"Semicircular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the eastward the dining-room opened amply, and to the south there was a wide hall, where the voices of friends made themselves heard as they entered without ceremony and answered his joyous hail. At the west was a little semicircular conservatory of a pattern invented by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, and adopted in most of the houses of her kindly neighborhood. The plants were set in the ground, and the flowering vines climbed up the sides and overhung the roof above the silent spray of a fountain ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Yaverland and Sandown. We recommend the latter, as the farm-house and church at Yaverland are worthy of notice. The former is a fine capacious stone building, of the time of James I., containing some well executed specimens of carved oak. The church is annexed to the house, and has a curious semicircular doorway. Culver Cliffs, about a mile and a half from Yaverland, may be approached by a footpath across the fields, which will also lead to Hermit's Hole, a cavern of great depth in the side of the cliff. These cliffs were much celebrated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... under a catafalque which stood in the middle of the area. The semicircular space behind the steps of the altar was screened by a drapery of black cloth, which being festooned towards the middle, gave a partial view of the vocal and instrumental orchestra, disposed not in the usual form of a gradual ascent ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... highest of several semicircular ridges whose forms may perhaps be better understood by the accompanying plan.* There was a remarkable analogy in the form and position of all these hills; the form being usually that of a curve, concentric with the lake, and the position invariably on the eastern or north-eastern ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... horseshoe shaped precipice which had evidently, from the huge boulders in the channel below, been eaten back into the side of the precipice, and partly shoot out through various hidden channels which the waters have deeply cut through a huge semicircular platform of rock which overhangs the valley below. As they thus shoot out the effect is extremely striking and picturesque, and their resemblance to the spokes of light from a star no doubt caused the natives ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... young sheep began to fall into a sleepy and torpid state, and all that were affected in the evening died over-night. The intensity of the frost wind often cut them off when in that state quite instantaneously. About the ninth and tenth days, the shepherds began to build up huge semicircular walls of their dead, in order to afford some shelter for the remainder of the living; but they availed but little, for about the same time they were frequently seen tearing at one another's wool with their teeth. When the storm abated on the ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... initials "WC" in Roman letters, with the name Wynkyn de Worde at the foot; the eighth is a picturesque Mark copied from one belonging to Froben, with the omission of part of the background; it consists of a semicircular arch, supported by short-wreathed pillars, with foliated capitals, plinths and bases: on the top of each is a boy habited like a soldier, with a spear and shield bending forwards; alarge cartouche German shield is ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... ornamental fountain. A lobby separates this apartment from the bath rooms, and off it are a w.c. and a towel closet, which latter could be supplied with hot air. The combined lavatorium and tepidarium—14 ft. square—is a domed chamber, with semicircular recesses containing the plunge bath and lavatrina. A shampooing bench is shown. A marble dado surrounds the walls, and marble corbels are provided to pendentives of dome—which could be of brick ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... basket and tossed so as to bring the chaff to one side, the vessel is then heaved downwards and a little horizontal motion given to it which throws the refuse out; the partially cleared grain is now returned to the mortar, again pounded and cleared of husks, and a semicircular toss of the vessel sends all the remaining unhusked grain to one side, which is lifted out with the hand, leaving the chief part quite clean: they certainly work hard and well. The maize requires more labour by far: it is first pounded to remove the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... niche, and was led up to by a street of round pebbles, protected on each side by semicircular loosely-thrown-up stone walls. There was nothing left of the village but its foundation outlines, which at once showed simplicity of construction, as well as economy of labour in building. It lay about 50 yards to the east of the church. One straight wall ran down the centre, ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... from the others; instead of a pavilion in the centre, it will have a tower or campanile 160 feet high, flanked by two projections. The ground floor of this tower will show a stately entrance to the halls of Assembly of both branches of the Legislature, accessible through two semicircular inclined planes. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... (a space left by the semicircular benches, with wings stretching to the right and left before the scene), a small square platform served as the altar, to which moved the choral dances, still retaining the attributes of their ancient sanctity. The ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... narrow semicircular window of six-inch crystal glass running across the front of the conning-tower, which was almost as strong as steel, and saw three little dark, moving spots on the half-moonlit water, about two miles ahead, stealing up in ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... half-way up the cliff is called the Giant's Organ from its very striking resemblance to that instrument, and a single rock worn by the waves into the shape of a rude seat is his chair. A mile or two farther along the coast two cliffs project from the range, leaving a vast semicircular space between, which from its resemblance to the old Roman theaters was appropriated for that purpose by the giant. Halfway down the crags are two or three pinnacles of rock called the Chimneys, and the stumps of several others can be seen, which, it is said, were ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... under the direction of Mr. Robinson, had contrived to arch the roof, supporting it on five semicircular iron girders, which were left there visible to the eye, and which were of course painted magenta. On the foremost of these was displayed the name of the firm,—Brown, Jones, and Robinson. On the second, the ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... out of the cockpit onto the catwalk. The cabin top was just chest-high, and he could hold on by grabbing the safety rails that ran along the sides of the large sun deck. He moved swiftly along the walk to the foredeck, a small semicircular deck used primarily for docking and anchoring. The anchor line was coiled on a hook on the curving front of the cabin, and the patent anchor was stowed on the deck itself. Rick took the coil and faked down the line in smooth figure eights so ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Rastrelli so persistently served up at the close of the eighteenth century, is that of the Counts Stroganoff, at the lower quay of the Moika. The Moika (literally, Washing) River is the last of the semicircular, concentric canals which intersect the Nevsky and its two radiating companion Prospekts, and impart to that portion of the city which is situated on the (comparative) mainland a resemblance to an outspread fan, whose palm-piece is formed by the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of dwelling-houses and also paid special heed to the combination of the different parts of a town in a harmonious whole, centred round the market-place. But there seems to be no evidence for the statement sometimes made, that he had any particular liking for either a circular or a semicircular, fan-shaped town-plan. ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... to the siege of Verdun were fought at brief intervals during the next two months, down to the middle of April, and marked the climax of the War. The losses on both sides were enormous and extraordinary, and taken as a whole the struggle on the semicircular front north and east of the great French stronghold fully justified its description as "the most terrible ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... question, as a knife in his side, but the answer hung fire still and seemed to lose itself in the vague darkness to which the thin admitted dawn, glimmering archwise over the whole outer door, made a semicircular margin, a cold silvery nimbus that seemed to play a little as he looked—to shift and expand ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... semicircular implement of iron, made to be suspended over the fire, on which various things may be prepared; it is much used for ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... neglected plots between. At the extreme end of the Calle Real is the Government House, built of wood and stone, of good style and in a fair condition, with quite the appearance of an official residence. Before it is a semicircular garden, and in front of this there is a round fenced-in plot, in the middle of which stands a flag-staff. Just past the Government House there is a bridge crossing the Jaro River, which empties itself into the creek of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... presently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of a top gallery. They looked down into yawning space. The vast size of the auditorium so dwarfed the people now taking their innumerable seats, that even after the immense audience was assembled the great semicircular enclosure seemed empty and blank. It received those thousands of souls into its maw, and made no sign; awaiting some ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... necessary for trade, and that he might give orders for seeds and all other requisites, after which he would return and accept his offer. He staid twelve days at this place, more to oblige the cacique than on any other account; and then set out towards the sea, which he had long designed, making a semicircular turn that he might march back by a different route to explore the country, meaning to make his way to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... was a pleasing detail of the general scheme. The main entrance faced at right angles with the street and opened to a spacious hall. In turn, the hall opened to a parlor, where there was a grand piano, and to the dining-room and library, and the library opened to a little conservatory, semicircular in form, of a design invented by Harriet Beecher ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... summoning the folk mote in Saxon times, and in quite early days horns sounded in English homes on the arrival of guests. The hunting horn was found in every house of importance in mediaeval times, and in the sixteenth century it had become semicircular. Great composers testify to the value of the horn in instrumental music, Handel and Mozart writing pieces specially ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... Meril, with its miniature icebergs, they reached the glacier of the Aletsch and its snow-fields, where the real difficulties and dangers of the ascent were to begin. In this great semicircular space, inclosed by the Jungfrau, the Monch, and the lesser peaks of this mountain group, lies the Aletsch reservoir of snow or neve. As this spot presented a natural pause between the laborious ascent already accomplished and the immense declivities which lay before them yet to be ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... up on the left of the rifle regiments. But the enemy's automatic quick-firing gun vomited forth its death-dealing steel with such persistence that the cavalry was forced to retire at a gallop. The gunners again came to the rescue, and six field-batteries, spread over in a semicircular front of three-quarters of a mile, sent their shrapnel over the heads of the infantry to crash on the ridges ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... minutely of its internal position, and reflecting on the means of introducing herself to the cell of her beloved Carthusian. The stream of water which served to irrigate the gardens of the monastery, entered a wall by a large semicircular arch or opening near the garden itself. The lady, prodigal in the expenditure of money, and in the employment of faithful and trustworthy agents, procured a raft to be constructed, by means of which, all other things being prepared, she ventured through the opening, and ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... Smyth, a native of Mayo, looks some thirty-five years old, and belongs to the unadulterated Irish caste—half-curled hair, not abundant, anxious semicircular forehead, keen and fiery eyes, altogether a lively interesting head. He is a Latin and Celtic scholar; and that excuses him for his moderate proficiency in modern languages. He was educated at Maynooth, the eye-sore of Sabbatarians, ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for those who came to seek solitude and speak of love. From there, one could ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Jews' Quarter of the city, where the rich diamond cutters and squalid old-clothesmen dwell, and wisely resolved to keep away from it; he also enjoyed hasty glimpses of the four principal avenues of Amsterdam—the Prinsengracht, Keizersgracht, Herengracht, and Singel. These are semicircular in form, and the first three average more than two miles in length. A canal runs through the center of each, with a well-paved road on either side, lined with stately buildings. Rows of naked elms, ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... the hilly country near Rochepot, the road to Chalons passes along a dead flat, cheerful from its richness, but rather monotonous. To the right, we looked back upon a semicircular range of well wooded hills, in front of which, on an eminence, stands a stately old chateau belonging to the Count de Rouilly. It answers very much to the beau ideal of what a French chateau ought to ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... "enemy" were present at a dinner, given by a high official, the chief Knowledge-tester or Examiner. Our dining-tables are semicircular, and the guests are seated on the convex side only. The Monomaniac, being a particular friend, honoured by the host, sat next to him in the centre. The supposed "enemy" happened to be seated at the extreme end of the semicircle, ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... found himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a chimney-piece shone of gold and white marble. He had entered by a door on one side, hidden by a rich tapestried screen, opposite which was a window. The semicircular portion was adorned with a real Turkish divan, that is to say, a mattress thrown on the ground, but a mattress as broad as a bed, a divan fifty feet in circumference, made of white cashmere, relieved by bows of black and scarlet silk, arranged in panels. The top of this huge ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... inch and a half long, of an ashy colour, but tipped with a broad band of emerald green, bordered within by a narrow line of buff: These plumes are concealed beneath the wing, but when the bird pleases, can be raised and spread out so as to form an elegant semicircular fan on each shoulder. But another ornament still more extraordinary, and if possible more beautiful, adorns this little bird. The two middle tail feathers are modified into very slender wirelike shafts, nearly six inches long, each of which bears at the extremity, on the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... place was gruesome in the extreme. On three sides was solid rock, forming a semicircular back to the room. The partition, closed the entire front. Near its top in several places were cut out apertures, admitting ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... bearing on with my eyes; I went over the soil inch by inch with my eyes, but to no purpose. There was no mark on the gray and brown earth at my feet that suggested a trap-door, or any other device. I stooped low, but without avail. Then my guide stooped, and with a long needle pried up a semicircular or almost circular bit of the gray soil nearly the size of a silver quarter of a dollar, which hinged on the straight side of it, and behold—the entrance to the spider's castle! I was not prepared for anything so novel and artistic—a long ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... possessed a theatre—a really fine edifice, in truth—the interior and exterior arrangement of which combined every style of architecture. It was at once Byzantine, Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, with semicircular doors, Pointed windows, Flamboyant rose-windows, fantastic bell-turrets,—in a word, a specimen of all sorts, half a Parthenon, half a Parisian Grand Cafe. Nor was this surprising, the theatre having been commenced under the burgomaster Ludwig Van Tricasse, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... diagonally, produced to appearance the pointed arch. It may be that it was derived from that mystical figure of a pointed oval form, the vesica piscis. It may be, lastly, that it was suggested simply by the intersection of semicircular arches, so frequently found in ornamental arcades. The last cause may perhaps be the true one; but it matters little whence the pointed arch came. It matters much what it meant to those who introduced it. And at the beginning ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the design of Robert Stephenson, consists of a series of 28 semicircular arches, each 61 feet 6 inches in span, the greatest height above the bed of the river being 126 feet. The whole is built of ashlar, with a hearting of rubble; excepting the river parts of the arches, which are constructed with bricks laid in cement. The total length of the work is 2160 ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... built strong forts, which defended the entrance to the strait until they were knocked out by our guns. Although the guns and emplacements were shattered the bombproofs and ammunition chambers remained intact, and, running back, formed a perfect network of trenches and entanglements right around the semicircular valley. The Turks had mounted pompoms on the Cape Helles side and had the usual snipers concealed everywhere. The foreshore and valley also were protected by trenches and wire, rendering the position ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Isle of Man possesses a fine sepulchral monument on Meayll Hill. It consist of six T-shaped chamber-tombs arranged in a circle with entrances to the north and south. There is also a corridor-tomb, known as King Orry's Grave, at Laxey, and another with a semicircular ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... equestrian figure of his Majesty George IV. on the top. The workmanship of this arch is expected to rival any thing of the sort in the kingdom, and to equal the finest works of antiquity. From each side of the arch a semicircular railing will extend to the wings, executed in the most beautiful style, in cast-iron, and surmounted by tips or ornamental spears of mosaic gold. The area, within, will consist of a grass-plat, in the centre of which will be an ornamental fountain, and the whole will ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... the professor, "Countess Sibyl is indubitably very beautiful, but the beauty-in-itself in my dream was simply a semicircular white tablet." ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... white building that fronts the water, and stands back from it at the head of a noble sweep of land covered with velvet turf, and resembling greatly a gentleman's park at home, by the fine groups of stately forest trees scattered over it, and a semicircular belt of the original forest, that, sloping from the house on either side, extends its wings until it meets the blue waters of the bay, leaving between its green arms a broad space ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... room of the Bundespalast; but unofficially they could be seen strolling along the arcaded medieval streets, or feeding the civic bears with carrots at the bear-pit, or reading or smoking or sipping coffee and liqueurs in the fine semicircular hall of the hotel. They were French, or Austrian, or Russian, or German, or English, or Danish, or Dutch, as the case might be. There were also some Americans. The great national types were more or less easy to discern—except the Americans. That ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... citizens sat in the Public Assembly in the Pnyx to hear the orators. In the centre of the semicircular space the tribune stood, a square block of stone, [Greek: Bema], and from this ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... semicircular cloak of silk or other material, fastening in front by a clasp or morse. At the back is a piece of embroidery in the shape of a shield, called the hood. It varies in colour with ...
— The Church Handy Dictionary • Anonymous
... this advice, we set to work to collect the snow, which did not lay more than three inches thick on the ice. We first made it into cakes, about four times the size of an ordinary brick, and then piled them up in a semicircular form, the convex side being turned to the wind. Over the top we spread a boat's sail, which was kept down by lumps of snow being placed on the top of it. The canvas was also allowed to hang over a couple of lances lashed together in front, so that we had ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... doors, on the outside of which were painted the representations of cannon, not unlike at a distance the sham ports in a ship of war. The gates of a Chinese city are generally double, and placed in the flanks of a square or semicircular bastion. The first opens into a large space, surrounded with buildings, which are appropriated entirely for military uses, being the dept of provisions and ammunition, place d'armes, and barracks. Out of this place, in ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... a spot from which the rising or setting sun could be seen to the greatest possible advantage, it would be that wild path winding around the foot of the high belt of semicircular rocks, called Salisbury Crags, and marking the verge of the steep descent which slopes down into the glen on the south-eastern side of the city of Edinburgh. The prospect, in its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled city, stretching itself out beneath in a form, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... furthermost end from the door was a semicircular alcove, known as the "Shell," which gave its name to the form sitting there. On both sides ran rows of benches and narrow desks, three deep, raised one above the other. On the left hand on entering was the Under ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... touched the floor, stood against the walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay three huge folio volumes—a Family Bible, a "Josephus," and a "Whole Duty of Man." In the chimney corner was a fire-grate with a fluted semicircular back, having urns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of the kind which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their patterns may have been ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... Simon; on His right hand, next Him, Paul; and in receding order, James the Bishop, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Jude. These opposite ranks of the Apostles occupy what may be called the apse or curved bay of the porch, and form a nearly semicircular group, clearly visible as we approach. But on the sides of the porch, outside the lines of apostles, and not seen clearly till we enter the porch, are the four greater prophets. On Christ's left, Isaiah and Jeremiah, on His ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... half-mile broad on each side the river, narrowing as the mountains draw in closer upon the stream. It is terminated by a steep terrace. Twenty or thirty feet above this terrace is another flat, we will say semicircular, for I am generalising, which again is surrounded by a steeply sloping terrace like an amphitheatre; above this another flat, receding still farther back, perhaps half a mile in places, perhaps almost close above the one below ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... the charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a need-fire. It was done by friction, thus; upon any small island, where the stream of a river or burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as it could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it. A straight pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong trink in the earth or floor; and ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... eighty feet in breadth. All parts of the church—one of the largest of Rome—are decorated with mosaics. It has two small transepts at the extremity of the nave, on each side of the apsis. The four rows of magnificent columns, supporting semicircular arches, are Corinthian. In this church the Greek and Roman architecture predominates. The essential form of the church is like a Pagan basilica. We see convenience, but neither splendor nor poetry. Moreover it is cheerful. It has an altar and an apsis, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... afforded me insensibly drew me on to the entrance of the Wildersmouth, which is the name given to a series of recesses formed by the rocks, and semicircular, open at the bottom to the sea, and only to be entered from the sands at low tide. I coasted two or three of them, augmenting my spoil as I proceeded; and perceiving the lady I have- already mentioned composedly engaged with her book, I hurried past to visit the last recess, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... is to propel a boat by a single oar at the stern. The boat must be provided with rowlock or a semicircular scoop in the stern, and the boat is propelled by working the oar at the stem, obliquely from side to side. This is a convenient way of doing when you are working among boats in the water, and have to go short distances without ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... is the semicircular water [1], And we gather the cress about it. The marquis of Lu is coming to it, And we see his dragon-figured banner. His banner waves in the wind, And the bells of his horses tinkle harmoniously. ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... are planted round Leipzig. I took a walk into the Rosenthal (Valley of Roses), which also consists of splendid avenues and lawns. A pretty coffee-house, with a very handsome alcove, built in a semicircular form, invites the weary traveller to rest and refreshment, while a band of agreeable music diffuses ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... appeared hemmed in by steep and green acclivities, which, uniting near the spot where I lay, formed an abrupt and semicircular termination of grassy cliffs and precipices hundreds of feet in height, over which flowed numberless small cascades. But the crowning beauty of the prospect was its universal verdure; and in this indeed consists, I believe, the peculiar charm of every Polynesian landscape. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... are passing Grand Bassam, seven or eight miles from land. Our track just touches the outer edge of the semicircular line of dirty foam, indicating the distance to which the influence of the river extends. Within the verge, the water is discolored by recent contact with the earth; beyond it, ripples the uncontaminated, pure, blue ocean. One is the emblem of human life, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... very long while—not since he lived in Moscow, when he was leaving the university and going into society. He remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but he had completely forgotten the impression it had made on him in old days. But as soon as, driving into the wide semicircular court and getting out of the sledge, he mounted the steps, and the hall porter, adorned with a crossway scarf, noiselessly opened the door to him with a bow; as soon as he saw in the porter's room the ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... plum-coloured brick with marble trimmings and marble wedges over the ample windows, some years later I saw the house by Ferguson, of New York, from which Archie had cribbed it. At one end, off the dining-room, was a semicircular conservatory. There was a small portico, with marble pillars, and in the ample, swift sloping roof many dormers; servants' rooms, Archie explained. The look of anxiety on Maude's face deepened as he went over the floor plans, the reception-room; dining room to seat thirty, the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... is composed of seven semicircular arches, each end arch being built of ashlar masonry, and of 6 meters (19 ft. 8 in.) diameter; five intermediate arches, 15 meters (49 ft. 2 in.) in diameter, are of iron. The four central piers are of iron erected on pillars of ashlar masonry. The metallic part of this viaduct ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... fragrance of some old English roast-beef, which, I think, must at that moment have been done nearly to a turn. The kitchen is a lofty, spacious, and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace, by a sort of semicircular oaken screen, or rather, an arrangement of heavy and high-backed settles, with an ever-open entrance between them, on either side of which is the omnipresent image of the Bear and Ragged Staff, three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and unctuous kitchen-smoke. The ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... semicircular sweep of his arm: "Here you see my little estate, sir," he said. "You've seen plenty bigger in Germany, and England too. We can't get more than this handful in our tight little island. Unless born to it, of course. Well! we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... immediate direction, was fitted up in handsome style as a court, and laid out into apartments for the senators, the House of Representatives, the managers, the accused and counsel, the members of the executive departments, besides a semicircular gallery constructed within the area of the chamber, which formed from its front an amphitheatre contiguous with the fixed gallery ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... through it into what, for a moment, seemed to be total darkness. They stood, in fact, at the head of a tall platform of many steps, semicircular in shape, looking down upon a long hall, unlit as yet (for the blind need no lamps); and below, on the floor of the hall, ranged at their desks in the fading light, sat row upon row of children. The murmur of many voices rose from that shadowy throng, as Myra, shaking off Aunt Hannah's grasp, stepped ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were almost a relief. Here there were books and flowers and music, some exquisite water-colours upon the white walls, newspapers and magazines lying about, which gave the place a habitable air. A great semicircular window commanded a wonderful view of the park, but Wrayson had little time to admire it. A door was opened at the further end of the room, and he heard the soft rustling of a woman's gown upon the carpet. It was ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... monument does not always agree with its supposed date. The semicircular arch of the thirteenth century still holds sway in Provence. The ogive is, perhaps, very ancient; and authors dispute as to the anteriority of the Romanesque to the Gothic. This want of ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... portion of the external fire box is usually formed into a steam chest, which is sometimes dome shaped, sometimes semicircular, and sometimes of a pyramidical form, and from this steam chest the steam is conducted away by an internal pipe to the cylinders; but in other cases an independent steam chest is set upon the barrel of the boiler, consisting of a plate iron cylinder, 20 inches ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... at the back of the head, was usually surmounted by a resplendent turban, whose colours shrieked and stuck out their tongues at each other, being on even worse terms with the rest of the costume; and in their belts would be stuck a barong or kris, often both, and a square or semicircular box of brass, sometimes inlaid with copper, sometimes handsomely carved, and sometimes plain. These boxes were divided into three compartments on the inside, one for betel-nut, one for the lime to be smeared on the betel, and one for the ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... recurve, frizzle. rotundity &c 249; convexity &c 250. Adj. curved &c v.; curviform^, curvilineal^, curvilinear; devex^, devious; recurved, recurvous^; crump^; bowed &c v.; vaulted, hooked; falciform^, falcated^; semicircular, crescentic; sinusoid [Geom.], parabolic, paraboloid; luniform^, lunular^; semilunar, conchoidal^; helical, double helical, spiral; kinky; cordiform^, cordated^; cardioid; heart shaped, bell shaped, boat shaped, crescent shaped, lens shaped, moon shaped, oar shaped, shield shaped, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... this question a merely material and technical problem of stability and resistance, solved by monks who discovered one fine day that the strength of their roofs would be increased by the adoption of the mitre-shaped vaulting of the pointed arch instead of the semicircular arch, would it not seem that the romantic hypothesis—Chateaubriand's explanation—which was so much laughed at, and which is nevertheless the simplest and the most natural, may really be the most obvious ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... of its kind—was thrown overboard, the sail hoisted, and the boat began to glide onward toward the semicircular bay into which they were drifting, with the huge, massive promontory straight ahead. Then the oar was pressed down, and the boat began ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... his workmen to mark out a site for a city suitable to such a situation. There was no chalk or white earth, with which it is usual to mark the course of the walls, but they took barley-groats, and marked out a semicircular line with them upon the black earth, dividing it into equal segments by lines radiating from the centre, so that it looked like a Macedonian cloak, of which the walls formed the outer fringe. While the king was looking with satisfaction at the plan of the new city, suddenly from the lake ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... less, they have a public garden; even more immature than that of Lucera, but testifying to greater taste. Its situation, covering a forlorn semicircular tract of ground about the old Anjou castle, is a priori a good one. But when the trees are fully grown, it will be impossible to see this fine ruin save at quite close ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... minutes the light of a lantern flickered in the deep archway, showing us in its semicircular frame of ruddy light the figure of a humpbacked dwarf, yellow-bearded, broad-shouldered, and wrapped in ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... put by observing the method of cutting the grass adopted by a native gardener. He was squatting on the ground, and had by his side about half a dozen sections into which he had split some bamboo rods about two feet in length. These he rapidly passed over the grass backwards and forwards with a semicircular sweep, and their sharp edges mowed the grass down as cleanly as the blade of a scythe. In this way he cleared a space around him, and, gradually advancing, eventually trimmed off the ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... the scene an upper story could be added; whenever, for instance, it was wished to represent a tower with a wide prospect, or the like. Behind the great middle entrance there was a space for the Exostra, a machine of a semicircular form, and covered above, which represented the objects contained in it as in a house. This was used for grand strokes of theatrical effect, as we may see from many pieces. On such occasions the folding-doors of the entrance would ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... cresting of adders or uri in closely serried rank. No other form of cornice or cresting is met with. Mouldings as a means of architectural effect were singularly lacking in Egyptian architecture. The only moulding known is the clustered torus (torus a convex moulding of semicircular profile), which resembles a bundle of reeds tied together with cords or ribbons. It forms an astragal under the cavetto cornice and runs down the angles of ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... been very cunningly wrought from a single block of wood, very probably a section of a tree, upon which the features had been carved and afterward the interior hollowed out until only a comparatively thin shell remained. Two-semicircular notches had been rounded out from opposite sides of the lower edge. These fitted snugly over his shoulders, aprons of wood extending downward a few inches upon his chest and back. From these aprons hung long tassels or switches of hair tapering from the outer edges ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... gathered from the port, and this platform was converted in Roman times into a fort. On one side may be seen a curious contrivance for resisting the outward pressure of the earth heaped up within. The basement wall has not buttresses thrust forth, but consists of a series of semicircular concave depressions in its face. In Mediaeval times a strong castle with circular towers was erected on the ancient basement, that also is now in ruins, the ledges where the old Roman wall ended and the Mediaeval wall sprang at ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... snow on mountain-tops and the balmy air would carry a suggestion of a chill at sunset, there were cunningly wrought charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped around a semicircular low table so as to give each guest an unobstructed view from the pavilion. Pertinax—neither guest nor host, but a god, as it were, who had arrived and permitted the city of Antioch to ennoble itself by paying his expenses—stretched his long length on the middle couch, ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... valley. It is portrayed in the most ancient tombs, and every museum possesses examples, varying in shape. Besides the ordinary boomerang, the Egyptians used one which ended in a knob, and another of semicircular shape: this latter, reproduced in miniature in cornelian or in red jasper, served as an amulet, and was placed on the mummy to furnish the deceased in the other world with a ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... has a number of fine hair-tips, and it is these that first respond to the physical stimulus. In the cochlea, the part of the inner ear concerned with hearing, the hairs are shaken by sound vibrations that have reached the liquid in which the whole end-organ is immersed. In the "semicircular canals", a part of the inner ear that is concerned not with sound but with rotary movements of the head, we find hair cells again, their hair-tips being matted together and so located as to be bent, like reeds growing on the bottom of a brook, by currents of the liquid filling the canals. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... crackling twigs sounded sharp as a shower of stones in the stillness. Great trees reared their majestic heads to mingle their foliage and shut out the light; every creeping, flying, walking creature seemed awed into a vague murmuring that was deeper than silence. The Grove of Mysteries was a semicircular space of cool, mossy sward, bowered in great trees and tangled vine screens; its background was the bare rock of the cliffside itself—actually, though unknown to the rabble, the outer rocky wall of the great chamber—and against this stood ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Hoya carnosa, on the other hand, a depending shoot, without any developed leaves, 32 inches in length, and consisting of seven internodes (a minute terminal one, an inch in length, being counted), continually, but slowly, swayed from side to side in a semicircular course, with the extreme internodes making complete revolutions. This swaying movement was certainly due to the movement of the lower internodes, which, however, had not force sufficient to swing the whole shoot round the central supporting stick. The ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... have a look at it, papa being anxious to do so, as he had visited it in his younger days. The weather-beaten ruin stands on the summit of a black cliff, rising sheer out of the ocean. Three towers, one square, and the others semicircular, remain, with the greater portion of the outer wall, enclosing several acres of green turf, over which, instead of mail-clad warriors, peaceable sheep now wander. The principal tower overlooks a deep gully or ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... introducing each new comer to all the assembled guests. It is a custom that cannot be too soon abolished, and one that places the last unfortunate visitor in a singularly awkward position. All that she can do is to make a semicircular courtesy, like a concert singer before an audience, and bear the general gaze with as ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Here, upon a semicircular ledge of rocks, over a narrow chasm, of which the tiny stream played in a murmuring waterfall, and divided the congregation into two equal parts, sat about a hundred persons, all devoutly listening to their minister, who stood before them ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... has eight panels besides the semicircular one at the top. In each panel is a picture ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... forty, came stealing through the Crow country, killing every straggler, and carrying off every horse they could lay their hands on. The Crow warriors immediately started after them and pressed them so closely that they could not escape. The Blackfeet then threw up a semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, and awaited the approach of their enemies. Logs and sticks were piled up four or five feet in front of them, which thoroughly protected them. The Crows ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... mentioned. Cf. Att. 11, 12, 1 Balbo Cornelio. The usage is more common in Cicero's writings than in those of his contemporaries. — PRIMA CAVEA: 'the lower tier'. The later Roman theatres consisted of semicircular or elliptic galleries, with rising tiers of seats; the level space partially enclosed by the curve was the orchestra, which was bounded by the stage in front. There can be little doubt that Cicero is guilty of an anachronism ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the most popular recreations of the Limenos, especially of the people of color, is the Paseo de Amancaes, which takes place on St. John's Day. The Amancaes is a gently sloping plain, about half a mile north-west of Lima, and it is bounded by a semicircular range of hills, which rise from twelve to fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. During the hot months of the year this plain is a parched and barren waste; but when the misty and rainy season sets in, the Amancaes is covered with numerous ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... of the native religion. Among the ruins there long lay a huge thin slab of granite, now in the museum of Guimaraes, which certainly has the appearance of having been a sacrificial stone. It is a rough pentagon with each side measuring about five feet. On one side, in the middle, a semicircular hollow has been cut out as if to leave room for the sacrificing priest, while on the surface of the stone a series of grooves has been cut, all draining to a hole near this hollow and arranged as if for a human body with outstretched legs and ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... down a little slope, but had still strength sufficient to crawl into a thick tuft of grass. The wasp soon returned, and seemed surprised at not immediately finding its victim. It then commenced as regular a hunt as ever hound did after fox; making short semicircular casts, and all the time rapidly vibrating its wings and antennae. The spider, though well concealed, was soon discovered, and the wasp, evidently still afraid of its adversary's jaws, after much manoeuvring, inflicted two stings on the under side of its thorax. ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... disappoints so many, largely from the fact that the gaunt west front is the only view one really has of the building except from a distance. Inside, services seem to go on at most times of the day, and when you are quietly looking at the mighty nave with its plain, semicircular arches and massive piers, you are suddenly startled by the entry from somewhere of a procession of priests loudly singing some awe-inspiring chant, the guttural tones of the singers echoing through the aisles. Following ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... greatly improved upon for power-generating purposes by adopting a sail having a section not semicircular but triangular in shape, and by extending its length in the vertical direction to a very considerable extent. Practically this cheap and efficient wind-motor then becomes a square or hexagonal upright axis of fairly ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... parallel to this entire line. The Russians, on the other hand, had nothing but roads running from east to west or from north to south, which could be used as feeders only from a central point to a number of points along their semicircular line. Troops having once been concentrated could be thrown to another point if it was at any distance at all only by sending them back to the central point and then sending them out again on another feeder, or else by long and difficult marches which practically ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... braying his heart out for reasons known only to himself, if known at all, were the principal details of the sylvan hamlet; but on a general survey there were grand beauties. The village and its turf lay in the semicircular sweep of an unbroken forest; but at the sides of the leafy basin glades had been cut for drawing timber, stacking bark, etc., and what Milton calls so happily "the checkered shade" was seen in all its beauty; for the hot sun struggled in at every aperture, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... localities. Two parallel lines of mountains ever within sight of each other, now advancing towards the river through a sea of verdure in promontories, always nearly with the same level outline, now receding in semicircular sweeps; a narrow flat plain, loaded with crops and palm-groves, and intersected by canals and dikes, sometimes equally divided by a tortuous stream of vast breadth, but sometimes thrown, as it were, all to one side, east or west; occasionally a long line of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various |
