"Barometer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the town is a man of varied attainments, being also a photographer, watch-maker, medical-adviser, chemist, and so forth. His house is full of scientific instruments—a really good camera, a fine aneroid barometer, several thermometers, including self-registering maximum and minimum, etc., etc. All seem excellent in quality, but I could not learn that he makes any use of them, except the camera. The cura, and the judge deride his possession of the instruments, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... hundred miles south of the Mauritius, in fine weather with a light breeze, Dodd's marine barometer began to fall steadily; and by the afternoon the declension had become so remarkable, that he felt uneasy, and, somewhat to the surprise of the crew,—for there was now scarce a breath of air,—furled his slight sails, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the use of instruments, and can take observations of the temperature of hot springs, if any are found. HALL knows nothing about instruments, and could not tell the time by a barometer if his life depended upon it. Therefore HAYES should ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... Tides, Refraction of Lens, including thickness, &c., Ivory's paper on Equations, Achromatism of microscope, Capillary Attraction, Motions of Fluids, Euler's principal axes, Spherical pendulum, Equation b squared(d squaredy/dx squared)(d squaredy/dt squared), barometer, Lunar Theory well worked out, ordinary differential equations, Calculus of Variations, Interpolations like Laplace's for Comets, Kepler's theorem. In September I had my old telescope mounted on a short tripod stand, and made ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... the rise in authority of the Emperor who was the mob's exponent. Increase of arbitrary power went with the growing weakness of the Romans themselves. Always the "Emperor" serves as a sort of historical barometer by which to measure the abasement of the people. The concentrated power of Julius Caesar, resting on his own tremendous personality, showed that the days of Cincinnatus and of Junius Brutus were past. The strength ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... approaching out of the north-west, you shall presently find have made, in their dress, no provision against cold. At Carancro, some miles away to the north-east, there is a thermometer; and somewhere in Vermilionville, a like distance to the south-east, there might possibly be found a barometer; but there is no need of either to tell that the air to-day is threescore and ten and will be more before it is less. Before the riders draw near you have noticed that only one is a man and the other ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... pleasing associations were soon dispelled by the steep and rugged features of the pass through which we ascended on leaving the plain. It is called the Suffaed K[a]k or White Earth, and we found by the barometer, that the gorge of the ravine was about a thousand feet above our last encamping ground. The hills on either side were ragged and abrupt, but of insignificant height: the length of the pass itself was about two miles, and from its head to Koteah Shroof the road was stony and ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... repeat his directions; but he found, on trial, that this precaution was unnecessary, as he could without difficulty keep up a conversation with the man at the distant station. The thermometer was at this time -18°, the barometer 30.14 inches, and the weather nearly calm, and quite clear ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... instead of being untied; it is Columbus' egg which is made to stand by being broken instead of balanced, as though the business in question were to make it stand rather than to balance it. In this respect the State is like the man who thinks that he can produce fine weather by making the barometer go up. ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... found that the mercury in the barometer, which had risen steadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady. I had had very good observations, with now and then the interruption of a day or so, since our departure. I got the sun at noon, and found that we were in Lat. 58 degrees S., Long. 60 degrees W., off New South Shetland; ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... assures us, that he has for years past been in the habit of consulting his patients in place of his barometer, and has thus been enabled to foretell vicissitudes of weather before they had manifested themselves, by attending to the accounts they gave of their sensations in the bath. There are seven springs, whose united volumes of water, in twenty-four hours, fill a chamber of twenty ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... on the alert to prevent storms and tempests. Now that the children's barometer seemed at "set fair" she suddenly felt ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... either on gut or hair, if the latter, a breakage is almost sure to follow a violent jerk. Stormy, showery days in summer and sometimes in spring, are days on which you will generally take the best fish with the fly. After a flood, with a rising barometer, and not too much wind, expect good sport. If the fish do not like the worm after you have tried a few likely places, change for the fly, and if you do not succeed with that, wait twenty minutes or so, and probably you may then find them disposed to feed. Whenever you find fish ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... spar." Nelson himself, though reckless to desperation when an adequate object was at stake, in the moments of repose husbanded his means, and looked to the efficiency of his instruments, with the diligence of a miser. With his own hand he noted the weather indications, including the barometer, at least three times every twenty-four hours, and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the Directory to the command of all the aerostatic establishments. He was at the head of the newly created Conservatoire des arts et metiers, and occupied himself with experiments in new compositions of permanent colours, and in 1798 constructed a metal-covered barometer for measuring comparative heights, by observing the weight of mercury issuing from the tube. Summoned by Bonaparte to take part as chief of the aerostatic corps in the expedition to Egypt, he considerably ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... quite, to the conventional angle; but he loved her, and had too much sense not to see that she was often right and Cowfold was wrong. Moreover, he enjoyed her antagonism to the Cattles, of whose intellect he had not, as a clock and barometer maker, a very high ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... atmosphere of imperial politics has reached such a high point that a discharge must follow if the empire is not to suffer lasting damage." But Washington looked for development on the high seas, not in the political arena of Berlin, where the sound and fury of words did not afford a safe barometer of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... perfect; for the cold water entering for the purpose of condensation is heated by the steam, and emits a vapor of a tension represented by about three inches of mercury; that is, when the common barometer stands at 30 inches, a barometer with the space above the mercury communicating with the condenser, will stand at ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... at Granville and thoroughly Norman in character, the admiral concealed the most unshakable determination under an appearance of the greatest good-nature. I never met a more thorough-born sailor. He divined what weather was coming, foretold it long before the barometer did, and took all the necessary precautions in advance. He was the very personification of the seafaring instinct. Besides this, he had a long record of bravery behind him. At Navarino, where he commanded the Armide, he came up and lay with true fraternal chivalry between the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... no string or cord. Finally she said, "Wait a moment." Little waited. This time her face did not appear. The barometer came slowly down at the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... all the surface seemed smooth enough. He was too sensitive not to feel a difference, and he was too innocent of any wrongdoing or thinking to guess what was the matter. Guilt is a good barometer of personal atmosphere, and Ward had none of it. The worst of him she had known for more than a year; he had told her himself, and she had healed the hurt—almost—of the past by her firm belief in him and by her friendship. Could you expect Ward to guess that she had seen her faith in him ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... drawing-room, overcrowded with nosegays, fearing for her the April frosts or March sun; and like the plants in pots that are put out and taken in at stated times, he made her live methodically, ever watchful of a change of barometer ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... taken place in the mariner's compass; the variation of the needle has been reduced to rules, and some anomalies arising from the metallic attraction of the ship itself, have been corrected by Professor Barlow's experiments. The use of the marine barometer and thermometer have also largely assisted to give notice of tempests; and some ingenious theories have been lately formed, which, promising to give a knowledge of the origin and nature of tempests, are obviously not unlikely to assist the navigator in stemming their violence, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... is performed the temperature should be noted with a centigrade thermometer, and the atmospheric pressure with a barometer graduated to millimeters. ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... by the rain, whether they drank champagne from happiness or desperation. Notwithstanding his dreamy disposition his temperament was ardent; his was an unspoiled soul; he felt himself a sort of moral barometer for the magnificent and feline women who treated him as if he were a wooden post when they were gossiping, harried him like an animal when they were thirsty. He noted that they were always thirsty. They smoked more than they ate, and whispered more, if no men were present, than they smoked. ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the old bridge-tender, I was amused and surprised at his fund of anecdote and wealth of wit. Among other playful jests he declared he could define the exact condition of heart in each individual who crossed over, as accurately as we note the mercury in the barometer for atmospheric probabilities, even going so far as to say that he could guess the "Yes" or "No," and consequently the engagement or non-engagement of each ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... himself in earnest to cut out his friend with Mrs. Woffington. He had already caused his correspondence with that lady to grow warm and more tender, by degrees. Keeping a copy of his last, he always knew where he was. Cupid's barometer rose by rule; and so he arrived by just gradations at an artful climax, and made her in terms of chivalrous affection, an offer of a house, etc., three hundred a year, etc., not forgetting his heart, etc. He knew that the ladies of the stage have an ear for ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... of the atmosphere at any point is indicated by the barometric reading, it is convenient in the solution of the problems to substitute the latter for the pressure measured in grams per square centimeter. The average reading of the barometer at the sea level is 760 mm., which corresponds to a pressure of 1033.3 g. per square centimeter. The following problem will serve as an illustration of the application of ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... into the garden accordingly, but a cloud was over the moon, and we could not see it. At the top of the garden was the self-registering barometer, the pitcher to measure the rainfall, and the other apparatus necessary to enable the "Diagram of barometer, thermometer, rain, and wind" to be conducted, so far as Coupar Angus is concerned. This Mr. Robertson ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... [Greek: baros], pressure, and [Greek: metron], measure), an instrument by which the weight or pressure of the atmosphere is measured. The ordinary or mercurial barometer consists of a tube about 36 in. long, hermetically closed at the upper end and containing mercury. In the "cistern barometer" the tube is placed with its open end in a basin of mercury, and the atmospheric pressure is measured by the difference ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the huge barometer to which both speculative and investing Wall Street looks for guidance. Whom that bank protects is as safe as was the medieval fugitive who laid hold of the altar in the sanctuary; whom that bank frowns upon in the hour of stress is lost indeed ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... * Weather fine, but the barometer has gone down the tenth of an inch to day, and is now (7 P.M.) 29.96. I shall begin to look for a norther in about twenty-four hours. We commenced caulking our leaky decks to-day, and despatched the launch to assist in ballasting the ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... know you then. The barometer's dropping. If it was August I'd say we were nosing into a typhoon. I always hated this yellow muck they call a sea over here. Did ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... of money formerly paid in rent; that the price of all kinds of cattle has risen largely; that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the banks—savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks—are richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of whisky—that sure barometer of Irish prosperity—is increasing beyond all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed than any other peasants in the world. The people are sick of agitation and long to be let alone; but they ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... after the rest were sleeping, Ferriss, who had not closed his eyes, bestirred himself, and, as quietly as possible, crawled from his sleeping-bag. He fancied there was some slight change in the atmosphere, and wanted to read the barometer affixed to a stake just outside the tent. Yet when he had noted that it was, after all, stationary, he stood for a moment looking out across the ice with unseeing eyes. Then from a pocket in his furs he drew a little folder of morocco. It was pitiably worn, stained ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... of June, 1784, the thermometer in the morning being at 64, and at noon at 70, the barometer at 29.6 1/2, and the wind north, I observed a blue mist, smelling strongly of sulphur, hang along our sloping woods, and seeming to indicate that thunder was at hand. I was called in about two in the afternoon, and so missed seeing the gathering of the clouds in the north, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... gone on to say something more, but the admiral stamped down the passageway. The maid looked on her features in the glass much as one might inspect a barometer, drew a weak, despairing breath, and laid herself down on the sofa again, her relaxed person responding inertly ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... to me to be a kind of by-product. It occupies far too small a part in the whole activity of a nation, even of its intellectual activity, to serve as a complete indication of the many forces which are at work, or as an adequate moral barometer of the general moral state. The attempt to establish such a condition too closely, seems to me to lead to a good many very edifying but not the less ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... Lord Blandamer said, as he stopped for a moment before a barometer, "but I suspect that there is yet worse to come; the glass has fallen in an extraordinary way. I hope you have left all snug with the tower at Cullerne; this wind will ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... complexion. The swine driver declared he would not part with Duncan (such was the gifted pig's name,) for his life, seeing that he was guide pig, and could so prognosticate storms as to entirely dispense with the use of a barometer. A few more appeals on behalf of the inconsolable woman, however, and the swine driver agreed to part with Duncan, upon condition that he be kept as one of the family until he returned that way, receiving care according to his gifts. The major pledged his military reputation that not a bristle ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... native of East Lothian, who died in 1696. He was professor of philosophy and mathematics at Glasgow, and was one of the first to use the barometer in measuring altitudes. The work to which De Morgan refers is his Hydrostaticks (1672). He was a firm believer in evil spirits, his work on the subject going through four editions: Satan's Invisible ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... answered her abstractedly. She was tired, she said, and presently went to her room. Mr. Hoopdriver, in his courtly way, opened the door for her and bowed her out. He stood listening and fearing some new offence as she went upstairs, and round the bend where the barometer hung beneath the stuffed birds. Then he went back to the room, and stood on the hearthrug before the paper fireplace ornament. "Cads!" he said in a scathing undertone, as a fresh burst of laughter came floating in. All ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... I breakfasted upon for weeks; the body, skirts, etc., served me for dinner two months. My silk stocking have paid my lodgings, and two pair of new pumps enabled me to smoke several pipes. It is incredible how my appetite, (barometer like) rises in proportion as my necessities make their terrible advances. I here could say something droll about a good stomach, but it is ill jesting with edge tools, and I am sure that is the sharpest thing about me. You may think I can have no sense of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... re-conduct them to the prejudices of their infancy, upon which on other occasions they appear to be entirely undeceived. These changes are very apparent, especially under infirmities, in sickness, or at approach of death. The barometer of the understanding is then frequently obliged to fall. Those chimeras which he despised, or which in a state of health, he set down at their true value, are then realized. He trembles, because his machine is enfeebled; ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... lately advised about two pounds of crude quicksilver to be poured down a glass tube, which was part of a barometer tube, drawn less at one end, and about two feet long, into the urethra, as the patient lay on his back; which I had previously performed upon a horse; this easily passed, as was supposed, into the bladder; on standing erect it did not return, but on kneeling down, and lying horizontally ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... casually tapped the barometer at the hall-door, as was his habit. To his surprise, the dial gave a great leap downward. Something was wrong with it evidently, for the sky was as monotonously blue as it had been all day, and not a leaf stirred in the trees. However, Mr Armstrong took the precaution ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... 9) the weather broke and deluged us with rain. At Gibraltar the downpour lasted twenty-four hours. We found ourselves at anchor before midnight with a very low barometer, which suggested unpleasantries. Next morning we sighted the deep blue waters of the Bay, and the shallow brown waters of the Bayside crested with foam by a furious norther, that had powdered the far Ronda highlands with snow. Before noon, however, the gale had abated and allowed ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... melt. Towards evening the barometer, which had been falling all day, went lower and lower. All creation was still. Not a sound broke the awful quiet; only in our ears there seemed to be an unnatural singing which was painful, and we closed our eyes in weariness, for the sun seemed to have blistered ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... London winter 's ended in July— Sometimes a little later. I don't err In this: whatever other blunders lie Upon my shoulders, here I must aver My Muse a glass of weatherology; For parliament is our barometer: Let radicals its other acts attack, Its sessions form our ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Drew at the earliest opportunity. But as he looked about, after the young men had departed, he saw signs of a change in the weather that in a moment drove all other thoughts out of his head. He limped into the cabin companionway to look at the barometer. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... Nautilus. Here, as in the drawing-room, I have them always under my eyes, and they indicate my position and exact direction in the middle of the ocean. Some are known to you, such as the thermometer, which gives the internal temperature of the Nautilus; the barometer, which indicates the weight of the air and foretells the changes of the weather; the hygrometer, which marks the dryness of the atmosphere; the storm-glass, the contents of which, by decomposing, announce the approach of tempests; the compass, which guides my ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... bankruptcies have been considered as signs of wealth; and their increase is a sign most undoubtedly of more trade; but this is a barometer, of which it requires some skill to understand the real ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... bright morning so early in the year, she allowed, would generally turn to rain, but a cloudy one foretold improvement as the day advanced. She applied to Mr. Allen for confirmation of her hopes, but Mr. Allen, not having his own skies and barometer about him, declined giving any absolute promise of sunshine. She applied to Mrs. Allen, and Mrs. Allen's opinion was more positive. "She had no doubt in the world of its being a very fine day, if the clouds would only go off, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Knockers in mines, a kind of good natured impalpable people not to be seen, but heard, and who seem to us to work in the mines; that is to say, they are the types or forerunners of working in mines, as dreams are of some accidents, which happen to us. The barometer falls before rain, or storms. If we do not know the construction of it, we should call it a kind of dream that foretells rain; but we know it is natural, and produced by natural means, comprehended by us. Now, how are we sure, or anybody sure, but that our dreams are ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... The barometer was falling now and dark, snowy-looking clouds were piling up on the western horizon. A breeze came stealing out of the cloud-banks with the chill of snow ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... on deck followed by the master. "The barometer is rising," said I aloud, to the first lieutenant; "so I presume the gale will ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... way across the lake I noticed that the wind was veering round toward the east and that the temperature was rising. When I arrived in good time for supper Factor Mackenzie seemed relieved, and remarked that the barometer indicated a big storm from the northeast. That night, in front of the big open fire, we talked of the fur trade. Among other books and papers he showed me was a copy of the Company's Deed Poll; not published a century ago, but printed at the time of which ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... cabin was a table, secured to the floor, as ships' tables always are; and immediately over it hung the barometer which was now all corroded and covered with mould and rust. A half dozen stools were around, some lying on their sides, some upside down, and one standing upright. The door by which he had entered ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... excellent barometer of prosperity. It exempts ordinary wage earners entirely—persons with incomes of less than 500 rupees, a rupee being worth about 33 cents of our money. The whole number of persons paying the income ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... "uniformity in the state of the atmosphere, particularly in regard to heat, cold, gravity, and lightness, contributes in a very considerable degree to the duration of life. Countries, therefore, where great and sudden varieties in the barometer and the thermometer are usual cannot be favorable to longevity. Such countries may be healthy, and many men may become old in them, but they will not attain to a great age, for all rapid variations are so many internal mutations, and these occasion an astonishing consumption both of the forces ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... only 1,800 feet above the sea, Speke must have fallen into that error by a frequent writing of the Anne Domini, a mere slip of the pen; for the altitude, as he makes it out, is 2,800 feet by boiling point, and a little over 3,000 feet by barometer. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... our trial run that day, we caught the first rip of the gale which the gummed-over moon and the low barometer had forecast the night before. It was too rough to tie her up to the supply-ship, so the sub was anchored—they carry anchors too—a short distance away, with three men left on her for an anchor watch, the idea being to ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... seriously injure my temper, by the overpowering pressure I laid upon them to keep them quiet when you were by? Could I not, by the sense of coming ill through all my quivering frame, presage your advent as exactly as the barometer heralds the approaching storm? Those three months of agony are little atoned for by this late vengeance: ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Norte! I knew it was coming on, only by the face of the first lieutenant when he looked at the barometer. His countenance fell as many degrees as the instrument. It is very slight, but our entry into port will be delayed, for, on the coast, these winds are most devoutly dreaded. It has rained all day, and, notwithstanding the rolling of the ship, we attempted a game at chess, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Beef. For the past two seasons he has sat at the training-table, his invariable good-humor, his Cheshire cat grin, and his sunny ways have kept the fellows in fine mental trim so they haven't worried over the game. But now, just as soon as he left Camp Bannister, the barometer of their spirits went down to zero and every meal at training-table is a funeral. Coach Corridan can't inject any pep into the scrimmages, and he says if Hicks doesn't return soon, Bannister's chances ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... was disposed by circumstances and by nature, or by second nature, to the vigilance of a dependent's life; accustomed to watch and consult daily the barometer of court favour, he soon felt the coming storm; and the moment he saw prognostics of the change, he trembled, and considered how he should best provide for his own safety before the hour of danger arrived. Numerous libels against the minister ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... exchange originated thereby, it must be remembered, is not confined to the amount actually drawn against bonds sold but includes also all the exchange which other bankers, in their anticipation of lower rates, hasten to draw. The exchange market is, indeed, a sensitive barometer, from which those who understand it can read all sorts of coming developments. It often happens that buying or selling movements in our securities by the foreigners are so clearly forecasted by the action of the exchange market that bankers ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... to reason with them but to no avail, so one afternoon he took the flag down for a time. In a little while, a black cloud appeared and then a heavy downpour of rain followed. The Indians, as you know were very superstitious, and they were firmly convinced that the flag was a true barometer, so the agent had to be cautious in his display ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... gaping seams, and planks from which the sweated pitch was no sooner holy-stoned than it oozed forth again to smear their purity. Though stout awnings defied the direct fury of the sun they could not shut out its glare and furnace heat. And the human barometer showed the stress of life. Stump was a caldron in himself, Tagg a bewhiskered malediction in damp linen. The temper of the crew, stifling in crowded quarters, suggested—that they were suffering ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... illustrate atmospheric pressure and ensure a constant flow of liquid.—Translator's Note.) (Evangelista Toricelli (1608-1647), a disciple of Galileo and professor of philosophy and mathematics at Florence. His "tube" is our mercury barometer. He was the first to obtain a vacuum by means of mercury; and he also improved the microscope and the telescope.—Translator's Note.) This is the thrice-blest period when I cease to be a schoolmaster and become a schoolboy, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... voyage. All was bright, calm, and cheering-the monster machines working smoothly, pressing the leviathan forward with curling brine at her bows, until the afternoon of the fourth day, when the wind in sharp gusts from the south-west, and the sudden falling of the barometer, admonished the mariner of the approaching heavy weather. At sunset a heavy bank in the west hung its foreboding festoons along the horizon, while light, fleecy clouds gathered over the heavens, and scudded swiftly into the east. Steadily the wind ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... as to render him keenly and delicately sensitive to impressions that a civilized man could scarce recognize. The Indian, in other words, has a development almost like the instinct of the fox or beaver. Upon this delicate barometer, whose basis is physical fear, impressions (moral or physical, who shall say?) act with surprising power. How this occurs, no Indian will attempt to explain. Certain conjurations will, they maintain, aid the medicine-man to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... sailor knows every timber, rope, and spar of his ship, and seems to identify his existence with her, so these guides their mountains. The mountains are their calendar, their book, their newspaper, their cabinet, herbarium, barometer, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... expedient for acquainting the powers that be with the fact that he has a grievance. Formerly, the morning list of "drunks" merely reflected the nearness or remoteness of payday. Now, it is a most reliable and invaluable barometer ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... contrivances do not readily settle down in a new home, and for a week I ignored the barometer. This may have seemed unfriendly to a newcomer, yet surely it was kind not to observe any faults it might display during its novitiate. When on the Saturday morning I scrutinised it for the first time I saw it pointed to "Stormy." I hastened ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the .. barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... might be thundering in front of the fortifications. The communiques from Joffre became less frequent and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in one sense. Her exits were guarded against all who were not in uniform and going to fight; to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... found that my clothes had arrived with a letter from O'Brien, who stated how miserable he had been at the supposition of my loss, and his delight at my escape. He stated that on going down into the cabin, after I had shoved off, he, by chance, cast his eyes on the barometer, and, to his surprise, found that it had fallen two inches, which he had been told was the case previous to a hurricane. This, combined with the peculiar state of the atmosphere, had induced him to make every preparation, and that they had just completed their work when it came on. The brig ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... reported from aloft, and the master, while adjusting the tubes of the long glass, had observed with quiet bitterness to Mr. Baker that, after fighting our way inch by inch to the Western Islands, there was nothing to expect now but a spell of calm. The sky was clear and the barometer high. The light breeze dropped with the sun, and an enormous stillness, forerunner of a night without wind, descended upon the heated waters of the ocean. As long as daylight lasted, the hands collected on the forecastle-head ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... rheumatis'—I say nothing of your new-fangled diseases, like the cholera, and varioloid, and animal magnitudes—but a good old-fashioned rheumatis', such as people used to have when I was a boy, is as certain a barometer as that which is at this moment hanging up in the coach-house here, within two fathoms of the very spot where we are standing. I once had a rheumatis' that I set much store by, for it would let me know when ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... to bed early, they make up for it by rising early too; and if they are sleepy at night, they feel delightfully fresh in the morning. A brisk walk over the common sends the human barometer spinning upwards; they feel ready for any fun that comes in their way. And, alas! did not this same buoyancy of spirit not many years ago involve certain respectable oarsmen in a difference with the executive? Tacenda, indeed! Yet if a rabbit springs up out of the gorse, and the ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and he is awaiting a spell of it to bring me to a confession that I was wrong after all, whereupon he will make that remark so precious to the married heart, "My dear, I told you so." He begins the day by tapping the barometer, looking at the sky, and shaking his head. If there are any clouds he remarks that they are coming up, and if there are none he says it is too fine to last. He has even gone the length once or twice of starting off to the farm on hot, sunny mornings in his mackintosh, ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... a perplexin' state o' things," pursued the Captain, "to be always bouncin' up an' down wi' hopes, an' fears, an' disappointments, like a mad barometer, not knowin' rightly what's ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... established by the rotary motion. The primary cause of these tornadoes is probably due to a low barometric condition of the atmosphere accompanied by a high temperature, and spreading over an area of very irregular shape. An area of high barometer, accompanied by a low temperature, encroaches upon the former, and then comes the mighty effort to equalize these two different conditions of the atmosphere and restore the equilibrium, which is the constant effort of nature. The more diverse these two conditions are, the greater will ...
— A Full Description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pa. • Richard Darlington
... the artistic Boxing-day keepers at the National Gallery. The walk will take us through the Seven Dials, and can scarcely fail to be suggestive. It is now one o'clock, the traditional hour of dinner; and in Broad Street, St. Giles's, I see, for the first time to-day, the human barometer evidently standing at "much wet." A gentleman in a grey coat and red comforter, who bears palpable signs of having been more than once on his back, has just reached that perplexing point of inebriety when he can walk quickly ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... felt altogether the force of the maxim of St. Ambrose, "Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum;"—I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was not logic that carried me on; as well might one say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of years, and I find my mind in a new place; how? the whole man moves; paper logic is but the record of it. All the logic in the world would not ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... A coupe ought always to be small." But what a lot of things in such a small space: a drawer for toilet necessaries, a secret box for money and jewelry, a clock, a thermometer, a barometer, a writing-shelf—and that ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... As the barometer foretells the storm While still the skies are clear, the weather warm, So something in us, as old age draws near, Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere. The nimble mercury, ere we are aware, Descends the elastic ladder ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a hurricane, I fear, Captain. Just see how the quicksilver has dropped in the barometer, and we are right upon this accursed island with its coral reefs. God have mercy on us or ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... in the rescue of an Englishman, Captain B——, a pearl fisher. He was anchored under the lee of a small island in the sea between Panay and Masbate. He was in a small lorcha, or sailing vessel, with no barometer, his glass having been left on a lorcha of larger tonnage, which was at another point. The heavy wind caught them without warning almost, and its impact soon pressed the lorcha over. Captain B—— found himself struggling ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... going to have nasty weather," the sailing-master said to his mate. "The barometer is going down with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the establishment of schools and colleges have justly been regarded by all enlightened nations as a barometer of civilisation, a sign of the pulsation of life in the heart of a people, and the gladdening light and comforting joy for both rich and poor. But all who are acquainted with the history of the Jews, both ancient and modern, will readily admit that no other ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... his temper at a given time, and guided themselves accordingly. Indeed, Roarin' Sandy's Archie, a giant MacDonald who had attended every winter since the schoolhouse was built, could tell almost to a day when the master was likely to relax, and he acted as a sort of barometer to the ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... portable barometer or instrument for showing variations of the weather by the pressure of the atmosphere upon a metallic box ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... with Holland precipitated the result. This war acted as a barometer for the Parliament. It was a naval combat. In the first meeting of the two fleets the Dutch were defeated, and the mercury of Parliamentarian pride rose. In the next combat Van Tromp, the veteran Dutch admiral, drove Blake with a shattered fleet into the Thames. Van Tromp swept ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... circumstance of time, place, and persons; I see the maid or footman busy in the chamber, a swallow entering the window, a fly settling on my hand while repeating my lessons. I see the whole economy of the apartment; on the right hand Mr. Lambercier's closet, with a print representing all the popes, a barometer, a large almanac, the windows of the house (which stood in a hollow at the bottom of the garden) shaded by raspberry shrubs, whose shoots sometimes found entrance; I am sensible the reader has no occasion to know all this, but I feel a kind of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... it," said Hicks. "I'm going to be seasick to-morrow. The captain's been shaking his head over the barometer and powwowing with the first officer. Something's up, and I guess it's a gale. Good-by; I shan't see you again ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... of a part of the line explored by Captain Talcott in 1840, lying at the source of Arnolds River, was not determined for the want of a barometer. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... aloft various symbols of the sea—this one a sextant, that a chart, another a compass, a fourth a bannerol, sufficiently prosaic in idea, though not ungraceful in fact, as witness the floating damsel who carries a barometer lightly as a mermaid carries her glass, or the figure with the red-gold hair whose back alone we see as she unrolls her map. But it is not easy to say why we should recur to mythology for our national ornamentation, or why the ancient Greeks should be called in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... to the good woman. She in turn, to be sure, offered herself a sacrifice to the whims of the sick girl, whose worst whim was having no wish that could be ascertained, and who now, after two days of her mother's devotion, was cast upon her own resources by the inconstant barometer. It had become apparent that Miss Kenton was her father's favorite in a special sense, and that his partial affection for her was of much older date than her mother's. Not less charming than her fondness for her father was the openness with which she disabled his wisdom because of his partiality ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... are generally loathed and destroyed, though they are extremely useful in reducing the quantity of flies, and serve as a very accurate barometer for the weather. When they are totally inactive, it is a certain sign that rain will shortly follow; but if they continue to spin during a shower, it indicates that the rain will soon be over, and that calm and fine weather will succeed. If the weather be about to ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... owner: in the antechamber were six straw chairs and a porcelain stove; on the walls, which were covered with a bottle-green paper, were four engravings bought at auction. In the dining-room were two sideboards, two cages full of birds, a table covered with oil-cloth, a barometer, a window-door which opened on the hanging gardens, and chairs of dark mahogany covered with horse-hair. The salon had little curtains of some old green-silk stuff, and furniture of painted white-wood covered with green worsted velvet. As to the chamber of the old celibate it was furnished with ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... south coast of the Australian continent, though the usual westerly winds and gales of the highest latitudes prevail during the greater portion of the year, hurricanes are not infrequent. Gales commence at NW with a low barometer, increasing at W and SW, and gradually veering to the south. True cyclones occur at New Zealand. The log of the Adelaide for 29th February, 1870, describes one which travelled at the rate of ten miles an hour, and had all the veerings, calm centre, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... degrades the most heroic achievements. It is fed with emotions and spectacles: it cries, laughs, and condemns without knowledge and without enthusiasm. Pitiable indeed is the politician who makes society his moral barometer." ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... parties and picnics balance day loomed up. Castle's frame of mind, like a special make of barometer, registered the event a day or so ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... came out from the westward, compelling us to make a stretch off the land. This occurred about midnight. I secured an observation for my longitude at nine o'clock the next morning, and another for my latitude at noon, about which time I became aware that the barometer was falling, although not rapidly enough to give cause for any uneasiness. As the afternoon wore on, however, there were indications that a change of weather was impending. The sky lost the pure brilliancy of its blue, and by insensible degrees assumed an ashen pallor, which the sun vainly ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... over the continent, exactly synchronized by telegraph, yielded deductions that steadily grew more and more consistent and reliable, until at length those particularly fickle instruments, the weather-vane, the thermometer, the barometer and the magnetic fluid, have formed, in combination, almost an "arm of precision." The predictions put forth in the "small hours" each morning by the central office in Washington assume only the modest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... what it is,—what lesser pressure of air, to which we respond like a barometer; or what unknown chords there are within us that sleep for years in the midst of society and that waken and answer, like an animal's, to the subtle influence of nature,—but one can never be watched by an unseen wild animal without feeling it vaguely; and one ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... befell Abauzit, the natural philosopher, while residing at Geneva; resembling in many respects a similar calamity which occurred to Newton, and which he bore with equal resignation. Amongst other things, Abauzit devoted much study to the barometer and its variations, with the object of deducing the general laws which regulated atmospheric pressure. During twenty-seven years he made numerous observations daily, recording them on sheets prepared for the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... head when he swept his eye round at all this loveliness; then he turned on his heel and took a look at the aneroid fastened to the wall of the sitting-room of the Life-Saving Station. The arrow showed a steady shrinkage. The barometer had ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... *Heteros other heterodox, heterogeneous *Homos same homonym, homeopathy *Hydor water hydraulics, hydrophobia, hydrant *Isos equal isosceles, isotherm *Lithos stone monolith, chrysolite Logos word, study theology, dialogue Metron measure barometer, diameter *Micros small microscope, microbe Monos one, alone monoplane, monotone *Morphe form metamorphosis, amorphous *Neos new, young neolithic, neophyte *Neuron nerve neuralgia, neurotic Nomos law, science, astronomy, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... are perforce reducing their consumption—their standard of living—because they have largely exhausted their securities, commodities or credit to continue the borrowing of our commodities for their own short production, as during the war. The exchange barometer is today witness of the end of this procedure of living on borrowed money. In passing, it may be mentioned that exchange is no more a cause of their inability to buy from us than is the barometer ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... placed under the recipient BCD of an air-pump, of which the upper part B ought to be fitted with a leathern lid, through which passes a wire EF, having its point F very sharp; and in the same receiver there ought to be placed the barometer GH. The whole being thus disposed, let the recipient be exhausted, and then, by pushing down the wire EF, we make a hole in the bladder. Immediately the ether begins to boil with great violence, and is changed into ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... I dammed one of the streams in the meadow and put the mill in operation. This invention was speedily followed by a lot of others,—water-wheels, curious doorlocks and latches, thermometers, hygrometers, pyrometers, clocks, a barometer, an automatic contrivance for feeding the horses at any required hour, a lamp-lighter and fire-lighter, an ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... when the sun goes under a cloud, or on a dull day, each little weather prophet closes. A score of pretty folk-names given it in every land it adopts testifies to its sensitiveness as a barometer. Under bright skies the flower may be said to open out flat at about nine in the morning and to begin to close at ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... shown is not confined to the hundreds of attendants, but must be shared by your great public, is shown by the unfailing barometer of journalism. Here we have a field in which the non-survival of the unfit is the rule in its most ruthless form. The journals that we see and read are merely the fortunate few of a countless number, dead and forgotten, that did not know what the public wanted to read about. The eagerness shown ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... regions began to prosper, and industry, commerce and finance all waxed mighty. In 1864 the whole land was in the full sweep of industrial prosperity. The debts incident to the panic of 1857 were fully liquidated. Iron is the barometer, and the country doubled its consumption of iron. An editor writing of his city says, "Old Hartford seems fat and rich and cozy, and everything is as tranquil as ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... hard hunting nerve, she should not hesitate to say so; for we all like to take things easy at times, whether it be in hunting or in anything else, according as we feel fit or otherwise. There is no gainsaying that the human barometer is regulated to a great extent by the weather, as we may see by the big fields which greet the Master on ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... true, of course, that some persons have greater resistance than others. If we had a convenient barometer by which to measure daily the state of our vitality, we might register the effect of every unhygienic act. But it is so seldom that endurance is accurately measured that few people appreciate the enormous differences in people and the variations of the ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... skipper—a thing of clay that seemed utterly incapable of any expression whatever, save in the slight facial contortion consequent to the mechanical movement of his lower jaw—the skipper sat, with barometer in hand, eyeing the fatal finger that pointed to our doom: the rest of us were lashed to the legs of the centre-table, glad of any object to fix our eyes upon, and nervously awaiting a turn in the state of affairs, that was then by no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... essentially contrary to the organization of the Parisian bourgeois. Our friend coughed twice, and then, drawing in his head and his arm, re-entered his room like a tortoise into his shell. D'Harmental saw with pleasure that he might dispense with buying a barometer, and that this neighbor would render him the same service as the butterflies which come out in the sunshine, and remain obstinately shut up in their hermitages on the ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... providence which seems to shelter the unworthy, gave India and the Berkshires honour that hour when the barometer registered shame; for never was mercury more stormy than shot up in the artery of two men's wills when that song rose over the zeriba at Tofrik. They were not fifty feet apart at the time, and at the lilt of that chorus they swung towards ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... winds were very seldom from that quarter. We have no data upon which we can calculate the height of the valley of Nepal with any considerable accuracy. The nearest approach I can make to it, is by the difference of the average height of the barometer observed during the month of February 1802, in the Tariyani, and during the February following at Kathmandu. The average height at the former place was 29,60 inches, while at the latter it was 25,25 inches. The difference of the logarithms of these numbers, rejecting the index, and ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... compounds, with their combining weights, volumes, and specific gravities. When the combining weight of any of these elements and compounds is taken in pounds, then the gas or vapor therefrom will always occupy about 377.07 cubic feet of space, at 60 deg. Fahr. and 30 inches barometer. If we divide this constant 377.07 by the combining weight of any of the substances, then the quotient will be the number of cubic feet per pound of the same. If we divide the combining weight of any of the substances ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... made a part of the duty of all the surveying vessels to keep an exact register of the height of the barometer, at its two maxima of 9, and its two minima of 3 o'clock, as well as that of the thermometer at the above periods, and at its own day and night maximum and minimum, as well as the continual comparative temperature of the sea and air. This was done with ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes |
