"Mortar" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as it distils, and when it begins to slack, then increase your Fire till the Glass begin to glow; continu this heat till no more will distil, then let it cool of it self, take the Receiver off, stop it very close with Wax, take the Matter out of the Glass, beat it to powder in an Iron Mortar, with a steel Pestle; and then grind it on a Stone with good distilled Vinegar, put this Matter so ground into a Pot, poure good distilled Vinegar upon it, that two parts be full, set the Pot into a Bath ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... its foundations in bygone days.... Buried treasure, looted, some of it, for the palace overhead, but still rare and lovely.... That was a gleam of lapis lazuli that winked at him from the crumbling mortar under his feet. ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... steadily in feathery flakes, hiding the grime of London beneath a garment of shimmering white and transforming the commonplace houses built of brick and mortar, each capped with its ugly chimneystack, into glittering fairy palaces, crowned with silver ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... was levelled; Sugarlips backed against an adjoining wall, with a nervous adhesiveness that evidently proved him less fearful of a little mortar than a great gun! ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... There was an unaccustomed decision in his tones; the boyish inflection had gone. It was a man who was speaking, and determinedly, too. "You've no business to be everlastingly gazing at green fields. You ought to be turning 'em into music so that the people who've got only bricks and mortar to stare at can get ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... during the period when he is engaged in forming his mind: a young man once fairly launched in life may safely confine himself for a time to the studies that bear directly upon his own special chosen subject. The thing that Telford began closely to investigate was—lime. Now, lime makes mortar; and without lime, accordingly, you can have no mason. But to know anything really about lime, Telford found he must read some chemistry; and to know anything really about chemistry he must work at it hard and unremittingly. A strict attention ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... appropriating territory and in subjugating peoples—must have not only the force necessary to set up the empire, but also the force requisite to maintain it. Battleships and army corps are as essential to empires as mortar is to a brick wall. They are the expression of the organized might by which the empire is ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... flanked on either side by an ornamental calabash. One was brimming with the golden-hued "poee," or pudding, made from the red plantain of the mountains: the other was stacked up with cakes of the Indian turnip, previously macerated in a mortar, kneaded with the milk of the cocoa-nut, and then baked. In the spaces between the three dishes were piled young cocoa-nuts, stripped of their husks. Their eyes had been opened and enlarged; so that each ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Catechism of Chemistry up to the latest date, says, "It is a remarkable fact, that a pound of rags may be converted into more than a pound of sugar, merely by the action of sulphuric acid. When shreds of linen are triturated (stirred) in a glass mortar with sulphuric acid, they yield a gummy matter on evaporation; and if this matter be boiled for some time with dilute sulphuric acid, we obtain a crystallizable sugar."—Now is the time to look up all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... street, leaned against a stone, and followed the activity of the workman with great attention. The latter had now set up his ladder and made it secure; he climbed it and began to scratch about in the mortar over the main door with a view of taking down the old sign. His efforts filled the ex-manufacturer with interest and also with pain, as he thought of the bygone days, of the many glasses of wine ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... was well guarded,—on one occasion at least by eight juniors armed with bayonets,—from the sophomores, who were infuriated by the fact that the head of the intended victim, a skull furnished from medical sources, was crowned by a mortar-board, the sophomore class insignia. A formal trial followed, presided over by a Pontifex Maximus, in which a Judex, an Advocatus Pro, and an Advocatus Con participated, with the foregone result that the culprit was sentenced to be hanged, shot, and burned; a decree carried out on a gallows and ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... thoroughly mixed in a mortar with 8 grammes of caustic magnesia, were stirred into 200 c.c. of boiling water, and the mixture boiled for ten minutes. The liquid was filtered off, and the residue percolated with about 60 c.c. of water. It was then again stirred into 150 c.c. of boiling water, and was again ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... shown that those pasty carbide residues can be employed very satisfactorily, and to the best advantage from the maker's point of view, by builders and decorators for the preparation of ordinary mortar or lime-wash. The mortar made from acetylene lime has been found equal in strength and other properties to mortar compounded from fresh slaked lime; while the distemper prepared by diluting the sludge has been used most ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... secret rooms until they starved to death, or till the rats ate them. I remembered the tale of the nun being walled up in a vault of her convent, brick by brick, till the last brick shut off the last glimmer of the bricklayer's lantern, till the last layer of mortar made for her the last sound she would hear, the patting clink of the trowel on the brick, before it was all horrible dark silence for ever. I wondered how many people had been silenced in that way. I wondered how long I should live, if that was ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... this new world he had entered did not exist to him. He was an utter egoist of bricks and mortar. He had dropped out, he felt, into open space for a time, and all it contained was an audience for his reminiscences. Neither the limitless freedom of the prairie days nor the grand hush of the close-drawn, spangled nights touched him. All the hues of Aurora could not win him from ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... return to Monterey. The houses here, as everywhere else in California, are of one story, built of clay made into large bricks, about a foot and a half square and three or four inches thick, and hardened in the sun. These are cemented together by mortar of the same material, and the whole are of a common dirt-color. The floors are generally of earth, the windows grated and without glass; and the doors, which are seldom shut, open directly into the common room; there being no entries. Some of the more wealthy ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... be traced, and folds of the draperies of figures at the sides. Scarcely any of the tesserae remain, but the lights of the drawing appear in relief. A certain test of the age of the different parts of the building is afforded by the quality of the mortar used. By this it is proved that the eastern apse is due purely to Euphrasius, the foundations being set in mortar of the kind used by him; and also that he kept the atrium pretty much as it was, only adding the columns with Byzantine ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... down the steps: it was that of a stout man lying at the bottom, shaken in every bone, yet sound as a grape ensconced in jelly. As he touched the bottom he heard a little noise as of some small substance falling, but seeing a piece of old mortar dislodged, he did not turn round to examine the place. If he had done so he would have found behind the ladder the wedge he had just inserted to secure the level ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... to shoot the line out now," explained Hal to Bert, as the two-wheel car with the mortar or cannon was dragged down to the ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... came other unmistakable, characteristic, copyrighted smells of spring that belong to the-big-city-above-the-Subway, alone. The smells of hot asphalt, underground caverns, gasoline, patchouli, orange peel, sewer gas, Albany grabs, Egyptian cigarettes, mortar and the undried ink on newspapers. The inblowing air was sweet and mild. Sparrows wrangled happily ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... of these villages was roughly constructed, the walls being often less than a foot thick. Very little adobe mortar seems to have been used; some of the thickest and best preserved walls have apparently been laid nearly dry (Pl. LXI). The few openings still preserved also show evidence of hasty and careless construction. Over most ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... Israelites in a most grievous manner. "He set over them task-masters, to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities,(415) Pithom and Raamses—and the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field; all their service wherein they made them serve, was with rigour."(416) This king had two sons, Amenophis ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Hugh having bought some fish to make his family a repast, the spirit transported the fish to the garden which was behind the house, put half of it on a tile (scandula), and the rest in a mortar, where it was found again. Another time, Hugh desiring to be bled, told his daughter to get ready some bandages. Immediately the spirit went into another room, and fetched a new shirt, which he tore up into several bandages, presented them to the master of the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... shameful negligence of some one, the name of this man of talent was overlooked. The port of Boulogne contained about seventeen hundred vessels, such as flatboats, sloops, turkish boats, gunboats, prairies, mortar-boats, etc.; and the entrance to the port was defended by an enormous chain, and by four forts, two on the right, and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a clamor! What a quaking! Stairs are rocking, walls are shaking: Through the windows' quivering sheen, Are the stormful lightnings seen; Springs the ceiling,—thence, below, Lime and mortar rattling flow: And, though bolted fast, the door Is undone by magic power! There, in Faust's old fleece bedight, Stands a giant,—dreadful sight! At his glance, his beck, at me! I could sink upon my knee. Shall I fly, or shall I stay? What will be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... seem to end, but fall. The congruent and harmonious fitting of parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and force of knitting and connection; as in stones well squared, which will rise strong a great way without mortar. ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... commands over hills and valleys, town and country; and it breaks upon one almost as a startling surprise when its beauties are seen for the first time. It is, indeed, so very unexpected to come upon such a fine and far-spreading view so suddenly and so close to bricks and mortar. Alas! the latter are fast encroaching upon this delightful but somewhat neglected spot, and unless the Croydonians are wise enough to secure the acquirement of the summit of the hill as a public open space, this splendid view will be ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... white house, with green blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century; or it may be the log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,—still there is a spell in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days and all that ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had been left in a closet, from the wall of which some of the loose plaster had fallen down. In the morning, the honey being wanted, the pot was found with a considerable portion abstracted. Outside of it was a heap of mortar reaching to the edge, forming an inclined plane, while inside a similar structure had been raised with the loose plaster. From the marks on the shelf, it was clearly the work of a mouse; which had thus, by means of a well-designed structure, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... Parliament, who best expresses the voter's own opinions, or because he is one of those whose abilities and character the voter most respects, and whom he most willingly trusts to think for him. The member would represent persons, not the mere bricks and mortar of the town—the voters themselves, not a few vestrymen or parish notabilities merely. All, however, that is worth preserving in the representation of places would be preserved. Though the Parliament of the nation ought to have as little as possible to do with ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... called "black Marias," that being the slang name for the English police patrol wagon. Then they were called "Jack Johnsons," then "coal boxes," and finally they were christened "crumps" on account of the sound they make, a sort of cru-ump! noise as they explode. "Rum jar" is the trench mortar. "Sausage" is the slow-going aerial torpedo, a beastly thing about six feet long with fins like a torpedo. It has two hundred and ten pounds of high explosive and makes a terrible hole. "Whiz ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... visible; but the sable birds deserted their noisy town residence several years ago. Probably, as the north of London was more built over, and such feeding-grounds as Belsize Park turned to brick and mortar, the birds found the fatigue of going miles in search of food for their young unbearable, and so migrated. Leigh Hunt, in one of his agreeable books, remarks that there are few districts in London where you will not find a tree. "A child was shown ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... that they should take turns at this; so one would stay and fill with mortar the queer little box which hod-carriers use, and bear it on his shoulders to the mason, who was fast laying ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... right-hand wing only is finished, and is merely a continuation of that which we have seen in the other court. On the left hand, is the site of the new hall intended for the sittings of the Tribunate. Workmen are now employed in its construction; heaps of stones and mortar are lying about, and, the building seems to proceed with tolerable expedition. Here, in the back-ground, is a crowd of little stalls for the sale of various articles, such as prints, plays, fruit, and pastry. In front stand such carriages as ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... pile, in this case, is a car on wheels; and the body is blown away, from a huge wooden cannon or mortar, with the purpose, I believe, of conveying the soul more rapidly to heaven! Immense crowds are collected on occasions of these funerals, which, far from being conducted with mourning or solemnity, are occasions of rude mirth and boisterous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... Catholic priest should starve to death, genteelly and pleasantly, for the good of the Protestant religion; but is it equally reasonable to expect that he should do so for the Protestant pews, and Protestant brick and mortar? On an Irish Sabbath the bell of a neat parish church often summons to church only the parson and an occasionally conforming clerk; while, two hundred yards off, a thousand Catholics are huddled together in a miserable hovel, and pelted ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... hurrying over to him. "The thing is sealed up with mortar. Hasn't been used in fifty cats' lives. Wonder ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... no way changed. A mere stone shell, littered with fragments of wood and mortar. There was the rough wooden block on which Alan used to sit while he first frightened us with bogey-stories, and then calmed our excited nerves by rapid sallies of wild nonsense. There was the plank from behind which, erected as a barrier across the doorway, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... warm now—and flinging himself into a chair with deep arms that stood on the hearth, he lit his cigar and sipped drowsily the glass of brandy she had left on a silver tray on the table. The ceiling was ridiculously high—what a waste of good bricks and mortar!—the room was ridiculously large! On the smooth white walls reddish shadows moved in a fantastic procession, and from the big chintz-covered lounge the monstrous blue poppies leaped out of the firelight. The high canopy over the bed was draped with prim ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... subjects of wisdom, in which sages might alone find themselves appropriately employed, and yet having its birth and deriving its first life from a society of artisans, whose only object was, apparently, the construction of material edifices of stone and mortar. ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... for several months things had been quiet. Now, by "quiet" I do not mean that there was any cessation of hostilities for there is always artillery firing and sniping going on, with a fair amount of rifle grenade and trench-mortar activity. It simply means that there is no attempt being made, by either side, to attack in force and to capture and hold ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... Lord Woldo. Now and then a whole street would thus tumble all complete into his hands. The system, most agreeable for Lord Woldo and about a dozen other landlords in London, was called the leasehold system; and when Lord Woldo became the proprietor of some bricks and mortar that had cost him nothing, it was said that one of Lord Woldo's leases had "fallen in," and everybody was quite satisfied by ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... but, more considerate than the other attendants of the king, he made some provision for the deserted corpse. He sent for one of the subordinates of the palace, and ordered him to watch by the body. Then, going to his carriage, he saw several hodmen lounging about, who were carrying mortar for some repairs that were being made at the palace. The physician called them, and bade them go tell the lord-Steward that the king's coffin must be saturated with spirits of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... of form. The earliest vessels employed were often clumsy and difficult to handle. The favorite conch shell would hold water for him who wished to drink, but the breaking away of spines and the extraction of the interior whorl improved it immeasurably. The clumsy mortar of stone, with its thick walls and great weight, served a useful purpose, but it needed a very little intelligent thought to show that thin walls and neatly-trimmed margins were ...
— Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. • William Henry Holmes
... very old stock a most eminent scion,— 110 A stock all fresh quacks their fierce boluses ply on, Who stretch the new boots Earth's unwilling to try on, Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts keep their eye on, Whose hair's in the mortar of every new Zion, Who, when whistles are dear, go directly and buy one, Who think slavery a crime that we must not say fie on, Who hunt, if they e'er hunt at all, with the lion (Though they hunt lions also, whenever they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... summer. Uncle William was mending his chimney. He had built a platform to work on. Another man would have clung to the sloping roof while he laid the bricks and spread the mortar. But Uncle William had constructed an elaborate platform with plenty of room for bricks and the pail of mortar, and space in which to stretch his great legs. It was a comfortable place to sit and look out over Arichat harbor. Andy, who had watched the preparations with scornful ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... with it a fine book which I have had printed of' Gray's poems, with drawings by another friend of mine, which I am sure will charm you, though none of them are quite well engraved, and some sadly. Adieu! I am all brick and mortar: the castle at Strawberry Hill grows so near a termination, that you must not be angry if I wish to have you see it. Mr. Bentley is going to make a drawing of the best view, which I propose to have engraved, and then you shall at least have some idea of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... undo the large package, and as the wrappings finally came off, I could see that it was some bulky instrument that looked like a huge gun, or almost a mortar. It had a sort of barrel that might have been, say, forty inches in length, and where the breechlock should have been on an ordinary gun was a great hemispherical cavity. There was also a peculiar arrangement of springs and ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... vase good for all purposes; it will be used as a vessel for holding all foul things, a mortar for pounding together law-suits, a lamp for spying upon accounts, and as a cup for the mixing ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... urged against Whitman that he brings us the materials of poetry, but not poetry: he brings us the marble block, but not the statue; or he brings us the brick and mortar, but not the house. False or superficial analogies mislead us. Poetry is not something made; it is something grown, it is a vital union of the fact and the spirit. If the verse awakens in us the poetic ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... from the window, love,—come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. God is just. King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That cousin here again? he waits outside? {220} Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans? ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Coliseum, the Golden House, and innumerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of Caesars and senators, had supplied the material for all those gigantic hovels, and their walls were cemented with mortar of inestimable cost, being made of precious antique statues, burnt long ago for ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... subordinate, but not on that account unimportant, achievements in this field. They do not lay claim to originality or artistic accomplishment; but the firmly-jointed stone slabs of the Roman streets, their indestructible highways, the broad hard ringing tiles, the everlasting mortar of their buildings, proclaim the indestructible solidity and the energetic ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Cooper came into vestry, and agreed to do the brick work of the steeple, with good and well burnt bricks and mortar of lime, at least fifteen bushels of lime to every thousand bricks so laid. The said Cooper to find all materials necessary for building the said steeple, and all expenses what kind soever at his own proper cost. The said Cooper to give bond for the performance, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... study these branches in the Normal School, as they would study them in any other school. That is, they have first to learn the facts as matters of knowledge, and then to study the art and science of teaching these facts to others. Instead of coming with their brick and mortar ready prepared, that they may be instructed in the use of the trowel and the plumb-line, they have to make their brick and mix their mortar after they enter the institution. This is undoubtedly a drawback and a misfortune. But it ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... reaching down to the middle of the thigh. The common sort only tie a piece of cloth or skin round the middle. As for their food they boil, broil, or roast, all the meat they eat; honomy is the standing dish, and consists of Indian corn soaked, broken in a mortar, and then boiled in water over a gentle fire ten or twelve hours together. They draw and pluck their fowls, skin and paunch their quadrupeds, but dress their fish with the scales on, and without gutting; they leave the scales, entrails, and bones, till they eat the fish, when ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... FORGES.—Mix dry 20 parts of fire clay, 20 parts cast-iron turnings, one part of common salt, and 1/2 part sal ammoniac, and then add water while stirring, so as to form a mortar of the proper consistency. The mixture will become very hard when heat ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... few yards over the way, knows quite well what is happening. A few extra shells whizz by; a trench mortar or two splutter a welcome; but it makes little difference to the weary German who mans the trenches over against him. Only, the new men are fresh and untired, and the German has no Ally who can give ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... him two cannon and a mortar; but being light, they had little effect on the wooden wall, and as he was provided with mining tools, he resolved to attack the Outagamie stronghold by regular approaches, as if he were besieging a fortress of Vauban. Covered by the fire of three pieces of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... dish of Caraways; and then to bed!" The seeds grow numerously in the small flat flowers placed thickly together on each floral plateau, or umbel, and are best known to us in seed cake, and in Caraway comfits. They are really the dried fruit, and possess, when rubbed in a mortar, a warm aromatic taste, with a fragrant spicy smell. Caraway comfits consist of these fruits encrusted with white sugar; but why the wife of a comfit maker should be given to swearing, as Shakespeare avers, it is not easy to see. The young roots of Caraway plants may be sent ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... says that to his mind and vision, as he gazed out, the paradise was a tomb. Before substituting his words for our own, we note only that nearly thirteen months had elapsed since Louis Napoleon and his 90,000 men had here been brayed in a mortar. Hugo's description of the scene and the event ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... (a, Fig. XXXV.) is the weakest way of covering a space. Indeed, in the hastily heaped shells of modern houses, there may be seen often even a worse manner of placing the bricks, as at b, supporting them by a bit of lath till the mortar dries; but even when worked with the utmost care, and having every brick tapered into the form of a voussoir and accurately fitted, I have seen such a window-head give way, and a wide fissure torn through all the brickwork above it, two ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... preparation of forcemeats. A common cook is satistified if she chops or minces the ingredients and moistens them with an egg scarcely beaten, but this is a very crude and imperfect method; they should be pounded together in a mortar until not a lump or fibre is perceptible. Further directions will be given in the proper place, but this is a rule which must be strictly attended to by those who wish to attain any excellence in this ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... "I shift my burden to your strong young shoulders. For three days I have borne the agony alone. There were special reasons for Cassius not being told. He is one of the noblest of God's creatures, but he lacks sentiment. I confess I have too much. These old walls are but brick and mortar to him, but to me they are the custodians of the past. Here I had hoped to sit in the twilight of my life and softly turn the leaves of happy memories. But there! Enough! 'The darkest hour oft precedes the dawn!' I will not despair. In your hands and my darling Eleanor's I leave my fate. Something ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... increased it ran through the pores of the leather in tiny streams, until at last a lump of pasty metal remained. This was squeezed again and again, until not a single globule of quicksilver passed through the leather. The ball, which was of the consistency of half-dried mortar was then taken out, and the process repeated again and again until the whole of the quicksilver had been passed through the leather. Six lumps of amalgam about the size of small hens' ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... the Thunderer cries; "go plant Thine edifice, I care not how ill; Take notice, earth. I hereby grant Carte blanche of mortar, stone, and trowel. Go Hermes, Hercules, and Mars, Fraught with these bills on Henry Hase, Drop with yon jester from the stars, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... orders about your Brantwood? I have been wishing so much that your gardener might be told to mix quantities of old mortar and soil together, and to fill many crevices in your new walls with it; then the breezes will bring fern seeds and plant them, or rather sow them in such fashion as no human being can do. When time and the showers brought by the west ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... most compactly Of brick and mortar made— Thermometer exactly One hundred in the shade! A furnace would be safer Than this my letter-room, Where gleams the sun, a wafer, About ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... and note resemblance to pieces of broken stone. Draw a magnet through the sand and note black particles adhering, showing presence of iron in some form. Show the hardness by rubbing against the surface of a piece of glass. Sand is used for mortar, concrete, and glass. The chief sand-forming rocks are quartz and granite. Show pupils how to recognize these. Examine a sample of sand ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... these ships were crowded with an even heavier armament, comprising guns of all sizes and of picturesque but bewildering nomenclature. According to Corbett,[1] the ordnance may be divided into four main classes based on caliber, the first two of the "long gun" and the other two of the carronade or mortar type. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... shoved through the wrecked doorway into the mortar-strewn ruin, and, stumbling over masses of dbris, came to the stone steps that led to the cellar below. Louis drew back with a groan. He had spent centuries in that ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Stephen, and some Christianized Indians to look for them. Friar Marcos traveled far to the north. He inquired his way of the Indians, always asking them about Seven Cities. He described them as large cities with houses made of stone and mortar. The Indians, half-understanding him, directed him to seven Zuni villages or pueblos. The first of these they called Cibola. Friar Marcos henceforth spoke of them as ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... chief refuge of the lone thinker; this was a cosy recess, deep cut in the mediaeval stone and mortar; within which, on chilly days, a generous heap of sea-cast timber and dried turf shot forth dancing blue flames over a mound of white ash and glowing cinders; but which, in warmer times, when the casements were unlatched to let in with spring or summer breeze the cries of circling sea-fowls and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... presses and publishing houses, residences for missionaries and native agents, school dormitories, gymnasia and lecture halls; Y. M. C. A. and other societies' buildings—all these represent that power for service, incarnate in brick and mortar, which is invaluable and even indispensable to the great missionary ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... of sheep-pens or lumber-rooms. Destitute of windows, so that the sun and air found admittance only through the doorway, without fireplaces, boarded floors, or plastered walls, they presented simply so many square feet of space walled in by stone and mortar. But Fancy had the power to enliven, furnish, people them. She suggested that their very number was an indication of sociability, excitement, noise, and mirth. Here, as in all feudal dwellings, the vast disproportion between the space allotted to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... mass, the church members brought from the mountain side, upon their shoulders, forty cords of wood. The lime being burned, the women took it in calabashes, or large gourd shells, and bore it on their shoulders to the place of building; also sand and water for making the mortar. Thus about seven hundred barrels each of lime, sand, and water, making about two thousand barrels, equal to three hundred and fifty wagon loads, were carried by women a quarter of a mile, to assist the men in building the temple ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... yearn, as your forehead mantles with fresh blood, for a kindred spirit and a kindred strength. Above all you love—though you do not know it now—the BREADTH of a country life. In the fields of God's planting there is ROOM. No walls of brick and mortar cramp one; no factitious distinctions mould your habit. The involuntary reaches of the spirit tend toward the True and the Natural. The flowers, the clouds, and the fresh-smelling earth, all give width to your intent. The boy grows into manliness, instead of growing to be like ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... All the lakes appeared about the same, the bed white and glistening in the sun, which made it very hard for the eyes, and so that a man in passing over it made no visible track. It looked as if it one time might have been a smooth bed of plastic mortar, and had hardened in the sun. It looked as if there must have been water there sometime, but we had not seen a drop, or a single cloud; every day was clear and sunny, and very warm, and at night no stars forgot ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... vanished generations—the heavy boot of the conquistador; the sandaled foot of the old padre; the high heel of a dainty Spanish-born lady; the bare, horny sole of the Indian convert—each of them taking its tiny toll out of stone and mortar—each of them wearing away its infinitesimal mite—until through years and years the firm stone was scored away and channeled out and left at it is now, with curves ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... his little houses and cheap flats, sitting on saw-horses and piles of lumber, watching the carpenters at work. In the evening he came home to a late supper, completely fagged, bringing with him the smell of mortar and of ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... much fatigued; but, terrified at my relation, they both refused. I then received fresh courage, went down a third time, taking a lighted flambeau in my hand. When I had descended into the ninth arch, a parcel of stone and mortar suddenly fell in and extinguished my light, and I immediately saw a triangular plate of gold, richly adorned with precious stones, the brilliancy of which struck me with admiration and astonishment. Again I gave the signal, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... edifice until all who enjoy ownership in it agree to its demolition. You can not build for all unless each voluntarily comes forward to aid with stone and mortar. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... Waverly, on the frontier of Pennsylvania, a sad, dirty little town, grotesquely belying its romantic name, and only surpassed in squalor by the classically named Athens—beware, reader, of American towns named out of classical dictionaries! Here, however, our wanderings in the brick-and-mortar wilderness were to end, for by a long, romantic, old, covered bridge we crossed the Chemung River, and there once more, on the other side, was Nature, lovelier than ever, awaiting us. Not Dante, when he emerged from Hades and again ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... Ujjayini with their round faces, the crystal windows, from which strings of pearls are dangling. The porter sits there and snoozes as comfortably as a professor. The crows which they tempt with rice-gruel and curdled milk will not eat the offering, because they can't distinguish it from the mortar. Show me ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... the old house there sat a little boy with fresh rosy cheeks and bright beaming eyes: he certainly liked the old house best, and that both in sunshine and moonshine. And when he looked across at the wall where the mortar had fallen out, he could sit and find out there the strangest figures imaginable; exactly as the street had appeared before, with steps, projecting windows, and pointed gables; he could see soldiers with halberds, and spouts where the water ran, ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... mines. In the latter case the rich find would immediately be pegged out as a claim, or lease, and work commenced, the coarse gold being won by the simple process of "dollying" the ore; or pounding it in an iron mortar with an iron pestle, and passing it when crushed, through a series of sieves in which the gold, too large to fall through, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... enforcement of which would tend to lighten the appalling yearly death-list from shipwreck? The plan I would suggest is that the Board of Trade should prepare a chart of the British and Irish coasts, on which every lifeboat, rocket-apparatus, and mortar station should be laid down and along with this a sort of guide-book, with instructions giving every particular connected with them,—such as, their distances from each other, whether they are stationary ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... trowels rang; And Thin himself came day by day To push the work in every way. An artful builder, patent king Of all the local building ring, Who was there like him in the quarter For mortifying brick and mortar, Or pocketing the odd piastre By substituting lath and plaster? With plan and two-foot rule in hand, He by the foreman took his stand, With boisterous voice, with eagle glance To stamp upon extravagance. Far thrift of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... corners of Indian houses. The notion that they do damage by gnawing is an erroneous one, the mischief done by mice and rats being frequently laid to their charge; they have not the powerful dentition necessary for nibbling through wood and mortar. In my book on 'Camp Life in Seonee,' I say a good word for my little friends, and relate as follows an experiment which I tried many years ago: "We had once been talking at mess about musk-rats; some one declared a bottle of sherry had been tainted, and nobody defended ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... her nephew's return, Mrs. Richards made Mr. Clark an offer for his house which he thought it wise to accept, and by the time summer was fairly begun it was rapidly disappearing in a cloud of dust and mortar to make room for ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... softly, Pull up the rope a little until we break This bar away—or some kind friend may see The dangling end below. Now here's a toothpick, Six inches of grey steel, for you to work with, And here's another for me. Pick out the mortar! ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to see it in the flesh—or the bricks and mortar. But it's not a place to be alone in," repeated Carey. "It wants a woman if ever a ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... loosen the stone which flanked the window. With the other I might defend myself when I had scrambled through. So now I turned my attention to that stone, and I picked and picked with the sharpened end of my bar until I had worked out the mortar all round. You understand, of course, that during the day I replaced everything in its position, and that the warder was never permitted to see a speck upon the floor. At the end of three weeks I had separated the stone, and had the rapture of drawing it through, ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... American Biograph, "he sailed on the steam sloop Hartford from Hampton Roads, arriving at the appointed rendezvous, Ship Island, in sixteen days. His fleet, consisting of six war steamers, sixteen gunboats, twenty-one mortar vessels, under the command of Commodore David D. Porter, and five supply ships, was the largest that had ever sailed under the American flag. Yet the task assigned him, the passing of the forts below New ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... which caused professional opinions to advance themselves officiously to his lips whenever occasion offered. The building was, in short, a recently-erected chapel of red brick, with pseudo-classic ornamentation, and the white regular joints of mortar could be seen streaking its surface in geometrical oppressiveness from top to bottom. The roof was of blue slate, clean as a table, and unbroken from gable to gable; the windows were glazed with sheets of plate glass, a temporary ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... reflection enough left to convince me I had gone too far to retract, and that this was the critical minute which must decide my future lot in his service; I therefore snatched up the pestle of a mortar, and swore, if he offered to strike me without a cause, I should see whether his skull or my ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... sole of every good shoe is a steel spring. I'll take the steel from my shoe. There's already one bar removed from the chuck-hole (No use trying to reproduce the dialect). If we saw out another bar, that will give us enough room for going through. Then it will be easy to dig out the mortar between the bricks, in the jail wall. Once out, we can make for the river bottoms, and, by wading in the water, even their bloodhounds ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... into the corner of the room like a shell from a mortar, but in a moment he was seated at his place at the table again, with a broad grin on his face. "Is it down William?" shouted the old man. "Yes, Mr. Haynes, the durned thing's gone,—please ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... long by nine wide and four high. The walls consisted of beams scarcely squared, joined together with wooden mortices and pegs. The roof, which was probably flat, consisted of oak planks, the spaces between which had been filled in with mortar made of sand and grease. On the ground-floor lay several flint implements, showing no signs of having been polished, a quartz wedge, and a stone chisel, which had evidently seen long service. This chisel, ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... summit are the ruins of a building, known as the Palace, about 25 feet in height, with a front measuring 228 feet by 180 feet deep. In front were, originally, fourteen doorways, with intervening piers, covered with human figures, hieroglyphics, and carved ornaments. The walls are of stone, laid with mortar and sand; and the whole is covered by stucco, nearly as hard as stone, and richly painted. On each side of the steps are gigantic human statues carved in stone, with rich ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... passion," says Goethe, (alluding to one of his own early attachments,) "which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell for a moment, with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls—it bursts—consuming and destroying all around, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... was fragrant with the scent of herbs which were strewn all over the floor, and on a wooden stool in the middle lay a broken pestle and mortar. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... buildings containing army stores, and taking up our march for Macon, Ga., amid the bursting of shell and the explosion of amunition, causing the roofs and timbers to ascend heavenward, and the mass of bricks and mortar to fall inward. Caused by the vacuam from the explosion from within. The atmospheric pressure ...
— History of the Seventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry • R. C. Rankin
... I propose to devote a letter entirely to the pleasure of retracing to you all the particulars of my acquaintance with this ever, to me, memorable friend, I shall, in this, transiently touch on no more than may serve, as mortar, to cement, or form the connection of my history, and to obviate your surprise that one of my blood and relish of life, should count a gallant of three score such ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... work, which may be rough and uncemented, but should always be solid, may then be built up at the sides, and covered with a secure coping of stone. A floor and sloping sides of stone work, jointed with the previously described work, and well cemented, or laid in strong clay or mortar, may, with benefit, be carried a few feet beyond the outlet. This will effectually prevent the undermining of the structure. After the entire drainage of the field is finished, the earth above these sloping sides, and that back ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... eyes of countless inhabitants of that earlier world are watching me, and that not far away the waters of Neva are gathering, gathering, gathering their mighty momentum for some instant, when, with a great heave and swell, they will toss the whole fabric of brick and mortar from their shoulders, flood the streets and squares, and then sink tranquilly back into great sheets of unruffled waters marked only with reeds and the sharp cry of ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... the boys had seen pictures in plenty of shell-smashed ruins, but the actuality of the awful devastation made them hold their breath for a moment. To think that such desolate piles of brick and mortar were once rows of human habitations, peopled with men, women and children very much like the men, women and children in their own ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... impressions changed. True, he did not have occasion to perambulate what he would doubtless have called the 'phalansterian' streets of new South Wimbledon. I spared him the sight of the chess-board of bricks and mortar into which the speculative builder has turned acre after acre north of Merton High Street. But the Hill Road, the Broadway, the Worple Road, and the various turnings that climb towards the Ridgeway pleased him. And he commented very favourably ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... preponderance of local opinion was in favour of the action of the Dean and Chapter. When it came to moving the stones, after all the rubbish was removed, it was found that the mortar had crumbled into mere dust, and could be swept away; and that the stones themselves could be lifted from their positions, without the use of any tool. What has actually been done is this: the north gable has been taken down with the outer orders of the archivolt for a depth of some ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... was sitting before a brazier fire boiling some tea for his captain, when the warning click sounded from the German trenches. Instinctively he clapped the cover on the canteen and dived for shelter, while the great, black trench-mortar bomb came twisting and turning down through the air. It fell to ground with a dull thud, there was a second's silence, then an appalling explosion. The roof of the dug-out in which "Pongo" had found refuge sagged ominously, ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... houses, and for all modern stucco and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty contempt. Sham work of a hasty and unskilled age! He never, I think, put in a shovelful of cement except in the place where it belongs, as a mortar for good walls, and never will do so as long as he lives. So long as he lives the standards of high art ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... Baring Gould in his Orig. Relig. Belief, I. 401, says:—"Among the ancient Hindus Soma was a chief deity; he is called the Giver of Life and Health.... He became incarnate among men, was taken by them and slain, and brayed in a mortar (a god of corn and wine apparently). But he rose in flame to heaven to be 'the Benefactor of the World' and the 'Mediator between God and Man!' Through communion with him in his sacrifice, man (who partook of this god) has an assurance of immortality, for by that sacrament ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... these lines, which nobody could have written who had not been compelled, in the sunny summer-days, to bray drugs in a mortar. Yet who does not like to read a medical book?—to pore over its jargon, to muddle himself into a hypo, and to imagine himself afflicted with the dreadful disease with the long Latin name, the meaning of which he does not by any means comprehend? And did not the poems of our friend ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... de cook. Now, Massa, when missus and me went to wisit de president's plantation, I see his cook, Mr Sallust, didn't know nuffin' bout parin' de soup. What you tink he did, Massa? stead ob poundin' de clams in a mortar fust, he jist cut 'em in quarters and puts 'em in dat way. I nebber see such ignorance since I was raised. He made de soup ob water, and actilly put some salt in it; when it was sarved up—it was rediculous disgraceful—he left dem pieces ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... poor, and the "improvements" equally so. The house was a hewed log cabin about 18x20 feet, with clap-board roof held down by weight poles, and the walls "chinked" with mud. It had a large fire-place at one end, and a chimney made of slats and mortar, familiarly known as a "stick" chimney. The only window was paneless, with a solid shutter hung on leather hinges, propped up with a stick, except when it was wanted down. The floors above and below, were of broad lumber, and laid loose. The door, when closed, was fastened with a big ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... certain conditions upon the Knights. Statutes were drawn up. These young demons grew as vigilant as the pupils of Amoros,—bold as hawks, agile at all exercises, clever and strong as criminals. They trained themselves in climbing roofs, scaling houses, jumping and walking noiselessly, mixing mortar, and walling up doors. They collected an arsenal of ropes, ladders, tools, and disguises. After a time the Knights of Idleness attained to the beau-ideal of malicious mischief, not only as to the accomplishment but, still more, in the invention of their pranks. They ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... this: They have a mill made in the form of some kind of malt-mills, whose stones are firm and hard, which work by turning, and upon this mill are ground the cacaos grossly, and then between other stones they work that which is ground yet smaller, or else by beating it up in a mortar bring it into ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... old Saint Paul's looming through the smoke, its cross peeping above the cloud (if the day were clear), and glittering in the sun; and casting his eyes upon the Babel out of which it grew until he traced it down to the furthest outposts of the invading army of bricks and mortar whose station lay for the present nearly at his feet—might feel at last that he was clear ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... I had been with the glorious workmanship in wood, bronze, and lacquer, I scarcely admired less the masonry of the vast retaining walls, the stone gallery, the staircase and its balustrade, all put together without mortar or cement, and so accurately fitted that the joints are scarcely affected by the rain, damp, and aggressive vegetation of 260 years. The steps of the staircase are fine monoliths, and the coping at the side, the massive balustrade, and the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird |
