"Propulsion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... available was a flat-bottomed punt used by fishermen, and at present moored to a stake at the river-bank. It was capacious, certainly, but not exactly the sort of boat in which to get up much pace, particularly as its sole apparent mode of propulsion was by means of two very long boat-hooks, one on either side. These details, however, presented few obstacles to the minds of the enterprising explorers. The punt was in many ways adapted for a voyage such as they proposed ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... exception of Miss Toddle, no customer appeared. The teams went slowly down the steep side of the Square in an unbroken line, and slowly down the street leading from its near corner. On the slope the horses were unable to go fast—being forced to stell themselves back against the heavy propulsion of the carts behind; and thus the procession endured for a length of time worthy its surpassing greatness. When it disappeared round the Bend o' the Brae the watching bodies disappeared too; the event of the day had passed, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... to fame arises from his endeavours to introduce steam-power as an agent in the propulsion of ships at sea. Mr. Clerk of Eldin had already invented the system of "breaking the line" in naval engagements—a system that was first practised with complete success by Lord Rodney in his engagement off Martinico in 1780. The subject interested Mr. Miller so much that he ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... heavy web frames inside. The author next considered the question of stability, and went on to deal with the subject of twin screws, and stated that the Barrow Shipbuilding Company has done more in the way of planning and designing for the adoption of twin screws lately than for any other mode of propulsion, and this chiefly for passenger steamers. He did not attach much importance to the particular form of the blade either in single or twin screws, as he believed so long as the disk area, the surface, and pitch were properly adjusted to the speed of the vessel, and to enable the engines to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... sailing-ships as well as steamers. The situation had become acute. Through the great loss of tonnage in the Civil War, and through the steadily advancing change from wood to iron in ship construction and from sail to steam propulsion, the American merchant marine had been brought distressingly low. From 1861, when the United States was standing second in rank among the nations in the extent of her ocean tonnage, to 1866, this tonnage ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... witnessed; our misgivings are as to the cost. The railway is the invention of the well known hydraulic engineer, Monsieur Girard, who, as early as 1852, endeavored to replace the ordinary steam traction on railways by hydraulic propulsion, and in 1854 sought to diminish the resistance to the movement of the wagons by removing the wheels, and causing them to slide on broad rails. In order to test the invention, Mons. Girard demanded, and at the end of 1869 obtained, a concession ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... indicated that it was built to attain great speed, and yet as I stepped into it through a door that closed flush with the rounded sides, I was astonished at seeing no traces of machinery. Instantly I became aware of the extraordinary means of propulsion, however, and so simple, yet so effective, was it, that I could not restrain a cry of admiration at this ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... expelled from those very States not a month ago.' 'Your niggers here are free, and they are worse off than ours; why don't you mend their condition first?' And so the attack and reply went on (this was Sunday evening) for half an hour, amidst laughter, jeers, and the occasional propulsion, by fellows behind, of some unlucky lad or other against the poor preacher's horse; a movement which endangered the woman and child especially, but which appeared to give great satisfaction to many, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... line of the tough, leathery countenance told a falsehood. But he had made his experiment and failed. He knew what manner of man his captor was, and he had no mind for another lesson from him. He slouched to his horse, under propulsion of the revolver, and led the animal into ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... world, China relied upon navigation by junks, which crept slowly against the current when urged by strong winds, and lay idle or were towed or poled by men when calms or head-breezes prevailed. Of steam applied to propulsion, she had no knowledge, until steamboats of foreign construction appeared in her waters and roused the wonder of the oblique-eyed natives by their mysterious powers. The first steamboat to ascend a Chinese river created a greater sensation than ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... with passengers; a Pullman car weighs about 30 tons. Our steamers consume 5 lbs. of coal per horse-power in one hour. And last, not least, one of the greatest improvements we have had in steam propulsion is the screw. Again, I may also name the great advantage derived from steam by our farmers in thrashing out grain. The engines principally used in farm-work are what are termed high-pressure, or of the ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... things; all obey His first propulsion from the night; Wake thou and watch! the world is gray With ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... are shallow, poles are used, which the men handled very dexterously, nicking in and out amongst the rocks and rapids in the neatest way; but in the main the propulsion was by our paddles, a delight to me, having been bred to canoeing from boyhood. We stopped for luncheon at a lovely "place of trees" overhanging a deep, dark, alluring pool, where we knew there were fish, but had no time to make a cast. So far ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw that the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside the car peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him after a moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion is subject. The driver, without looking up, called his colleague a number of the most surprising and, it is to be hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow under the tram, wriggling ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... to this observation; he seemed to be thinking of something. After a moment he said, 'If you'll come and see us in town she'll show you the vase.' And as they passed into the drawing-room he gave the artist a friendly propulsion. 'Go and speak to her; there she is—she'll ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... invented it anew in 1782, by admitting the steam alternately at both ends of the cylinder, it was too awkward and clumsy to become a practical navigator. Moreover, though it could pump admirably, it had not been taught to turn a crank. The French assert, that experiments in steam-propulsion were made on the Seine, by Count Auxiron and Perrier, in 1774, and on the Saone, by De Jouffroy, in 1782; but we know they led to no practical results, and the knowledge of them probably did not, for some years, travel beyond the limits ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... of way that sailing is managed on the upper reaches of the river; but every now and then we came on barges, laden with hay or other country produce, or carrying bricks, lime, timber, and the like, and these were going on their way without any means of propulsion visible to me—just a man at the tiller, with often a friend or two laughing and talking with him. Dick, seeing on one occasion this day, that I was looking rather hard on one of these, said: "That is one of our force-barges; it is quite as ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... strained hearing for a false note in the confused jumble of sound—a clicking of steel out of tune, which would indicate a loosened key or nut. On deck, sailors set the triangular sails on the two masts, to add their propulsion to the momentum of the record-breaker, and the passengers dispersed themselves as suited their several tastes. Some were seated in steamer chairs, well wrapped—for, though it was April, the salt air was chilly—some paced the deck, acquiring their sea legs; ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... great question of twin screw propulsion has been put to the test upon a large scale in the mercantile marine, or rather in what would usually be termed the passenger service. While engineers, however, are prepared to admit its advantages so far as greater security from total breakdown is concerned, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... trouble trembled in that throat, What sweet distraction for the summer moon, That lured you out, a frail, careering boat, Across the midnight's purple, deep lagoon! Some fire of madness lit that tiny brain, Some soft propulsion clouded through your breast, And lifted you, a white and moving stain Against the dark of ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... connection with the discovery of electric power and electric light. Perhaps the most important invention, however, was that of the working steam engine, made by Watt only about a hundred years ago. The most recent application of this form of energy has been in the propulsion of ships, which has already produced so great an effect upon commerce, navigation, and the spread of population over ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... the accounts of the Caesarian section, and of the towering geniuses who had come safe into the world by it, cast upon this hypothesis? Here you see, he would say, there was no injury done to the sensorium;—no pressure of the head against the pelvis;—no propulsion of the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, either by the os pubis on this side, or os coxygis on that;—and pray, what were the happy consequences? Why, Sir, your Julius Caesar, who gave the operation a ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... is less than two decades old, and successful dirigible propulsion antedates it by a very short period, the mass of experiment and accomplishment renders any one-volume history of the subject a matter of selection. In addition to the restrictions imposed by space limits, the material for compilation is fragmentary, and, in many cases, scattered through ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... with the strict and sombre view of pleasure which tended to repress poetry in the attempt to repress vice. Sorrow and joy have each their peculiar narrowness; and a religious enthusiasm like Savonarola's which ultimately blesses mankind by giving the soul a strong propulsion towards sympathy with pain, indignation against wrong, and the subjugation of sensual desire, must always incur the reproach of a great negation. Romola's life had given her an affinity for sadness which inevitably made her unjust ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and substantial progress is being made in each successive case. The prejudices against the application of secondary batteries are being rapidly dispelled, and there are indications everywhere that this method of propulsion will soon take a recognized place among the great transit facilities in the United States. I feel convinced that this country will also in this respect be far ahead of Europe before another year has passed over ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... is frequently hard to be got at,—and so are the future guineas that now lie ripening and aurifying in the womb of some undiscovered Potosi; but dig, dig, dig, dig, Manning! I set to with an unconquerable propulsion to write, with a lamentable want of what to write. My private goings on are orderly as the movements of the spheres, and stale as their music to angels' ears. Public affairs, except as they touch ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... window, and gazed out into the darkness. He considered piously the wonders of terrestrial life, a succession of accidents all foreordained by God, an apparent drifting that was in fact one steady propulsion by the hand of fate. From the rich, ancestral house of coraline limestone across the sea to strange lands. From dignity to abasement. From loneliness to this faint, delicious fragrance in which the heart dissolved. From a dream of freedom ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... of No. 1 cylinder had cracked, otherwise the machine was in good order. 'Evidently,' Scott wrote in reference to this misfortune, 'the engines are not [Page 332] fitted for working in this climate, a fact that should be certainly capable of correction. One thing is proved: the system of propulsion is altogether satisfactory. The motor party has proceeded as a man-hauling ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... were not disposed to inquire into the mysteries of high finance and the nature of public credit. All doubts were laid to rest by the magic phrase "natural resources."[57] Mass-meetings here and there gave propulsion to the movement.[58] Candidates for State office were forced to make the maddest pledges. A grand demonstration was projected at Vandalia just as ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... a vertical one. He glanced up at the quiet stars, at the same time emptying his lungs of air. With swift, vigorous propulsion of hands and feet, he lifted his shoulders and half his chest out of water. This was to gain impetus for the descent. Then he let himself go and sank without movement, a white statue, into the sea. He breathed in the water deeply, deliberately, after the manner of a man taking ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... destruction. The drive unit of a tug is a super-heavy duty workhorse of a unit chock full of more power than would ever be packed or needed in a conventional ship of the same size. But as I said before, this was a propulsion unit from a tug, and tugs like ones we use need ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell
... to Betty as soon as he found opportunity. He did not quite know why. He did not stop to ask himself why. It was a purely instinctive propulsion. He followed his impulse as the needle swings to the pole; as an object released from the hand at a great height obeys the force of gravity; ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... ultimately on the dominant weapon in use, and throughout the sailing period the dominant weapon was, as now, the gun. In face of so fundamental a resemblance no tactician can afford to ignore the sailing system merely because the method of propulsion and the nature of the material have changed. It is not the principles of tactics that such changes affect, but merely the method ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... located. This same James Furnivale Woolsen, being an ambitious person, was not to be so easily put down. Besides the consent and petitions, which Cowperwood could not easily get away from him, he had a new form of traction then being tried out in several minor cities—a form of electric propulsion by means of an overhead wire and a traveling pole, which was said to be very economical, and to give a service better than cables and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... The final propulsion was to come from an entirely different quarter. In November, 1847, the Reverend Mr. Gorham was presented by the Lord Chancellor to the living of Bramford Speke in the diocese of Exeter. The Bishop, Dr. Phillpotts, was a High Churchman, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... is present in some mammals, but it is by no means so phenomenal as in some species of birds. In mammals it is individual rather than species-wide. Individual horses, dogs and cats have done wonderful things under the propulsion of the homing instinct, but that instinct is by no means general throughout those species. Among wild animals, exhibitions of the home-finding instinct are rare, but the annals of the Zoological Park contain ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... great nation from barbarism to an elementary form of culture is always interesting. So, too, is the same transition in the case of a "great profession." In 1840, when the propulsion of ships by means of a steam-driven screw opened a new era in maritime history, the "practical man" in the engineering trade was an uneducated savage. Possessing no trade union, no voice in Parliament, no means of educating ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... time in putting the two branches they had cut to use as paddles into action. It was hard work but they found to their delight that their raft moved when they dug into the water with their clumsy means of propulsion. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... Robert Fulton for the practical application of steam to the purposes of navigation. Whatever has been claimed for or by others in regard to the priority of the invention or application of the mighty power of steam to the propulsion of vessels, Fulton was "the first to apply it with any degree of practical success," as an English work states it. As one who labored for years over the idea which came from his own brain, though it also came to others, who ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various |
