"Earthwork" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon ships moving up or down Channel in the blue distance and the white water girdling Menawhidden; northward upon downs where herds of ponies wander at will between the treeless farms, and a dun-coloured British earthwork tops the high sky-line. Dwellers among these uplands, wringing their livelihood from the obstinate soil by labour which never slackens, year in and year out, from Monday morning to Saturday night, are ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... built on a low marshy island near the mouth of the Schuylkill. Its very situation, surrounded as it was by mud and water, made it impregnable to any land attack. While the fort itself was a fairly strong earthwork, laid out upon approved principles of engineering, its outer works of defence added greatly to its strength. In the main channels of the river were sunk heavy, sharp-pointed chevaux de frise, or submarine ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Bunker holds highest carnival. They keep in the Senate-chamber of the Capitol, nailed over the entrance doorway in full sight of the Speaker's chair, a drum, a musket, and a mitre-shaped soldier's hat-trophies of the fight fought in front of the low earthwork on Bunker's Hill. Thus the senators of Massachusetts have ever before them visible reminders of the glory of their fathers: and I am not sure that these former belongings of some long-waistcoated redcoat are not as valuable incentives to correct legislation as that ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... man, of course, did not go, and Harry, who was not far behind them in an earthwork, watched them with painful anxiety. He had seen the sudden uprising of the Northern skirmisher in the weeds and the flame from the muzzle. The man might not have known that it was Jackson, but he must have surmised from the gorgeous uniform that it was ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mujik soon arrived in the mercantile quarter of the lower town. The surrounding earthwork had been destroyed in many places, and there were the breaches through which the marauders who followed the armies of Feofar-Khan had penetrated. Within Omsk, in its streets and squares, the Tartar soldiers swarmed like ants; but it was easy to see that a hand of iron imposed upon them a discipline ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... the sides. This in time would have filled and almost obliterated it, but at intervals of two or three years, at a time when it was dry, quantities of earth were dug up from the bottom and thrown on the mound inside. It was in appearance something like a prehistoric earthwork. In winter as a rule it became full of water and was a favourite haunt, especially at night, of flocks of teal, also duck of a few other kinds—widgeon, pintail, and shoveller. In summer it gradually dried up, but a few pools of muddy water usually remained through all the hot ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... hushed, tears fill their eyes, and choking words are whispered as they file round the casket, and look upon the calm dead face, that no more on earth will meet them with its wonted smile, and the pale hands that have done all their rough earthwork. His welcome we did not hear. Ah, it is well that the sound of harps and the silvery peals from the chiming bells of the city of God reach us not, or perchance we should "stand all the day idle." For are we not all entered Apprentices in this strange world of ours? Are we not all "serving ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... possession of the French monarch. Though no Frenchman had perhaps seen it, yet with his facile tongue he worked persuasion in the mind of the bluff Englishman, who at this point, turned about and put out to sea—hence its name, English Turn. We found here relics of very early times in the form of an old earthwork, and an angle of a brick wall, built, when, and whether by French or Spaniard, none could tell. Here we soon selected a site and laid out our camp. The time rapidly passed in the busy occupations which each day brought, in little excursions ...
— Reminiscences of two years with the colored troops • Joshua M. Addeman
... would not leave the earthwork into which he was digging with rapidly moving forepaws. As Coristine remarked, it was a regular Forepaugh's circus. When the pedestrians came up to him, he had a large hole made in apparently fresh dug earth, and had uncovered a tin box, japanned above. This the pair disinterred with ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Admiral Cockburn; but such was their attachment to the place and their masters that but one availed himself of this opportunity to escape. At Point Peter, where the main land of Georgia terminates in the marshes of St. Mary's, a fight occurred, and there are yet the remains of an earthwork thrown up by the Americans to repulse the British fleet in its advance on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... when this hillock was of height sufficient to satisfy the young General, the great guns were brought and set upon it in such masterly fashion, and in such a commanding way, that La Hire, Dunois and Xantrailles, who came to see, marvelled at it, and we could note from the top of this earthwork that within the city great commotion reigned, and that it was as busy as a hive ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... curiosity of the archaeologist or of the historian. Fortunately, the most important of all is still almost in its original condition. It is that, which has become known to readers of the Transactions of the Canadian Institute as the Southwold Earthwork. It is situated on the farm of Mr. Chester Henderson, Lot Number Four North on Talbot Road East. Mr. David Boyle in the Archaeological Reports printed in 1891 has given the results of his examinations of the mounds. A carefully prepared plan made from actual survey by Mr. A. W. ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... waving line like a succession of S's, that even if a shell does succeed in pitching into one bit of the curve it makes things uncomfortable only for the two or three men who occupy that portion of the earthwork. No, the real value of artillery in attack is to shake the enemy and keep down his rifle fire. If shells are accurately fired the tops of trenches may be swept by a constant rain of shrapnel bullets, ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... a little band, "withdrew to the woods and moor-fastnesses." He took refuge in the Somerset marshes, and there occupied a little island of dry land in the midst of the fens, by name Athelney. Here he threw up a rude earthwork, from which he made raids against the Danes, with a petty levy of the nearest Somerset men. But the mass of the West Saxons were not disposed to give in so easily. The long border warfare with Devon and Cornwall had probably ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Between Dauphin Island and the mainland there are some shoal channels, by which vessels of very light draft can pass from Mississippi Sound into the bay. These were not practicable for the fighting vessels of Farragut's fleet; but a small earthwork known as Fort Powell had been thrown up to command the deepest of them, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... pistol that he waved to them as if bidding them follow, and he ran on some forty or fifty yards to where the entrance widened out and another heap of mine-rubbish offered itself upon the other side as a rough earthwork for defence, and where the two lads could find a temporary parapet which commanded the entry for nearly ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... on. First he built an immense wall and earthwork, nine miles long, surrounding the city, and to protect this he raised eleven great forts and eighteen redoubts. Still the harbor was open, and into this the English fleet might return and succor the city at ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... while in the centre stood the compact village of wooden huts, surrounded by a stockade, and girt without by the small cultivated plots of the villagers. On the Downs above rose the camp or refuge of the tribe—an earthwork rudely constructed in accordance with the natural lines of the hills—to which the whole body of people, with their women, children, and cattle, retreated in case of hostile invasion from the villagers on either side. It is not likely that any foreigners from beyond ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... combe on foot, as though I were going bird's nesting. I beat along by the hedges, keeping out of sight behind them, till I was actually on the combe's north slope, climbing up to the old earthwork on the top. I took care to climb the slope at a place where there was no sentry, which was, of course, not only the steepest bit of the hill but covered with gorse clumps, through which I could scarcely thrust ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... fortify the hills, sent a force of 1200 men, under Colonel Prescott, on the night of June 16, to take possession of Bunker Hill. By some mistake Prescott passed Bunker Hill, reached Breeds Hill, and before dawn had thrown up a large earthwork. The moment daylight enabled it to be seen, the British opened fire from their ships. But the Americans worked steadily on in spite of cannon shot, and by noon had constructed a line of intrenchments ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... and Cambridge, where they had been trained to execute works of excavation and embankment. These old practitioners formed a nucleus of skilled manipulation and aptitude, which rendered them of indispensable utility in the immense undertakings of the period. Their expertness in all sorts of earthwork, in embanking, boring, and well-sinking—their practical knowledge of the nature of soils and rocks, the tenacity of clays, and the porosity of certain stratifications—were very great; and, rough-looking though they were, many of them were as important in their ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... his part, dared not push out against a vastly superior force; his only chance was a ruse. Accordingly, putting a bold face on the matter, he manned a small earthwork with cannon, and played upon the enemy, with little or no actual injury, beyond the all-important effect of making Doria hesitate still more. Meanwhile, in the night, while his little battery is perplexing the foe, all is prepared ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole |
