"Spongy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the thumb should have been. It had been hacked or torn right ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the external surface of the bone, and is, in fact, the secreting membrane of the bony structure. The bony tissue proper is of two consistencies, the external portion being hard and "compact," and called by the latter term, while the internal, known as the "spongy" or "areolar tissue," corresponds to the descriptive terms. Those of the bones that possess this latter consistency contain also, in their spongy portion, the medullary substance known as marrow, which is deposited in large quantities in the interior of the long bones, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... work promptly. The bottle of cream he had begged from Ma Briskow he now put to use. With this soothing liquid he first washed out their eyes, the membranes of which were raw and spongy, and excruciatingly sensitive to light, then he bandaged them as best he could ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... exuviation, the ova burst forth from the the ovarian tubes in the peduncle and round the sack, and, carried along the open circulatory channels, are collected (by means unknown to me) beneath the chitine-tunic of the sack, in the corium, which is at this period remarkably spongy and full of cavities. The corium then forms or rather (as I believe) resolves itself into the very delicate membrane separately enveloping each ovum, and uniting them together into two lamellae; the corium having thus far retreated, then forms under ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... I will,—said I.—First, I like its mechanical consistency; brittle externally,—that is for the teeth, which want resistance to be overcome; soft, spongy, well tempered and flavored internally, that is for the organ of taste; wholesome, nutritious,—that is for the internal surfaces ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... flick of Arnold's fingers that threw open entire sheathed sections to bare the inner secrets. The thousands of tiny transistors amazed Beardsley. The endless array of electric eyes startled him. And the spongy centers of synaptic cell-clusters horrified him, recalling too vividly to mind what he knew of the physical ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... day, and that it interfered but little with an altogether peculiar calm which appeared to him to belong in its own right to the Sunday, whether its light flowed in the sunny cataracts of June, or oozed through the spongy clouds of November. As he walked again to the Alton, or Old Town in the evening, the filmy floats of white in the lofty blue, the droop of the long dark grass by the side of the short brown corn, the shadows pointing ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... while a weak infusion produces only one hundred and seventeen and a half,—the additional nineteen and a half pounds serving only to deteriorate the leather, and causing it to contain much less textile animal solid. Leather thus highly charged with tanning is so spongy as to allow moisture to pass readily through its pores, to the great discomfort and injury of those who wear shoes made of it. The proper mode of tanning lasts a year, or a year and a half, according to the quality of the leather wanted and the nature of the hides. A perfect leather can ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... traced on the lining with the tracing wheel, with a slow backward and forward movement, making the perforations clear and distinct. Soft spongy goods that cannot be traced may be marked with a line of basting, tailor's chalk or by taking stitches with a pin along the line to be marked and twisting them in the goods. This will make holes that can be seen, but the twisting ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... bottom layer, 11/4 in. thick; the color of ore quite black, with small particles of reduced spongy metallic iron. II. Layer above I., 41/4 in. thick; the color was also black, but showed a little purple tint. III. Layer above II., 5 in. thick; purple red color. IV. Layer above III., ore a red ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... The feather of a bird is a marvellous structure, and no one will deny that as a whole it depends upon adaptation. But what part of it DOES NOT depend upon adaptation? The hollow quill, the shaft with its hard, thin, light cortex, and the spongy substance within it, its square section compared with the round section of the quill, the flat barbs, their short, hooked barbules which, in the flight-feathers, hook into one another with just sufficient firmness to resist the pressure of the air at each wing-beat, ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... of a "good old-fashioned barn-raisin' "—and the old man doing all the "raisin' " himself, and "grubbin'," and "burnin' " logs and "underbrush," and "dreenin' " at the same time, and trying to coax something besides calamus to grow in the spongy little tract of swamp-land that he could stand in the middle of and "wobble" and shake the whole farm. Or, if you can't recall the many salient features of the minor disadvantages under which the old man used to labor, your pliant limbs may soon overtake ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... they were picnicking in the big forest. It was a day of spongy dampness underfoot, sweet and wild with breezes, blue of sky, and still cold in the shade, if it was heavenly warm in the sun. Alix, who was hot and panting from the scrambling and slipping downhill, hung on a bank, with her arm crooked about ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... accustomed to the country than was Jack's. After having gone a considerable distance, he left Jack some way behind. The marks of the horse's feet had immediately been lost, by the spongy ground returning to its former state. Jack, however, thought there could be no difficulty in pushing on directly behind him. He had not, however, gone far before he found that, instead of following Burdale's direction to turn neither ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... days burned like a procession of golden flames passing in magic sequence amid yellowing woods and over the brown and spongy gold of salt meadows which had been sheared for stable bedding. And everywhere over their land lay the dun-coloured velvet squares of freshly ploughed fields awaiting unfragrant fertilizer ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... discomfort displayed by the pair was that the lady's hand worked somewhat fretfully to keep her dress from ballooning and puffing out of all proportion round about her person, while the vicar, who stood without his hat, employed a spongy handkerchief from time to time in tempering the ardours of a vertical sun. If you will consent to imagine a bald blackbird, his neck being shrunk in apprehensively, as you may see him in the first rolling of the thunder, you will ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... almost afraid to penetrate further into the woods, for they found the ground growing wet and spongy under their feet. All halted and gathered ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... inclosed in a glass vessel, c, we do not expect the glass to change them, unless a or b or the compound a b has the power of dissolving the glass. But if for a I take oxygen, for b hydrogen, and for c a piece of spongy platinum, I find the first two combine with the common signs of combustion and form water, the third in the mean time undergoing no perceptible change. It has played the part of the unwedded priest, who marries a pair without taking a fee or having any further relation with the parties. We ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... rolling over the long ridges which girt the landscape in that quarter. They came in yet greater volumes, and indolently crept across the intervening valleys, and around the withered papery flags of the moor and river brinks. Then their dank spongy forms closed in upon the sky. It was a sudden overgrowth of atmospheric fungi which had their roots in the neighbouring sea, and by the time that horse, man, and corpse entered Yalbury Great Wood, these silent workings of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... in a moment my eye caught in the spongy bottom a thin mark cut clearly crescent-wise upon the turf. There was something strangely familiar about the horseshoe curve. Then I remembered the unshod roan of ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... brown eyes inspire anything but confidence. His nose, however, is his redeeming feature: it is pronounced straight and well-formed; though I myself should have liked it better if it did not possess a somewhat spongy, porous appearance, as though it had been cleverly formed out of a red ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... began work on the bed, but he knelt and among the damp leaves from the spongy black earth he lifted the roots with his fingers and carefully straightened and pressed down the plants he did not take. This required more time than usual, but his heart was so sore he could not be rough with anything, most of ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... its produce, variety of brush, with some few small gum trees, and a species of fir, that grows tall and straight to the height of 20 or 25 feet. There are within the body of the brush several clear spots, where the ground is partly rocky or sandy, partly wet and spongy. These are somewhat enlivened by beautiful flowering heath, and low shrubs, but have upon the whole a dark sombrous aspect, too much resembling the barren ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... attention to his own life, its heights or depths, past or future. He saw Stafford, but he could not be said to consider him at all. He turned from the road into the wood, and pushed the great bay over spongy ground toward the isolated 65th. Stafford saw that he gave him no thought, and it angered him. On the highroad of his life it would not have done so, but he had left the road and was lost in the jungle. There were few things that Richard ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the orbs beneath, And nose that like a soaring hawk appeared, And lifted lip, uncovering his teeth, The Mamikellikiller coldly sneered: "O, so you don't! Well, how will you assuage Your spongy passion for ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... appearance on grates or fire-irons, apply a mixture of two parts of tripoli to one of sulphur, intimately mingled on a marble slab, and laid on with a piece of soft leather. Or emery and oil may be applied with excellent effect; not laid on in the usual slovenly way, but with a spongy piece of fig wood fully saturated with the mixture. This will not only clean but impart a polish to the metal ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... spoke so fairly. What but highest greatness Plucks hatred from its seat, and in its stead Plants friendship in an instant? This our camp Is badly placed; each coulee and ravine Is dangerous cover for approach by night; And all the circuit of the spongy plain A treacherous bog to mire our cavalry. They who directed us so warmly here Had other than ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... short growing season, fail of fruit. Dipping over banks in the inlets of the creeks, the fortunate find the rosy apples of the miniature manzanita, barely, but always quite sufficiently, borne above the spongy sod. It does not do to be anything but humble in the alpine regions, but not fearful. I have pawed about for hours in the chill sward of meadows where one might properly expect to get one's death, and got no harm from it, except it ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... stripped by the peasants for domestic uses, naked and miserable skeletons; with them it is indiscriminate slaughter, doing irreparable injury to the trees. There now lie before me the specimens I collected of the successive layers of the bark. The spongy external cuticle, swelling into excrescences, is only used for floats of the fishermen's nets in the island. Beneath lies a coating of more compact, but cellular, tissue, of a beautiful rich colour—a sort of red umber. This layer, called la camicia (the shift), ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... from the spongy bones, generally the superior one, are non-malignant in their character, soft and vascular, often fill up the whole of both nasal cavities, and frequently hang down behind into the pharynx. The practical point to remember is that, however large ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... in patients suffering from scurvy, and is characterised by its prominent granulations, which show a marked tendency to bleed, with the formation of clots, which dry and form a spongy crust ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... on the outside of the box which held those queer, spongy, flat things. Of course, Fatty Coon could not read, so the printing did him no good at all. But if you had seen the box, and if you are old enough to read, you would have ...
— Sleepy-Time Tales: The Tale of Fatty Coon • Arthur Scott Bailey
... embankment near Bingley, and each morning the stuff thrown in on the preceding day was found to have disappeared. This went on for many weeks, the bank, however, gradually advancing, and forcing up on either side a spongy black ridge of moss. On the South-Western Railway a heavy embankment, about fifty feet high, crossed a piece of ground near Newham, the surface of which seemed to be perfectly sound and firm. Twenty feet, however, beneath the surface an old bog lay concealed; and the ground giving way, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... to purchase all the balls, and wind them at their own expense, and paid from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 4d. per pound for green cocoons. The Commissioners separated the cocoons into three sorts: 1st, perfect cones; 2d, the spongy and fuzzy; and 3d, the spotted, stained, and dupions. This arrangement, however, gave great offence to some of the residents in Savannah and Purysburgh, and Messrs. Robinson and Habersham requested the Vice President and assistants to determine the respective prices and ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... included one hundred and twenty musicians. Paganini was born with muscles in his wrists like whipcords. What was unique in Socrates was first unique in Sophroniscus. John ran before Jesus, but Zacharias foretold John. No electricity along rope wires, and no vital living truths along rope nerves to spongy brain. There are millions in our world who have been rendered physical and moral paupers by the sins of their ancestors. Their forefathers doomed them to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. A century must pass before ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... is a brown, round fruit; the skin rather crisp and hard, and of a dull earthy colour, not unlike that of a common boiled potato. The inside is a stringy, spongy-looking mass, with small seeds embedded in a gummy viscid substance. The taste is exactly like an almond, and it forms a pleasant mouthful ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... quite dry, and surrounded by sand hills. Crossing just below it, we proceeded on a course of 331 degrees over extensive plains, covered with samphire, excepting where the beds of dry salt lagoons occurred. The ground was spongy and soft, and the cart wheels consequently sank deep into it. The plain was surrounded on all sides by sand hills, and that towards which we were advancing appeared to run athwart our course instead of nearly parallel ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... provincial idiom, form the landmarks of the Venezuelan Plains; and in the neighborhood of each we shall find the hato or dwelling of a Llanero. The building, we shall find in every case, is a roughly-constructed hut, consisting of a floor raised a couple of feet above the spongy soil, and covered with a steep roof of palm-branches, with perhaps a thatch composed of the leaves of the same invaluable tree. A rough partition of mud-plastered twigs divides the Llanero's dwelling into unequal apartments; the lesser being reserved for the use of the females of the household, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... peat bog of about twelve square miles in extent. Unlike the bogs or swamps of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, which consist principally of soft mud or silt, this bog is a vast mass of spongy vegetable pulp, the result of the growth and decay of ages. The spagni, or bog-mosses, cover the entire area; one year's growth rising over another,—the older growths not entirely decaying, but remaining partially preserved by the antiseptic properties peculiar ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... his breath; the torrents of water, dashing in his face, kept him blinking and gasping, and still that wild thing pawed and snorted. Fascinated, Piang gazed into the vicious, bleary eyes, and finally he realized that they were losing some of their fury; the tusks sank into the spongy earth; the head fell lower. The babui was a prisoner, pinioned to the ground by a fallen tree! Relief was Piang's first sensation, but pity for the animal and fear for himself, roused him to the realization of new dangers yet ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... which is common enough in stagnant pools, and on our spongy bogs, is the most serviceable of all known herbal tonics. It may be easily recognised growing in water by its large leaves overtopping the surface, each being composed of three leaflets, and resembling the leaf of a Windsor Broad Bean. The flowers when in bud are of a ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... numbers of tracks of emus and wild dogs, also some native tracks, all fresh. On the north-west side there is one solitary gum-tree, and about half a mile in the same direction is another bed of reeds, and a spring with water in it. All the banks round the lagoon are of a spongy nature. I am very glad I have found this; it will be another day's stage with water nearer to the Spring of Hope. We can now make that in one day, if we can get an early start. By the discovery of springs on this trip, the road can now be travelled to the furthest ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... looked upon with some distrust by its defenders, who did not know how well that material could withstand cannon-shot; but the opening volley of the fleet re-assured them. The balls penetrated deep in the soft, spongy wood without detaching any of the splinters, which, in a battle, are more dangerous than the shot themselves. The fort soon replied to the fire of the fleet; and the thunder of three hundred cannon rang out over the bay, while dense clouds of sulphurous smoke hid the scene from the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the way was trodden in silence. The rivulets were swollen with the heavy rains, and great care was necessary to attain their object in safety. The path was not devoid of danger at any time, by reason of the spongy and uncertain nature of the bogs, accumulated masses of spumous unhealthy vegetation, showing patches of bright green verdure, holding water often to an unknown depth, and sometimes proving fatal to those who dare to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... may be used; but this very rarely, and with the greatest caution, as in cleaning sea-shells. When the gums are spongy, they should be frequently pricked with a lancet. Should black spots in teeth be cut out? Does the enamel grow again when it ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... were filled either with Wind or Froth. But the latter Canal entered into a great Cavity of the Skull, from whence there went another Canal into the Tongue. This great Cavity was filled with a kind of Spongy Substance, which the French Anatomists call Galimatias, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... deposited; or there may be an intermediate stage of cartilage formation, especially in young subjects, and in cases where the fragments are incompletely immobilised. The newly formed bone is at first arranged in little masses or in the form of rods which unite with each other to form a network of spongy bone, the meshes ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... the case in connection with the autopsy it is quite evident that the different suppurating surfaces, and especially the fractured, spongy tissue of the vertebrae, furnish a sufficient explanation of the ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... the slope of Monte Verde, between the beautiful spring of Dornajito and Caravela, are black masses, altered by decomposition, sometimes porous, and with very oblong pores. The basis of these lower lavas is rather wacke than basalt; when it is spongy, it resembles the amygdaloids* of Frankfort-on-the-Main. (* Wakkenartiger mandelstein. Steinkaute.) Its fracture is generally irregular; wherever it is conchoidal, we may presume that the cooling has been more rapid, and the mass has been exposed to a less ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... dairy. Anyicska and Masinka, the two bridesmaids of last evening, met me at the gate, and were very officious in showing me in, and while Anyicska brought me a cup of excellent sweet milk, Masinka brought some spongy rye bread, fresh from the oven, upon a salver. Of course, this was offered as a bribe for my secrecy on the topic of last night, and I promised them not to tell Countess Diodora how they had been employed ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... better life of man must mix with the currents of his time. Snowdrifts in the mountains and on the northern slopes that hold snows in their shadows for the summer's use; and dark mountain meadows, where fogs and rains soak every particle of sod, and waters percolate through the spongy root and soil to form bubbling streams; and the pines, whose shadows make a cool retreat where streams may not be drained dry by the sun; the silver threads of tributary brooks; the sponge of mountain mosses, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Mr. Chambers says that when Yarranton's scheme was first brought forward, it met with violent opposition and ridicule. The undertaking was thought wonderfully bold, and, joined to its great extent, the sandy, spongy nature of the ground, the high banks necessary to prevent the inundation of the Stour on the canal, furnished its opponents, if not with sound argument, at least with very specious topics for opposition and laughter.[10] Yarranton's plan was to make the river ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... victor hands he laves In the pure stream: then with soft leaves defends A spot, to rest the serpent-bearing head, Lest the bare sand should harm it. Twigs marine He likewise strews, and rests Medusa there. The fresh green twigs as though with life endow'd, Felt the dire Gorgon's power; their spongy pith Hard to the touch became, the stiffness spread Through every twig and leaf. The Nereid nymphs More branches bring, and try the wonderous change On all, and joy to see the change succeed: Spreading the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... delicate, is worth considering on account of its bulk. The orchestration is heavy and noisy; and the brass dominates and roughly gilds the rather sombre colouring of the great edifice. The underlying idea of the composition is neo-classic, and rather spongy and diffuse. Its harmonic structure is composite: we get the style of Bach, Schubert, and Mendelssohn fighting that of Wagner and Bruckner; and, by a decided liking for canon form, it even recalls some of Franck's work. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the inclemencies of the weather. This hardness may, with good reason, be ascribed to the salt of nitre, which contracts a certain viscidity from the rain wherewith it is mixed, and which easily penetrates into these stones, because their substance is spongy and cretaceous, and adheres ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... air, to give forth a chunky, smacking sound, as it struck water-softened, spongy wood. The attack against the cave-in had begun, to progress with seeming rapidity for a few hours, then to cease, until the two men could remove the debris which they had dug out and haul it by slow, laborious effort to the surface. But it was a beginning, ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the incomplete model of the rectum, or rather sleeve, you observe circular muscular bands or fibres which it is necessary to cover with soft spongy or fatty substance in whose meshes are nerves, blood-vessels, etc. This is called the areolar layer or coat. One more layer or coat upon this—the mucous coat—completes the structure. This latter possesses the power of accommodating itself to the distention and ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... which formed the hill, and found that it came up out of the sand with great abruptness, so that we could not climb it on the seaward side. At that, the bo'sun led us round a space towards that side where lay the valley, and here there was under-foot neither sand nor rock; but ground of strange and spongy texture, and then suddenly, rounding a jutting spur of the rock, we came upon the first of the vegetation—an incredible mushroom; nay, I should say toadstool; for it had no healthy look about it, and gave out a heavy, mouldy odor. And now we perceived that the valley was ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... one-year-old wood; that is, canes produced during the summer are taken for cuttings in the fall. Immature canes and those with soft, spongy wood ought not to be used. Strong vigorous canes should be given preference over weak growth, but most nurserymen maintain that very large canes do not make as good cuttings as do those of medium size, the objection to large size ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... revolution was already in progress; that the introduction of sheep meant the ultimate extirpation of all trees and scrubs, except the inedible pine; and that the perpetual trampling of those sharp little hoofs would in time caulk the spongy, absorbent surface; so that these fluffy, scrub-clad expanses would become a country of rich and spacious plains, variegated by lakes and forests, and probably enjoying ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... backward glance, with eye ever piercing through the long leafy vistas of the forest on the watch for the fresh-chipped bark of the trees that guided his course, or the narrow indurated path over the spongy mould worn by running warriors. And when night filled the forest with the hoot of owl, and the far, weird cries of wild creatures on the rove, there sped through the aisled columns of star light and shadow, the ghostly ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... should not be transferred across the intervening conductor, and deposited at the negative pole, even when it cannot act chemically upon the element of the fluid surrounding it. It cannot be referred to the attraction of cohesion preventing such an effect; for if the pole be made of the lightest spongy platina, the effect is the same. Or if gold precipitated by sulphate of iron be diffused through the solution, still accumulation of it at the negative pole will not take place; and yet the attraction of cohesion is almost perfectly overcome, the particles are in it so small as to remain ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... crowning the head like a giant broom. Then it puts forth gouty fingers, generally five, standing stiffly up and still capped by the thick yucca-like tufts. Lastly the digitations grow to enormous arms, sometimes eighteen feet in girth, of light and porous, soft and spongy wood. The tree then resembles the baobab or calabash, the elephant or hippopotamus ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... which when it turns itself away from another ceases to be within his view. [5] Another proof that a spirit is his ruling love is that every spirit seizes and appropriates all things that are in harmony with his love, and rejects and repudiates all that are not. Everyone's love is like a spongy or porous wood, which imbibes such fluids as promote its growth, and repels others. It is also like animals of every kind, which know their proper food and seek the things that agree with their nature, and avoid what ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... while there came no sound but the cadenced dipping of many paddles as the boats, now perhaps a score in number, all slowly moved across the unfathomed black as though toward some objective common point. Each craft bore at its bow a fire-basket filled with some spongy substance, which, oil-soaked, blazed smokily with that peculiar blue-green light so ghostly in its ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... long, looks to the eye like a thread of course Canvass, that has been newly unwreath'd, it being all wav'd or bended to and fro, much after that manner, but through the Microscope, it appears all perforated from side to side, and Spongie, like a small kind of spongy Coral, which is often found upon the English shores; but though I cut it transversly, I could not perceive that it had any pores that ran the long-way of the hair: the long hairs of Horses CC and D, seem Cylindrical and somewhat pithy; the Bristles of a Cat B, are conical and ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... waters, especially when these are hot. Hot springs rising through alkaline siliceous rocks, such as lavas, often deposit silica in a white spongy formation known as SILICEOUS SINTER, both by evaporation and by the action of algae which secrete silica from the waters. It is in this way that the cones and mounds of the geysers in the Yellowstone National Park and in Iceland have ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... highly enjoyable to go out snowballing, when you can leave it off and go indoors to a jolly fire when you like, it was a very different matter to us now to experience all the discomforts of those dreadful, icy, spongy, little feathery nuisances penetrating beneath every loophole they could find entrance to, in the apology for a tent that we had, and to have our clothing sodden by it, our fire put out, and our blood congealed. Perhaps even the most ardent snow-lover ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... rain of dark nights our engineers had to build new roads across spongy, shell-torn areas, repair broken roads beyond No Man's Land, and build bridges. Our gunners, with no thought of sleep, put their shoulders to wheels and dragropes to bring their guns through the mire in support of the infantry, now under the increasing fire of the enemy's ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... he next proceeded adroitly to cut off the trunk, which might have been two feet in diameter at the base; of this he selected the most delicate portion, and then took with it one of the animal's spongy feet. In fact, these are the finest morsels, like the hump of the bison, the paws of the bear, and the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... could not make very rapid progress. To turn aside into the jungle meant to fight his way through thick, thorny bushes. To leap down into the dry water-course was even worse. There, as he knew, the spongy, shifting sand bottom would prevent even the progress ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... became so dense that it had little or no action on the air passing over it. Now, however, this difficulty has been partly overcome by so preparing the manganate as to prevent fusion, and to keep it in a spongy state, which gives very high results, and the substance being practically everlasting, the cost of production is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... blessing eyes will become glassy balls, those winsome lips grow flat and unattractive, that chaste and charming form be changed into an unwieldy barrel of tallow, and the city of Amsterdam at last rest on a spongy bog." Thus he sketched piece by piece the appearance of Schnapper-Elle, so that the poor woman was bewildered, and sought to escape the uncanny compliments of the cavalier. She was delighted to see Beautiful Sara appear at this instant, as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... though usually not exceeding a quarter of an inch; when fresh they are dark grey with smooth lustrous cleavage surfaces; when decomposed they become turbid, and assume grey or greenish shades. Basaltic lavas are frequently spongy or pumiceous, especially near their surfaces; and, in course of time, the steam cavities become filled with secondary minerals such as calcite, chlorite and zeolites. Another characteristic of this group of rocks is the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... point over his shoulder. He couldn't see the distant blotch of fire against the low stars—he didn't want to. He couldn't mark the silent drift of the sea gardens in the pass, but he gloated in the thought that they were riding to their death. The pitiless sun, the salt tides drunk up to their spongy bulbs, and their glory passed—they would be matted refuse on the shores and a man could trample them. Yes, the sea was with Tedge, and the rivers, too; the flood waters were lifting the lilies from their immemorable strongholds ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... rheumatiz," sighed Runner. "Rheumatiz has put more hunters and fighters out of business than the Ohio Injuns ever did. And poor Baby can't remember to always sleep with his feet to the fire. If we could git him a stout pair of shoes to wear in place of them spongy moccasins ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... settler owes to the industrious habits of this animal those large open tracts of land called beaver meadows, covered with long, thick, rank grass, which he cuts down and uses as hay. These beaver meadows have the appearance of dried-up lakes. The soil is black and spongy; for you may put a stick down to the depth of many feet; it is only in the months of July, August, and September, that they are dry. Bushes of black alder, with a few poplars and twining shrubs, are scattered ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... always kindled by means of a blunt arrow, and a piece of well-seasoned wood of a soft spongy kind, such as ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... as they call the Wilson's thrush in New England, is merely a voice, a sylvan mystery, reflecting the sweetness and wildness of the forest, a vocal "will-o'-the-wisp" that, after enticing us deeper and deeper into the woods, where we sink into the spongy moss of its damp retreats and become entangled in the wild grape-vines twined about the saplings and underbrush, still sings to us from unapproachable tangles. Plainly, if we want to see the bird, we must let it seek us out on the fallen ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... and spongy below, ascending from a creeping and rooting or floating root-stock; the lower internodes are often 1/2 inch or more in thickness, with nodes bearing in fascicles long stout roots clothed with fine lateral roots; and the upper internodes are long ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... soldering was effected, and on this account it is advisable to use as small an amount of auric chloride as possible. When the perforations are of comparatively large size, the repairing is not so easy, owing to the auric chloride, on fusing, refusing to fill them. I find, however, that if some spongy platinum be mixed with a few milligrammes of the gold salt, pressed into the perforation, and heat applied as directed, a very good soldering can be effected. It is well to hammer the surface of the platinum while hot, so as to secure perfect union and welding of the two surfaces. This may ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... them for you. The ground is spongy all round there. Sit still, Ruth; this heap of grass will make a ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... head high, through sumac, willow, elder, buttonbush, gold-yellow and blood-red osiers, past northern holly, over spongy moss carpet of palest silvery green up-piled for ages, over red- veined pitcher plants spilling their fullness, among scraggy, odorous tamaracks, beneath which cranberries and rosemary were blooming; through ethereal pale mists of dawn, in ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and but little injury was done to the houses. In the midst of this firing, indeed, Prevost had contrived to mount nearly one hundred guns, and all the open or weak parts of the town were strengthened with impalements, traverses, abattis, and redoubts, the last being constructed of green spongy wood and trunks of trees, with the interstices filled up with mud and sand. Perceiving that he made no progress, d'Estaing became impatient and alarmed, for he feared that while he was taking Savannah, the British fleet in the West Indies might capture all the French islands. His officers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of flour that its property of panification, or bread-making, is due. On the addition of a ferment, a portion of the starch is converted into sugar and carbonic acid gas, and the latter causes the gluten to expand into the little cells, or vesicles, which confer upon baked bread its light, spongy texture. ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... their own armor better than horses, and their riders were at once more safe in their elevated position and more capable of dealing effective blows upon the enemy. As a set-off, however, against those advantages, the spongy feet of the camel were found to be more readily injured by the tribulus, or caltrop, than the harder feet of the horse, and the corps was thus more easily disabled than an equal force of cavalry, if it could be tempted to pass over ground on which ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... of the ground, and green at the top; the flesh is white, tender, and sugary. Early, very productive, and remarkable for its regular form and good quality. As a field-turnip, it is one of the best; and, when pulled young, good for table use. During winter, the roots often become dry and spongy. ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... occurs too rapidly, the deposit is likely to be spongy or loosely adherent and falls off on subsequent treatment. This places a practical limit to the current density to be employed, for a given electrode surface. The cause of the unsatisfactory character of the deposit is apparently sometimes to be found in the ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... gathered and collated, and the process is repeated so long as any sheets remain. Next, the books are thoroughly pressed or "smashed" as it is called, in a powerful smashing-machine, giving solidity to the book, which before pressing was loose and spongy. Then the books are sawed or grooved in the back by another machine, operating a swiftly moving saw, and sewed on cords by still another machine, at about half the cost of hand-sewing. Next, they are cut or trimmed on the three edges ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... and while it was with him always, and not seldom sent through all his being thrills of pain, he bore it hidden from the world, and went about his work again. Working comforted him. The baking of bread is an employment that is at once soothing and sustaining. As a man kneads the spongy dough he has good exercise and wholesome time for thought. While the baking goes on he may smoke and meditate. The smell of the newly-baked bread is a pleasant smell, and brings with it pleasant thoughts of many people well nourished in the eating of it. Moreover, there is no time in the whole ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... towards their being changed into blood, which is a liquor apt to penetrate everywhere, and to thicken into flesh in the extreme parts, in order to repair in all the members what they lose continually both by transpiration and the waste of spirits. The lungs are like great covers, which being spongy, easily dilate and contract themselves, and as they incessantly take in and blow out a great deal of air, they form a kind of bellows that are in perpetual motion. The stomach has a dissolvent that causes hunger, and puts man in mind of his want of food. That dissolvent, which stimulates ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... the channels, fastened the painter, and peered over the rail. There was no one in sight, and they sprang down, finding themselves on a deck that was soft and spongy with time and weather. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... shouting, jesting, heedless of soaking rags, drenched to the skin, and burning again to mingle in the mad revelry of battle."* (* Hon. Francis Lawley, the Times, June 16, 1863.) But it was impossible to push forward, for a violent rain-storm burst upon the Wilderness, and the spongy soil, saturated with the deluge, absolutely precluded all movement across country. Hooker, who had already made preparations for retreat, took advantage of the weather, and as soon as darkness set in put his army in motion for ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... soda, cream tartar or baking powder with the flour, sift; rub in the butter until fine like meal. Add the liquid gradually, mixing with a knife, and use just enough to make it of a light spongy consistency. Turn the dough out on a well floured board, pat lightly into a flat cake and roll gently till half inch thick. Bake either in a spider or pie plate in the oven; split, butter, ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... mid-ocean, by swamps and thousands of shallow lakes which extend landwards on every side for hundreds of miles. A reindeer-sled skims easily over their frozen surface, but in the open season a traveller sinks knee-deep at every step into the wet spongy ground. ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... hall with a marble floor and broad stone stairs winding upwards into unknown regions. By the walks I had arrived at the locked door of the kitchen garden, at a small wood or wilderness of endless delights (including a broken swing), and at a dilapidated summer-house. I had wandered over the spongy lawn, which was cut into a long green promenade by high clipt yew-hedges, walking between which, in olden times, the ladies grew erect and stately, as plants among brushwood stretch up ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... west, but instead of bringing mud in with them as rivers bring to the sea, they bring only clear, pure water, because, as they filter for miles through the dense jungle of reeds, ferns, and shrubs which grow round the marsh, all the earth is sifted out and left behind. In this way the spongy mass of dead plants remains free from earthy grains, while the water and the shade of the thick forest of trees prevent the leaves, stems, etc., from being decomposed by the air and sun. And so year after year as the plants ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... crawled through the lank wet grass and soft spongy soil, he found himself suddenly confronted with a great barrier of fallen rocks; as though, at some period of its existence, the north end of the island had tapered to a gigantic peak which, in the fulness of its time, had come ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... is a cleanliness of which our Little Russians can only dream, yet the Little Russians are far and away cleaner than the Great Russians! They make the most delicious bread here—I over-ate myself with it at first. The pies and pancakes and fritters and the fancy rolls, which remind one of the spongy Little Russian ring rolls, are very good too.... But all the rest is not for the European stomach. For instance, I am regaled everywhere with "duck broth." It's perfectly disgusting, a muddy-looking liquid with bits of wild duck and ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... rejoined a large, spongy object on the floor, whose forehead perspired while he looked up through the chalky-white sockets of sightless eyes. "Why, he's a sixth part of all that's drunk at the springs. Here, I'll call him up. Come Magnesia! come Potash! come Lime, Soda, Lithia, and Baryta! Come ye all to ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... it don't seem fair," Julia mused. She presently went on an errand for her grandmother, and came back with sausages and fresh pulpy bread and large spongy crullers from the grocery. By this time the windy summer twilight was closing in, and the homegoing labourers and factory hands were filing home through the dirty streets. Julia found her two cousins ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... the wild fig and strawberry; The milky pine-nuts which the autumn-blast Shakes into the tall grass; or such small fry As from the sea by winter-storms are cast; And the coarse bulbs of iris-flowers he found 140 Knotted in clumps under the spongy ground. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... was we were, in nautical phraseology, coming up with the chase hand over hand, and after floundering through a spongy bottom, in which were several wallows of some dozen feet in diameter made by the buffaloes, I found myself near enough to try the effect of lead, and dropping my lance to trail along the ground by a thong attached to my wrist, for I was ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... malleable iron into puddle-balls of about three-quarters of a hundredweight each. These are successively removed from the pool of the puddling furnace, and subjected to the energetic blows of the steam hammer, which drives out all the scoriae lurking within the spongy puddle-balls, and thus welds them into compact masses of malleable iron. When reheated to a welding heat, they are rolled out into flat bars or round rods, in a variety of sizes, so as to be suitable ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... said, "should you be surprised if I told you that that moon we've just left seems to be mostly made of a spongy sort of alloy ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... on the shrine he heap'd a spire Of teeming sweets, enkindling sacred fire; Anon he stain'd the thick and spongy sod With wine, in honour of the shepherd-god. Now while the earth was drinking it, and while Bay leaves were crackling in the fragrant pile, And gummy frankincense was sparkling bright 'Neath smothering parsley, and a hazy light 230 Spread greyly eastward, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... battalions which were to take Courcelette had to march about two miles under shell fire, part of the way over ground that was spongy earth cut by shell-craters, before they could begin their charge and that they were undertaking an innovation in tactics, and you have only half an understanding of their task. Their officers were men out of civil life in every kind of occupation, learning their war in the Ypres salient stalemate, ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... disease scorbutic?—I never observed ecchymoses, nor in more than a single instance any the minutest red specks upon the cutis, which might be thought to resemble petechiae. The patients never fainted; the gums were never spongy, nor did they bleed more than those of any other child would have bled, under an equal degree of violence. I however requested my friend, Dr. HARRIS, who has had ample opportunities of making himself acquainted with scorbutus, to see some patients with me. He complied, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... solitude of this mighty waste were appalling to the mind, and I almost regretted that I had sworn to conquer it. The only sound the ear could catch, as hour after hour we slowly glided on, was the passage of our noiseless treading and spongy-footed "ships" as they forced their way through the live and dead timber of the hideous scrubs. Thus we wandered on, farther from our camp, farther from our casks, and farther from everything we wished or required. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... matter, varies at different periods of life, and in different bones. In some instances, the bony matter is disposed in plates, while in other instances, the arrangement is cylindrical. Sometimes, the bony matter is dense and compact; again, it is spongy, or porous. In the centre of the long bones, a space is left which is filled with ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... original PbO2 and lead are reproduced in the places they originally occupied. Thus there is no material change in the distribution of masses of active material. Lastly, the active materials are in a porous, spongy condition, so that the acid is within reach of all parts of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... inflammation of the spongy tissues of the lungs is frequently seen in sheep, the same ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... vitality of its own, the sap rising through every part of it. I had seen some trees, from which the natives had so often stripped the bark that the lower part was two or three inches in diameter less than the higher portion which they could not reach. The wood was of a particularly spongy and soft nature; and I was able to cut off enough with my knife to assist ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... hairs are from about two to four inches long, mostly of a dull bluish-gray color, though varying somewhat with the seasons. In general characteristics they are closely related to the hairs of the deer and antelope, being light, spongy, and elastic, with a highly polished surface, and though somewhat ridged and spiraled, like wool, they do not manifest the slightest tendency to felt or become taggy. A hair two and a half inches long, which is perhaps near the average length, will stretch about one fourth of an inch before ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... on the surface of the globe: I will only remark, that it is a fact well known to frontier men, that the Indians have been in the habit of burying their dead on these ridges and hillocks, and that in our light, spongy soil, the skeleton decays surprisingly fast. This is not the place to exhibit the necessary data, that have led to the conviction, that not a human skeleton now exists in all the western Valley, (excepting in nitrous caves,) that was deposited ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... the modified joints of anterior tarsi in Dytiscidae; plate-like, horny or spongy structures on the undersides of the tarsal joints: ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... several experiments upon himself, were finally crowned with success. He found that by friction with sulphuric acid deluted with water, the skin might be made insensible to the action of the heat of red-hot iron; a solution of alum, evaporated till it became spongy, appeared to be more effectual in these frictions. After having rubbed the parts which were thus rendered in some degree insensible, with hard soap, he discovered, on the application of hot iron, that their insensibility was ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... Man's Land, a reeking march of humanity and humidity, steams with the excrement of seventeen languages, flung in patois from tenement windows, fire-escapes, curbs, stoops, and cellars whose walls are terrible and spongy ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... us at first through a natural meadow, overgrown with waist-high grass, and very spongy to the tread. Hornet-haunted also was this meadow, and therefore no place for idle dalliance or unwary digression, for the sting of the hornet is one of the saddest and most humiliating surprises of ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... especially amongst rural populations, has, in all ages, been regarded as an excellent fuel. It is one of the most important productions of an alluvial soil, and belongs to the vegetable rather than the mineral kingdom. It may be described as composed of wet, spongy black earth, held together by decayed vegetables. Formerly it covered extensive tracts in England, but has greatly disappeared before the genius of agricultural improvement. Charcoal is a kind of artificial coal, used principally where a strong and clear fire is desired. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... those of the fingers. Keep them a moderate length—long enough to protect the toe, but not so long as to cut holes in the stockings. Always cut the nails; never tear them, as is too frequently the practice. Be careful not to destroy the spongy substance below the nails, as that is the great guard to prevent ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... if you can find a spring radish or an early turnip that has sent up a flower stalk, blossomed and produced seeds. If you are successful, cut the root in two and notice that instead of being hard and fleshy like the young radish or turnip, it has become hollow, or soft and spongy (see Fig. 6). Evidently the hard, fleshy young root was packed with food, which it afterwards gave up to produce ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... step until his foot suddenly plunged into an ant hill, throwing him to the jungle floor. "Damn!" He cursed again, for the tenth time, and stood uncertainly in the dimness. From tall, moss-shrouded trees, wrist-thick vines hung quietly, scraping the spongy ground like the tentacles of some monstrous tree-bound octopus. Fitful little plants grew straggly in the shadows of the mossy trunks, forming a dense underbrush that made walking difficult. At midday some few of the blue sun's rays filtered through to the jungle ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... mind was so filled with growing conjectures, but a time came when he felt cold. As he lay face down, only his back felt cold at first. He was grateful that he had not been thrown upon the rocks. The ground under him appeared soft, spongy, and gave somewhat as he breathed. He had really sunk down a little in this pile of soft earth. The day was not far off, as he could tell by the brightening of the gray. He began to suffer with the cold, and then slowly he seemed to freeze ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... this place we passed a Mormon settlement, a little colony sent out from Utah. The group of bare white buildings was some distance back from the road, and we did not stop to visit them. Near by was a hou-tree swamp, a spongy, marshy place where cattle were eating grass that grew under water. They would reach down until their ears were almost covered, take a mouthful and lift up their heads while they chewed it. Thus far on our journey there had been a level plain two or three miles wide between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... Sodden and spongy, the scarce-green grass plot Dents into pools where a foot has been. Puddles lie spilt in the road a mass, not Of water, but steel, with its cold, ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... see the body of Robert Braybrooke, Bishop of London, that died 1404: He fell down in his tomb out of the great church into St. Fayth's this late fire, and is here seen his skeleton with the flesh on; but all tough and dry like a spongy dry leather, or touchwood all upon his bones. His head turned aside. A great man in his time, and Lord Chancellor; and his skeletons now exposed to be handled and derided by some, though admired for its duration by others. Many flocking to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... on the yielding sand; and, by the directions of Philip, they separated in every direction, to look for the means of quenching their agony of thirst. As they proceeded over the sand-hills, they found growing in the sand a low spongy-leaf sort of shrub, something like what in our greenhouses is termed the ice-plant; the thick leaves of which were covered with large drops of dew. They sank down on their knees, and proceeded from one to the other licking off the moisture which was abundant, and soon felt a temporary relief. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fine fingers fill the organic cells, With virgin earth, of woods and bones and shells; Mould with retractile glue their spongy beds, And stretch and strengthen all their fibre-threads.— Late when the mass obeys its changeful doom, 570 And sinks to earth, its cradle and its tomb, GNOMES! with nice eye the slow solution ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Reaumur. Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, splashed with mud up to their ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... thinking this now as he strode across the spongy sod toward the lighted windows of the shanty. The air was damp and chill, for the ice was not yet out of the ponds or swamps of tall grasses. An occasional prairie-cock sent forth a muffled, drowsy "boom"; ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... The thick, spongy, external bark of the Cork Tree, a species of oak. There are two varieties of this tree, the broad-leaved and the narrow: it is an evergreen, and grows to the height of thirty feet. The Cork Tree attains to a ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... them when they come to the surface. Their burrows are usually in the high banks of the river, with the entrance under water, and rising within to above the level of high water. Sometimes their nests, composed of dried meadow grass and flags, may be discovered where the bank is low and spongy, by the yielding of the ground under the feet. They have from three to seven or eight young in ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... takes a whirl at 'em; him with the spongy whiskers on each side of his face, and a jaw like the vestibul of a ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... Louise seemed a little nervous. More than once she started at the sound of a rabbit scurrying through the undergrowth. There was something a little mysterious about the otherwise profound silence of the impenetrable woods. Even their footsteps fell noiselessly upon the spongy turf. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hill and, though the superabundance of this element had caused the chief impediment to our progress through the country at that time, we were obliged to pass a night most uncomfortably from the total want of it at the base of Mount Napier. The spongy-looking rocks were however dry enough to sleep upon, a quality of which the soil in general had been rather deficient, as most of us felt in our muscles. I perceived a remarkable uniformity in the size of the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... eyes probed the mist that slithered through the ancient mossy trees and hanging vines. He listened, looked, but found nothing. Birds chittered, but that was all. He sat down, his back against a spongy tree ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... grove Sometimes devoted unto love, Tinsell'd with twilight, he and they, Led by the shine of snails, a way Beat with their num'rous feet, which by Many a neat perplexity, Many a turn, and many a cross Tract, they redeem a bank of moss, Spongy and swelling, and far more Soft than the finest Lemster ore, Mildly disparkling like those fires Which break from the enjewell'd tires Of curious brides, or like those mites Of candied dew in moony nights; Upon this convex all the flowers Nature begets by the sun and showers, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... sweeter, and will bear diluting. Hence old bee-hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near spring runs in the woods. I once found a tree a long distance from any water, and the honey had a peculiar bitter flavor, imparted to it, I was convinced, by rainwater sucked from the decayed and spongy hemlock-tree in which the swarm was found. In cutting into the tree, the north side of it was found to be saturated with water like a spring, which ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. The bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... went, helping ourselves along by the roots and branches of the trees, the more stunted growth of which at length showed the height we had reached. We now emerged from the forest, when the ground above us appeared covered with spongy moss, the walking over which we found comparatively easy, saturated though it was with snow-water, which fell in every direction in tiny cascades over the side of the mountain. Even the grass and moss were at length left ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... disconnection the battery is ready to yield a current, in the reverse direction of that of the charging current. The usual type has lead plates on one of which lead binoxide and on the other of which spongy lead is formed. The lead binoxide seems to be the negative element, and it also acts as the depolarizer. The spongy lead is the positive electrode. The solution is dilute sulphuric acid of specific gravity 1.17. The action consists first in the oxidation of the spongy lead. The hydrogen ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... the camels, their soft spongy feet making a noise as they trod the ground. The camel-drivers laughed, and talked ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... Zanzibar, West Africa, Brazil, and the Philippines. The best of the Copals is said to be the Kauri gum, originally exuded from the Kauri pine tree of New Zealand. The tree is still existent and produces a soft, spongy sap, but the resin used in varnish is dug up from a few feet under ground in regions where there are now no trees. A commercially important copal and one noted for its hardness is the Zanzibar or East African Copal. It is found imbedded in the earth at a depth not greater ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... the road wound in and out of the forest for a distance of several miles. Then they came to another little valley, in which the highway was wet and, in some spots, suspiciously spongy. ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... absence the ship's bell was kept tolling. Then the fires were all out, the ship full of water, and gradually breaking up, wriggling with every swell like a willow basket—the sea all round us full of the floating fragments of her sheeting, twisted and torn into a spongy condition. In less than an hour the boat returned, saying that the beach was quite near, not more than a mile away, and had a good place for landing. All the boats were then carefully lowered, and manned by crews ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... reduced to the metallic state by heating in a current of hydrogen. Then it is dropped into the tank of oil and hydrogen gas is blown through. The hydrogen may be obtained by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, by means of the electrical current, or by passing steam over spongy iron which takes out the oxygen. The stream of hydrogen blown through the hot oil converts the linoleic acid to oleic and then the oleic into stearic. If you figured up the weights from the symbols given above you would find that it takes ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... terrible havoc upon it. The scar on the left cheek was more conspicuous than of yore, and the features seemed to have settled into a perpetual frown. But, worst of all, the countenance was bloated and besotted. The nose had become bulbous and spongy, the eyes watery and weak. The man's clothes were patched and seedy, and presented a general aspect of being desperately out at elbows. His unsteady step indicated that he was at least half drunk at that moment. He did not see; or at any rate did not take any notice of ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... gelatine, and should be in a pasty condition, in order that it may be mixed with fulminate of mercury. The solvent used is acetone, and the quantity of fulminate is between 75 to 85 per cent. of the entire compound. If desired, the compound can be made less sensitive to shocks by giving it a spongy consistency by agitating it with air while it is still in a syrupy condition. The nitro-glycerine, especially in this latter case, may be omitted. In some cases, when it is desirable to add a deterring medium, nitro-benzene or some ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... or North Anne river, a branch of the Hedgemain, interposed a few miles further on, and passing through a covered bridge, I turned down the north bank, crossed some spongy fields, and at length came to a dry place in the edge of a woods, where I tied my nag, spread out my bed, and prepared to dine. A box of sardines, a lemon, and some fresh sandwiches constituted the repast, and being dusty and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... no further attention to bestow on him, and immediately led Josephine away over the damp and spongy sod to that portion of the ground at the rear of the house which showed, by a few lingering signs, that it once had been a proud and ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... feet five yards below in the center of a great, hollow stub; and, cat-like, he almost immediately began to climb the circular wall that surrounded the damp, evil-smelling hole into which he had fallen. But the wood was decayed; it was so soft and spongy it would not support his weight. As fast as his claws dug into the sides of the stub flakes broke off so that he could not draw his body off the ground. He tried again and again; but always the result ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... the porch on to the spongy lawn that stretched out to a summerhouse partly covered with the skeleton of last summer's vines. "Just a minute, Aunt Susie," she answered, without looking back. "I want to see how the ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... cathode, it is dissolved and becomes a metallic amalgam, which also breaks down into gas with much bubbling of the mercury. But Denham had worked out a way of delaying the breaking-down, which left him with a curiously white, spongy mass of metal which could be carefully melted down and cast, but not under any circumstances violently struck ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... a cheery Christmas sun broke across the great gum swamp, lighting the snowy boles and soft-piled limbs of the giant trees with indescribable glory, and pouring, a golden flood, into the deep spongy bottoms below. It would be a perfect Christmas in the woods, clear, mild, stirless, with silent footing for me, and ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... CASTANOSPERMUM AUSTRALE. A tall, glabrous tree; pods eight or nine inches long, about two inches broad; the valves hard and thick, the spongy substance inside dividing it into three to five cells each, containing a large, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the other side of the valley the party left the road and made their way across a spongy field, Ukridge explaining that this was a short cut. They climbed through a hedge, crossed a stream and another field, and after negotiating a difficult bank topped with barbed wire, found themselves ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... Ararat, an independent conical peak of 12,800 feet, without snow, but conspicuous and distinct from surrounding mountains; its proportions are completely dwarfed and overshadowed by the nearness and bulkiness of its big brother. The Aras Plain is lava-strewn and uncultivated for a number of miles; the spongy, spreading feet of innumerable camels have worn paths in the hard lava deposit that makes the wheeling equal to English roads, except for occasional stationary blocks of lava that the animals have systematically stepped over for centuries, and which not infrequently ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... edge of the stream, the boys began walking along the bank toward the left and scrutinizing the spongy earth close to the water. If the missing animal had crossed the creek she could not have failed to leave ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... feet from the entrance, 17 feet from the west wall, in a hole dug to 20 inches below the present surface of the talus, were broken and spongy bones of an adult. Pelvis, feet, and leg bones were in confusion; the tibiae were reversed in position, but it may be that the body was laid on the back with the knees flexed and that the bones had ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... thought the Terrans were using the living crystals to make magic. Not too far off, at that; the properties of Kwannon biocrystals had opened a major breakthrough in subnucleonic physics and initiated half a dozen technologies. New kinds of oomphel. And down in the south, where the spongy and resinous trees were drying in the heat, they were starting forest fires and perishing in them in hecatombs. And to the north, they were swarming into the mountains; building great fires there, too, and attacking the Terran ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... citizen lives: Catullus adjures thee Headlong into the mire below topsy-turvy to drown him. Only, where the superfluent lake, the spongy putrescence, 10 Sinks most murkily flushed, descends most profoundly ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus |
