"Propeller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... also the first officer to make a successful flight from the deck of a British warship, and on one occasion he changed an aeroplane propeller blade whilst flying 2,000ft. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... and a check, as a long twining creature suddenly seized the fish, and quick as lightning, wrapped itself round and round it in a knot, doubling the weight, and adding to the resistance by lashing round and round with a flattened tail, whose effect was like that of a screw propeller reversed. ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... with crimson hair and green eyes and jade earrings and a plunging—not to say power-diving—neckline that left her affiliation with the class of Mammalia in no doubt whatever. In the background, a mushroom-topped smoke-column rose, and away from it something intended to be a four-motor propeller-driven bomber of the First Century was racing madly. The title, he saw, was Dire Dawn, and the author ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... two days late arriving, having made dirty weather of it in the Bay of Biscay, which injured our propeller and compelled us to lie to, so I will not say that the sense of certainty which came to me off Finisterre did not ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... aerial flight is entirely revolutionized, and that the era of interplanetary travel is at hand! Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to gravity. It would weigh nothing, absolutely nothing! The tiniest propeller would drive it at almost incalculable speed with a minimum consumption of power, for the only resistance to its motion would be the resistance of the air. If I were to reverse the polarity, it would be repelled from the earth with the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... a two-place, open-cockpit plane that Smithy found had been set aside for him. Dual control—the stick in the forward cockpit carried the firing grip that controlled the slim blue machine guns firing through the propeller. Behind the rear cockpit a strange, unwieldy, double-ended weapon was recessed and streamlined into the fuselage. The scout seemed quite able to protect ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... she was rigged either to sail or steam as might be most convenient. On the present occasion, as there was not the slightest hurry and no danger of a lee-shore, it was determined that they should not avail themselves of the steam-power, so the propeller was hoisted up and everything got ready for that most delightful thing, a ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... bound, was shuddering to the first slow revolutions of her propeller when Bainbridge turned the key in the door of the stuffy little state-room to which he had been directed, and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... their debt to Father Neptune. However, by the time the ship arrived at the small port of Santander the passengers were mostly recovering from the mal de mer occasioned by the rough water in the Bay of Biscay. While leaving this tiny landlocked harbor, one of the propeller blades touched the rocky bottom, and broke short off, but our ship continued her voyage with undiminished speed, and within three days was steaming up the Tagus to Lisbon. Here the passengers who wished to avail themselves of the opportunity ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... is as tetchy as petrol. Trailing fingers are terminals which ignite living flames, and the propeller of the little boat creates an avengeful commotion of light which trails far astern. Blobs of light are cast off from her bows as she rounds the familiar sandspit and glides ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... fast as if I were in the monoplane myself when Eagle was ready to start, looking like a twentieth-century, leather-masked Apollo starting out to drive his sun chariot up to the zenith and down the other side. The motor purred, and the propeller began to revolve. Diana, tense as a stretched violin string, was hanging on already, like grim death. The two mechanics held the tail of the impatient giant bird, and when Eagle raised one hand, they let go. For perhaps ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Goldwing was off Colchester Reef Light. The Missisquoi was still headed to the west; and Corny was beginning to feel triumphant, though he was not confident enough to say much. The steamer was three miles distant; but Dory was satisfied by this time that she had stopped her propeller, and was only waiting for the schooner to get a little farther to the southward, where she could not dodge in ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... difference was found at once, however, in the fact that the rudders were heavily waterproofed and in that the steering wires passed the pilot's cockpit through the protected body of the car. There was nothing new in either the big single propeller fixed to the front of the body, nor in the Gnome engine ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... the Pacific. But he loaded her with pitch-pine deals and sent her off to hunt for her luck. Wellington was to be the first port, I fancy. It doesn't matter, because in latitude 44 d south and somewhere halfway between Good Hope and New Zealand the tail shaft broke and the propeller dropped off. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... very much interested in the craft and asked all sorts of questions about how the engine operated. Tom explained as clearly as he could how the gasoline exploded in the cylinders, about the electric spark and about the propeller. Then, when he had finished, Miss Haddon ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... wonderful man. It is also used to remove grain in breweries from a lower to a higher level. The name has been recently applied to the very important introduction in steam navigation—the propelling screw. (See SCREW-PROPELLER.) ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... reefs; presently he leaned over the taffrail and stared down at the whirling propeller; from the screws his gaze shifted to the whirling water above and about them, and thence to the tow in their wake. He put his head to one side, studied the spectacle of the straining hawser and the wallowing barge on the end of it, as if it were a ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... Koku whirled the propeller blades. There was a staccato succession of explosions, a rushing, roaring sound, and then the craft rose like a bird, and Tom circled about, making a straight course for the distant town, while below him the creek rose higher and ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... went the deep-toned bell below, and swoosh went the reversed propeller. The pilot's orders rattled like hail on a roof; she came round, and old Captain Price had a glimpse of a knot of frantic men at the taff-rail of the ship they barely cleared. Then, slowly they wedged her into ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarette smoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France, and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Paris but for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and the hundred little noises that mark the passage of a ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... began to pour out of the short funnel of the working engine on the boatyard scow. It was a clumsy-looking craft—-a mere floating platform, with engine, propeller, tiller and a derrick arrangement, but it had done a lot of good work at and about ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... to the Fairbanks mining district, where he proposed to carve out what he termed a new "stake," acted as box office man and ticket taker. There were nearly two thousand persons on the grounds when the boys brought out from its canvas hanger the neat double plane with its bright motor and varnished propeller. The skids had been replaced with rubber tired bicycle wheels and the controls were of the latest pattern. The machine was dressed with tiny flags, and out of compliment to the neighboring Yukon territory the British colors shared the display ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... mirthlessly. His hard luck was becoming amusing and he wondered how long it would last. He had counted on that hundred dollars to get away from Nome, hoping to shake misfortune from his heels, but a match in the hands of a child, like that broken propeller shaft, had worked havoc with his plans. Well, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... brute of a modern man-of-war lay just without the reef, now quite inert, now giving a flap or two with her propeller. Nearer hand, and just within, a big white boat came skimming to the stroke of many oars, her ensign blowing at ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the Bohio had given orders to run the engine at full speed, hoping by the use of the propeller to offset somewhat the powerful current. But the rush of water was too great ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... fast propeller, and as she lurched very much in crossing the channel most of the passengers were sea-sick, a casualty which did not impair their cheerfulness and good humour. After dark we called at Kawaihae (pronounced To-wee-hye), ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... and plunged, fetching up on her anchors with a crash which for the first time they could hear. Also, for the first time they could hear the water washing about on deck. The engineer threw off the propeller and eased ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... The thing remained. Chagrin commenced to sizzle, And certain people cried, "A thillingth loth." Others, "Hey, Mister Airman, it's a swizzle!" Then a stern man came out, and with a cloth Lightly, as one well used to such a feat, Swaddled the brute's propeller ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... locker at the stem of the machine, where his personal luggage, his wraps and restoratives were placed, and which also with the seats, served as a makeweight to the parts of the central engine that projected to the propeller at the stern. ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... my Prince, I shall soon be very, very old. I don't dare look in the mirror to-night, for fear of seeing how old I've grown since morning. I remember a word they used on shipboard when the waves threw the big propeller out of the water and the full power of the engines was wasted on air. They called it "racing." It was bad for the ship to have this energy go for nothing. It racked her and made her tremble and groan. I've ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... new points. One afternoon a pilot from the front line told of a captured German Albatros, which he spun yarns about for an hour. A single-seater, armed with three machine-guns which, being controlled by the motor, or engine, shot automatically and at the same time through the propeller in front of the pilot, with the highest speed of any aeroplane then evolved on the fighting front, with a reputation of being able to climb to an altitude of fifteen thousand feet in less than fifteen minutes—-some ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... his machine a Bleriot, but it is doubtful if the designer of the original machine of that name would have recognized the model as having any more than a distant relationship to the famous type of monoplane. It was provided with a large tin propeller, however, and seemed capable of at least accomplishing a flight. In fact, at the trials in the morning it had flown well, and by some of the lads was regarded as a sort of "dark horse." As Tom was on the village team, as opposed to the Boy Scout contingent, he was ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... cry. The crowd dropped back rapidly to either side. Ducroy lifted his hat in parting salute, cried "Bon voyage!" and scuttled clear like a startled rooster before a motor-car. And the motor and propeller broke loose with a mighty roar comparable only, in Lanyard's fancy, to the chant of ten thousand ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... flukes were set vertical, and the lower one of which was vertebrated, served as propeller, while a large dorsal fin was developed as a cutwater. The primitive biconcave vertebrae of the fish and of the early land vertebrates were retained, and the limbs degenerated into short paddles. ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... nose is pointed with guncotton and filled with high explosives—and which the world knows as the torpedo—launches forth from the submarine, and speeding under the drive of a propeller at the stern steers its way into the side of the battleship or great steamship. The torpedo plunges into the bowels of the vessel. There is a tremendous explosion, and the water-tight compartments of the vessel are torn open; the boat ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... suffered him to go alone—or at all. Quain had a wife and children; that thought proved insupportable.... Had he missed the catboat altogether? Or had he gained it only to find the motor disabled or the propeller fouled with the wiry eel-grass that choked the shoals? In either instance he would be at the mercy of the wind, for even with the sail close-reefed he would have no choice other than to fly before the fury. Or had the boat possibly gone aground ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... Battery, the Onondaga, and the Keokuk have independent screw-propellers, which will enable them to turn on their own centres and to manoeuvre much more rapidly and effectively in action than vessels which, having but one propeller, cannot change their direction without changing their position, and are obliged to make a long circuit to change it at all. This subject is beginning to receive in Europe the attention which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of Americans who listened experienced something of the faint qualm which sickens a man when he witnesses another's backing-down. Finally he spoke, slowly, his measured words scarcely audible above the muffled beat of the propeller. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... and berries in the season, cider, cakes, pies, root-beer, lemons, crackers, etc. His customers were chiefly the "hands" on board sloops becalmed opposite the landing, or passing barges and canal-boats, slowly trailed in the wake of a panting propeller, or escorted by dingy little "tugs," struggling along like lively ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... and noiseless was our progress, that, say seated at table, it never entered one's head that we were moving or were anywhere save on the solid land. I had been used to steamers all my life, and it was difficult immediately to adjust myself to the absence of the propeller-thrust vibration. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... many under-currents similar to our Gulf Stream. These are used by the inhabitants for transportation. They construct little hammock cars so that when they are filled with human freight they float in the water. A simple device which we might call a fin propeller is used to force the car in one direction or another as necessity may require. It is possible to enter one of these under-streams and thus travel over two thousand miles; then, by rowing only five miles, enter the return current and move homeward. A car of special design is furnished by each ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... which I have referred, is that of a screw propeller, drawn by my father, dated 1819. It was the result of many discussions as to the proper mode of propelling a vessel. First, he had drawn Watt's idea of a "spiral oar"; then, underneath, he has drawn his own idea, of a disk of six. blades, like a screw-jack, immediately behind ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... machine. There was a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into the air again, while the huge flat body drew itself together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to a vol-pique, but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane and was shorn off by the propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smoke wreath. A long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind and caught me round the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore at it, my ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sometimes singly, oftener two pairs together, working side by side to cranks at right angles; recently three pairs together, working to cranks placed 120 deg. apart. The system affords the opportunity of adding yet more engines to the same propeller to an indefinite extent. (3) The three cylinder intermediate-receiver compound engine, with one high and two low-pressure cylinders, the steam passing from the high-pressure cylinder into the receiver, ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... assisted his father in his engineering operations, in particular the Thames tunnel; was engineer of the Great Western Railway; designed the Great Western steamship, the first to cross the Atlantic; was the first to apply the screw propeller to steam navigation; designed and constructed the Great Eastern; constructed bridges and naval ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... as he drove along in his powerful car. "I've got quite a lot to do if I make an early start for Philadelphia, in my airship, to-morrow. I want to tighten the propeller on the shaft a trifle, and give the engine a good try-out. Then, too, I think I'd better make the landing springs a little stiffer. The last time I made a descent the frame was pretty well jarred up. Yes, if I make that air trip ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... flying leaps into the lighters. Hindhaugh stooped low and ran to the companion. "Let that beggar up," he shouted. The Scorpion scuttled on deck. "Now, mister, I'll let you see if you'll take me in. Over you go. Over the stern with you, and mind the propeller doesn't carve you." Two shots were fired, but they went wild. The Scorpion saw the whole situation; he poised for a second on the rail, and then jumped for it, and Hindhaugh laughed loudly as his enemy came up blowing. Jack performed a triumphal war-dance ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... when at rest and when in motion," Pettigrew declared, "may not inaptly be compared to the blade of an ordinary screw propeller as employed in navigation. Thus the general outline of the wing corresponds closely with the outline of the propeller, and the track described by the wing in space IS TWISTED UPON ITSELF propeller fashion." ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... ocean steamers. The screw propeller 'Superior,' with New York mails of the 15th, has reached Queenstown. On the Banks of Newfoundland she passed the wreck of a large steamer, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... rejoined the mate, repeating the command to the dock hands. Slowly the great propeller began to churn the green water astern into white. The bow of the great vessel slowly swung, and majestically she headed on her way out to the mouth of the bay. Clouds of white gulls followed her, ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... Bay Company, to resume this narrative, kindly placed their propeller steamer, the Colville, at the service of the Commissioners, and the Board in London, in view of the public service rendered by its use by the Commissioners, eventually declined to make any charge for its employment. A full report of the voyage of ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... her wish a moment later, and it was rather more than she bargained for since the sea cow, in an effort to get rid of the rope that was twisted about its flipper, turned about with a swirl in the water, not unlike that made by the propeller of a motor boat, and came head-on for the craft it ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... his position was concerned, was what is known as "dead-reckoning" that is to say, the computation of the distance travelled by the ship through the water. At present this distance is measured by a patent log, which in its commonest form is a propeller-shaped instrument trailed through the water at the end of a long wire or cord the inboard end of which is attached to a registering clock. On being dragged through the water the propeller spins round and the twisting ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... says that every one is to prepare for the worst. The propeller's smashed and we can't live in this sea. Be quick!" cried the pale-faced sailor, hurrying onward. In an inconceivably short space of time the passages and saloons were crowded with rushing passengers. Pandemonium ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... end of the line and the smooth cylinder to which it was attached. Orvil passed very close, and Rick looked upward. He could see the white circle of water around the single propeller. ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the steam engine on the high-pressure principle. In his reply, September 30, 1770, Watt asks, "Have you ever considered a spiral oar for that purpose, or are you for two wheels?" To make his meaning quite plain, he gives a rough sketch of the screw propeller, with ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... was ebbing rapidly. I should be obliged to run slowly—to feel my way, so to speak—and I might not reach home until late. However, there was nothing else to do, so I put the helm over and swung the launch about. I sat in the stern sheets, listening to the dreary "chock-chock" of the propeller, and peering forward into the mist. The prospect was as cheerless as ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... day on board Her Majesty's ship "Startler," whose engines kept up a regular pulsation as the screw-propeller churned the water astern into golden and orange foam. The dappled sky and the rippled sea were a blaze of colour; crimson, scarlet, burnished copper, orange chrome, dead, and flashing gold,—all were there, on cloud edge and wave slope, mingled with purples, and greens, and blues, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... "heel of Achilles" we had to take all chances. We lashed down the safety valves, heaped quick-burning combustibles into the already raging fires, and brought the boilers to a pressure that would have been unsafe under ordinary circumstances. The propeller churned the mud and water furiously, but the ship did not stir. We piled on oiled cotton waste, splints of wood, anything that would burn faster than coal. It seemed impossible that the boilers could stand the pressure we were crowding upon them. ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... bridge stanchion, within a foot of where I was standing, was cut in two; but none of us was hurt. The next moment a shell struck our mainmast and sent it over the side, luckily severing the rotten shrouds and stays also, so that it fell clear and did not foul our propeller. A few seconds later a shell dropped upon our after-deck and exploded, blowing a jagged circular hole of some twenty feet diameter in it, and setting the planks on fire; but a few buckets of water promptly applied sufficed to ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... screw at the bow which was first attacked under Robur's superintendence. It was the best to commence with, in case the "Albatross" had to leave before the work was finished. With only this propeller he could easily ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... said Pyecroft, lighting his pipe. 'My slumbers were broken by the propeller ceasing to revolve, and by vile language ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... of air when they went on deck after dinner, and with the exception of the throbbing and humming of the engine and propeller, and soft whish of the sea as it was divided and swept along the sides, all was wonderfully still. But the silence was soon after broken by a sharp call from somewhere forward, a clear musical voice rang out, and then, sounding very sweet and melodious ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... to attend to the matter right away, and then Tom went in to talk to his father about the motor that was to whirl the propeller of ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... overboard. He had neglected to make the end on board properly fast and was swept away by the current. The rope had twirled round him, and as the body swelled became fixed. A blow on the head from the propeller of a tug completed a maze of circumstantial evidence which might have served as an excuse to most men for giving up the problem. Yet Wrington had solved it, and the record, which had never seen the light of publicity, was hidden in ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... I intend to do with Bertram and Eunice? I am undecided whether to place them in the vicinity of a volcano, which, unknown to Bertram, has eruptive tendencies, or to send them up in an aeroplane and break the propeller in mid-Atlantic just as the rescue party (including the husband)—What? Do I understand anything about aeroplanes? Certainly not; but I know ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... cu. feet, a length of 144 feet, a 3 horse-power engine, and a speed of 6 miles an hour. A gas engine was first used twenty years later in an Austrian dirigible, giving a speed of 3 miles an hour. About the same time much useful work was accomplished by Dupuy de Lome, whose dirigible, with a propeller driven by man power, gave a speed of 5-1/2 miles an hour. Twelve years later, in 1884, two French Army officers, Captain Kubs and Captain Renard, constructed the first successful power-driven lighter-than-air craft fitted with an 8-1/2 ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... "Things have come to a pretty pass when I have to keep track of you through the society column. I didn't see the paper. Dyckman brought me word last night at Vineyard Haven, and we broke a propeller blade on the Amphitrite trying to get ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... had a clutch arrangement, so that the motor could be allowed to run without the propeller revolving. Cora's boat was ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... Observation Ronne Felt Safer when the Dogs were Muzzled Starboard Watch on the Bridge Olav Bjaaland, a Member of the Polar Party 136 In the Absence of Lady Partners, Ronne Takes a Turn with the Dogs An Albatross In Warmer Regions A Fresh Breeze in the West Wind Belt The Propeller Lifted in the Westerlies The "Fram's" Saloon Decorated for Christmas Eve Ronne at a Sailor's Job The "Fram" In Drift-ice Drift-ice in Ross Sea A Clever Method of Landing The "Fram" under Sail Cape Man's Head on the Barrier Seal-hunting The "Fram" The Crew ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... boat the torpedo tube projected a short distance. At the stern the rudder was in place, and all was in readiness for placing the propeller shaft and the propeller itself. On the floor of the shed, near the middle of this strange, dangerous boat, lay miscellaneous small pieces ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... affords me great pleasure to state, that, after a careful examination of the position and condition of the ship, I am enabled to report that she has sustained no irreparable damage to her hull. The sternpost is bent, and some 20 feet of her keel partially gone; propeller and shaft uninjured. The lower pintle of the rudder is gone, but no other damage is sustained by it. No damage is done to her hull more serious than the loss of several sheets of copper, torn from her starboard bilge and from ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... so that failure should be impossible. This boat in shape was not unlike a turtle. A system of valves, air-pumps, and ballast enabled the operator to ascend or descend in the water at will. A screw-propeller afforded means of propulsion, and phosphorescent gauges and compasses enabled him to steer ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... haste a man was sent overboard. He dived and found the propeller. Bessie heard his report. The screw was twisted around with rope—knotted and tied so that, even with a knife he would have to make many descents to clear it. Without a diving suit it was impossible for the man to stay under water more than half a minute ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... Eben hesitate. He was young and life was dear. But he must not leave. He was in charge of the "Eb and Flo," and no true commander ever deserted his post of duty. He would not be a coward. The engine was already started, and the propeller was ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... character occurred a few years later, in 1862, when a slave belonging to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, invented a propeller for vessels. He constructed an excellent model of his invention, displaying remarkable mechanical skill in wood and metal working. He was not able to get his invention patented, but the merits of his invention were commented upon approvingly by a number of influential ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... blood-stiffened pennant, a cuirass, entrenching tools, a steel helmet with an eloquent bullet-hole through the crown. Some few framed portraits of noted "aces" hung here and elsewhere, with two or three photographs of battle-planes. Three of the portraits were framed in symbolic black. Part of a smashed Taube propeller hung near. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... bamboo yards; she drew hardly any water. Two enormous red eyes were painted upon either side of her high, blunt bow, while just abaft the waist projected an enormous oar, or sweep, full forty feet in length—longer, in fact, than the vessel herself. It acted partly as a propeller, partly ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... had the stern of my tug within a few feet of the Retriever I'd signal my mate at the wheel, he'd give the engineer full speed ahead—why you have no idea of the force of the quick water thrown back from that big towing propeller of the Sea Fox. The rush of it just swung the Retriever's nose slowly toward the beach and kicked her ahead fifteen or twenty feet, and then her sheer momentum carried her thirty yards farther. By that time I was backed up to her again, bargaining with Murphy, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... imagination, stimulate the intellect and move the heart of the Japanese, it was irresistible. For the making of a nation, Shint[o] was as a donkey engine, compared to the system of furnaces, boilers, shaft and propeller of a ten-thousand-ton steel cruiser, moved by the energies of a million years of sunbeam force condensed into coal and released again through ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... 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 further explanatory sentence may here be needed; for we hear of balloons which are capable of being guided to a small extent by sail and rudder. In these cases, however, the ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... little. When you swim, you push the water back and down with your arms and legs, and this pushes your body forward and up. When a bird flies up into the air, it pushes its body up by beating the air down with its wings. When an airplane whirs along, its propeller fans the air backward all the time. Street-car tracks are kept shiny by the wheels, which slip a little as they tend to shove the track backward in making the car move forward. Automobile tires wear out in much the same way,—they slip ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... the use of iron is likely to supersede that of timber, is a question for the speculative. At present, our commercial activity affords ample employment for both. There can be no doubt, however, that in connection with the steam-engine, and that admirable invention of modern date, the screw-propeller, iron ship-building is destined to attain and enjoy an enlarged existence; to the full maturity of which its present condition, healthful and prosperous as it appears, is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... hooked the Cagayan cable in a hundred and twenty-five fathoms of water. Later in the day the buoy was picked up, a most disreputable looking object, banged and battered almost beyond recognition, which showed it had undoubtedly been struck during the night by the ship's propeller, owing to the tremendously swift current ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... purpose at the time I first visited Lake Tahoe in 1881 was an iron tug, called the Meteor. It was built in 1876 at Wilmington, Delaware, by Harlan, Hollingsworth & Co., then taken apart, shipped by rail to Carson City and hauled by teams to Lake Tahoe. It was a propeller, eighty feet long and ten ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... expert swimmer. In acquiring it you must remember that pace is the great desideratum, and, consequently, rapidity of action is requisite. To gain this you must combine two movements in one, by striking with the propeller on whichever side you swim at the same time as the feet, the sustainer acting in the same manner as before. As the legs are brought up for the kick the propeller is lifted clear of the water, the arm being ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... Sunday evening, August 30th (I believe), and it is due to the constructural defects thereof that my writing is of a somewhat shaky character, the above saloon being placed almost immediately over the propeller, whose various eccentricities in the way of jumping and shaking are more than distinctly felt. However, I do not want to begin by telling you about the end of our voyage, so I will make a commencement at the time ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... in time of war, was designed by Horace L. Hundley in 1863. This boat was twenty feet long, three and one-half feet wide, and five feet deep. Her motive power consisted of eight men whose duty it was to turn the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... had hampered the progress of the Rainbow there was no telling, but freed of them, the steam yacht made good time. All of the machinery was carefully inspected, including the propeller, to which some wire was found twisted. But this had thus far done no damage and was easily ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... kind, the grain will swell and swell until it bursts the seams open, and down ye go. Then there's ignition o' coal gas aboard o' steamers. That's a safe game, for nobody can deny it. And there are accidents to propellers. If the shaft o' a propeller breaks in heavy weather it's a bad look-out. I've known ships leave the docks with their propellers half sawn through all round. Lor', there's no end o' the ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... containing about sixty gallons, and the furnace were placed in what they called the hind boot; the fore boot contained luggage, if any was carried. Another of Mr. Gurney's special contrivances was a propeller fixed at the back of the carriage; it could be made to touch the ground when travelling up a hill, assisting the steam-power. A few experimental trips were made, but the carriage was ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... at this stage. The foresail was set in order to take advantage of the northerly breeze. The ship was in contact with the ice occasionally and received some heavy blows. Once or twice she was brought up all standing against solid pieces, but no harm was done. The chief concern was to protect the propeller and rudder. If a collision seemed to be inevitable the officer in charge would order "slow" or "half speed" with the engines, and put the helm over so as to strike floe a glancing blow. Then the helm would be put over towards ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... he has all the general effects of an earthquake without any picturesque accessories. His beauty is of course praised, and, like any other big lumbering male, he is flattered; his vast tail makes a sweep like the blade of a screw-propeller, and away goes a vase. A maid brings in tea, and the St. Bernard is pleased to approve the expression of Mary's countenance; with one colossal spring he places his paws on her shoulders, and she has visions of immediate execution. Not being equal to the part of an early martyr, she ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... aft the bow naturally tends to turn towards the other side. The trick of it consists in counteracting this tendency by a twist of the blade which brings the inner edge round, aftwise beside the canoe, till the blade becomes a rectifying rudder as well as a thrusting propeller at the end of every stroke. When a fall or impassable rapid is reached, {35} the 'bowman' jumps out before the canoe touches bottom and draws her safely ashore. He and the 'steersman' then carry her over the portage, while the rest carry the cargo on their backs. A man's own weight is a fair ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... carried us up the rest of the river, and across the beautiful lake Nicaragua, studded with volcanic islands. Landing at Virgin Bay, we rode on mules across to San Juan del Sur, where lay at anchor the propeller S. S. Lewis (Captain Partridge, I think). Passengers were carried through the surf by natives to small boats, and rowed off to the Lewis. The weather was very hot, and quite a scramble followed for state-rooms, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... boy, fell under the influences of a large, plump, and very talkative lady who made the portage just behind us. She so absorbed and fascinated the lad that he let the engine run itself into some cramp of piston or wheel. There was a sudden crunching sound and the propeller stopped. The boy minimized the accident, but the captain upon arrival told us it would be necessary to unload from the boat while the engine ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... Demologos, sometimes called the Fulton the First, constructed in 1813; the first electric torpedoes were American; the first submarine to do effective work in war was American; the first turret ship, the Monitor, was American; the first warship to use a screw propeller was the Princeton, an American; the naval telescope-sight was American. American ships now are not only well constructed, but all their equipments are of the best; and to-day the American battleship is the finest and most powerful vessel of ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... insect has over two hundred strokes of its wings in one second. Hence, in many cases, the familiar hum, comparable on a small scale to that produced by the rapidly revolving blades of an aeroplane's propeller. For a short distance a bee can outfly a pigeon, but few insects can fly far, and they are easily blown away or blown back by the wind. Dragon-flies and bees may be cited as examples of insects that ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... to the next high rock, and then plunged boldly forward, soon gaining the bow of the craft. At the stern the propeller was churning the water into a white foam. The craft was trembling violently, and the hum of the machinery gave full evidence of the power ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... daown one turn o' their blame propeller," said Dan, applying himself to Manuel's conch, "fer to keep inside the law, an' that's consolin' when we're all at the bottom. Hark ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... basis of my annoyance is the fact that my next meeting with Zoe is deferred! I feel instinctively that I shall have trouble here, and that I had better haul off a lee shore whilst there is manoeuvring room, and yet—and yet I secretly rejoice that every revolution of the propeller, every clank and rattle of the Diesels brings us ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... that I could reach out and grab a limb of a tree, much to the indignation of the monkeys who chattered at me as if I had stolen something. Now and then a big lazy alligator slid into the water from the muddy banks as the wave-wash from our propeller ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... were circling. No Boche planes were in sight now, I had been told, but there were many of ours. And sometimes one came swooping down, its occupants curious, no doubt, as to what might be going on, and the hum of its huge propeller would make me falter a bit in my song. And once or twice one flew so low and so close that I was almost afraid it would strike me, and I would dodge in what I think was mock alarm, much to the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... A new airplane propeller has recently been patented by J. Kalmanson of Brooklyn, N. Y. Greater speed and marked saving in fuel is claimed for the invention, which may be attached to any ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... 31st of July we were at Cleveland, Ohio, over the Buffalo and Lake Shore Railway and New York Central. It was a beautiful day's ride, the most of the way skirting the lake, whose broad expanse gleamed in the sunshine, and bore many a sail and propeller to the great havens of its commerce. The railway borders fine towns and farms, formed by the dense settlement of the oak openings and groves of the Western Reserve of Ohio, which was purchased from the Holland Land Company, by a company from Connecticut, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... wide, winglike planes, on a light latticework of wood covered with silk, trussed and wired like a kite frame, the upper plane about five feet above the lower, which was level with the boat deck. We could see the eight-cylindered engine which drove a two-bladed wooden propeller, and over the stern were the air rudder and the horizontal planes. There she was, the hobbled steed now of the phantom bandit who ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... to the course of a steamer across an unquiet ocean. The waves raised by a fresh gale on the starboard bow were cleft by the stem, only to reunite behind the churn of the propeller. They were powerless to abridge the day's run by many miles, but they could still swing forwards to the shore. On one occasion the ship was slowed down to a standstill ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Portuguese dock-yard people tinkered. We took out this, and they took out that. It was growing sickly, and I got frightened, and finally I shipped the propeller and took it on board, and started under such canvas as we had left,—not much after the cyclone,—for the North and the South together had rather rotted ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... were going to balk flat, until he saw Hal turn as though to summon a soldier. Then the tug's master reached for the bell-pull. Clang! The tug's propeller began ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... were in motion—a fact which sufficiently demonstrates their inutility; and in the absence of the propelling, which was also the sustaining power, the whole fabric would necessarily descend. This consideration led Sir George Cayley to think only of adapting a propeller to some machine having of itself an independent power of support—in a word, to a balloon; the idea, however, being novel, or original, with Sir George, only so far as regards the mode of its application to practice. He exhibited a model of his invention at the Polytechnic ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... scarcely the exchange of a word, overhauling every part of the engine quickly, but with methodical care, cleaning, oiling, testing the exhaust and the carburettor, filling the petrol tank and the reservoir of lubricating oil, examining the turbines and the propeller—not a square inch of the machinery escaped their attention. When their task was finished they were as hot and dirty as engine-drivers. They washed at a sink, filled two stone jars with water and placed them in the cage, ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the introduction of the spark is the explosion of the compressed vapor, which sends the piston downward. The motion turns the shaft, and that turns the boat's propeller." ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... contrast to the awesome stillness of the great liquid plain, the dewy richness of the air, the stars hanging in golden clusters from a black vault, the fiery eye of some larger planet rolling and flashing among them as the revolving beacon of a lighthouse. Here the muffled throb of the propeller, and the rushing hiss of water as the prow of the great steamer sheared through the placid surface, furrowing up on either side a long line of phosphorescent wave. Such a contrast he who stood alone in the darkness, leaning over the taffrail, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... Congress, supported by the petition of a large number of citizens of New-York, asking that the Government will again fit out and man his two vessels, the Advance and Rescue, which he offers for the purpose, and send them out, accompanied by a store ship and a propeller. The Maryland Institute, and a large number of the citizens of Baltimore, have also addressed a similar petition to Congress. It is certain that, what with the efforts of our own countrymen and those of the British government, the subject will not be abandoned till ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... to flinders over everything that gets out of gear," he drawled. "If I was to be goin' up higher'n a kite every time, fur instance, that the seaweed ketches round the propeller of my motor-boat, I'd be in mid-air most ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... easy enough for the steam-swiler Royal Bloodhound t' jerk that yelpin' tramp, had she lost her propeller—as well she might, poor helpless lady o' fashion! in that slob-ice—'twould be easy enough t' rip her through a league o' the floe t' open water, with a charge or two o' good ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... radio station to the hangar on the Temple estate where Frank and Bob kept their plane was a short jaunt, and the ground soon was covered. Then Bob unlocked the big double doors and rolled them back, and the three trundled the plane out to the skidway where Jack spun the propeller while Bob manipulated the controls. As the machine got under way, Jack ran alongside and was ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... the engine had indeed stopped, and any one who noticed the vibration of the ship could tell that the propeller was revolving only slightly. ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff |
