"Propel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were necessary. In the first place, there must be some strong material available of which to make the machines; for that purpose iron and steel have, with few exceptions, proved to be the best. In the second place, some adequate power must be found to propel the machinery, which is ordinarily too heavy to be run by hand or foot power. This necessary motive power was discovered in steam. The steam engine was devised by James Watt, an English inventor of great ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in launches and automobiles is familiar to many. Not only are launches and automobiles making use of gas power, but the gasoline engine has made it possible to propel aeroplanes through ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... a flop in the water, and when Bumper turned he saw a queer looking fish swimming toward the shore, using his hind legs instead of fins to propel him along. He had big, staring eyes, and a green head, with white ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... hunters had poled the raft from shore and then they started to propel it across the lake. Two of the boys had rude paddles and the others cedar branches. The progress made was not great but it was sure, ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... usually devoted to visiting workshops, where the engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a youngster who took an interest in their business. Especially interested was I in a rotary engine on "Barker's centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom- ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross injustice; but having obtained a small ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... the motion is greater near the surface than toward the bottom. But, under all circumstances, it is plain that the various causes producing motion, gravitation, pressure, infiltration of water, frost, will combine to propel the mass at a greater rate along its axis than near its margins. For details concerning the facts of the case, I would refer to my work entitled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... nearly swamped by the increasing surf on the bar of the river; but this was a trifle; all we thought of was to return to Zanzibar, and hurry on our preparations there. This, however, was not so easy: the sea current was running north, and the wind was too light to propel our vessel against it; so, after trying in vain to make way in her, Grant and I, leaving her to follow, took to a boat, after giving the captain, who said we would get drowned, a letter, to say we left the vessel ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground—as well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the opening about breast-high for ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the water weighs little more than a pound; so that one finger placed upon a piece of board, an oar or a paddle, will easily keep the head above water, and the feet and the other hand can be used to propel the body toward the shore. It is all important for the person in the water to breathe and keep a cool head, and the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... amount of force applied in front, it would have been difficult to give the first impetus to so great a mass, a lever was skilfully applied behind to raise the hind part of the sledge slightly, and so propel it forward, while to secure a sound and firm fulcrum, wedges of wood were inserted between the lever and the ground. The greater power of a lever at a distance from the fulcrum being known, ropes were attached to its upper end, which could not otherwise have been reached, and the lever ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... sort—but I'll wear no wings. We are accustomed to think of seraphs flying from heaven to earth, flitting from star to star—irrespective of the fact that feathers are useless where there's no atmosphere. An angel working his wings to propel himself through a vacuum were as ridiculous as a disembodied spirit riding a bike ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the craft, and with an oar which was kept in it to propel it in case the engine gave out, he poled it along the shore of the lake until he was some distance away ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... them a sextant chromometer and Palinurus, they had no difficulty next day in taking observations, and found themselves about five hundred miles W.N.W. of Mizen Head. As it was no use depending on being picked up they made all sail in that direction, and so rapidly did the strong west wind propel them that on taking observations the next day they found themselves nearly one hundred and fifty miles nearer land. It was fortunate that they made such headway, for they had only one day's provisions left, and ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... all sorts of things to men in the navy, but we don't drown them for the sake of their pictures. Suppose I show you around, for at two bells the men will be back from their dinner. Now, aft here, is the gasoline engine, which we use to propel the boat on the surface. We can't use it submerged, however, on account of the exhaust; so, for under-water work, we use a strong storage battery to work a motor. You see the motor back there, and under this deck is the storage battery—large jars of sulphuric acid and lead. It is a bad ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... it such a shove that it goes ten miles before it stops. The external bombardment by the cannon ball is, therefore, preceded by an internal bombardment on the cannon ball by the molecules of the hot gases, whose speed is about as great as the speed of the projectile that they propel. ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... productiveness of labor in a wider and more extended sense. By its omnipotent influence, man is enabled to lay the elements under tribute. The water and the wind, by its mysterious power, are made to propel his machinery for various purposes. The utmost skill of the untutored savage enables him to construct a rude canoe which two can carry upon their shoulders by land, which is barely capable of plying upon our rivers and coasting our inland ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... on it and fastened it to the swelling hull. As soon as it was fast, other men hurried into it with the white pasty stuff to line it from end to end. The tubes would nearly hide the structure they were designed to propel. But they'd all be burned away when ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... almost unexplored navigation, would unavoidably turn its whole attention to the single object of raising food, and emancipating itself as soon as possible, from so uncertain and dangerous a dependence. The principle of fear would have sufficed to propel the colonists to a spontaneous application of their strength to the realization of this end, independent of any directing power whatever. It was, therefore, only on the attainment of this most important point, that the impolicy of the present form of government became a ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... river turned sharply to the left and the waters were piled against the foot of the cliff in an alarming manner. An effort was made to land, but as they had shortly before broken one oar and lost another, the two remaining were not sufficient to propel the boat with force enough to reach the desired point. At the same time, a huge wave striking the boat turned it instantly upside down and cast Powell some distance away. He succeeded in reaching her side, and there found Sumner and Dunn clinging. When quiet water was again ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... myself and the boy to propel my boat, we did not reach the scene of action so soon as the rest. As I came within speaking distance, my father shouted to me to save a large box which was in reach of my boat-hooks, but I was deaf ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... fishing village of Wreckumoft, and the town of Athenbury. One of the great values of Ballantyne's books is the insight he gives into life in Britain in the nineteenth century, not just the day-to-day lives of the actors, but the motives that propel them, and the upbringing that these actors had. We are, however, mystified by the title, which made one think that the book might be something to ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... concerned in it.[194] That he was greatly concerned in the treatment of the conspirators there is no doubt. He had probably learned to appreciate the rage, the madness, the impotence of Catiline at then propel worth. He too, I think, must have looked upon Cicero as a meddling, over-virtuous busybody; as did even Pompey when he returned from the East. What practical use could there be in such a man at such a time—in one who really believed in honesty, who ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... the growth of meditative genius, that their speculative opinions must spring out of their early feelings, their minds are still at the mercy of fortune: they have no inward impulse steadily to propel them: and must trust to the chances of the world for a guide. And such is our present moral and intellectual state, that these chances are little else than variety of danger. There will be a thousand causes conspiring to complete the work of a false education, and by inclosing the mind ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... still blew strong, but steadily; the blue water of the ocean was rising in mimic mountains, that were crowned with white foam, which the wind, at times, lifted from its kindred element, to propel in mist, through the air, from summit to summit. But the ship rode on these agitated billows with an easy and regular movement that denoted the skill with which her ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... however, there are now two, when the animal comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eyespot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims toward the light, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... efforts of the little one to support and propel itself are to be carefully watched, but not unnecessarily interfered with; neither frightened by expressions of fear, nor rendered timid by ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... audaciously seated himself in that exalted position from which Bismarck thought never to fall before his death? The great man is a poor appraiser of ideas, accepting them from every quarter whence they blow to him if only they will fill his sails and propel his bark; but he will never understand what mischief he could work to his enemies by opposing a programme of advanced democratic reform to the imperial programme whose fixity resembles the rigidity of death. But what liberty can he invoke—he who has disavowed and injured all liberties? ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... gave me two staves to propel myself with. At the end of each was an iron spike, and above it a guard of wicker-work, about ten inches in diameter, to prevent the stick from sinking deeper. "These staves," he added, "are very useful when the snow is soft and the skees ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... an immense relief to stand in the boat with the boat-hook, whose use demanded all the skill and nerve which Caius had at command. For the most part they could only propel the boat by pushing or pulling the bits of ice that surrounded it with their poles. It was a very different sort of travel from that which they had experienced together when they had carried their boat over islands of ice and launched it in the great ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... fellow accomplished. He was becoming quite expert in the use of the paddles, and, of course, as soon as he came to the hedge-top, he was able to propel the bath along more quickly. He fastened the tub and bath together, and then transferring himself to the former, set to work to bring both to the bank. He found it a difficult task, but he persevered, and in a short time was successful. ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... days previously by a foot expedition under charge of Standish, and considered as a possible seat for their colony. The crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless, and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace, while the sea, rapidly rising with the rising wind, broke so dangerously over the quarter that English refused to proceed, and it was hastily resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor, land the passengers, and allow the ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... somewhat similar to that of the man who had to convey a fox and a goose and a bag of corn across a river in a boat that would take but one at a time. He could not, with his small party, man a gallivat, which required fifty oarsmen to propel it at speed; while if he seized one of the lighter grabs, he would have no chance whatever of outrunning the gallivats that would be immediately launched in pursuit. It was this problem that had occupied him the whole day during which Diggle had fondly imagined he was meditating ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... has the same high, curved poop and stern, the same short masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is quite impossible to walk it in a heavy ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... action, or are habitually weaker than natural, the antagonist muscles replace the limb by stretching it in a contrary direction; and as these muscles have had their actions associated in synchronous tribes, their actions cease together. But as the hollow muscles propel the fluids, which they contain, by motions associated in trains; when one ring is fatigued from its too great debility, and brought into retrograde action; the next ring, and the next, from its association in train falls into retrograde ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... graceful navigation of the Medusae, or Jelly-fishes, render them much admired in their native haunts, and prized for the aquarium. But they are very delicate. How beautiful and remarkable are these headless Discophori, as they float, and propel themselves with involutions of their disks and gently trailing tentacles, and the central peduncle hanging far below, like the clapper of a transparent bell! And yet these wonders are but so much sea-water, inclosed in so slight a tissue that it withers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... in the hammock, one foot used to propel herself gently back and forth. The newly-acquired striped dress was such a tight fit for her rubicund form, that it cracked ominously every time the wearer took a deep breath. But the short-coming of the two fronts over her ample bosom ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... it came time to return to the top of La Cumbre, O'Reilly asked himself if his strength would prove sufficient for the task in hand. He was spiritless, sore, weak; he ached in every bone and muscle, and it required all his determination to propel himself up the hill. He wondered if he were wise thus to sacrifice his waning energies on a hope so forlorn as this, but by now he had begun to more than half believe in the existence of the Varona treasure and he felt an almost ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the tunnel wall, the gap that led into open water, he paused to check his instruments. Only after he was certain that there were no sonar or other detector radiations did he propel himself onward, ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... water and swam to them as fast as she knew how to propel herself. Jane shot out of the water and waved both arms ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... upward you will not be wet. But you can not remain so. The water will soon float your feet to the surface. You can not swim on your back and make any progress of any consequence, because your feet stick away above the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself with but your heels. If you swim on your face, you kick up the water like a stern-wheel boat. You make no headway. A horse is so top-heavy that he can neither swim nor stand up in the Dead Sea. He turns over on ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... originated in the engine-room, where steam was constantly kept up to pump fresh air into the waters of the aquaria and to propel the immense fans for cooling the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... having made any attempt to use his privilege, repealing the grant to him, and conferring similar privileges on Robert R. Livingston, for the term of twenty years, on a suggestion, made by him, that he was possessor of a mode of applying the steam-engine to propel a boat, on new and advantageous principles. On the 5th of April, 1803, another act was passed, by which it was declared, that the rights and privileges granted to Robert R. Livingston by the last act should be ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... that might bring us together! Bertha was on that vessel, trusting, perhaps, entirely to me: and what could I do if some breeze did not bring us together? I looked about for something on which I might float to her; but if I made a raft I was not sure that I could steer or propel it, and I might float away and become a third derelict. Once I thought of boldly springing into the water, and swimming to her; but the distance was considerable, my swimming powers were only moderate, and there might be sharks. The risk was too great. But surely we would come together. ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... John Fitch the sole right to use steamboats on the Hudson, and granting the privilege to Chancellor Livingston for a term of twenty years, provided that within a year he should build a boat of twenty tons capacity and propel it by steam at a speed of four miles an hour. John Fitch had disappeared, and with him his idea of applying steam to paddles. He had fitted a steam engine of his own invention into a ferry-boat of ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... not this same thing produced when one has been running rapidly for a few minutes? For a very good reason: in this case the rapid inhalations are preceded by the violent throes of the heart to propel the carbonized blood from the overworked tissues and have them set free at the lungs where the air is rushing in at the normal ratio of four to one. This is not an abnormal action, but is of necessity, or asphyxia would instantly result and the runner would drop. Such sometimes occurs where the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... agony, and so forth, and so forth. She also, at Mrs. Tarbell's request, gave to the jury several interesting details concerning, first, her sewing-machine; second, the income she had been used to make by it; third, the effect of the accident upon her power to propel the aforesaid engine. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... from their present predicament became a most important one. The first suggestion was that they construct a small and easily managed raft from a portion of the material contained in the Venture. They foresaw that it would be impossible for them to propel even this against the swift current and reach the river, where they might procure relief from some passing boat. Still, even to drift with the current, or at the best to work their way diagonally across it, with the hope of reaching some ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... and propel the sleds, riding on them, too," declared Mark. "Such wind as there is is pretty steadily at our backs. ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... was abreast of the encampment, and in spite of the frantic efforts of her crew to propel her shoreward she drifted momentarily closer to the cataract below. Manifestly it was impossible to row out and intercept the derelict before she took the plunge, and so, helpless in this extremity, the audience began to stream down over the rounded boulders ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... doubled up the head and feet begin to sink, so that the teacher must follow close after the pupil to make the pupil keep the back well hollowed and the chest expanded. Beginners will be surprized at the ease with which back strokes propel the body through the water without any undue effort. To one who has never been used to swimming without support it gives a wonderful feeling of exhilaration to propel one's self through the water and then, when tired, to slowly bring the arms back under water until the thumbs come ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... primary oceanic humps: he pursued the subject into geographical detail. He pointed out that, although the rise and fall of the tide at mid-ocean islands would be but small, yet on stretches of coast the wave would fling itself, and by its momentum would propel the waters, to a much greater height—for instance, 20 or 30 feet; especially in some funnel-shaped openings like the Bristol Channel and the Bay of Fundy, where the concentrated impetus of the water ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... long did the work continue,—only an interval of an hour being appropriated to the midday meal. Excursions, too, were made from point to point,—the oars serving to propel the half-constructed craft: the object of these excursions being to pick up such pieces of timber, ropes, or other articles as Snowball had not already secured. The aid of the others now rendered many items available which Snowball had formerly rejected ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... various planets, and that it is the individual eighth ray of each planet which "reflects," or propels the light thus obtained out into space once more. The solar eighth ray would be absorbed by the surface of Barsoom, but the Barsoomian eighth ray, which tends to propel light from Mars into space, is constantly streaming out from the planet constituting a force of repulsion of gravity which when confined is able to lift enormous weights from the surface of ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they must expect to be attacked from the fore part of the vessel. His shot-gun was lying on the table. He took it up, and faced forward again; several canoes were scurrying past and away from the ship as fast as the current and many arms could propel them. He fired both barrels at those within range on the port side. He reloaded, and the sharp snapping of revolver-shots told him that Tollemache and the Chilean ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the railroad do not enter these tunnels, there is a large building at this entrance which is to be inhabited by steam-engines of a stationary turn of mind, and different constitution from the traveling ones, which are to propel the trains through the tunnels to the terminus in the town, without going out of their houses themselves. The length of the tunnel parallel to the one we passed through is (I believe) two thousand two hundred yards. I wonder if you are understanding ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... mechanical part of digestion is performed by the muscles that encircle the food canal. Their uses, which have already been mentioned in connection with the different organs of digestion, may be here summarized: They supply the necessary force for masticating the food. They propel the food through the canal. They mix the food with the different juices. At certain places they partly or completely close the passage until a digestive process is completed. They may even cause a ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... from his lap towards the window when he had started suddenly to his feet at the apparition of grace and beauty. As he still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped, this would have been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavored at the same moment, by a backward furtive kick, to propel the hat out of the window, at which she laughingly broke from his grasp and flew to ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... with respect to abandoning my master, thank the blessed virgin, that is a crime of which no one can accuse me. A man cannot help feeling shy at engaging in broils and combats, if his star doth not propel him thereto,—and that in verity is pretty nearly my case; but if any one is tempted to question my fidelity, this miserable carcass of mine can bear witness to the contrary, by displaying the honorable bruises I have ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... homologous parts, which undergo various modifications—beneath and through which a common plan of formation is discernible. But if I look at the same part physiologically, I see that it is a most beautifully constructed organ of locomotion, by means of which the animal can swiftly propel itself either backwards ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... them. Now it takes hold of you, and makes you feel that you are a stockholder in the public morality. Children make men better citizens. Of what use would an engine be to a ship, if it were lying loose in the hull? It must be fastened to it with bolts and screws, before it can propel the vessel. Now a childless man is just like a loose engine. A man must be bolted and screwed to the community before he can begin to work for its advancement; and there are no such screws ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... his child being near, combined with the agony of disappointment on seeing her torn, as it were, out of his very grasp, was too much for him. His reasoning powers were completely overturned; he continued to buffet the waves with wild energy, and to strain every fiber of his being in the effort to propel himself through the water, long after the boat was ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... and at long intervals. Then you heard a short catching snore, which shook the whole body of the animal, and passed with the motion of a wave over its fat surface, which, moreover, felt cold. I thought how much the heart under such circumstances must be laboring to propel the blood through the lungs and throughout the body. The gold medal pigs of Mr. Moreland were in a similar condition, if anything, worse; for they snored and gasped for breath, their mouths being opened, as well as their nostrils dilated, at each inspiration. ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... any credit for that think! I just recalled an advertisement I had read about self-starters. Nearly all of them say the starters alone will propel the car for some distance. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... consisted of two "Parsons" turbines placed on either side of the keel. Driven with extreme rapidity by the engine, they urged the boat onward in the water by twin screws, and I even questioned if they were not powerful enough to propel the machine through ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... my pulpit will testify that I never spared my lungs or their ears in the delivery of my discourses. The preaching of the Gospel is spiritual gunnery, and many a well-loaded cartridge has failed to reach its mark from lack of powder to propel it. The prime duty of God's ambassador is to arouse the attention of souls before his pulpit; to stir those who are indifferent; to awaken those who are impenitent; to cheer the sorrow-stricken; to strengthen the weak, and edify believers An advocate in ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... water she saw a sight that sent her back with a bound. There was a boat mid-lake; two men were in it. One was rowing; the other had a gun in his hand. What should she do? With only a moment's hesitation she plunged into the lake. Her tired legs could not propel the tired body rapidly. ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... entire volume might be sent into a conductor. By cutting across this conductor, and causing the further part to rotate upon the nearer, I could divert the current through any required angle. Thus I could turn the repulsion upon the resistant body (sun or planet), and so propel the vessel in any direction ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Evans had time and again asserted that vessels could be thus navigated. He did not contend with John Fitch, but on the contrary tried to aid him and advised him to use other means than oars to propel his boat. But Fitch was wedded to his own methods. In 1805 Mr. Evans published a book on the steam engine, mainly devoted to his form thereof. In this book he gives directions how to propel boats by means of his engine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... in which the force employed to propel the bullet is the elasticity of compressed atmospheric air. It has attached to it, or constructed in it, a reservoir of compressed air, a portion of which, liberated into the space behind the bullet when the trigger is pulled, propels the bullet ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the schoolroom as regularly as the others. It adjoined her apartments, and her wheeled chair required a very slight exertion of strength on the part of friend or servant to propel it ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... used his rifle for the implement, as he had done more than once before. Holding it by the barrel, he swung the stock through the current and found it served his purpose well. A slight force is sufficient to propel an Indian canoe through or over the water, and the task was easy enough ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... oars might be employed to propel and direct a balloon. The immediate failure of all endeavours of this sort, led them, still pursuing the analogy between a balloon and a ship at sea, to try to navigate the air with sails. This again proved futile. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... is very rapid, usually at the rate of four or five miles an hour, when at its height; and it requires a strong wind to propel a boat with a sail against it. Steam overcomes its force, for boats ply regularly from St. Louis to the towns and landings on its banks within the borders of the state, and return with the produce of the country. Small steamboats have gone to ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... attached at the lower corner to the crank of the sprocket wheel and having a handle at each of its upper corners. It is hinged upon a fulcrum which slides upon the two vertical rods shown in the illustration. It will be seen that this gives a peculiar movement to the handles by which the operators propel the car, but it has been found that the motion is an excellent one, and it is claimed that a higher speed can be obtained with the mechanism here shown than with any other now in use. There is practically no dead center, as in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... hot but magnificent; corridor, piazza, colonnade, and garden were empty of life, except for a listless negro servant dawdling here and there. Virginia managed to find a wheel-chair under the colonnade and a fat black boy at the control to propel it; and with her letter hidden in her glove, and her heart racing, she seated herself, parasol tilted, chin in the air, and the chair rolled noiselessly away through the dazzling sunshine ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... condition essential to the art of skating is also involved in the melting of the ice. The sinking of the skate gives the skater "bite." This it is which enables him to urge himself forward. So long as skates consisted of the rounded bones of animals, the skater had to use a pointed staff to propel himself. In creating bite, the skater again unconsciously appeals to the peculiar physical properties of ice. The pressure required for the propulsion of the skater is spread all along the length of the groove he has cut in the ice, and obliquely downwards. The skate will not slip away laterally, ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... and made about four miles an hour during the day. It was slow but sure, and no mode of travel, even at the present day, could have suited my mother better. She was a great invalid from rheumatism, and had to be lifted whenever she moved. When put in her wheel-chair, she could propel herself on a level floor, or could move about her room very slowly and with great difficulty on her crutches, but she was always bright, sunny-tempered, and uncomplaining, constantly occupied with her books, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... knew what to do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the verge of the horizon, an object rose dimly to view, which, after carefully studying for some time, the shipwrecked people agreed was a small island, but, as we have stated, they were powerless to propel their craft thither, and could only gaze and sigh for the refuge that was as much beyond their reach, as though it were a thousand ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... and paddled with powerful strokes; he left Will on the opposite bank, and returned as swiftly as he could propel the light craft. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... importance, when compared with all the devices of man, it may be likened to those great principles which guide the movements of the universe, contrasted with the contrivances by which men produce particular results for their own convenience; and one might as well expect to move a planet by machinery, or propel a comet by the power of steam, as to preserve the semblance of order in the moral world, without those fundamental principles of rectitude which form a part of the original constitution ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... Italians. The Austrian dreadnought, Viribus Unitis, was torpedoed in a most ingenious fashion by two resolute officers, Lieutenant Raffaele Paolucci, a doctor, and Major Raffaele Rossetti. In October 1917 they independently invented a very small and light compressed-air motor which could be used to propel a mine into an enemy harbour. They submitted their schemes to the Naval Inventions Board, were given an opportunity of meeting, and after three months had brought their invention into a practical form. The naval authorities, however, refused ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... to propel the boat with hand levers which are connected with rods to sprocket wheels on each side of the platform. The occupant of the rear seat contributes his part of the power with his feet on pedals of the shaft that carries the sprocket wheels. This shaft and sprocket ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... one another at distances of about three feet, and lashed with sealskin thongs to stout transverse poles. Over these was laid a floor or platform about ten feet by twelve, leaving room at the bow and stern of each canoe for men with paddles who were to guide and propel the unwieldy craft in some unknown, but, doubtless, satisfactory manner. On the platform, which was covered to a depth of six inches with freshly cut grass, we pitched our little cotton tent, and transformed ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... globular matter. This finer matter which collects in the centre of each vortex is the first matter of Descartes—it constitutes the sun or star. The spherical particles are the second matter of Descartes, and their tendency to propel one another from the centre in straight lines towards the circumference of each vortex is what gives rise to the phenomenon of light radiating from the central star. This second matter is atmosphere or firmament, which envelops and revolves around ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... ancient Wainamoinen Built the boat with magic only, And with magic launched his vessel, Using not the hand to touch it, Using not the foot to move it, Using not the knee to turn it, Using nothing to propel it. Thus the third task was completed, For the hostess of Pohyola, Dowry for the Maid of Beauty Sitting on the arch of heaven, On the bow of ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... dissolving rainbow. All these prismatic pools are clasped by beautifully decorated curbs of silica, and seem to be set in rings of gold, with mineral colors running through them like enamel. So delicate are the touches of the magic water, as the persistent heart-beats of old Mother Earth propel it over their ornamental rims, that every ripple leaves its tiny mark. Hence it is no exaggeration, but literal truth, to say that beautiful mosaic work is being formed each time the films of boiling water are ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... power of describing individual achievements, with a clear perception of general causes, and the generalizing faculty of enlarged philosophy. He must combine in his mind the powers of the microscope and the telescope; be ready, like the steam-engine, at one time to twist a fibre, at another to propel an hundred-gun ship. Hence the rarity of eminence in this branch of knowledge; and if we could conceive a writer who, to the ardent genius and descriptive powers of Gibbon, should unite the lucid glance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... be somewhat less than with the screw, but the work to be done by the bell will always remain large, whatever type of conveyor may be adopted. A further plan for securing a carbide-feed consists in employing some extraneous driving power to propel a charge of carbide out of a reservoir into the generator. Sometimes the propulsive effort is obtained from a train of clockwork, sometimes from a separate supply of water under high pressure. The clockwork or the water power ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... allowed that the heart in contracting sometimes propels and sometimes does not propel, or at most propels but very little, a mere nothing, or an imaginary something: all this, indeed, has already been refuted, and is, besides, contrary both to sense and reason. For if it be a necessary effect of the dilatation of the heart that its ventricles become filled with ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... pulling apparatus are attached cylinder, pitt-man, boilers, &c., in the shape of some three or more cog-wheels, and immediately connected with them is a couple of shafts, which give a rotary motion to a couple of water-wheels, one on each side, and which usually propel a keel about 100 feet in length, and of about 75 tons burthen; over it is a roof and covering, usually called a cargo box, to protect the inside from the weather, and the whole making an appearance similar to an Ohio ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... no easy job to propel the old "billy-cart" over the fields, but Glen managed it. The scouts were just getting together for their evening camp-fire. They were all attracted by the queer vehicle and its jolly occupant and cheerfully and noisily responded to the introductions given by Apple Newton. Mr. Newton, ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... of my past experience, until, having seen my friends on the road to civilization again, I left Martin's with Steve and Carlo for my quarters on the Raquette. We hurried back up the river as fast as four strong arms could propel our light boat, and resting, the second night, at Wilbur's, on Raquette Lake, I the next morning selected a site for a camp, where we built a neat little bark-house, proof against all discomforts of an elemental character, and that night I rested under my own roof, squatter though I was. The daemon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... jolt. The camel walks between the shafts, and his great body is the chief feature of the scenery when one looks ahead. The harness gives way occasionally, and allows the shafts to fall to the ground; when this happens, the occupant runs the risk of being dumped among the ungainly feet that propel his vehicle. One experience of this kind is ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet's coffin 'twixt ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... moved by some singular enthusiasm; the exaltation of the moment possessed me, and unannounced, as yet unquestioned, I rose to my full height upon a narrow rostrum in the platform, and turning from side to side spoke with an elation that seemed to propel my ringing words over the great assembly with the power ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... more and more dependent for its prosperity and progress upon the power of the enormous engines by which its most important functions are now performed, the establishments where these engines are invented and made, and fitted into the ships which they are destined to propel, constitute really the heart of the metropolis; though, the visitor, who comes down for the first time by the East River, from the Sound, in the morning boat from Norwich or Fall River, is very prone to pass them carelessly by—his thoughts intent upon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... human machine is almost completely free. We can illustrate the defect best by comparing the movements of the heel with those of the crank-pin of an engine. One serves as the lever by which the gastrocnemius helps to propel the body; the other serves the same purpose in the propulsion of a motor cycle. On referring to Fig. 7, A, the reader will see that the piston-rod and the crank-pin are in a straight line; in such a position the engine is powerless to move the ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... fully enjoyed their heritage," he said, taking up the conversation—"Our yacht's motive power seems complex, but in reality it is very simple,—and the same force which propels this light vessel would propel the biggest liner afloat. Nature has given us all the materials for every kind of work and progress, physical and mental—but because we do not at once comprehend them we deny their uses. Nothing in the air, earth or water exists which we may not press into ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... gale, the only apparent movement of the atmosphere being that due to their own passage through it. Though heading to the northward, with the engines making a sufficient number of revolutions per minute to propel them through still air at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards that the adverse wind might be travelling at a higher speed than this, in which event they would actually be ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of silk-cotton secured to the shafts fits tightly, it can be propelled with such force by the breath that it makes a noise almost as loud as a pop-gun when flying from the muzzle. An expert Indian can propel arrows so as to kill at a distance of fifty or sixty yards. It is more useful in the forest than a gun, for the report of firearms alarms the birds or monkeys, while the silent poisoned dart brings them down one by one, until ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... occasion demanded something of him. He pricked his ears as they crossed the canon bottom and breasted the ascent as bravely as his three good legs would let him. At the top he puffed hard. Despite Pete's urging, he stood stolidly until he had gathered enough ozone to propel him farther. "Git along, you doggone ole cockroach!" said Pete. But Rowdy was firm. He turned his head and gazed sadly at his rider with one mournful eye that said plainly, "I'm doing my level best." ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... of slender ropes, which met under the centre of the gas-bag, were the car for the sailors and a small electric engine for driving a powerful screw, the wings of which striking against the air would propel the 'ship' at the rate of some nine feet a second. The baby balloon may be said to have set the example for all modern air-ships, though others something like it had been built before. Two years later Messrs. Tissandier made ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... indignation, he leaped upon it, and to my surprise, did easily propel it in whatsoever direction he pleased, and its motive power appeared to be similar in every respect to the rest; so, beguiled by his representations that, under his instructions, I should speedily become a chef-d'oeuvre, I once more suffered myself to mount the machine; ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... that is necessary in the construction of this part of the work is to make a set of ways, and a sliding platform that will run with ease from one side of the stage to the other. A rope attached to the platform, and fastened to a crank below the stage, will propel the Goddess to her position. The ways and platform can be hidden from view by a strip of board, painted to imitate the floor of the room. A small quantity of the whitish-blue fire may be burned near the spot where ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... the ordinary sense of the word, an explosive, and was named by its inventors, "The Instantaneous Motor." It was discharged from an ordinary cannon, but no gunpowder or other explosive compound was used to propel it. The bomb possessed, in itself the necessary power of propulsion, and the gun was used merely to ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... resistance to control by any means whatever is what is commonly indicated by restive in the best English speech and literature. Dryden speaks of "the pampered colt" as "restiff to the rein;" but the rein is not used to propel a horse forward, but to hold him in, and it is against this that he is "restiff." A horse may be made restless by flies or by martial music, but with no refractoriness; the restive animal impatiently resists or struggles to break from control, as by bolting, flinging his rider, or ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... seem like an excess of caution for Kenton to hesitate to propel his boat across this open space when it confronted him. That there was any dusky foe crouching in the woods, with his eyes fixed upon that "clearing" in the water and watching for the appearance of ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... the engine-room were the two motors, one designed to send the projectile through the atmosphere, the other intended to propel it through the space filled ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... Ceasing their efforts to propel the boat the boys handled the oars only enough to keep their tiny craft properly ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Professor, as usual, uttered a few words of advice: "One of us must sit in the bow, one at the stern, and the other amidships. The one at the stern must propel the boat, as we cannot row through many of the places, and as the water is not deep, that will not be a difficult task. The ones at the bow and amidships should have the guns, and if there is no objection, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... still-fishing—that is to fish from the bank or from an anchored boat, and not move around very much. And some like to troll, I suppose—that is to use an artificial bait and let the line drag in the water quite a distance back of the row boat as you propel it through the water. And others, perhaps, like to cast—that is, to throw the bait away out into the water and then bring it in again by winding up the line on the reel. And some, I suppose, like to use other methods of catching fish. But I am going to speak only of the artificial ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... the ladies and Mr. Lamb came to see the expedition under way. It was arranged that Timotheus should drive the Squire and the lawyer to the masked road and leave them there, after which he was to take the others to Richards place, put up the horses, and help them to propel the scow through the lakes and channels. Accordingly, the treasure seekers got out the pick and shovel, and trudged along to the scene of the late fire. As they neared the Encampment, their road became a difficult and ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... paddled by two Indians. The boat was long and narrow, similar in form to those that ply on the Thames. The canoe was of the lightest possible construction, being composed of thin hickory ribs covered with bark. In calm weather, the Indians propel these vessels through the water with astonishing velocity; but when the wind is high, and the water much disturbed, their progress is greatly impeded. It so happened on this day that the water was rough, and consequently unfavourable to the Aborigines. At ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... use of sails almost entirely discarded for war purposes, and for mercantile purposes relegated to ships for special service and of continually decreasing importance. He lived to see the steam-engine take its place as the only means for supplying the power required to propel warships, and attain a position of almost equal relative importance in the mercantile marine. He lived to see the paddle-wheel grow in importance and estimation as a means of propulsion only in turn to be supplanted by the screw-propeller, which gradually increased in engineering ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... to go up or down any stairs. This is one of the beauties of the hut system. It consumes a big area, but it is all on one level—the ground level. The patient on crutches can go anywhere without fear of tripping, the patient in a wheeled chair can propel himself anywhere, the orderlies can push wheeled stretchers or dinner-wagons anywhere. Our visitor for C 13, having escaped from the back of the Scottish baronial building, emerges into a vista of covered corridors, wooden-floored, galvanised-iron ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... others, formed in 1907, the Aerial Experimental Association at Bell's country house in Canada, which was fruitful of results, and Curtiss scored several notable triumphs with the craft they designed. But the idea of a machine which could descend and propel itself on water possessed his mind, and in 1911 he exhibited at the aviation meet in Chicago the hydroaeroplane. An incident there set him dreaming of the life-saving systems on great waters. His ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... electroplated. Shall we wear metal clothing by and by, as well as live in metal houses? Dr Payerne has been making experiments in submarine steam navigation at Cherbourg, and with such success as to be able to sink his vessel at any moment, to live in it under water, and to propel it in any given direction. Are we to be invaded by a fleet of these artful contrivances, or is it a preparation for the escape of the future emperor from St Helena? There are one or two interesting facts from Australia, although not about gold: the bodies ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... tells against it. And it may, in any case, be regarded as showing that the novelist, even yet, was hugging the shore or allowing himself to be taken in tow—that he did not dare to launch out into the deep and trust to his own sails and the wind of nature to propel him—to his own wits and soul to guide. Even Fielding's next venture—the wonderful and almost unique venture of Jonathan Wild—leaves some objection of this sort possible, though, for myself, I should never dream of admitting it. Jonathan was (so much the worse for human nature) ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... she demanded that he should peel the sandstone, and cut her a whipstick from the ice without making a splinter. This done, she commanded that he should build her a boat from the fragments of her distaff, and set it floating without the use of his knee, arm, hand, or foot to propel it. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... strong, healthy man, kneeling before the customer with a gallantry that would be admirable in a drawing-room, and worth infinitely more than the price of the article he is selling; and he fusses over the gaiters and over the lady's foot, until you wonder if she is not tempted to propel him into a more appropriate sphere. (Laughter). Whatever possessed men to imagine that God designed them to fit ladies' gaiters, is more than I can imagine. (Applause). I am unable to realize how they obtained the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and made from planks, and built up on keels. They have vireys and barangays, which are certain quick and light vessels that lie low in the water, put together with little wooden nails. These are as slender at the stern as at the bow, and they can hold a number of rowers on both sides, who propel their vessels with bucceyes or paddles, and with gaones [239] on the outside of the vessel; and they time their rowing to the accompaniment of some who sing in their language refrains by which they understand whether to hasten or retard their rowing. [240] Above the ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... merely supporting myself upon it and passively allowing the wind and sea to take me whithersoever they would; there was land in sight, and it was my purpose to reach it, if possible, therefore I required something in the nature of a paddle wherewith to propel my hatch and guide it in the right direction; and presently I saw a piece of splintered plank, about four-feet long and six inches wide, which looked more suited to my purpose than anything else in sight. I had by this time quite recovered my breath, and ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... assigned to our family alone. Our belongings were deposited and two great, black natives were placed at each end of the boat or scow. They were without clothing, save for a short, full skirt of white cloth fastened around their waists on a band. Each used a long pole to propel the scow. We were the only family of women on board the steamer. There was Mr. Biggar and his wife and a bride and her husband, besides several colored women and their husbands coming out to take positions on the Pacific steamers. All the other passengers were ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... She could propel the chair by means of rims attached to the wheels and, even as she spoke, began to roll herself out of the room. Mary Louise sprang to assist her, but the girl waved her ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... is followed by a variation in the manner in which it is suspended in the middle of the brain, and moreover that the number of different impressions on the gland is the same as that of the different external objects which propel the animal spirits toward it. Hence it comes to pass that if the gland, by the will of the soul moving it in different directions, be afterwards suspended in this or that way in which it had once been suspended by the spirits agitated in this or that way, then the gland itself ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... compound, and signifies women living alone. The Indian confirmed my observation, and related that the Aikeambenanos were a community of women, who manufactured blow-tubes* (* Long tubes made from a hollow cane, which the natives use to propel their poisoned arrows.), and other weapons of war. They admit, once a year, the men of the neighbouring nation of Vokearos into their society, and send them back with presents. All the male children born in this horde of women are ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... anchorage is dangerous in all the bays and harbors of this coast, except in the port of San Juan. Vessels are often obliged to put to sea on the menacing aspect of the heavens at this season, to avoid being driven on shore by the heavy squalls and the rolling waves of a boisterous sea, which propel them to destruction. During the remaining months the ports on this coast are safe and commodious, unless when visited by a hurricane, against whose fury no port can offer a shelter, nor any vessel be secure. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... torrent; but to compare such a log properly with the air ship we must conceive it WHOLLY submerged in the water and having no sail or other appendage projecting into the air, which would, of course, introduce other conditions. If, however, a man were to sit astride of the log and begin to propel it so that it travels either faster or slower than the stream, then in that case, either by paddle or rudder, the log could be guided, and the same might be said of Lana's air boat if only he had thought of some adequate paddle, fan, or other propeller. But he did not. One ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Those steam engines which are used to propel ships, whether on the ocean or in rivers, in contradistinction ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... approached the bank, which was here very deep and perpendicular; he then sank his fingers into and pressed his right foot against the firm blue clay with which it was stratified, and by this means advanced, bit by bit, up the stream, having no other force by which to propel himself against it. After this mode did he breast the current with all his strength—which must have been prodigious, or he never could have borne it out—until he reached the slope, and got from the influence ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... necessity drives to the water to find there prey fitted for its sustenance, opens the digits of its feet when it wishes to strike the water and propel itself along its surface. The skin which unites these digits at their base, by these acts of spreading apart being unceasingly repeated contracts the habit of extending; so that after a while the broad membranes which ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... plunged into the river and swam with powerful strokes across to where the raft was beached upon the island. Placing one paw on the raft, he turned and struck out with his other three legs and so strong was the great beast that he managed to drag the raft from off the beach and propel it slowly to where the Wizard stood ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... physically. For though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it can scarcely be regarded as in any other state ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... There he would—according to his dream—find patronage and fame; but on his arrival in the French capital he found the Reign of Terror just beginning its work. It was not likely that the Revolutionary Tribunal would give heed to an American dreamer and his proposition to propel by steam a boat on the Seine. However, Fitch went to L'Orient and deposited the plans and specifications of his invention with the American consul. Then ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... respective fluids seem to be carried on in the vessels of plants precisely as in animal bodies by their irritability to the stimulus of their adapted fluids, and not by any mechanical or chemical attraction, for their absorbent vessels propel the juice upwards, which they drink up from the earth, with great violence; I suppose with much greater than is exerted by the lacteals of animals, probably owing to the greater minuteness of these vessels in vegetables and the greater rigidity of their ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... hypertrophied in disease, the cavities of the ventricles are probably also generally enlarged, and therefore they propel more blood at each contraction than in normal persons and ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... forces, in conjunction, Propel the high poetic function, As in a love-adventure they might play! You meet by accident; you feel, you stay, And by degrees your heart is tangled; Bliss grows apace, and then its course is jangled; ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... would seem to be the correct principle, and most of the early experimenters conducted their operations on this line. It is now generally understood, however, that the bird in soaring is in reality an aeroplane, its extended wings serving to sustain, as well as propel, the body. At any rate the ornithoper has not been successful in aviation, and has been interesting mainly as an ingenious toy. Attempts to construct it on a scale that would permit of its use by man in actual aerial flights have ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... well known that the ordinary means employed to propel light machinery by the foot are fatiguing in the extreme and although the best of these is the rock shaft with foot pieces, employed almost universally in modern sewing machines, this requires the operator to sit bolt upright, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... through the air with rapid wing-beats and rather labored flight, and compass only short distances. Among the birds of this kind of aerial movement may be mentioned the American meadowlark, the bob-white, and the pheasant. Other species propel themselves in rapid, gliding, and continued flight by means of long, narrow, and pointed wings, like the swifts, swallows, and goatsuckers, while many others, notably herons, hawks, vultures, and eagles, are distinguished by a vast alar expansion in proportion to their weight, and hence ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... try to penetrate the orifice which I had entered; but, as soon as I got upon my feet, the slight muscular effort that I made in walking lifted me again into the air, and I found myself once more in equilibrium. At first this discouraged and perplexed me; but observing that I could propel myself with the greatest ease by just fanning the air, as before, with my cap, I concluded that this was a very easy as well as rapid mode of locomotion. As I advanced farther and farther into the cavity, I found that the grating noise, to which I have alluded, grew louder and more ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... drift at a pretty good rate right in the "wind's eye." This is accounted for by the play of the body, which naturally lies head to wind; and the wash of the flukes, which, acting somewhat like the "sculling" of an oar at the stern of a boat, propel the carcass in the direction it is pointing, Consequently we had a cruel amount of towing to do before we got the three cows alongside. Many a time we blessed ourselves that they were no bigger, for of all the clumsy things to tow with boats, a sperm whale is about the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... under the floor of Zeno's dwelling; he then lit a fire, which soon caused steam to pass through the tube in such a quantity as to make the floors to heave as if by an earthquake. But to return. We next come to Blasco de Garay (A.D. 1543), who proposed to propel a ship by the power of steam. So much cold water seems to have been thrown on his engine, that it must have condensed all his steam, as little notice is taken of it except that he got no encouragement. We find that it has also been ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... still bent on building boats; seeing that everybody seemed reluctant to help him he went to work himself; he made an immense flat-bottomed bulrush boat of great thickness, and to propel it made two large wheels worked by hand: in fact he had invented a paddle steamer, only the locomotive agent was deficient. We saw it several times on the water; the wheels were rather high up and it required at least a hundred men on ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... the nutrient globes or cubes; And urged by appetencies new select, Imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject. In branching cones the living web expands, Lymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands; 260 Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood, And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood; Leaves, lungs, and gills, the vital ether breathe On earth's green surface, or the waves beneath. So Life's first powers arrest the winds and floods, To bones convert them, or to ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector, through large-scale state enterprises and extensively subsidizes agricultural, fishing, and other sectors. Norway also maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public-sector expenditures to slightly more than 50% of the GDP and results in one of the highest average tax burdens in the world (54%). A small country with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed goods, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... time to leave the feet and legs free. A horse used its feet to draw a coach and why not a man! So the velocipede was constructed for the rider's feet to just reach the ground, and by pressing first one foot on the ground and then the other he managed in this undignified attitude, to propel the thing along! ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... and he would not explode. His only failing was that he would leave the track; and to remedy this defect the early railroad builders hit upon a happy device. Sometimes they would fix a treadmill inside the car; two horses would patiently propel the caravan, the seats for passengers being arranged on either side. So unformed was the prevalent conception of the ultimate function of the railroad, and so pronounced was the fear of monopoly that, on certain lines, the roadbed ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... will briefly give you my history. I was, in youth, they termed an idle dreamer—ever on the alert for new discoveries—and was more laughed at than encouraged in my pursuit of rare inventions. More than fifty years ago I ascertained that steam might be made to propel machinery. I attempted to explain the principles of this discovery to my fellow-men, and to convince them of the vast benefits that might result from it. I was not heeded—nay, I was insulted by their indifference—and ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... presently that he could steer as well as propel his float with his feet. So he set to work, threshing the water very slowly and carefully, and turning his head towards the mouth of the Licking. Occasionally he heard the sounds of both oars and paddles, but he judged very accurately that those who ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... I endeavored to support my assertion that the lizard belongs where I had placed it, be-. cause he has four distinct legs which propel him everywhere, on the ground or in the water. But my opponent claimed that the creature under dispute does not walk, but creeps. My strongest argument was that it had legs; but Oesedah insisted that its body touches the ground as it moves. As a last resort, I volunteered ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Jukes, for all his defects, had the soul of a true golfer. He declined to give up. In grim silence he hacked his ball through the rough till he reached the high road; and then, having played twenty-seven, set himself resolutely to propel ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... were Emperor of Russia I would issue a special edict expelling fleas from my dominions and ordering that the labor expended in scratching should be devoted to agriculture or the mechanic arts. I suggested that the engines should be removed from the Ingodah and a treadmill erected for the fleas to propel the boat. There have been exhibitions where fleas were trained to draw microscopic coaches and perform other fantastic tricks; but whatever their ability I would wager that the insects on that steamboat could not be outdone in industry by any ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... can possibly urge forward? The idle bark stands still, though winged with swelling sails, and has no way on her though the breeze is propitious; she is fixed without anchors; she is moored without cables, and these tiny animals pull back, more than all such favouring powers can propel. Therefore when the subject wave would hasten the vessel's course, it appears that it stands fixed on the surface of the sea: and in marvellous style the floating ship is retained immovable, while the wave is hurried along by ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... a crooked iron hook to propel, I find much in use, but—and it may be because I am a bit old-fashioned—I much prefer the well-made, wooden hoop with a wooden stick. Why, I've had no end of fun with a wooden barrel hoop, but I could never make the iron barrel ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... is that explosive charges would propel a rocket or space ship more effectively in the (theoretical) emptiness of space, than in our atmosphere. But to my mind it is quite possible that an explosion—a violent expansion of gases causing rapid increase of pressures—would be ineffectual where there ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... being, essentially, an oar vessel, had to fulfil certain simple conditions. She had to be light, or men might not row her. She had to be long, or she might not carry enough oarsmen to propel her with sufficient swiftness. Her lightness, and lack of draught, made it impossible for her to carry much provision; while the number of her oars made it necessary for her to carry a large crew of rowers, in addition to her soldiers and sail trimmers. It was therefore impossible for such ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... rapidly on, he scarcely knew or cared whither. The excited state of his mind seemed to propel him to celerity of flight. This quickness of movement acted as a safety-valve, and let off some of ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... and they carry either pike poles or peaveys, Fig. 17. The latter are similar to cant-hooks, except that they have sharp pikes at their ends. So armed, they have to "ride any kind of a log in any water, to propel a log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skilful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft." Altho the logs are carried by the river, they have to be "driven" ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes |
