) the quality and depth of its religion, (8) the framework of its jurisprudence, (9) the machinery by which these laws ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... some length in an article which appeared in an issue of Colonia, a magazine published by the Colonial College, Hollesley Bay, Suffolk. He declares that "the great advantage of Rhodesia as an agricultural country is the facility with which irrigation can be carried on; the conformation of the land is undulating, and even the so-called 'flats' are intersected in all directions by valleys, each of which possesses its watercourse, so that by the simple expedient of throwing a dam across these valleys, water may be stored and led on to the adjacent fields as required. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... place where this occurred was in a narrow gorge between two lines of hills, or it should rather be said of mountains; for although their altitude was only here and there very considerable, their cragged and precipitous conformation and rocky material entitled them to the latter denomination. The passage between them continued narrow only for a few hundred yards, after which, at either of its extremities, the mountains receded, and the valley opened into plains of some extent. To the right of the defile ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... and the vision fade before my eyes; for, following the sweep of the tusk, I was aware of the phantom presentment of some monster creature lying imbedded within the ice, its mighty carcase prostrate as it had fallen; the conformation of its enormous forehead presented directly to our gaze. Its little toffee-ball eyes—little proportionately, that is to say—squinted at us, it seemed, through half-closed lids, and a huge, hairy trunk lay curled, like the proboscis of a dead moth, between its tree-like fore-legs. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... in Syria: his most important geographical discoveries in this country relate to the nature of the district between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Elana; the extent, conformation, and detailed topography of the Haouran; the situation of Apanea on the river Orontes, which was one of the most important cities of Syria under the Macedonian Greeks; the site of Petreea; and the general structure of the peninsula of Mount Sinai. Perhaps the most original and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... thirty-five, with exceedingly handsome and clear-cut features, but a peculiar head. The peculiarity of his head was that it seemed to be perfectly round on top—that is, its diameter from ear to ear appeared quite equal to its anterior and posterior diameter. The curious effect of this unusual conformation was rendered more striking by the absence of all hair. There was nothing on the Baron's head but a tightly fitting skull cap of black silk. A very deceptive wig hung upon one ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... dresses; the skins of bears or buffaloes, or mantles curiously woven of feathers. They usually dwelt together on a sort of consecrated ground, set apart for their special accommodation, and which was as unlike the rest of the valley, as the valley itself was unlike the ordinary conformation of the earth. The allotted ground, or space set apart for their use, was called The Prophets' Plain, and was situated on a projecting declivity of the western side of this beautiful glen, whose banks, although they presented, as they opened and widened to the north, a regular ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... in midstream some conformation of the bottom turned the current once more in a long slant shoreward. A murmur, a sob of hundreds of observers packed along the shore broke out as the two dots came closer, far below. More than a quarter of a mile downstream a sand point made out, offering a sort of ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment. And first with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that as the conformation of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference. We are satisfied that what appears to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the physiognomies of his companions offered more or less analogy to that of the tiger, the vulture, or the fox, the form of his retreating forehead, and his bony, lank, and protruding jaws, supported by a neck of immense length, resembled entirely the conformation of a serpent's head. Total baldness increased this resemblance still more, for, under the rough skin of this reptile-shaped forehead, could be distinguished the slightest protuberances, the smallest sutures of his skull; as to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... minutes were during which I gazed down this tremendous and even wondrous shaft, I had a sufficient glimpse of it to give me some idea of its physical conformation. Its sides, which were almost as perpendicular as those of a well, presented numerous projections which doubtless ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... causes of disease into two principal classes,—the one comprehending the influence of seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other including the effects of food and exercise. To the influence of climate he attributes the conformation of the body and the disposition of the mind; to a vicious system of diet he attributes innumerable forms of disease. For more than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation of all the medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal properties of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... on approaching these little mountain lakes, with the extensive preparation that is made for them in the conformation of the ground. I am thinking of a depression, or natural basin, in the side of the mountain or on its top, the brink of which I shall reach after a little steep climbing; but instead of that, after I have accomplished ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... British and Spanish fleets swept the seas, and were virtually blockading all the Mediterranean ports of France. At Toulon, as has been told, they actually entered, and departed only after losing control of the promontory which forms the harbor. There is a similar conformation of the ground at the entrance to the port of Marseilles, but Buonaparte found that the fortress which occupied the commanding promontory had been dismantled. With the instinct of a strategist and with ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... rear, my division was at length drawn through the cedars and debouched into an open space near the Murfreesboro' pike, behind the right of Palmer's division. Two regiments of Sill's brigade, however, on account of the conformation of the ground, were obliged to fall back from the point where Woodruff's brigade of Davis's division had rallied after the disaster of the early morning. The division came out of the cedars with unbroken ranks, thinned by only its killed and wounded—but few missing. When we came into ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... hemispheres of the brain; the cranium is pushed somewhat forward and to the right. The partes orbitales of the frontal bone are higher and more arched than is usual, in consequence of which the lamina cribrosa of the ethmoid bone lies deeper, and room is given for the well-known conformation of the ethmoidal process in the brain. The cerebral convolutions are plainly marked upon the inner surface of the cranium. The facial cranium shows no deviations. There is no prognathism. The formation ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... descent till our only guide, the spring run, became quite a trout brook, and its tiny murmur a loud brawl, we began to peer anxiously through the trees for a glimpse of the lake, or for some conformation of the land that would indicate its proximity. An object which we vaguely discerned in looking under the near trees and over the more distant ones proved, on further inspection, to be a patch of plowed ground. Presently we made out a burnt fallow near it. This ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... meaning of the word. We say things feel hard or soft, the varying density of the objects being the cause of the varying sensations they awaken. Smoothness and roughness are varying outlines of surface, existing as physical conformation; the pleasurable or disagreeable sensations awakened in us by contact being due to the greater or less irritation of the nerves of feeling that attrition with it occasions. Motion is absolutely necessary to give us an ides of the density or configuration of an object. The mere touch of that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... of a great deal of information in respect to the countries which they had visited, and Caesar called together as many of them as he could find, when he had reached the northern shores of France, to inquire about the modes of crossing the Channel, the harbors on the English side, the geographical conformation of the country, and the military resources of the people. He found, however, that the merchants could give him very little information. They knew that Britain was an island, but they did not know its extent or its boundaries; and they could tell him very little of the character ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... Lodge on the rim where the automobile-stage has left you, the most vivid impressions of detail are those of the conformation of the inner rim, the cliffs which rise above it, and the small volcano which emerges from the blue waters ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... described is Great-minded. The man who estimates himself lowly, and at the same time justly, is modest; but not Great-minded, since this latter quality implies greatness, just as beauty implies a large bodily conformation while small people are neat and well made but ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... The mental conformation of the English people, which we may admit to be less lively and less easily amused than the temperament of Irishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Italians, or even the German branch of our own Teutonic race, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... O'Higgins was all that the doctor had imagined a detective to be: a bulky policeman in civilian clothes. The blue jowl, the fat-lidded eyes—now merry, now alert, now tungsten hard—the bullet head, the pudgy fingers and the square-toed shoes were all in conformation with ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... of this new, Old World differed but little from those with which he was familiar; in size and conformation they were almost identical, but instead of shedding the leopard spots of cubhood, they retained them through life as definitely marked ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... situation. The elbow was to a certain extent protected by the possession of a degree of fixity somewhat resembling that already mentioned in the case of the hip-joint, although here depending on the conformation of the bones alone. I think this explained the absence of free effusion in many cases of fracture of the humeral shaft, but when the latter affected the lower third effusion into the elbow ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... confident that the foregoing general ruling will enable junior and inexperienced officers, temporarily employed on famine duty, to classify appropriately and with facility as denticulate or edentulous all individuals afflicted with dental hiatus, mal-conformation and labefaction, without further ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... I was walking in the Tuileries, when a noise attracted me towards a crowd. It was Louis-Philippe taking a walk! This you will understand was intended for effect—republican effect—and to show the lieges that he had the outward conformation of another man. He wore a white hat, carried an umbrella (I am not sure that it was red), and walked in as negligent a manner as a man could walk, who was working as hard as possible to get through with an unpleasant task. In short, he was condescending ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... one such barbarous tribe conquer another less hardy, and inhabit the new settlement,— then indeed commences an aristocracy—for amid communities, though not among individuals, hereditary physical powers can obtain. One man may not leave his muscles to his son; but one tribe of more powerful conformation than another would generally contrive to transmit that advantage collectively to their posterity. The sense of superiority effected by conquest soon produces too its moral effects—elevating the spirit of the one tribe, depressing that of the other, from generation to generation. Those who ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... natural consequence, and Poland ceased to exist as an independent state. Not, however, for ever; for when in 1807 Napoleon, after crushing Prussia and defeating Russia, recast at Tilsit to a great extent the political conformation of Europe, bullying King Frederick William III and flattering the Emperor Alexander, he created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, over which he placed as ruler ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... few seconds into a dip where the watchers could not see it, then it appeared again at the head of the second and longest slope, of which the angle was very steep. Down this the stone rushed like an arrow from a bow, till it reached the narrow waist of the bridge, whereof the general conformation bore some resemblance to that of a dead wasp lying on its back. Indeed, from where Leonard and Juanna stood, the span of ice at this point seemed to be no thicker than a silver thread, while Otter ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... been made for it in the conformation of the ground, even in the deep underlying geological strata! Vast rocks and ledges are piled for it, or cleft asunder that it may find a way. Sometimes it is a trickling thread of silver down the sides of a seamed and ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... stupendous natural fortifications of cliff and rock come to an end. Nothing finer in the way of scenery is to be found throughout the Jura than this, and it is quite peculiar, being unlike any other mountain conformation I have ever seen, whilst the narrow winding valley of soft gold-green is in beautiful contrast with the rugged grandeur, not to say savageness, of ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... now considered a remarkable object; and all were marvelling how Jack could have possibly squeezed himself through such a narrow aperture, until it was explained to them by Mr. Austin that the renowned housebreaker was of slender bodily conformation, and therefore able to achieve a feat, which he, Mr. Austin, or any man of similar dimensions, would have found wholly impossible. Affixed to the wall, in a conspicuous situation, was a large placard, which, after minutely describing Sheppard's appearance and attire, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... government," somebody has said, "are like shoes—that is the best form which best fit the feet that are to wear them." Shoes are to be fitted to the feet, not the feet to the shoes, and feet vary in size and conformation. There is, in regard to government, as distinguished from the state, no antecedent right which binds the people, for antecedently to the existence of the government as a fact, the state is free to adopt any form that it finds practicable, or judges the wisest and best for itself. ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... ship-building trades—in one of which the men, while in the other the women, of many families are employed—is one of the most powerful instruments of social progress. The narrow sea which separates it from Scotland and the geographical conformation of Belfast Lough have, moreover, a great bearing on its prosperity. Independence of Irish railways with their excessive freights, crippling by their incidence all export trade, in a town like Belfast, nine-tenths of the industrial output of ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... Bible to the children. Y' are a masther mind, Heller, an' ought to been in howly ordhers. An' that brings me to another idee av high importince. There should be somebody to run about with howly wather an' exthrame unction, an' the like. Now that business wouldn't shuit me pheesical conformation, an' nayther would it shuit the character I have to bear. It's betther that you should do the outside trampin', Heller. Ye know the tradditions an' docthrines av the Church well enough, an' y' are a dab at Latin. As for yer not bein' av the prastely ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... that both were artificial. The first, they said, was produced when I was an infant, by dipping me in milk; and they insisted that my nose had been pinched every day, till it had acquired its present unsightly and unnatural conformation. On my part, without disputing my own deformity, I paid them many compliments on African beauty, I praised the glossy jet of their skins, and the lovely depression of their noses; but they said that flattery, or (as they emphatically ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Two figures in the Tro-Cortesianus (Pl. 3, figs. 1, 2) are of special interest since they appear to have been frequently regarded as picturing snakes attacking men. These are thick-bodied sinuous creatures distinguished by the curious conformation of the mouth and by a lateral row of dots that may represent the metameric spiracles or, as commonly, a demarcation between dorsal and ventral surfaces. That these are maggots of a blow-fly (Sarcophaga) there can be little doubt, not only on account of their mouth parts which ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... writers, there wants that degree of finish and grouping equal to the rest. Shakspeare sometimes has this want in common with others; but in this play he has lost none of his force and propriety of character—here all continue to speak the language of their conformation, and lose none of their original importance. Barry was an actor that, in this particular, kept pace with the great poet he represented—he supported Othello throughout with unabating splendor—his ravings over the dead ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... for a moment supposed that our Women are destitute of affection. But unfortunately the passion of the moment predominates, in the Frail Sex, over every other consideration. This is, of course, a necessity arising from their unfortunate conformation. For as they have no pretensions to an angle, being inferior in this respect to the very lowest of the Isosceles, they are consequently wholly devoid of brain-power, and have neither reflection, judgment nor forethought, and hardly any memory. Hence, in their fits of fury, ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... well as animals. The latter, however, have no consciousness anterior to their physical births, and very little, indeed, for some time afterwards; whereas a different law prevails as respects us; our mental conformation being such as to enable us to refer our moral existence to a period that embraces the experience, reasoning and sentiments of several generations. As respects logical inductions, for instance, the linum usitatissimum draws as largely on the intellectual acquisitions of ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... society, with all its faults, is the best that man, endowed as he is to-day, can establish, and that the highest service one can pay to man or to God is found in conforming to the social compact, at whatever cost of physical pain, or mental anguish, if the conformation does not require a moral breach. That was the faith he lived by, that by service to his fellows and by sacrifice to whatever was worthy in the social compact, he would find a growth of soul that would pay him, either here or hereafter. So he lent money, and sold light, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... way of proceeding with the geologist, the botanist, the archeologist, the statistician, the scholar. But when we wish particularly to get an idea of the chief features of a country, its fixed outlines, its general conformation, its special aspects, its great roads, we mount the heights; we place ourselves at points whence we can best take in the totality and the physiognomy of the landscape. And so we must proceed in history when we wish neither to reduce it to the skeleton of an abridgment ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Nationale in Paris for accuracy of proportion and delicacy of modelling, deserves to rank with the finest statues of the ancient empire. The men's heads are veritable portraits, in which such details as a peculiar conformation of the skull, prominent cheekbones, deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, or the modelling of the chin, have all been observed and reproduced with a fidelity and keenness of observation which we fail to find in such works of the earlier artists as have come down to us. These later ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "Colt" is as "sound" and as "quiet" As any old horse you will see, And, as for his "fit conformation,"— That's just as ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... interior forming an inland lake of any magnitude, even should there be so anomalous a feature as a depression of the surface in which it could be collected, especially as our knowledge of its limits indicate a much drier climate and less favourable conformation of surface than in the eastern division of the continent. The undulations of the surface of the country are nearly parallel to the meridian, gradually decreasing in height from the dividing range between the eastern and western waters till, instead of the waters of the rivers being confined to ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... The changes seemed beautiful and harmonious to me; it was like watching the growth of a great man or of a great idea. I recognized every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found that I remembered the conformation of the land as one remembers ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... person. And, besides that name, it bore that of Toelpel in German, which has the same signification. The Dod-aers of the Dutch is most probably a vulgar epithet of the Dutch sailors, expressive of its lumpish conformation and inactivity. Our sailors would possibly have substituted heavy-a——. I find the Dodo was also called the Monk-swan of St. Maurice's Island at the commencement of last century. The word Dronte is apparently neither Portugese nor Spanish, though in Connelly's Dictionary ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... for the phenomena of organic life, especially in animals and man. "If we possessed a thorough knowledge," he says,[38] "of all the parts of the seed of any species of animal (e.g. man), we could from that alone, by reasons entirely mathematical and certain, deduce the whole figure and conformation of each of its members, and, conversely, if we knew several peculiarities of this conformation, we could from these deduce the nature of its seed." The organism in this way is regarded as a machine, constructed from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... argument, doubtless, might be pressed further, and made to prove much more. It would be eminently desirable that other things besides reading, writing, and arithmetic could be made necessary to the suffrage; that some knowledge of the conformation of the earth, its natural and political divisions, the elements of general history, and of the history and institutions of their own country, could be required from all electors. But these kinds of knowledge, however indispensable to an intelligent use of the suffrage, are not, in this ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... not so learned as we, yet they were wiser. They did not explain the phenomena of nature, but described with a graceful and imposing imagery. The rainbow, reduced in our colleges to a mere conformation of matter, was the scarf of Iris; the light-footed hours preceded the car of night, and the rosy-fingered Aurora opened the horizon to permit the car of Jove to pass. When the thunder rolled, Jupiter spoke to attentive mortals. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... head and face no slight resemblance to the ace of hearts. An apron was tied on with great care, ornamented with embroidery of the preceding century. Her complexion, was dark but clear, and her eyebrows high and well-arched. Her mouth was drawn in, raised slightly on one side,—a conformation more particularly apparent when engaged in scolding the maids, or in other similar but ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... at nightfall, especially when the moon shines. It is almost the only frugivorous nocturnal bird that is yet known; the conformation of its feet sufficiently shows that it does not hunt like our owls. It feeds on very hard fruits, as the Nutcracker and the Pyrrhocorax. The latter nestles also in clefts of rocks, and is known under the name of night-crow. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... lies veiled in shadow, and as the sheltered inlet gives place to the open sea, the luminous phosphorescence of the Southern ocean bathes the rocky bastions of enchanted Ambon in waves of liquid fire. A strange history belongs to the physical conformation of volcanic shores, alternately raised and depressed by the agitation of earth and sea. The coast-line has varied from time to time; straits have become lakes, islands have severed or united, occasionally ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... those I do. It is a fault I know well, and I should neglect no means to correct myself of it; but as a certain gloomy air I have tends to make me seem more reserved than I am in fact, and as it is not in our power to rid ourselves of a bad expression that arises from a natural conformation of features, I think that even when I have cured myself internally, externally some bad expression will ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... wool of a single sheep, or the fur of a single hare. It is the duty of the wool-sorter to distinguish and separate the various qualities in each fleece, and of the furrier to do the same in the case of each fur. In short, upon the nature and arrangement and conformation of the scales on the hair-shafts, especially as regards those free upper edges, depends the distinction of the value of many classes of wool and fur. These scales vary both as to nature and arrangement in the case of the hairs of different animals, so that by the aid of the microscope we have ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... "The conformation of the shores indicate that. It can generally be determined in this way: If the sides of the ground near the shore are steep, it is pretty sure to make a contracted channel, and that means depth. On the other hand, if the beach ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... high degree of improbability in supposing a rude dialect to supplant a substantial portion of a more polished one; and, thirdly, we must not overlook the collateral evidence of the similarity of conformation pervading the entire race from Polynesia to the archipelago—distinct alike from ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Ville-aux-Fayes followed the conformation of the ground. Each side of the promontory was lined with wharves. The dam to stop the timber from floating further down was just below a hill covered by the forest of Soulanges. Between the dam and the town lay a suburb. The lower town, covering the greater part of the delta, came down ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... slopes, where there is a free upward sweep to leeward, it is tossed back into the sky, and borne onward from peak to peak in the form of banners or cloudy drifts, according to the velocity of the wind and the conformation of the slopes up or around which it is driven. While thus flying through the air, a small portion makes good its escape, and remains in the sky as vapor. But far the greater part, after being driven into the sky again and again, is at ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... tournure, conformation, image, effigy, statue, bust, figurehead, likeness; numeral, digit, number; type, emblem, symbol; caryatid; atlantes, telamones; figurine; diagram, drawing; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Accepting the fact of five distinct languages from the Equator to 12 degrees N. lat., it would appear by analogy that Central Africa is divided into numerous countries and tribes, distinct from each other in language and physical conformation, whose origin is perfectly obscure. Whether the man of Central Africa be pre-Adamite is impossible to determine; but the idea is suggested by the following data. The historical origin of man, or Adam, commences with a knowledge ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... figure, shape; conformation, configuration; make, formation, frame, construction, cut, set, build, trim, cut of one's jib; stamp, type, cast, mold; fashion; contour &c (outline) 230; structure &c 329; plasmature^. feature, lineament, turn; phase &c (aspect) 448; posture, attitude, pose. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... comparison of the work done by the men who have laid bare so many of the secrets of the interior, and by deductions to be drawn from the physical conformation and climatic peculiarities already revealed, we may, to some extent, conjecture the possibilities of the future. With every variety of climate between temperate and tropical, with enormous mineral ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... in their land, and have lived there at all times. They are, in short, of all the northern nations, that one which has retained its ancient typical character as it advanced on the road toward civilization. One recalling the conformation of this country, with its three and a half millions of inhabitants, can easily understand that although fused into a solid political union, and although recognizable amongst the other northern nations by certain traits peculiar to the inhabitants of ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... great safeguard was the affection of Russell. For Edwin's sake, and for shame at the thought of Edwin's disapproval, he abstained from many things into which he would otherwise have insensibly glided in conformation to the general looseness of the school morality. But Russell's influence worked on him powerfully, and tended to counteract a multitude ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... qualities have been determined, it is then necessary to consider the nut itself. The nut must be of fair size, of good flavor, thin to medium thickness of shell, well filled, and of good cracking quality—that is, the conformation of the shell and kernel must be such that a large percentage of the kernels can be taken out as whole halves, and the convolutions of the kernels must be wide enough that the partitions do not adhere to them. When all of these ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... uncle's unangled exterior: undeviating self-indulgence; secrecy; utter selfishness—he was selfish even to the woman he was supposed to love; that is, if he was capable of loving any one but himself—a bland hypocrisy; an unthinking conformation to the dictates of an unthinking world. The list could be multiplied. But to sum it up, here was epitomized, beautifully, concretely, the main and minor vices of a generation for which Adrian found little pity in his heart; a generation brittle as ice; a generation ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... exception to my taste; but, I ask, does the modern round hat, whatever the insignificant variations of its form, possess either quality? No, not a jot of it. One would think, by our pertinacious adherence to the head-ach giving, circular conformation, that we wished to show our anger at the Almighty for not shaping our caputs like cylinders. In fine, though the parson's and the quaker's hat has each its several merits, commend me to the fan-tailed shallow. The flap part attached to the cap seems, at first ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... conformation of the place, it was quite impossible for us to descend in front where pressure had made the snow hard as stone, we were obliged to risk a march over the looser material upon its flank. As there was nothing to be gained by waiting, off we went, Leo leading and step by step trying the snow. To ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... agreeably relieved from the monotony of too great uniformity by numerous mountains of fantastical shapes and appearance, entirely unconnected with each other, and all varying in the primitive matter of their conformation. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... this latter simile, if less poetic, gave a better idea of the conformation of the fortified hill, with the gum-coloured outline of all that was left of a Moorish wall skirting its side. The tooth is hollow, but the hollow is plugged with the best Woolwich stuffing, and potentially it can bite and grind and macerate, for all the ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... coverts, and tail, are white in the perfect, or old birds of both sexes, in those under three years of age these parts are of a gray brown; the rest of the plumage is deep, dark brown, each feather tipt with pale brown, lightest on the shoulder of the wing, and darkest towards its extremities. The conformation of the wing is admirably adapted for the support of so large a bird; it measures two feet in breadth on the greater quills, and sixteen inches on the lesser; the longest primaries are twenty inches in length, and upwards of one inch in circumference where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... landmarks disappear. The little monuments become nothing but slight inequalities in the surface of the snow, undistinguishable from a thousand others. The air is thick and murky, and shuts off alike all distant prospects, and the shape and conformation of the land that is near; the bewildered traveler has not even the stars to guide him, as there is nothing but dark, falling flakes, descending from an impenetrable canopy of stormy clouds, to ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... two grotesque figures are seated upon opposite sides of the shoulder. The vase at the left has two orifices, set wide apart. The body is oblong and slightly flattened above. There are a number of vessels of this conformation in the collection, some of which have the mouths so close together that the margins or lips coalesce in part. A superb specimen of this class is illustrated in Fig. 80. The shape is thoroughly satisfactory to the eye, having ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... quite sure of the name. No; it was not an occasion for formalities, was it?' He gave a sudden, mirthless laugh. I thought him flushed and excitable: yet, seen in a normal light, he was in some respects a pleasant surprise, the remarkable conformation of the head giving an impression of intellectual power and restless, almost ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers |
