"Curvature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 6.) representing the lens, and b the object desired to be represented, the rays (c, c) proceeding from it fall upon the lens, and are transmitted to a point, which varies with the curvature of the glass, where an inverted image (d) of b is very accurately formed. At this point, termed the focus, the sensitive photographic material is placed for the purpose of obtaining the ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... solstice has been the facilities afforded for determining atmospheric absorption, the sun's zenith distance at noon being only 17 deg. 12' at New York. The retardation of the sun's rays in passing through a clear atmosphere obviously depends on the depth penetrated; hence—neglecting the curvature of the atmospheric limit—the retardation will be as the secants of the zenith distances. Accordingly, an observation of the temperature produced by solar radiation at a zenith distance whose secant is twice that of the secant ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... this huge, shadowy Hand, upon which the whole Universe of Matter lay like an unconsidered speck of dust. It seemed as though I watched it through vast periods of time. On the forefinger glittered a ring; and the universe from which I had come was but a spot of light upon the ring's curvature. And the thing that the hand gripped had the likeness of a black rod. Through a long eternity I watched this Hand, with the ring and the rod, marvelling and fearing and waiting helplessly on what might follow. It seemed as though nothing could ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... store and swayed in. His long face had a hawkish cast, and it was gray, not with age, but with the sage-gray of the desert. His eyes were of the same hue, cold yet burning with little fiery flecks in their depths. He appeared short of stature because of a curvature of the spine, but straightened up he would have been tall. He wore a blue flannel shirt, and blue overalls; round his lean hips was a belt holding two Colt's revolvers, their heavy, dark butts projecting outward, and he had on high boots with ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... parallelism of the limbs, the sound limb being abducted to the same extent as the affected limb is adducted. It is important to recognise the cause of this shortening, as it can be corrected by treatment. As a result of the obliquity of the pelvis, the patient, when erect, exhibits a lateral curvature of the spine with the dorso-lumbar convexity ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... pipes come easier to such a shape, and that ground can be better economized. Nevertheless, I prefer a street that is forced to twist itself about. I enjoy the narrowness of Temple Bar and the misshapen curvature of Picket Street. The disreputable dinginess of Hollowell Street is dear to me, and I love to thread my way up the Olympic into Covent Garden. Fifth Avenue in New York is as grand as paint and glass can make it; but I would not live in a palace in Fifth Avenue if the corporation ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... direction of the arrow R, that is, more or less, for the direction varies somewhat with the Angle of Incidence and the curvature of the Surface; and, strange but true, I'm stronger on the top of the Surface than at the bottom of it. The Wind Tunnel has proved that by exhaustive research—and don't forget how quickly I can grow! As the speed through ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... eyelids and nose. This fold is lightly stretched over the edges of the eyelids, and forms, as it were, a third palpebra of a crescentic shape. The aperture is in consequence rendered somewhat pyriform, the inner curvature being very obtuse, and in some individuals distorted by an angle formed where the fold crosses the border of the lower palpebra. This singularity depends upon the variable form of the orbit during immature age, and is very remarkable in childhood, less so towards adult age, and then, it would ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... mounting prints while expanded with moisture is, that in drying the contraction of the paper pulls round the card into a curved form and although by rolling this curvature may be temporarily got rid of, the fiber of the paper is in a strained condition, and the bent state of the mount is, sooner or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... wrought feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... tables for apparent dip of the visible horizon at different heights from the sea, as calculated from the known curvature of the earth, allowance is made for the refraction of the atmosphere, on a supposition of its being constant, but as it is known to vary, the tabular dip will often be erroneous, and, consequently, altitudes taken under different states of the atmosphere, ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... virgata, are—the almost rectangular manner in which the upper portion of the tergum is bent outwards and along the orifice of the sack—the narrowness of all the valves, and especially of the lateral lobes of the scuta,—and lastly, the greater curvature of the carina, which in some specimens runs up far between the terga; had this last character been constant, it would have been an important one, but such is far from being the case. Great as are these differences in the valves, and though common to many ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... an accident in the abstract, we do not put the subject as though it were the first part of the definition, viz. the genus; but we give it the second place, which is that of the difference; thus we say that simitas is "a curvature of the nose." But if we take accidents in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates at the accident: for "a white thing" is "something that has whiteness." Accordingly ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... galleries, we struck upwards towards the crest, reached the Signal Station, where we indulged in 'shandy-gaff' and bread and cheese. Thence to O'Hara's Tower, the highest point of the rock. It was built by a former Governor, who, forgetful of the laws of terrestrial curvature, thought he might look from the tower into-the port of Cadiz. The tower is riven, and it may be climbed along the edges of the crack. We got to the top of it; thence descended the curious Mediterranean Stair—a zigzag, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... some other similitude, but I can't alter them now, and my trustful pupils may avoid all confusion of thought by putting gladius for ensis, and translating it by the word 'scymitar,' which is also more accurate in expressing the curvature blade. So we will call the ensatae, instead, 'gladiolae,' translating, 'scymitar-grasses.' And having {164} now got at some clear idea of the distinction between outlaid and inlaid growth in the stem, the reader will find the elementary ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... began to work in the mills. Thus far I have seen about a hundred such cases, and can, most decidedly, express the opinion that they are the consequences of overwork. So far as I know they were all mill children, and themselves attributed the evil to this cause. The number of cases of curvature of the spine which have fallen under my observation, and which were evidently consequent upon too protracted standing, was not less ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... Several times the men ceased paddling, and looked about them at the scene, as new glimpses opened from behind points, enabling them to see farther down the lake, or to get broader views of the wooded mountains. The only changes, however, were in the new forms of the hills, the varying curvature of the bays, and the wider reaches of the valley south; the whole earth apparently being clothed in a ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and side arches; curvature preserved and details thrown into relief by lights of different strengths and colors; concealed red light on one side and pale lemon light on other side thrown on arch. All main arches ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... But farther. Not only the curvature, but even the tapering by straight lines, would be somewhat difficult of execution in the pieced column. Where, indeed, the entire shaft is composed of four or five blocks set one upon another, the diameters may be easily determined at the successive joints, and the stones ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... of moral curvature of the spine. When he was inaugurated last December, I chanced to be at the Capital, and heard two old codgers from the piney woods felicitating the State upon having a Governor, 'Fit to tie to; honest as the day is long, and walks so straight, he is powerful swaybacked.' ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... about the same width proximally as distally. The curvature of the shaft is approximately alike on both sides. Distally the surface is rounded for articulation with the ...
— A New Order of Fishlike Amphibia From the Pennsylvanian of Kansas • Theodore H. Eaton
... crescent. His coat was of white cloth, faced with black, and cut in a very antique fashion; and, in lieu of a waistcoat, he wore a buff jerkin. His feet were cased with loose buskins, which, though they rose almost to his knee, could not hide that curvature, known by the appellation of bandy legs. A large string of bandaliers garnished a broad belt that graced his shoulders, from whence depended an instrument of war, which was something between a back-sword and a cutlass; and a case of pistols were ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... look. He knew that he hadn't lost the alien; had known somehow that he wouldn't be able to. Too apparently, their own galaxy, near as it was to the Milky Way, was of the same Space, its continuum forged in the same curvature matrices. ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... now, with nerves new-braced and spirits cheered, We tread the wilderness, whose well-rolled walks, With curvature of slow and easy sweep— Deception innocent—give ample space To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next; Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms We may discern the thresher at his task. Thump after thump resounds the constant ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... now prepared to understand the use of the marginal spikes, which form so conspicuous a feature in the appearance of the plant (fig. 12, p. 287), and which at first seemed to me in my ignorance useless appendages. From the inward curvature of the lobes as they approach each other, the tips of the marginal spikes first intercross, and ultimately their bases. Until the edges of the lobes come into contact, elongated spaces between the spikes, varying from the 1/15 to the 1/10 of an ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... tall, bony man with a flowing black beard and, hunched up above his shoulders, was the rounded hump which had given him the name of "Bible-Back." To counterbalance this curvature his head was craned back, giving him a bristling, aggressive air, and as he strode down towards Denver his long, gorilla arms, extended almost down ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... and leading the parade, heavily laden with a false dignity which had completely eradicated his spinal curvature, there appeared the rag-head Hindoo who had escaped with the Wildcat from the carload of undesirable aliens on the night of the train ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... camphor and a little tincture of iron was what it was really made of; but there was a 'possum picture on the label, and I've had testimonials provin' that it has cured nearly every disease known to man, from ringworm to curvature of the spine. I'd worked up a fifteen-minute spiel too that was a gem of street corner eloquence, and no matter where I stuck up my flare I could do an evenin's business runnin' from ten to ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... brilliant silver-grey, very much like the central zone of Jupiter. North of this on the one side stretched the long shadow of the rings, and southward other bands of alternating white and gold and deep purple succeeded each other till they were lost in the curvature of the vast planet. The poles were of course invisible since the Astronef was now too near the surface; but on their approach they had seen unmistakable evidence of snow ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... the angles of a triangle is not two right angles, and the departure from two right angles increases as the size of the triangle increases. It is often said that in non-Euclidean geometry space has a curvature, but this way of stating the matter is misleading, since it seems to imply a fourth dimension, which is ...
— The Einstein Theory of Relativity • H.A. Lorentz
... Manning, had first generated the curvature field and overcome gravity, had left his grandson a fortune that approached the five-billion mark. But that had not been all. From his famous ancestor, Manning had inherited a keen, sharp, scientific mind. From his mother's father, Anthony Barret, he had gained ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... white ashes had risen up the chimney, he put on another log. "This is our last extravagance for some time, girls—but we'll celebrate to-night," he cried. "You haven't a little elderberry wine, have you, mother?" he asked. "Riley says that's the stuff for little boys with curvature of the spine—and I'll tell you it put several kinks in mine ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... fervid Orleanist, was thanked for having advised the curvature of the route homeward to visit 'the spot of so impressive a monument': as it, was phrased by the Rev. Septimus Barmby; whose exposition to Nesta of the beautiful stained-glass pictures of incidents in the life of the crusading St. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... iris enlarges or contracts its central aperture (the black pupil) by reflex action, as the amount of light diminishes or increases. Immediately behind this curtain is the crystalline lens (l.), the curvature of the anterior face or which is controlled by the ciliary muscle (c.m.). In front of the lens is the aqueous humour (a.h.). The description of the action of this apparatus involves the explanation of several of the elementary ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... west, our own Susquehanna being less crooked. The stream was not broad, but its numerous isles, willowy banks, and verdant meadows, formed a line for the eye to follow. Rouen in the distance, with its ebony towers, fantastic roofs, and straggling suburbs, lines its shores, at a curvature where the stream swept away west again, bearing craft of the sea on its bosom. These dark old towers have a sombre, mysterious air, which harmonizes admirably with the recollections that crowd the mind at such a moment! Scarce an isolated dwelling was to be seen, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... constantly were lost; Vain proved each effort: mystick skill was crossed; The wind, or rain, or fog, or frost, or snow, Had no effect: still circular 'twould go. The more he tried, the ringlet less inclined To drop the curvature so closely twined. How's this? said Satan, never have I seen Such stubborn stuff wherever I have been; The shades below no demon can produce, That could divine what here would prove of use: 'Twould puzzle hell to break ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... of wind up the ravine would produce a tremulous motion in the image at the focus of the mirror; but this was seldom. For the most part the wonderful lenses presented a steady curvature, not flawless, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... parallel of latitude. That line, and the country from the Arkansas to the Yellowstone, was explored and developed mainly by private enterprise, and it is by far the most practicable line crossing the continent —the shortest and quickest, of lightest curvature, and lowest grades and summits. It is not, in an engineering point of view, the true line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but in a commercial ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... on the height of the ship's deck from the water," was the reply. "The curvature of the earth determines that. Say, thirty miles on a vessel of moderate size. But the reflection of the Navesink Light on the sky has been seen as far away ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... writer on astronomy said that the substance of the nebulosity and the tail is of almost inconceivable tenuity. He said this and then death came to his relief. Another writer says of the comet and its tail that "the curvature of the latter and the acceleration of the periodic time in the case of Encke's comet indicate their being affected by a resisting medium which has never been observed to have the slightest influence on ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... to totter on the brows of the precipice, it gave the stream the appearance of running through a deep and narrow dell. All beneath the fantastic limbs and ragged tree tops, which were, here and there, dimly painted against the starry zenith, lay alike in shadowed obscurity. Behind them, the curvature of the banks soon bounded the view by the same dark and wooded outline; but in front, and apparently at no great distance, the water seemed piled against the heavens, whence it tumbled into caverns, out of which issued those sullen sounds that had loaded the evening ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... viewed with a microscope, and magnified; thus came the telescope revealing unheard of suns and galaxies. The first telescopes colored everything looked at, but by a hundred years of mathematical research, the proper curvature of objectives formed of two glasses was discovered, so that now we have perfect instruments. Great results followed; one can now peer into the profound solitudes of space, bringing to view millions of stars, requiring light 5,000 years to traverse their ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... the planet Mercury in the curvature of its orbit, Jishnu (Arjuna) once more slew large number of the samsaptakas. Afflicted with the shafts of Partha, O king, men, steeds, and elephants, O Bharata, wavered and wandered and lost colour and fell down and died. Many foremost of animals tied to yokes and drivers and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... I had ever had a grand uncle with curvature of the spine or a cousin with swelled ankles, the two doctors retired to the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bath tub for their consultation. I ate an apple, and gazed first at my finger and then across ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... her, and found that the little girl could hold her own with many of larger growth. 'Did she go to school to-day?' asked I. 'No,' was the answer, 'she has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine; so now she goes regularly to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... opinions after examination. These opinions can be seen in full in nearly any large medical library. At this time they had diseased and atheromatous arteries, and Chang, who was quite intemperate, had marked spinal curvature, and shortly afterward became hemiplegic. They were both partially blind in their two anterior eyes, possibly from looking outward and obliquely. The point of junction was about the sterno-siphoid angle, a cartilaginous band extending from sternum ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... ceiling, directly above the one on the floor, was another concave disk, but this one had a far more pronounced curvature. ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... always man in every acceptation of the word. In every case in which the bones collected have enabled us to judge, he has ever been found to have the hand and foot proper to our species, and that double curvature of the spinal column has been made out, so characteristic that Serres made it the distinctive attribute of his human kingdom. In every case with him, as with us, the skull is more fully developed than the face. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... minor), the larger and more conspicuous adapted to insect fertilisation only, the smaller capable of self-fertilisation; and two similar forms exist in the eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis). In both these cases there are special modifications in the length and curvature of the style as well as in the size and shape of the corolla; and the two forms are evidently becoming each adapted to special conditions, since in some districts the one, in other districts the other is ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... with curvature of the spine in Mr. Mellaire's watch. He's a proper hobo, too, and a land lubber, and don't weigh more'n a hundred pounds, and must be fifty years old, and he's got curvature of the spine, and he's able seaman, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... Whitaker in his excellent book, The History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven, 'stands upon a beautiful curvature of the Wharf, on a level sufficiently elevated to protect it from inundations, and low enough for every purpose of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... on the lunar disc, is presented on the interior surface of these amphitheatres, being notably downward from the exterior plane, a contrary form to that which terrestrial craters present. It follows, therefore, that the general curvature at the bottom of these amphitheatres gives us fear of an inferior diameter to that of ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... neither more or less than a vast assemblage of bats suspended, and asleep! They were hanging in all possible positions; some with their heads down, some by the claws upon either wing, and some by both, while a great many had merely hooked over the branch the little horny curvature of their tails. Some hung down along the trunk, suspended by a crack in the bark, while others were far out ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... plants 13.85 inches in height, or as 100 to 79. Mr. Galton considers that a higher ratio would be fairer, namely, 100 to 76. He made a graphical representation of the above measurements, and adds the words "very good" to the curvature thus formed. Both lots of plants produced an abundance of seed-capsules, and, as far as could be judged by the eye, there was no ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... are many of the devices which ignorant men connected with the medical profession urge upon the public for the sake of remedying curvature of the spine, restoring the figure, or supporting the abdomen. Not a few of such braces and supporters are seriously dangerous. A good brace, well-fitting, carefully adjusted, suited to the particular case, is often of excellent service; but the majority of them ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... motion with respect to K (in accordance with the law of Galilei) is executing an accelerated and in general curvilinear motion with respect to the accelerated reference-body K1 (chest). This acceleration or curvature corresponds to the influence on the moving body of the gravitational field prevailing relatively to K. It is known that a gravitational field influences the movement of bodies in this way, so that our consideration supplies ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... veritable "transition," and as if by its own matured strength, the round arch breaks into the double curve, les arcs brises, with a wonderful access of grace. And the imaginative effect is forthwith enlarged. Beyond, far beyond, what is actually presented to the eye in that peculiar curvature, its mysterious grace, and by the stateliness, the elevation of the ogival method of vaulting, the imagination is stirred to present one with what belongs properly to it alone. The masonry, though large, is nicely fitted; a large light is admitted through the now fully pronounced Gothic windows towards ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... vary, often to a much greater amount. The wing and tail, for example, besides varying in length, vary in the proportionate length of each feather, and this causes their outline to vary considerably in shape. The bill also varies in length, width, depth, and curvature. The tarsus varies in length, as does each toe separately and independently; and all this not to a minute degree requiring very careful measurement to detect it at all, but to an amount easily seen without any measurement, as it averages one-sixth ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... measurements it will be seen that the horns in the photograph before me are of greater length, but not so massive as the other two. They are also more compressed in their curvature than the others, and so the tip to tip measurement is less. The skull appears to be that of a very old animal; the horns are quite joined at the base, and from the incrustation on the bones I should say it had been picked up, and was not a shikar ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... lot!" said BUMSTEAD, thrusting his book of organ-music so far under his coat-flap that it stuck out at the back like a curvature ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... some dozen or so already, the most palpable engagement rings I think I ever saw. One of them had visible on its inner curvature the four letters MIZP—. He looked at them, saw the posy, and then, glancing at me, laughed affably. "I meant to tell you yesterday, George—I will take these," to the shopman. And we emerged with a superficial amiability; the case ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... plants by the stimuli of the natural forces. He found that plants respond visibly, by movements, to environmental stimuli. But the movements induced—'tropic' movements—are extremely diverse. Light, for example, induces sometimes positive curvature, sometimes negative. Gravitation, again, induces one movement in the root, and the opposition in the shoot. Dr. Bose applied himself to find out whether the movements in response to external stimuli, though apparently ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... or the sea as a medium for carrying the current, Trowbridge essayed to use the air. He believed that this was possible, and that it would be accomplished at no distant date. He believed, however, that such a system could not be operated over considerable distances because of the curvature of the earth. He endeavored to establish communication through the air by induction. He demonstrated that if one coil of wire be set up and a current sent through it, a similar coil facing it will have like currents induced within it, which may be detected ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... N. curvature, curvity^, curvation^; incurvature^, incurvity^; incurvation^; bend; flexure, flexion, flection^; conflexure^; crook, hook, bought, bending; deflection, deflexion^; inflection, inflexion^; concameration^; arcuation^, devexity^, turn, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... stepping stones to lead us on to better ones. In my early work Dr. Draper suggested a very excellent plan for testing a flat surface, which I briefly describe. It is a well known truth that, if an artificial star is placed in the exact center of curvature of a truly spherical mirror, and an eyepiece be used to examine the image close beside the source of light, the star will be sharply defined, and will bear very high magnification. If the eyepiece is now drawn toward the observer, the star disk begins to expand; and if the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... mind, she undertook a journey from Venice, purposing to travel along the continent, when she was seized with a paroxysm, and died on the spot. I examined the body on the following day.... The aorta was considerably dilated at its curvature; and, in places, through its whole tract, the inner surface was unequal and ossified. These appearances were propagated into the arteria innominata. The aortic valves were indurated...." He remarks, "The delay of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... weeks before. The column was halted for a rest, and a number of officers, myself among them, rode out two or three miles to the right to see the extent of the herd. The country was a rolling prairie, and, from the higher ground, the vision was obstructed only by the earth's curvature. As far as the eye could reach to our right, the herd extended. To the left, it extended equally. There was no estimating the number of animals in it; I have no idea that they could all have been corralled in the State of Rhode Island, or ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... had been taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and graceful on the one hand, and the pittoresque, in the true sense of the Italian term, on the other. There were few straight, and no long uninterrupted lines. The same effect of curvature or of color appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one point of view. Everywhere was variety in uniformity. It was a piece of "composition," in which the most fastidiously critical taste could scarcely ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... skeleton, lateral curvature of the spine is, in mild manifestation, very frequent, and is too common even in the higher degrees. The chief causes of this ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... formations 2, 3, 4 are repeated thrice at the surface, twice with a southerly, and once with a northerly inclination or DIP, and the beds in No. 1, which are nearly horizontal, are still brought up twice by a slight curvature to the surface, once on each side of A. Beginning at the north-west extremity, the tile-stones and conglomerates, No. 4 and No. 3, are vertical, and they generally form a ridge parallel to the southern skirts of the Grampians. The superior strata, Nos. 2 and ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... nosing about the outer side of the transparent cones, and sometimes opening their jaws as if trying to seize them. Most of the cone-shaped windows had flat surfaces, but a few were of spherical outline both without and within, and the radius of curvature had been so calculated that these particular windows served as huge magnifying lenses for an eye placed at a given distance. Once or twice a marine monster happened to place himself in the field of one of these ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... on the north-eastern coast of the Sea of Showers. "From Cape Laplace (9000 feet high) on the western extremity, to Cape Heraclides (4000 feet high) on the eastern extremity, this great bay is about 140 miles across, the depth of its curvature being over eighty miles. It bears a very strong resemblance to many large bays on our sea-coasts in various parts of the world, but I am not aware of any such bay which is bordered by a mass of such lofty mountains as ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... a sensation in an organ permeated throughout with water. It is more probable that the organs are affected by vibrations in the water, but we are unable to understand how a difference in the anterior curvature of the lateral line would make a difference in the function in any way related to the difference in conditions of life between Plaice and Dab. There is, however, reason to conclude that the organs, especially on ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... stated as one of the specific characters: thus, in plants, colour, size, hairiness, the number of the stamens and pistils, and even their presence, the form of the leaves; the size and form of the mandibles of the males of some insects; the length and curvature of the beak in some birds (as in Opetiorynchus) are variable characters in some species and quite fixed in others. I do not perceive that any just distinction can be drawn between this recognised variability of certain parts in many species and the more ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... of course," said Marion ironically. "Yes, you; with color of eyes, hair, length of index finger of the right hand, curvature of thumb, disposition—whether peaceable or otherwise, ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... with dry lips, little appetite either for food or drink, and dry skin, with cold extremities. She has at times been occasionally worse, and been relieved in some degree by the bark. She began to bend forwards, and to lift up her shoulders. The former seemed owing to a beginning curvature of the spine, the latter was probably caused to facilitate ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... is of a special and somewhat particular construction. On either side of the rudder and propeller posts—which are sided 24 inches (65 cm.)—is fitted a stout oak counter-timber following the curvature of the stern right up to the upper deck, and forming, so to speak, a double stern-post. The planking is carried outside these timbers, and the stern protected by heavy iron plates ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... milk and rolls back to the kitchen and give Bock a morning greeting. Bock would emerge from his literary kennel, and thrust out his forelegs in a genial obeisance. This was partly politeness, and partly to straighten out his spine after its all-night curvature. Then Roger would let him out into the back yard for a run, himself standing on the kitchen steps to inhale the bright freshness ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... their axes and hew asunder the tough ropes and spars. Bax, as usual, was prominent in action. He toiled as if for life; and so it was for life, though not his own. Small was the hope, yet it was enough to justify the toil. The curvature of the lifeboat was so great that it was possible a portion of air sufficient to maintain life might be confined within it. And so it turned out. For twenty minutes they toiled; the boat was finally cleared; Bax struck the blow ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... Curvature. — N. curvature, curvity[obs3], curvation[obs3]; incurvature[obs3], incurvity|; incurvation[obs3]; bend; flexure, flexion, flection[obs3]; conflexure|; crook, hook, bought, bending; deflection, deflexion[obs3]; inflection, inflexion[obs3]; concameration[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... curves. At all times each wheel must be able to travel in its own plane in spite of the united action of the other two. To run straight, the axes of all the wheels must obviously be parallel. To run round a curve, the axis of each must, if continued, pass through the center of curvature of the curve. If two wheels have a common axis, the intersection of the two lines forming the axes can only meet in one point. To steer such a combination, therefore, the plane of the third wheel only need be turned. If ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... takes a peculiar position. The thigh is slightly bent and rolls outward. For convenience the child drops the half of the pelvis corresponding to the diseased hip-joint, and naturally raises the other half. From this apparently a curvature of the spinal column results in the lumbar region. Apparently only, for when the child is laid down and the morbid position of the thigh is restored the curvature ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... reading an old astronomy; it speaks of the perfect line of curvature of the earth in spite of mountains and abysses, and I have imagined a man three hundred thousand miles high picking up a ball like the earth and looking at it and holding it in his hand. It would be about like ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... be due to a variety of causes. In the ox and ram, small calculi collect in the S-shaped curvature of the urethra, or at its terminal extremity. In the horse, cystic calculi are more common than urethral. In cattle and hogs, fatty secretions from the inflamed lining membrane of the sheath of the male may accumulate, and ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... clamorous crows; and all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of nature. High over all these hovers one, whose action instantly arrests his whole attention. By his wide curvature of wing, and sudden, suspension in air, he knows him to be the fish hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and, balancing himself, with half-opened wings, on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... — N. curvature, curvity[obs3], curvation[obs3]; incurvature[obs3], incurvity|; incurvation[obs3]; bend; flexure, flexion, flection[obs3]; conflexure|; crook, hook, bought, bending; deflection, deflexion[obs3]; inflection, inflexion[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... are too low. It has been erroneously maintained by some that the top of the desk should be on the same plane with the elbow when the arm hangs by the side. When the desk is higher, it has been said the tendency is to elevate one shoulder, to depress the other, and to produce a permanent curvature of the spinal column. Although this may have been frequently the result of sitting at a high desk, yet it is not a necessary result. To prevent the projection of one shoulder, and the consequent spinal curvature, both ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... to display most grace. For coloring prints she must sit bent over a table and devote herself, with some attention, to this half painting. Embroidering tapestry, as diligently as a woman must who is to earn her living by it, entails consumption or curvature of the spine. Engraving music is one of the most laborious, by the care, the minute exactitude, and the intelligence it demands. Sewing and white embroidery do not earn thirty sous a day. But the making of flowers and light articles of wear necessitates a variety of movements, gestures, ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... earth's surface makes it impossible for the sides of townships to be truly north and south and at the same time six miles square. The excesses and the deficiencies due to the convergency of meridians and the curvature of the earth are by law added to or deducted from the western and northern ranges of sections and half sections of the townships. While the above has been the rule in laying out public lands for more than a century, there are many exceptions, due ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... on the part of the organism, is represented by a line which repeats the curvature of the parent organism originating at such a point as P in the path of the latter, when the rate of consumption of energy has become constant. The organism A has now ceased to act as a unit. The products of fission each carry on the vital ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... horizontal bones lay like the bars of a gridiron, a mature specimen of a type that Ellen had met in her school-days. There had been several girls at John Thompson's, usually bleached and ill-favoured victims of anaemia or spinal curvature, who had seemed to be compelled by something within themselves to spend their whole energies in trying, by extravagances of hair-ribbon and sidecombs and patent leather belts, the collection of actresses' postcards, and the completest ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... to the ellipticity observed in France, in England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or in the region of the Cape of Good Hope; for, the earth's crust having undergone considerable upheavals at different times and places, the primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly disturbed thereby. The moon (and it is this which renders the result of such inestimable value) ought to assign, and has in reality assigned, the general ellipticity of the earth; in other words, it has indicated a sort ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply pointed, delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her neck rose from the withers to the head in perfect curvature, hard, devoid of fat, and well cut up under the chops. Her nostrils were full, very full, and thin almost as parchment. The eyes, from which tears might fall or fire flash, were well brought out, soft as a gazelle's, almost human in their intelligence, while over the small bony head, over ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... dependent upon her, thus following habits established by generations of virtuous women who cared for feeble folk. I know one such girl living in a disreputable house in Chicago who has adopted a delicate child afflicted with curvature of the spine, whom she boards with respectable people and keeps for many weeks out of each year in an expensive sanitarium that it may receive medical treatment. The mother of the child, an inmate of the house in which the ardent ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... forethought and provision for every contingency which had distinguished the engineer's procedure in the course of the work, he had made frequent experiments to ascertain the actual power which would be required to raise the main chains to their proper curvature. A valley lay convenient for the purpose, a little to the west of the bridge on the Anglesea side. Fifty-seven of the intended vertical suspending rods, each nearly ten feet long and an inch square, having been fastened together, a piece of chain was attached to one end to make the chord ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... when cut, are to be bent to the proper curvature. The machine by which this bending is effected is seen above, in the back-ground. It consists of three rollers, placed in such a position in relation to each other, that the plate, in being forced through between them, is bent to any required curvature. These rollers are made to revolve ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... the curvature of the thermal lines of the continent bear away to the northward of the surveyed route of this great enterprise, insuring almost entire freedom from snow obstructions other than is common to any of the principal railway lines in ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... declined to accept the statement. She could not see that the top of a true billiard-table must, theoretically, be spherical, just like a portion of the orange-peel that George cut out. Of course, the table is so small in proportion to the surface of the earth that the curvature is not appreciable, but it is nevertheless true in theory. A surface that we call level is not the same as our idea of ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... distorted through the water? Because the light rays are bent. Why are they bent? Because as each wave front moves from air to water, it slows down. The electromagnetic and gravitational fields between those atoms are strong enough to increase the curvature of the space between them. Now, what happens if we reverse ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... he liked best, or to take them all if he would. But Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these, but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... in which I had lain, as a child, stupefied with soothing syrups; the perambulator, seated in which and propelled from behind, I overthrew the schoolmaster, and in which my infantile spine received its curvature; the nursery-maid, surrendering her lips alternately to me and the gardener; the old home of my youth, with the ivy and the mortgage on it; my eldest brother, who by will succeeded to the family debts; my sister, who ran away ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... in the case of the growing girl, is not a thing to be accepted as readily as the weakness of the biceps and the forearm muscles. Various observers find a proportion of between 85 per cent. and 90 per cent. of those suffering from lateral curvature of the spine to be girls, the great majority of these cases occurring between the ages of ten and fifteen. Everywhere it is our duty to prevent such cases, and everywhere physical training will find only too abundant opportunities for endeavouring to correct ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... design with modification in the position of the median figure, and a slight curvature ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... a little boy with curvature of the spine needed every honest halfpenny that could be turned—and more also. Between a chauffeur's wages and his Army pay there was fixed a great gulf, and—well, it was hard to know that the child was ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... first non-deficient cause as regards what it has of being and perfection, but not as regards what it has of defect; just as whatever there is of motion in the act of limping is caused by the motive power, whereas what there is of obliqueness in it does not come from the motive power, but from the curvature of the leg. And, likewise, whatever there is of being and action in a bad action, is reduced to God as the cause; whereas whatever defect is in it is not caused by God, but by ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... shows a. method of utilizing the movement of the hammer. A piece of wood, 2 inches long, wide enough to fill the space between the rear edge of the clock and the hammer slot, and 1/2 inch thick, has its under side hollowed out to the curvature of the clock barrel. This block serves as a base for two binding posts or terminals, T1 T2. A vertical slit is made in T1 and in this is soldered [to] one end of a little piece of spring brass strip, 1 inch long and 1/4 inch wide. To the back ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... discovery of the principle by Delpech, and the application of it by Stromeyer, Dieffenbach, Little, and countless successors, it has been used for very many cases for which it is totally inapplicable, e.g. for the division of the muscles of the back in spinal curvature. Still there remain several deformities for the relief of which subcutaneous tenotomy is a most important remedy; chief among these ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... the Florentine governor of the Tuscan portion of the island. It stands on the extremity of a low rocky promontory that forms the western ramparts of the deep, extensive bay, on the side of which, ensconced behind a very convenient curvature of the rocks, which here incline westward in the form of a hook, lies the small port, completely concealed from the sea, as if in dread of visits like those which might be expected from craft resembling the suspicious ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sea formed by the curvature of the land between two capes or headlands, often used synonymously with gulf; though, in strict accuracy, the term should be applied only to those large recesses which are wider from cape to cape ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... its body, which are of peculiar beauty, mark the different expansions of its fibres, and are, I think, exactly the same as those which would be traced by the currents of a river entering a lake of the shape of the leaf, at the end where the stalk is, and passing out at its point." Curvature was one of the special subjects of Ruskin, the one he found most neglected by ordinary artists. The "Alisma" was a test of observation and draughtsmanship. He had never seen it so thoroughly or so well drawn, and heartily wished the ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... passage along the sands immediately under the declination of the arch. In accordance with the caution of their conductor, the officers had placed themselves under it; and with their backs slightly bent forward to meet the curvature of the bridge, so that no ray of light could pass between their bodies and the fabric itself, now awaited the arrival of the vessel on which their only hope depended. We shall not attempt to describe ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... one succeeding the longer; so that you might suppose they grew on an incline. Thus does the rustic pipe sometimes rise by degrees, with unequal straws. Then he binds those in the middle with thread, and the lowermost ones with wax; and, thus ranged, with a gentle curvature, he bends them, so as to imitate real {wings of} birds. His son Icarus stands together with him; and, ignorant that he is handling {the source of} danger to himself, with a smiling countenance, he sometimes catches at the feathers which the shifting breeze ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... becoming more and more pronounced, until the curved form of each ridge became apparent. Lord Avebury says that when the driver, walking on the near side, reached the end of each furrow, he found it easier to turn the team by pulling them round than by pushing them, thus accounting for the slight curvature. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... well here to remark, that if such distortion is timely noticed, it is capable of correction, even after evident curvature has taken place. It is to be remedied by using those means that shall invigorate the frame, and promote the child's general health (a daily plunge into the cold bath, or sponging with cold salt water, will be found signally efficacious), ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... begun to edge into sight on the screen globe, couldn't be seen from the ship. When he told her to go ahead, she got a platinum half-sol piece from her purse, held it on the globe from the classroom and explained about the curvature and told them they could see nothing farther away than the circle the coin covered. It was beginning to look as though the psychological-warfare experiment might ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... him to adduce another argument, which, though not quite so obvious as that just mentioned, demonstrates the curvature of the earth in a very impressive manner to anyone who will take the trouble to understand it. Ptolemy mentions that travellers who went to the south reported, that, as they did so, the appearance of the heavens ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... was a slim fellow, apparently about thirty, in a fresh, well-cut, serge suit. A book was sticking out of one pocket; he returned the map to the other. He had the sallow look of one who has spent years in hot workshops, and a slight curvature of the spine; but his eyes were singularly, audaciously bright, and all his ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the required dimensions are then cut, heated, and bent into the proper shape for knees, after which their centres are placed at equal distances upon the keel, and firmly tied with cords. The knees are retained in their proper curvature by cords around the ends. After a sufficient number of them have been placed upon the keel, two poles of suitable dimensions are heated, bent around the ends for a gunwale, and firmly lashed to each knee. Smaller willows are then interwoven, so ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... extraordinary creations, due entirely to society for, according to Nature's plan, feeble or aborted beings ought to perish. The curvature or distortion of the spinal column creates in these outwardly deformed subjects as it were a storage-battery, where the nerve currents accumulate more abundantly than under normal conditions,—where they develop, and whence ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... would have done had there been no curve. The columns of the Parthenon have shafts that are over 34 ft. high, and diminish from a diameter of 6.15 ft. at the bottom to 4.81 ft. at the top. The outline between these points is convex, but so slightly so that the curve departs at the point of greatest curvature not more than 3/4 in. from the straight line joining the top and bottom. This is, however, just sufficient to correct the tendency to ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... crest-line would spring up from the high point of some buried obstacle and sweep along in the most graceful curve as far as the eye would carry I particularly remember one of them, and I could discover no earthly reason for the curvature ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... Schmidt shows a row of large craters on the outer slope of the E. border. Of these, one is very conspicuous under a low evening sun, by reason of its brilliant walls and interior. In the region between Gauss and Berosus is a number of narrow steep ridges which follow the curvature of ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... Beauty;" which will be published, probably, about the time the Thames is purified, in the season of Latter Lammas and the Greek Kalends; and the more certainly so, because he has wandered into the abyss of conic sections and curves of double curvature, of which, if the truth must be spoken, he knows no more than his friends ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... several species—the white, red, black and mountain ash. The white ash is a graceful tree, rising in the forest to the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a straight trunk and a diameter of three feet or more at the base. On an open plain it throws out its branches, with a gentle double curvature, to a distance on every side, and forms a broad, round head of great beauty. The flowers of the ash are greenish white in color and appear with the leaves in loose clusters. 'The trunk of our largest American ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... engineers have freely availed themselves, is curvature. More power is required to draw a train of cars around a curved track than upon a straight line. In England the radius of curvature is limited to half a mile, or thereabouts. The English railway-carriage is placed on three axles, all of which are fixed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... that which diagnosed and described the "diseases of school children," that is to say, the maladies contracted solely as a result of study in school. The most prevalent of these maladies are spinal curvature and myopia. The first is caused by excessive sitting, and by the injurious position of the shoulders in writing. The second arises from the fact that in the spot where the child has to remain seated, there is not sufficient light for him to see clearly; or this spot is too far from the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... was at one of the ward schools. I examined her in algebra, and found that the little girl of thirteen could hold her own with many of a larger growth. Did she go to school to-day? asked I. No, was the answer, she has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine, so now she goes regularly to a gymnastic doctor. I almost feel ashamed to criticize such noble institutions as the schools of New York; but truth compels me to do this. Hitherto, nothing whatever has been ...
— A Lecture on Physical Development, and its Relations to Mental and Spiritual Development, delivered before the American Institute of Instruction, at their Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting, in Norwich, Conn • S.R. Calthrop
... white charmeuse, cut low in front and with a V in the back which clearly testified to the fact that the wearer was not afflicted with spinal curvature. Its trimmings were of exquisite lace and crystals sufficiently elaborate for a bride, and the skirt was one of the clinging, narrow, beaver-tailed train affairs which render walking about as graceful as the gait of a hobbled-horse, and dancing an utter impossibility unless the gown ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... ordinary," I said. "They have just informed me it was planned this way. It wasn't possible to build a round-trip rocket yet. You need a lot of fuel to make course adjustments for the curvature of space, so forth. The radio will send back your reports on the Alpha Centaurian planets. Undoubtedly by all rules of probability they won't support life without a mass of equipment. They suckered me too, Meyverik, I swear. ...
— Measure for a Loner • James Judson Harmon
... of the Lalugwumpian error regarding this matter than by relating a conversation that occurred between me and one of the high officers of the King's household—a man whose proficiency in all the vices of antiquity, together with his service to the realm in determining the normal radius of curvature in cats' claws, had elevated him to the highest plane of political preferment. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... us go a little further. Might not certain vices have the same relation to character that the rigidity of a fixed idea has to intellect? Whether as a moral kink or a crooked twist given to the will, vice has often the appearance of a curvature of the soul. Doubtless there are vices into which the soul plunges deeply with all its pregnant potency, which it rejuvenates and drags along with it into a moving circle of reincarnations. Those are tragic vices. ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... passed to moral questions, and found comfort in the notion That fools are none the worse for things not being what they seem, When, behold, a seeming log became instinct with life and motion, And with sudden curvature of tail upset me ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... junction with the Pennsylvania Railroad, near Harrison, N. J., to Woodside, Long Island, a distance of 13.66 miles, there is an average of 1.5 curves per mile; the line having a total curvature of 230 degrees. The maximum curvature is ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond
... of a masonry arch structure as can be found (figs. 8 and 9). The design was made by John Rennie the elder, and the acting engineer was his son, Sir John Rennie. The semi-elliptical shape of the arches the variation of span, the slight curvature of the roadway, and the simple yet bold architectural details, combine to make it a singularly beautiful bridge. The centre arch has a span of 152 ft., and rises 29 ft. 6 in above Trinity high-water ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... to be particularly alluded to—there was no taking it off and putting it on again with anything like dignity. At any rate, then, here goes a how. But, another difficulty presented itself; my loose frock was so voluminous that I doubted whether any spinal curvature would be perceptible. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... in practicing expansion we should be careful that there is no increase in the curvature of the spine. The back should remain normal, or become more nearly normal if ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... open sea finally—a broad, empty expanse, with a mirrorlike surface. The curvature of the planet was even more apparent now; it seemed almost as though the water should be sliding ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... large species, of which South Africa is the home. This is remarkable for a noble appearance; but its most striking characteristic is its magnificent horns—each of which is four feet in length, sweeping widely outwards in an elegant spiral curvature. The koodoo loves the shade of the forest, and especially delights to dwell on the banks of rivers—taking freely to the water ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... waist of scarce a span's circumference, her form was exquisitely full and rounded; the sweeping outlines of her snow-white and dimpled arms, bare to the shoulders, and set off by many strings of pearl, which were themselves scarcely whiter than the skin on which they rested; the swan-like curvature of the dazzling neck; the wavy and voluptuous development of her bust, shrouded but not concealed by the plaits of her white linen stola, fastened on either shoulder by a clasp of golden fillagree, and gathered just above her hips by a gilt zone of the Grecian ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Sometimes the whole of the upper portion uniting the arcs of the ends is struck from one centre, in which case the arch becomes a three-centred one, being, in fact, half an ellipse. Towards the close of the style the curvature of the upper portion is so slight that it can hardly be distinguished from a straight line, and as the debasement progressed it became really straight. Ogee arches are also found at this period, and foiled arches are very frequent. When ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... at him we are thinking of them: therein is the wonder. The animal which now came out of the wady might well have claimed the customary homage. Its color and height; its breadth of foot; its bulk of body, not fat, but overlaid with muscle; its long, slender neck, of swanlike curvature; the head, wide between the eyes, and tapering to a muzzle which a lady's bracelet might have almost clasped; its motion, step long and elastic, tread sure and soundless—all certified its Syrian blood, old as the days of Cyrus, and absolutely priceless. There was the usual ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... horror of lockjaw," he explained. "I never get a jag from a pin but I see myself in the shape of a hoop, semicircular, with my head on one end of a table, my heels on the other, and a doctor standing on my navel trying to reduce the curvature." ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... to this narrow horizon, so I didn't feel so much like being cooped under a big bowl, but one does keep overestimating distances. Something four miles away looks eight when you're used to terrestrial curvature, and that makes you guess its size just four times too large. A little hill looks like a mountain until you're ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... that stunted and [illegible] hardened processes were primarily left by the abortion of various appendages, but I must believe that their extreme sharpness and hardness is the result of fluctuating variability and "the survival of the fittest." The precise form, curvature and colour of the thorns I freely admit to be the result of the laws of growth of each particular plant, or of their conditions, internal and external. It would be an astounding fact if any varying plant suddenly produced, without the aid of reversion or selection, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... These were posted at the two extremities of the line, where it was depressed; while the centre, where the Gauls and Spaniards were placed, projected a little. When the wedge thus formed being driven in, at first rendered the line level, but afterwards, by the pressure, made a curvature in the centre, the Africans, who had now formed wings on each side of them, surrounded the Romans on both sides, who incautiously rushed into the intermediate space; and presently extending their wings, enclosed ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius |
