"Excavation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a brisk pace for about half an hour, he reached a spot where an excavation appeared to have been begun, at some not very distant period. There was a hollow space in the earth, looking exceedingly like a deserted cellar, being enclosed within old subterranean walls, constructed of thin Roman bricks, and made accessible ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the process employed by the traders to conceal their cargo, their arms, and even their provisions. It is nothing more than a large excavation In the earth, in the shape of a jar, in which the objects are stored; the bottom of the cachette having been first covered with wood and canvas, so as to prevent anything being spoiled by the damp. The important science of cachaye (Canadian expression) consists in leaving no trace which might ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... was wont to hide himself and his vessel among those curious rocks in Sachem's Head Harbor, called the Thimble islands. There is also upon one of those rocks, sheltered from the view of the Sound, a beautiful artificial excavation of an oval form, holding perhaps the measure of a barrel, called 'Kidd's Punch Bowl.' It was here, according to the legend of the neighborhood, that he used to carouse with his crew. It is a fact, however, beyond controversy, that he was accustomed to anchor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was gone. For a moment the level of the water around us sank again, as it poured into the immense excavation where the grove had stood, but in an instant it was reinforced from all sides and began once more ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... island provided with a fringing reef, such as the Mauritius, the reef would present the aspect of a terrace, its seaward face, 100 feet or more high, blooming with the animal flowers of the coral, while its surface would be hollowed out into a shallow and irregular moat-like excavation. ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... period; for the caves are so many and so large that, even with modern appliances, it would have needed thousands of men for many decades to excavate them in the hard agglomerate of sand and pebbles. The excavation had been made, however, not with powder and dynamite, but with chisel and pickaxe; the caves must therefore have been the work of thousands of years. There was only one people who could here have expended upon such a ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Lyell and Murchison to the Auvergne was destined to have great influence on the minds of these pioneers in geological research; both became satisfied from their studies that, with respect to the excavation of the valleys of the country, Scrope's conclusions were irresistible; and in a joint memoir this position ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... horses and sheep, I sent the boy out to tend them at grass, whilst I commenced digging two large holes to water the pack-horses, that there might be no delay when the overseer came up with them. I had nothing but a shell to dig with, and, as a very large excavation was required to enable a bucket to be dipped, my occupation was neither a light nor a short one. Having completed my work, I killed a sheep, well knowing the party would be fatigued and hungry, when they came up. About three they made their appearance, and ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... put his convictions to the test of actual excavation. In April, 1870, he cut the first sod of his excavation at Hissarlik. The work went on with varying, but never brilliant, fortune, until the year 1873, when his faith and constancy began at last to meet with their reward. On the south-west ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... them, of making the needle traverse the fixed points, and not the points described on the card to move (by the needle being attached to the card), as in those of Europe. The other was furnished with a compass, about the size of a common snuff-box, being an entire piece of wood, with a circular excavation in the centre, just large enough to admit the vibration of a very fine steel needle, not quite an inch in length, which, however, might be found sufficiently useful, in their short voyages, by means of a peculiar contrivance for preserving the center of gravity, in all positions of the ship, in ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... the Atlantic to the Pacific. When he ordered gasoline-tractors for the cultivation of the flat lands, he ordered a round score. When he dammed water in his mountains he dammed it by the hundreds of millions of gallons. When he ditched his tule-swamps, instead of contracting the excavation, he bought the huge dredgers outright, and, when there was slack work on his own marshes, he contracted for the draining of the marshes of neighboring big farmers, land companies, and corporations for a hundred miles up and down the ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... of the world will make upon it, and I appeal most earnestly to the Congress to aid in the fulfillment of the pledge. Gratifying progress has been made during the past year, and especially during the past four months. The greater part of the necessary preliminary work has been done. Actual work of excavation could be begun only on a limited scale till the Canal Zone was made a healthful place to live in and to work in. The Isthmus had to be sanitated first. This task has been so thoroughly accomplished that yellow fever has been virtually extirpated from the Isthmus and general health conditions ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... of the earliest important discoveries at Pompeii, made in 1771, was that of the "Villa of Diomedes," named from the tomb of Marcus Arrius Diomedes across the street. Since then every decade has seen some progress in the work of excavation, and among other buildings brought to light are the "House of Pansa," the "House of the Tragic Poet," the "House of Sallustius," the "Castor and Pollux," a double house, and the "House of the Vettii"—the last, a recent discovery, being left with all its furnishings as found. Many interesting ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... low vaulted cavern, the earth supported by upright pieces of stout timber, with flat boards above them, which prevented the sandy soil in which it was cut from falling in. This was the excavation which he, with a few trusty companions, had ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... contemporary historian more worthy of belief, these expenses were covered by the treasure Muhammed el-Ikshid himself discovered. In fact, el-Massudi, who died at Cairo in the year 346 of the Hegira, relates that el-Ikshid, knowing much treasure to be buried there, was greatly interested in the excavation of the subterraneous tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings. "The prince" he adds, "was fortunate enough to come across a portion of those tombs, consisting of vast rooms magnificently decorated. There he found marvellously wrought figures of old and young men, women, and children, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... store two or three thousand boxes of apples for three or four months and propose to do it in this way: Make an excavation in dry earth, putting at the bottom of the excavation straw. Upon this straw place the apples, then dry straw over the apples, and upon the top of this two or three feet of dry earth. Will it be a good plan to pour on water from time to time over the top of this to keep the apples and all wet, ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... as the men, and clad in a short, loose, linsey gown, from beneath which peeped out a pair of coarse leggins, was adjusting a long wooden trough, which conveyed the liquid rosin from the "still" to a deep excavation in the earth, at a short distance. In the pit was a quantity of rosin sufficient to fill ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... About the excavation under the windows of the White Chief the funeral party halted. Kilbuck, his handsome, barbaric head towering above all, spoke to the natives in Thlinget a few moments. Then one by one the small boxes containing ashes of the dead were handed to him. He lowered them into the grave. As the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... excavation in the wall of the Parliament House had increased day by day, until a hole some five or six feet in length, large enough to admit the body of a man, was bored through the solid masonry. With the assistance ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... drew nearer I descried a slant incline from the open excavation down which the blocks of stone were slid. They were brought to the surface by hoisting cranes, and just as our little porcelain cockle-shell glided to the dock, an enormous fragment rudely shaped into a cubical ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Michaelmas, 1904, that possession, even of a part, could be obtained, as there were various leasehold interests to be reckoned with, and many beneficiaries to be satisfied, whose rights will not be finally extinguished until June, 1926. But excavation was at once commenced, and the actual rebuilding in 1905. It need hardly be said that all that has been discovered of the ancient work, here and elsewhere, whether above or below ground, has been carefully preserved, and incorporated (as far ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... ascribes the first Persian conquest of Babylon to Darius, but inscriptions of Cyrus and of Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, make it certain that Cyrus was the real conqueror. These inscriptions are preserved on cylinders of baked clay, of the type made familiar by the excavation of the past fifty years, and ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... along he came to a gang of men at work upon the excavation for a new house. He needed money for food and a night's lodging. He ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... was due mainly to its sheltered position and also to the fact that a Coptic church and the houses of peasants were built among the columns. The refuse that aided to preserve these remains of Ancient Egyptian architecture was fully twenty feet deep when the work of excavation was begun. Hence Luxor satisfies the eye in the perfect arrangement of the columns and in the massiveness of the work. Here also on the pylon and the walls of the court may be seen some beautiful reliefs ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... of the valley may have been determined by the well-known fault, along which the western rocks are relatively depressed and the eastern elevated. But, whether that fault was effected slowly or quickly, and whenever it came into existence, the excavation of the valley to its present width, no less than the sculpturing of its steep walls and of the innumerable deep ravines which score them down to the very bottom, are indubitably due to the operation of rain and streams, during an ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... the pit, they concluded that they would have to continue the excavation. But to their intense astonishment the officer in charge ordered them to throw all the excavated soil back again into the hole! This was one of the most glaring examples of performing a useless task, merely to satisfy feelings of savagery and revenge, that I encountered ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... station, and, lying at full length on the ground, wrapt in my cloak, I trusted to escape notice. The day passed: no visitor appeared. The next morning I went from my own rooms, through the subterranean passage into the castle cave, as the excavation I have before described was generally termed. On the shore I saw Gerald by one of the small fishing-boats usually kept there. I passed him with a sneer at his amusements, which were always those of conflicts against fish or fowl. He answered me in the same ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... beginning to consider his excavation almost deep enough to bury two ten-gallon kegs and forty bottles of whisky, when the shadow of a head and shoulders fell across the hole. Casey did not lift the dirt and rocks he had on his shovel. He froze to a tense ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... part behind. Opening oval, margin smooth; a short spinous process at the upper and outer angle; a sharp short spine in the middle of the upper border of the middle cell, at a bifurcation. Ovicell ? in form of a very shallow excavation in the upper part ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... but said nothing. He advanced towards the prostrate body. He saw the neck was puffed and purple, and the hands and ankles swollen. "Pah!" he said, and suddenly turned away and went towards the excavation. He gave a cry of surprise. He shouted to Evans, who was ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... of iron and steel in common use, a war canoe was the labour of three generations. It was hollowed out by means of fire, cautiously applied, or by stone hatchets; but so slowly did the work proceed, that years were passed in its excavation. When completed, it was regarded as a great achievement, and its launching on the waters of the lake or river was celebrated by feasting and dancing. The artizans were venerated as great patriots. Possibly the birch-bark canoe was of older date, as being more easily ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... his head whimsically upon one side, gazed after him not altogether unsympathetically, then descended again into the excavation whence he had lately emerged. Being a philosopher he was not surprised, that afternoon, in the course of a drive he took in the old carriage with the Major, when, George was encountered upon the highway, flashing along in his runabout with Lucy beside him and Pendennis ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... bottom of the sloping tunnel, and was lighting her candle. When it burned up, she found herself looking into a level gallery, the roof of which she could touch. It was not an excavation, but had been trenched from the surface, for it was roofed with great slabs of stone. Its sides, of rough stones, were six or seven feet apart at the floor, which was paved with small boulders, but sloped so much toward each other that at the top their ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... is not much to see it is still an excursion well worth making. Dr. de Petra, of the chair of Archaeology in the University of Naples, and formerly the Director of the National Museum, is warmly in favor of the proposed excavation of this buried city, as is Professor Spinazzola of the San Martino museum, who believes that Italy may well become one vast museum of antiquities. "As the theatre of Herculaneum is actually at present a subterranean excavation," he observed, "why not excavate in a similar way the entire ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... little extra care in the disposition of the roots in the soil will be well repaid, for plants merely thrust into the ground cannot develop that robust root growth on which the future of the crop largely depends. When preparing the positions it is an excellent plan to build in the centre of each excavation a mound of earth over which to spread the fibrous roots. Then return the soil and firmly tread down. As a finish give each plant a copious watering. On no account should the plant be deeply buried, but the crown should be left just clear ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... Gibbs, though not so suddenly, going down himself as nimbly as a rat after them. In the vault beneath, Captain Brand struck a light and set fire to a torch, which blazed out luridly, and illumined the dark excavation and passages like day. Going slowly on, with his burden in his arms, by the path by which we traced the padre, he came to the outer door, which opened into the fissure in the crag; and, after a vigorous ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... buildings which abound in these localities, and have thus acquired a considerable degree of professional skill in masonry work; while the Bandhaiya, who take their name from Bandhogarh, confine themselves to the excavation of tanks and wells. The exogamous divisions of the caste are also by no means clearly defined; in Mirzapur they have a system of local subdivisions called dih, each subdivision being named after the village which is ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Char Moore still feeling on the argumentative side after their discussion of the night before. He motioned with his head at some excavation work going on next to the station. "There you are. Women ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... excavation partly natural, partly artificial, in a bank of rock overgrown by brambles. There was a rough stone door on hinges, and a little window high up, and two apertures, through one of which the people announced their gifts to the hermit, and put questions ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... door-way, which constituted an entrance to this subterraneous region; and as the moonlight streamed over the wide waste of waters, and fell upon this little door-way in the face of the cliff, he became convinced that it was the entrance to that excavation, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Everything was written down. Scribes are seen everywhere on the monuments, taking accounts of the products of the farms, even to every single egg and chicken. "In spite of the ravages of time, and though systematic excavation has scarcely yet commenced," says Bunsen, "we possess chronological records of a date anterior to any period of which manuscripts are preserved, or the art of writing existed in any other quarter." ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... young man and the little girl became acquaintances, and friends, and in after years lovers. In 1817 they were married. Their first home was of logs, containing one room, with a rude loft above, and an excavation beneath for a cellar. ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... And they carried in their capacious pockets bundles of pamphlets on "Archaeological Remains of Mitylene," and the "Use of the Greek Pluperfect," and little treatises such as "Education and Philanthropy," by Dr. Boomer, and "The Excavation of Mitylene: An Estimate of Cost," by Dr. Boyster, "Boomer on the Foundation ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... they were roofless, just as if they had been occupied but yesterday, although near eighteen centuries have passed away since the awful calamity which sealed the fate of their inhabitants. The facilities for excavation being great, both on account of the lightness of the material and the little depth of the mass, much of the city has been exposed to view. Street succeeds street in various directions, and porticos, theatres, temples, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... overseeing the construction of a species of coffer-dam across the shore at right angles and up to the keel of the ship at the point where the tide came up to, just by the mizzen-chains; so that the water should not get down into the excavation that the men were digging until this should be deep enough to float the vessel, or, at all events, assist in easing her off the beach—for, if flooded prematurely, the ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and especially from the new and curious fact of the bees making smooth cups or saucers when they excavated in a thick piece of wax, which saucers stood so close that hexagons were built on their intersecting edges. And, lastly, because when they excavated on a thin slip of wax, the excavation on both sides of similar smooth basins was stopped, and flat planes left between the nearly opposed basins. If my view were wholly false these cases would, I think, never have occurred. Sedgwick and Co. may abuse me to their hearts' content, but ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... plan is to prick or incise each lesion and press out the contents. In some milia it may be necessary also, in order to prevent a return, to touch the base of the excavation with tincture of iodine or with silver nitrate. Electrolysis is also effectual. In those cases where the lesions are numerous the production of exfoliation of the epiderm by means of resorcin applications (see ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... supported the verandah. They poised themselves on their shining purple wings, as they made the first lodgment in the wood, enlivening the work with an uninterrupted hum of delight, which was audible to a considerable distance. When the excavation had proceeded so far that the insect could descend into it, the music was suspended, but renewed from time to time, as the little creature came to the orifice to throw out the chips, to rest, or to enjoy the fresh air. By degrees, a mound of saw-dust was formed at the base of ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... of shores which Nature had made separate, the draining of Nature's marshes, the excavation of her wells, the dragging to light of what she has buried at immense depths in the earth; the turning away of her thunderbolts by lightning rods; of her inundations by embankments, of ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... or twelve years ago, a very extensive and splendidly successful excavation was made when a party of German archeologists laid bare the Theater of Dionysus—the great theater in which AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides brought out their immortal plays before an immortal audience. There ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... of land on Cape Cod were once blown away. This wind excavation was ten feet deep. It was not an extraordinary wind, but extraordinary land. It was made of rock ground up into fine sand by the ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress Matilda" and "Castle Mary," and one had, though unintentionally, a literary flavor to it, "Blair's Grave," which was not popularly considered as reflecting unpleasantly on Nat Blair, who had assisted in making the excavation. ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... cannot be long postponed. The difficulty of the work is realized when we consider that it takes a whole month to underpin 4 feet of foundation. Owing to the cramped space and the darkness three weeks are spent in excavation; after which the divers require a week to place the concrete and cement in position. That so national a heritage will be saved, for the delight of our own and the instruction of future generations, must be the wish of all true lovers of the great building achievements ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... the Laocoon for the Vatican, after Michael Angelo had declared it was the greatest work of art in the world, and Signor de Fredis received a pension for life. The excavation and cleaning of the statue took a considerable time. But when at last it was ready, it was decorated with flowers, and carried in procession though the streets of Rome, while all the church-bells rang for ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... the Egyptians never advanced. Neither effective military occupation nor effective administration of Syria by an Egyptian military or civil staff was so much as thought of. Traces of the cultural influence of Egypt on the Syrian civilization of the time (so far as excavation has revealed its remains) are few and far between; and we must conclude that the number of genuine Egyptians who resided in, or even passed through, the Asiatic province was very small. Unadventurous by nature, and disinclined to embark on foreign trade, the Nilots were ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... at a run for the future temple. Arrived at the excavation and the already completed sacred fount, he got down into the water, chanted in a loud voice hymns to Asclepius and Apollo, and invited the God to come, a welcome guest, to the city. He next demanded a bowl, and when ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... wall of the north transept of the Saxon Church. The workmen also came upon a plaster floor, on which were remains of burnt wood, reddened stone, and other evidences of a conflagration. As the work of excavation proceeded at intervals, fresh discoveries were made. The walls of the north transept, choir, and part of the south transept, can be traced. Just outside the eastern wall can be seen portions of two Saxon tombs which were originally ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... one met there! What pleasant parties we organised thence, with Isabella Colonna, Teresa Sclafani, and that exquisite creature Lauretta Acton, who afterwards became Madame Minghetti, and many another! Now it would be a night ascent of Vesuvius, in eruption, and then again a moonlight excavation at Pompeii. Show me the man who would not have fallen in love in such company, beneath that exquisite sky, environed and intoxicated by the indefinable enchantments in which the landscape and the very air you breathed were steeped! But the signal to get under way is hoisted ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... as little notice is taken of it except that he got no encouragement. We find that it has also been used by some of the ancients in connection with their deities. Rusterich, one of the Teutonic gods, which was found in an excavation, proves how the priests deceived the people. The head of this one was made of metal and contained a pot of water. The mouth and another hole in the forehead being stopped by wooden plugs, a fire of charcoal was lighted under this pot of water, and at length the steam drove ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... hedge school-houses being rather curious, I will describe it. The usual spot selected for their erection is a ditch in the road-side; in some situation where there will be as little damp as possible. From such a spot an excavation is made equal to the size of the building, so that, when this is scooped out, the back side-wall, and the two gables are already formed, the banks being dug perpendicularly. The front side-wall, with a window in each side of the door, is then built of clay ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light, was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... north of us, leading westwards from the main valley, we found a beautiful mausoleum tomb,—a building, not an excavation in rock,—containing six sarcophagi, or ornamented stone coffins, ranged upon ledges of masonry, along three sides of the chamber. These were very large, and all of the same pattern—the lids remaining upon some of them, but shifted aside. Beautiful sculptured embellishments ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... water is as agreeable and beneficial as the house of a friend. It is gratifying to Surya himself. It also contributes to growth to the deities. It is the foremost of all things that lead to fame (with respect to the person who causes it to be excavated). The wise have said that the excavation of a tank contributes to the aggregate of three, Righteousness, Wealth and Pleasure. A tank is said to be properly excavated, if it is made on a piece of land that is inhabited by respectable persons. A tank is said to be subservient to all the four purposes of living creatures. Tanks, again, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... last two years some marvellous 'finds' have been made at this wonderful fortress from time to time. It is intended to continue excavation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Kaly[a]na to Junar. It seems to have been cut out by a descendant {23} of King ['S][a]tav[a]hana,[75] for inside the wall opposite the entrance are representations of the members of his family, much defaced, but with the names still legible. It would seem that the excavation was made by order of a king named Vedisiri, and "the inscription contains a list of gifts made on the occasion of the performance of several yagnas or religious sacrifices," and numerals are to be seen in no ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... soil is a reason for that state of things. The street is situated on a point of the Catacombs so dangerous that a portion of the road disappeared recently, leaving an excavation to the astonished eyes of the scarce inhabitants of that ...
— A Street Of Paris And Its Inhabitant • Honore De Balzac
... reach of marauders, especially Ants, who might damage the precious morsel in the lawful owner's absence. After fixing her booty on the verdant pinnacle, the Pompilus casts around for a favourable spot and digs her burrow. During the process of excavation, she returns from time to time to her Spider; she nibbles at the prize, feels, touches it here and there, as though taking stock of its plumpness and congratulating herself on the plentiful provender; then she returns to her burrow and goes on digging. Should anything alarm or distress her, ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... until he quadruples the quantity, and has the quiet satisfaction of seeing exhibited at lecture, as the identical objects, the heap of small stones which he has collected from time to time in the garden of the school, or from any excavation for pipes or paving which he may have passed in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... fifteen pounds to the square inch that every one is accustomed to above ground. If the pressure relaxed for a moment the lives of the men would be snuffed out instantly—drowned by the inrushing waters; if the excavation was not even all around, the balance of the top-heavy structure would be lost, the men killed, and the work destroyed entirely. But so carefully is this sort of work done that such an accident rarely occurs, and ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... the high road leading from Penrith to Appleby. The whole neighbourhood abounds in interesting traditions and vestiges of antiquity, viz., Julian's Bower; Brougham and Penrith Castles; Penrith Beacon, and the curious remains in Penrith Churchyard; Arthur's Round Table, and, close by, Maybrough; the excavation, called the Giant's Cave, on the banks of the Emont; Long Meg and her daughters, near Eden, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... violent earthquake, and even with some of those more moderate shocks that visit the British Islands (see p. 247). But an interesting point established by the Indian earthquake is that they also occurred at a distance from any water-channel or excavation, often running parallel to, and along either side of, a road or embankment. In other situations, they showed a distinct tendency to range themselves parallel to one another; and, in these cases, it ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... some eighty miles distant from Pembina. Clearing away the snow in a copse, they scooped a shallow trench in the frozen soil with their hatchets, and kindling a fire so as to cover the length and breadth of the excavation, they prepared their frugal repast of hunters' fare. Then removing the fire to the foot of the trench and piling logs upon it, they lay down side by side on the warmed soil, and wrapping their blankets around them slept soundly through the still cold night, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... days of the race to account for sunrise and sunset, storm-winds and thunder, the origin of the earth and of mankind. The tales men told in the face of these mysteries were naturally inspired by awe and fear. The universal myth of a great flood is perhaps the earliest tale of terror. During the excavation of Nineveh in 1872, a Babylonian version of the story, which forms part of the Gilgamesh epic, was discovered in the library of King Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.); and there are records of a much earlier version, belonging to the year 1966 B.C. The story of the Flood, as related on the ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... elevated platform or table of land, three sides of which fell off in steep precipices; the fourth side was surmounted by the lofty hill on which the modern city stands. These steep precipices were the natural walls of the city, and were made more available for defence by excavation on the inside, so as to leave a solid wall of rock rising round the city. On the verge of this platform, which gradually sinks from east to west, and on the side next the sea, which is about a mile distant, are seen the remains of no fewer than six temples. They stood in ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... earth. Thus a whole army of gnomes were noiselessly at work to destroy and defend the beleaguered city. The mine advanced towards the gate; the besieged delved deeper, and intersected it with a transverse excavation, and the contending forces met daily, in deadly encounter, within these sepulchral gangways. Many stratagems were, mutually employed. The citizens secretly constructed a dam across the Spanish mine, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is a spreading terebinth-tree, with some traces of excavation and rude ruins beneath it. There Joseph's envious brethren cast him into one of the dry pits, from which they drew him up again to sell him to a caravan of merchants, winding across the plain on their way from Midian into ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... about this stupendous excavation that impressed me with solemn thoughtfulness; it lies about sixty feet from the surface of the earth, and is divided into three apartments with arched roofs, the farthest of which is designated the Barons' ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... says of the cave-dwellings may be illustrated by Burnes's account of the excavations at Bamian, in a neighbouring district. These "still form the residence of the greater part of the population.... The hills at Bamian are formed of indurated clay and pebbles, which renders this excavation a matter of little difficulty." Similar occupied excavations are noticed by Moorcroft at Heibak and other places ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... is first secured in the lying position, each man scooping out a depression for his body and throwing the earth to the front. In this position no excavation can be conveniently made for the legs, but if time permits the original excavation is enlarged and deepened until it is possible to assume a sitting position, with the legs crossed and the shoulder to the parapet. In such a position a man presents a smaller target to shrapnel bullets ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... with the architect to consider the lot, and spent an afternoon trying to decide how to secure the most sun. Falkner, weary of the whole matter, listened to the glib young architect. Another windy day in April they returned to the lot to look at the excavation. The contracts were not yet signed. Lumber had gone soaring, and there was a strike in the brick business, the kind of brick they had chosen being unobtainable, while hardware seemed unaccountably precious. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the Vatican is probably a copy, because Pliny says that the original was made of one block, and that of the Vatican is composed of six pieces. Pliny also tells us that the Laocoon was the work of three sculptors, AGESANDER, POLYDORUS, and ATHENODORUS. The Vatican group was found in 1506 in the excavation of the Baths of Titus, in Rome, and was placed in its present position by Pope Julius II. (Fig. 51). The right arm of Laocoon was missing, and Michael Angelo attempted to restore it, but left it incomplete; Montorsoli made an unsatisfactory attempt for its ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... Quails may be all right for Moses in the desert, but, if they are served in the form of pie at dinner, they should be distributed at a side-table, not handed round from guest to guest. The Countess having shuddered at it and resumed her biscuit, it was left to me to make the opening excavation. The difficulty was to know where each quail began and ended; the job really wanted a professional quail-finder, who might have indicated the point on the surface of the crust at which it would be most hopeful to ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... After a careful consideration of various methods for sinking the well, it was decided to build the wall and then to excavate the material from within, trusting to the weight of the wall to force it down. Sixteen feet of the wall were laid securely bolted together, before the excavation was commenced. A derrick with a boom fifty-five feet in length was set up near the wall, so that the sweep of the boom commanded the interior of it. Iron buckets containing fourteen cubic feet each were ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... with the rose beds, but met with no success. After that he tried two or three shrubberies without avail, and then embarked on a frantic but thorough excavation of the tennis lawn. We were taking tea on the lawn at the time, and our attention was first drawn to Excalibur's bereavement by a temporary but unshakable conviction on his part that the bone was buried immediately ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... a horse-shoe shape brought to light in excavation have a depth of 14, and a breadth of 11, Greek feet; the width of the entrances is not specified. Whether these dimensions and the proportions of the corridor suffice for our recognizing them as elephants' stalls, remains to be settled by a more accurate investigation. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... "Considerable excavation has been done in Central America," went on Professor Bumper, "and certain ruins have been brought to light. Near us are those of Copan, while toward the frontier are those of Quirigua, which are even better preserved than the former. We may visit them if we ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... I got to the end of the grove, on the green sward near some laurel and juniper bushes, I came on an excavation apparently just made, the loose earth which had been dug out looking quite fresh and moist. The hole or foss was narrow, about five feet deep and seven feet long, and looked, I imagined, curiously like a grave. A few yards ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... however, before a discovery, more unexpected than agreeable, suddenly arrested their labors. The spot chosen for the excavation was a little to the right of the gourbi, on a slight elevation of the soil. For the first day everything went on prosperously enough; but at a depth of eight feet below the surface, the navvies came in contact ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... roadway. Beneath these planks, which were taken up and put down as required, the rock was excavated to a depth of 9 feet, and the balks supported upon stout props. Then from the driftway or rough boring beneath well holes were bored to the upper excavation, and through them the strong upright iron pillars designed to support the roof of the new tunnel station were passed, bedded and securely fixed in position. No sooner were they in situ than the most ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... although he does only what a highway surveyor might properly do.[17] It is also the duty of cities and towns to guard with sufficient and suitable railings every road which passes over a bank, bridge, or along a precipice, excavation, or deep water; and it makes no difference whether these dangerous places are within or without the limits of the road, if they are so imminent to the line of public travel as to expose travellers to unusual hazard.[18] But towns are not obliged ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... with broken stone. Thence there extended a long, straight passage cut in the solid rock. I am no geologist, but the lining of this corridor was certainly of some harder material than limestone, for there were points where I could actually see the tool-marks which the old miners had left in their excavation, as fresh as if they had been done yesterday. Down this strange, old-world corridor I stumbled, my feeble flame throwing a dim circle of light around me, which made the shadows beyond the more threatening and obscure. Finally, I came to a spot where the Roman tunnel opened into a water-worn cavern—a ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from whence the sound issued; lifting up the thick layer of leaves, there sat a frog—the wood frog, one of the first to appear in the marshes in spring, and which I have elsewhere called the "clucking frog"—in a little excavation in the surface of the leaf-mould. As it sat there the top of its back was level with the surface of the ground. This, then, was its hibernaculum; here it was prepared to pass the winter, with only a coverlid of wet matted leaves ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... Concavity. — N. concavity, depression, dip; hollow, hollowness; indentation, intaglio, cavity, dent, dint, dimple, follicle, pit, sinus, alveolus[obs3], lacuna; excavation, strip mine; trough &c. (furrow) 259; honeycomb. cup, basin, crater, punch bowl; cell &c. (receptacle) 191; socket. valley, vale, dale, dell, dingle, combe[obs3], bottom, slade[obs3], strath[obs3], glade, grove, glen, cave, cavern, cove; grot[obs3], grotto; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... or "black chipping-bird," as it is known among the farmers, is the finest architect of any of the ground-builders known to me. The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially concealed entrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow hair are plentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest great symmetry and firmness ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a lonely spot, walled in by the mountains, and frequented only by the deer that were wont to come to lick salt from the briny margin of a great salt spring far down the ravine. Their hoofs had worn a deep excavation around it in the countless years and generations that they had herded here. The "lick," as such places are called in Tennessee, was nearly two acres in extent, and in the centre of the depression the brackish water stood to the depth of six feet or more. ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... heard at intervals the sound which had alarmed him, he reassured himself and resumed his flow of spirits as if a little ashamed even of his panic. He stopped the Countess to look at the pretext of this excursion. This was the rocky wall of the deep excavation of a marl-pit, long since abandoned. The arbutus-trees of fantastic shape which covered the summit of these rocks, the pendant vines, the sombre ivy which carpeted the cliffs, the gleaming white stones, the vague reflections ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... times." They accumulated in thousands, large and small, some intact and fresh as when just made, others already out of shape and of no value. The places of concealment were soon forgotten, and the stores hidden therein reposed beyond the reach of men until the day when the chances of excavation brought them ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... from the same hand show part of the excavation done in the Tyuonyi by the School of American Archaeology—through whose loving and grateful efforts this canon has been set apart as a National Monument bearing the name of its discoverer ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the year the foundations of the New Royal Exchange were dug out and concreted, and, as it was always anticipated that some important discoveries might take place in the course of the excavation, proper arrangements were made on the commencement of the work, that any articles of interest which might be disinterred, should be secured for the Gresham Committee. In the Specification for the Works, issued in 1840, the Contractor and Excavator ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... part is clearly the top stone of the base, measuring 2 ft. 11/2 in. square by 1 ft. 6 in. high, and the lowest portion of the shaft sunk into it, and measuring 1 ft. 1 in. square by 101/2 in. high. Careful excavation showed that the stone is probably still standing on its ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Vecchia we were shown the mosaic pavement and the decorated frieze of an old Roman house supposed to be over two thousand years old, which had been uncovered at a considerable distance below the surface while an excavation was being made. Notwithstanding their age the old mosaic pavement and frieze were in ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... Farrow had said, was making straight for the one place in the Quarry Wood which commanded a clear view of the entrance to the mansion. The two men were skirting the disused quarry, now a rabbit warren, which gave the locality its name; they followed the rising edge of the excavation, treading on a broad strip of turf, purposely freed of encroaching briers lest any wandering stranger might plunge headlong into the pit. Near the highest part of the rock wall there was a slight depression in the ground; and here, except during the height of a phenomenally dry Summer, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... excavated from beneath beneath Northwich a space large enough to form a ship canal from Northwich to Warrington 150 feet wide and 30 feet deep. And a well-known authority declares that the subsidences during the present century form an excavation very much more extensive than was required for the Manchester and Liverpool Ship Canal. For the subsidences correspond with the amount of salt ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... spur, provision for seizing the butt end of the weapon while it is being launched. These may be ridges left in the wood by excavation, or pieces of wood, bone, ivory, &c., inserted. The size and shape of this part, and the manner of insertion, are also worthy ...
— Throwing-sticks in the National Museum • Otis T. Mason
... close to Canterbury, and if anything else were needed it is only necessary to look at the walls of St. Augustine's Abbey and many other buildings of the Middle Ages to see the large quantities of Roman material then available. Wherever any excavation has taken place in the heart of the present city, the foundations of Roman buildings with tesselated pavements and quantities of pottery, small objects of domestic use, and coins have been brought to ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... Barbara. The populace remained in the booth, but we were joined by all our friends of the town, and once more were a large party. We were bound for a merienda and a carnesada, where bullocks would be roasted whole on spits over a bed of coals in a deep excavation. It took a Californian only a few hours to sleep off fatigue, and we were as fresh and gay as if we had gone to bed at eight the ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... boring operations were watched from beginning to end. The work was done rapidly and neatly, and when all was ready for the deposit of the eggs the insect constructed from papier-mache-like material a disc-shaped lid exactly fitting the mouth of the excavation, to which it was attached on its upper edge by a hinge. Then round and about the disc similar stuff was plastered, so as to form an irregular splash, imitative of a bird's droppings to the-degree of perfect deception. In the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... religious services are conducted during the winter months; but throughout the summer the usual place of gathering to listen to the sermons is in "boweries," so called, which are constructed by planting posts in the ground and weaving over them a flat roof of willow-twigs. An excavation near the centre of the square, partially filled with dirt previously to the exodus to Provo, marks the spot where the Temple is to rise. It is intended that this edifice shall infinitely surpass in magnificence its predecessor at Nauvoo. The design purports to be a revelation from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... from the Bolo, as our force was much smaller than his, and spent the first part of the night making trenches. An excavation deeper than eighteen inches would have water in the bottom. We were very cold, as it was October in Russia, and every man wet to the skin, with no blankets or overcoats. About midnight the British sent up two jugs of rum, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... been known so short a time that no one was specially familiar with their action. Without knowing whether I could take chloroform administered by myself, and at the same time perform with skill the excavation of extremely sensitive dentine or tooth-bone, as if no anaesthetic had been taken, and not be conscious of pain, was more than the experience of medical men at that time could assure me. But, having a love for investigation of the unknown, I prepared myself for the ordeal. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... Elgin, availing himself of these favourable circumstances, obtained in the summer of 1801, access to the Acropolis of Athens for general purposes, with a concession to "make excavations and to take away any stones that might appear interesting to himself." The result (shortly stated) was the excavation of the once celebrated "Elgin marbles," about which, if we are to credit the report from which we glean this information, his lordship would seem to have expended (including the interest of capital) some L74,000. The committee recommend the House, under these circumstances, coupled with the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... mistaken. The beginning of an immense excavation could be seen under the water. There the wire, bending at a right angle, entered the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... building the house. It was a ready-made house, which we had brought with us; nothing had to be done but to put together the various numbered parts. In order that the house might brave all storms, its bottom rested in an excavation four feet beneath the surface. On January 28th, fourteen days after our arrival, the house was completed, and all provisions had been landed. A gigantic task had been performed; everything seemed to point toward a propitious future. But no time was to be lost; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... he had mounted the hill and was dashing along the "cut-off" in the same direction, a full mile in advance. Arriving at Indian Spring, he left his horse at a Mexican posada on the confines of the settlement, and from the piled debris of a tunnel excavation awaited the slow arrival of the coach. On mature reflection he could give no reason why he had not boldly awaited it at the express office, except a certain bashful consciousness of his own folly, and a belief that it might ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... had been Egypt, his liberal checks had assisted in many an excavation, and his knowledge of her relics was remarkable. Inserting a steel paper cutter in a crack he deftly pried open the upper half of the mummy's front. Beneath lay the mass of wrappings in which thousands of years ago ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... while to remember that though the well-to-do and educated classes cremated their dead, the poor of the crowded city population of the period I am now dealing with enjoyed no such orderly and cleanly funeral rites. The literary evidence is explicit on this point, and has been confirmed by modern excavation on the Esquiline, where we know from Varro and Horace that the poor and the slaves were thrown en masse into puticuli, i.e. holes where it was impossible that any memorial ceremonies could be kept up.[861] Horace's lines are ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... of wagons having arrived upon the bank of such a stream, first select the best point for the passage, where the banks upon both sides require the least excavation for a place of ingress and egress to and from the river. As I have before remarked, the place of entering the river should be above the coming-out place on the opposite bank, as the current will then assist in carrying wagons and animals across. A spot should be sought where ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... rested his musket against a tree, and taking the scalp from between the ramrod and the stock, where he had introduced it, knelt by the body, and spreading out the humid skin to its fullest extent, applied it to the bleeding excavation. As he had suspected, they corresponded exactly, making all due allowance for the time they had been separated, and he had no longer a doubt that the mutilated boy was Mr. Heywood's help, Wilton. A much more important ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... commands. A small scrub oak tree was then cut down and trimmed, and twelve men, representing the Apostles, conveyed it to a designated place. Cowdery sought out the best stone he could find for a corner-stone, removed a little earth, and placed the stone in the excavation, delivering an address. One end of the oak tree was laid on this stone, "and there," says Booth, "was laid down the first stone and stick which are to form an essential part of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... himself to Mr. Craig, and finally sallied forth to execute that gentleman's behest upon an upper Fifth Avenue squatter who had declined to vacate property recently dedicated to blasting, the Irish, and general excavation. ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... suggested that burning was introduced during the migrations after the Dorian invasion. Men could carry the ashes of their friends to the place where they finally settled. [Footnote: Helbig, Homerische Epos, p.83] The question may, perhaps, be elucidated by excavation, especially in Asia Minor, on the sites of the earliest Greek colonies. At Colophon are many cairns unexplored by science. Mr. Ridgeway, as is well known, attributes the introduction of cremation to a conquering northern people, the Achaeans, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... turn of the road about half way between Langholm and the Manse; and following the sound, William sprung forward, and with very great difficulty forced his way through some brushwood entirely covered with snow, towards an excavation in the rock which terminated the holm, and almost reached the river, only leaving room for the road to wind round it. As he approached this place the dog was distinctly heard; and John, exclaiming, "It is Trusty's voice, Marion must be here," pushed before William, ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... a long iron cage, shoring up the crumbling walls of the excavation; and through this cage we crept like a procession of wary mice, suddenly putting on speed at the end, till we reached the tunnel-head, and found another train ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to him. He had always had great respect for ricochet shots since his friend Skinny Thompson had proved their worth on the hides of Sioux. If he could disturb the sand and convey several grains of it to Mr. Travennes' eyes the game would be much simplified. While planning for the proposed excavation, a la Colt's, he noticed several stones lying near at hand, and a new and better scheme presented itself for his consideration. If Mr. Travennes could be persuaded to get out of—well, it ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... observer of geological phenomena. It had been deserted apparently for many years; and the debris of the clay partially covered up, in a sloping talus, the frontage of rock beneath. Old Red Sandstone and boulder-clay, a broad bar of each!—such was the compound problem which the excavation propounded to me when I first plied the tool in it,—a problem equally dark at the time in both its parts. I have since got on a very little way with the Old Red portion of the task; but alas for the boulder-clay portion ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... is simply an excavation, about three feet deep, twelve feet long, and sixteen feet wide. Spruce saplings about four feet long and four inches through are set upright side by side around the interior, supported by the beams. Two posts six feet long and one ridge piece support the arched roof, ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... would wish restored, would not hesitate long in deciding for the Hellenic one. Readers of Lenormant will call to mind his glowing pages on the wonders that might be found buried on the site of Sybaris. His plan of excavation sounds feasible enough. But how remote it becomes, when one remembers the case of Herculaneum! Here, to our certain knowledge, many miracles of antique art and literature lie within a few feet of our reach; ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... the earth and gravel of a deposit is moved, washed, and carried off through long sluices by the water, leaving the gold behind. Square acres of earth on the hill-sides may thus be swept away into the hollows without the aid of a pick or a shovel in excavation. Water performs all the labour, moving and washing the earth in one operation, while in excavating by hand the two processes are of necessity entirely distinct. The value of this method and the yield of gold as compared with the older one can hardly ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... to the spot where the excavation was being made and found that the men had built a fire on the ground near the opening of the pit, and that one of them was bending over it warming himself. As the month was July this naturally surprised me, and I inquired the reason for so strange ...
— My Terminal Moraine - 1892 • Frank E. Stockton
... is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Guess the largest building ever erected—1,641,223 feet long, 17,894 feet high—" Down goes the trap on one side, plunging into some excavation, like a double-harnessed Roman chariot. However, we scrambled up again, but I had lost the important figure of the width of the building. Now I don't for a moment wish to imply that my guide was exaggerating, but this rather reminds me of ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... is about to erect on Tom-a-Chastel, to the memory of Sir David, the workmen discovered the remains of an extensive edifice, intermixed with a blackish mold, in which human bones frequently occur, with stirrups, buckles, and other decayed fragments of ancient armor. In an excavation were found a quantity of black earth, the debris of animal matter, some human bones, a bracelet, and a considerable portion of charcoal, from which it may be concluded that the individuals whose remains were discovered, had perished during a conflagration of the castle. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... heard," says Sir William Hamilton, "of the process of tunnelling through a sandbank. In this operation it is impossible to succeed unless every foot, nay, almost every inch of our progress be secured by an arch of masonry before we attempt the excavation of another. Now language is to the mind precisely what the arch is to the tunnel. The power of thinking and the power of excavation are not dependent on the words in the one case or on the mason-work ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... hazard presents it to him. Among his finds there are little creatures, such as the Shrew-mouse; animals of medium size, such as the Field-mouse; and enormous beasts, such as the Mole, the Sewer-rat and the Snake, any of which exceeds the powers of excavation of a single grave-digger. In the majority of cases transportation is impossible, so disproportioned is the burden to the motive-power. A slight displacement, caused by the effort of the insects' backs, is all that can possibly ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... the entrance to the excavation is, without exception, at or very near the surface of the ground, and is invariably beneath the layer of dead and decaying leaves that everywhere covers the soil in our Northern deciduous forests. Each burrow ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... interested, scanning it all shrewdly. He picked up fragments of stone, and, breaking them, examined their texture with the utmost care. Once or twice he walked along the top of the unfinished embankment throughout its entire length, running a keen eye over the outlines of the excavation. After half an hour which concluded with one long concentrated stare, he pushed on deliberately through the soaked and tangled undergrowth till he came to the edge of the rapids themselves. Here he sat on a rock and looked long and earnestly, and so motionless was he that, after a little while, ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... artist and poet, and Miss Brewster, as well as a score or more of others of our countrymen, then or since distinguished, in art and letters at home and abroad. We remained some days in Naples, and during the time went to Pompeii to witness a special excavation among the ruins of the buried city, which search was instituted on account of our visit. A number of ancient household articles were dug up, and one, a terra cotta lamp bearing upon its crown in bas-relief the legend of "Leda and the Swan," was presented to me as a souvenir of the occasion, though ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... sir, I wunst knowd a Irishman, who wuz sense killed in a Fenian raid, employed as a artist in well diggin. It wuz his lot to go to the bottom uv the excavation and load the buckets with earth. The dinner horn sounded, and he, with the alacrity characteristic uv the race, sprang into the bucket, and told em to hist away; and they histed. But ez they histed, they amoozed themselves a droppin earth onto ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... other hand breed on the open plain. The swans' nests are so large that they may be seen at a great distance. The building material is moss, which is plucked from the ground within a distance of two metres from the nest, which by the excavation which is thus produced, is surrounded by a sort of moat. The nest itself forms a truncated cone, 0.6 metre high and 2.4 metres in diameter at the bottom. In its upper part there is a cavity, 0.2 metre deep and 0.6 metre ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... it was now nothing more than a gaping excavation choked with ashes and charred timbers; and though still rumours of police interest in the origin of the fire persisted, nothing in the papers linked the name of Michael Lanyard with their activities. His disappearance and Lucy Shannon's ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... let her be killed!" prayed the black-eyed girl, and her feet fairly flew over the uneven ground, till she, too, reached the edge of the deep excavation. But before she could discover the plight of the runaway, she felt the ground give way beneath her feet, and echoing Janie's cry of alarm, she, too, shot out of sight. Fortunately, however, little sand fell with her, and as by a ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... them safe, and secondly to prevent their waving or signalling to the enemy. The existence of this ravine, therefore, saved much digging, as it only required some hollowing out at the bottom and a little excavation to ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... fellows stopped and severed the bonds that held my ankles. I could scarcely stand alone. The two pulled and hauled me through the low doorway and along the trench. A party of forty or fifty warriors were awaiting us at the brink of the excavation some hundred yards ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... point of view it is a misfortune in the study of archology that, with the progress of excavation, fresh discoveries are continually being made. If only the evidence of the facts were all in, the case might be summed up and a final judgment pronounced on points in dispute. As it is, the ablest scholar must feel cautious about expressing a decided opinion; ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... settlements that earth taken up from the beds of rivers, or loosened from the adjacent banks, and washed by means of rivulets diverted towards the newly-opened ground, furnishes the greater proportion of the gold found in the island, and that the natives are not accustomed to venture upon any excavation that deserves the name of mining; but our possession, during the present war, of the settlements that belonged to the Dutch, has enabled us to form juster notions on the subject, and the following account, obtained ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... ants are seen at work on these mounds; the entrances seem to be generally closed; only now and then, when some particular work is going on, are the galleries opened. The entrances are small and numerous; in the larger hillocks it would require a great amount of excavation to get at the main galleries; but, I succeeded in removing portions of the dome in smaller hillocks, and then I found that the minor entrances converged, at the depth of about two feet, into one broad, elaborately-worked ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... harness. They crept to the low and white-banked wall in which showed two windows, glazed with frost. They could not see the chimney plainly, but it carried no smell of smoke. The stairway leading down to the door of the dugout was missing, the excavation which held it was drifted full of snow, and the snow bore no track of human foot. All was white and silent. It might have been a vault far ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... person and falsely tell him that I have a client serving a term in Sing Sing for burglary who has confided to me the whereabouts of the secret hiding-place of his loot. All that is necessary is some one to put up sufficient money to cover the expense of transportation and excavation—and it can be divided between us. For this purpose he intrusts me with several hundred dollars, with which I make off. I have stolen the money fast enough, but I can never ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... he possessed the highest pigsty and the lowest barn in the country, because the sty was a structure of his own erection, in the old brick tower, above the level of the surrounding ground; while his straw was stored in an excavation (still existing) several feet below. At that time between the Tower and Bracken Wood there was a stretch of waste land, several acres in extent, consisting of bog, interspersed with tussocks of coarse grass, and straggling alders and birches, still ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter |
