"Excavation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "black chipping-bird," as it is known among the farmers, is the finest architect of any of the ground-builders known to me. The site of its nest is usually some low bank by the roadside, near a wood. In a slight excavation, with a partially concealed entrance, the exquisite structure is placed. Horse and cow hair are plentifully used, imparting to the interior of the nest great symmetry and firmness as well ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... finds and of publications, is smaller than in 1913. In part the outbreak of war in August called off various supervisors and not a few workmen from excavations then in progress; in one case it prevented a proposed excavation from being begun. It also seems to have retarded the issue of some archaeological periodicals. But the scarcity of finds is much more due to natural causes. The most extensive excavations of the year, ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... to the site and observes the progress of the work and how it is being done. Special conditions may arise where the contractor or his foreman call hurriedly for the architect, such as uncovering a large boulder at one corner of the excavation for the cellar. There may be a fine point to be decided regarding the location of piping or some detailed instruction concerning the installation of the interior woodwork. On these occasions it saves time for everybody if the architect or one of his associates is readily ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... all I had ever seen upon Barsoom, was built in a large excavation. Only the highest seats, which formed the low wall surrounding the pit, were above the level of the ground. The arena itself was far ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mossy rock of which we have spoken as being close to the sycamore walk, at the foot of a wall against which it flowed, forming a rather deep excavation, the current had found a vein of soft, brittle stone which, by its incessant force, it had ended in wearing away. It was a natural grotto formed by water, but which earth, in its turn, had undertaken to embellish. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... excavation, bounded by opposite lines of high hills.... This valley was rich in the extreme, with trees scattered in it like England; but the sides of the hills were well wooded.... The river is very turbid, as if with white ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Reed, the artist and poet, and Miss Brewster, as well as a score or more of others of our countrymen, then or since distinguished, in art and letters at home and abroad. We remained some days in Naples, and during the time went to Pompeii to witness a special excavation among the ruins of the buried city, which search was instituted on account of our visit. A number of ancient household articles were dug up, and one, a terra cotta lamp bearing upon its crown in bas-relief ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... but, so soon as search revealed an opening into a narrow passageway beyond, I pressed forward amid dense gloom, feeling my way, fearful lest I meet some pitfall. It was a low, contracted gallery, so extremely irregular in excavation that I sometimes stood erect, unable to reach the roof with extended fingers, yet a moment later was compelled to creep on hands and knees in order to progress at all. Had it led through solid rock I should have accepted this as evidence of natural ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... The excavation was quite large, the entrance covered and camouflaged neatly to give the very impression that he had gotten from the air. Under the camouflage the space was crowded, stacked with crates, boxes, materials, stacked all along the walls ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... be a log. San Francisco is built on sand dunes, and in early days the houses were log-cabins for the most part, constructed of logs that two stout men could handle. After many minutes of silent but most vigorous excavation we joyfully decided that one of these very logs had ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... scrutinized and old existing landmarks studied. Seventeenth-century buildings and objects still surviving in England, America, and elsewhere have been viewed as well as museum collections. A key part of the search has been the systematic excavation of the townsite itself, in order to bring to light the information and objects long buried there. This is the aspect of the broad Jamestown study that is told in this publication, particularly as its relates ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... Montause, a distinguished member of the Academy of Inscriptions, a pillar of the Societe d'Histoire diplomatique, and a foreign member of the Royal Society, had been for nearly a year engaged at Nimrud in the work nearest to his heart, the work of excavation. It was a labour of love for which he was very jealous. He believed it was his mission to reveal to an astonished world the long-buried secrets of ancient civilizations; he could not bear a rival near the throne of archaeological eminence; and in this exclusive attitude of mind ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... "Into this excavation the sand was still running in tiny rivulets. Listening, I could hear it pattering far, far ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... snow, and the other raised about two feet on rocks and cases, and under these the sailors and some of the scientists, with the two invalids, Rickenson and Blackborrow, found head-cover at least. Shelter from the weather and warmth to dry their clothes was imperative, so Wild hastened the excavation of the ice-cave in the slope which had been started before ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... for stock should be on the south side, with tight fences for protection on the east and west. As this is designed for winter use, it is a great saving of comfort to the creatures. The barn-yard should be hollowed out by excavation, until four or five feet lower in the centre than on the edges. The border should be nearly level, inclining slightly toward the centre, to allow the liquid in the yard to run into it for purposes of manure. The front of a barn should be on the summit of a small ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... Pans," which were close to our camping ground. I descended by a steep path some six hundred or seven hundred feet to the bottom. It is an immense amphitheatre at the base of thickly wooded hills. It is larger in extent than the vast open excavation formed by the "Kimberley" Mine at Kimberley. The salt and soda brine is perpetually oosing from the bottom, and is continually being scraped up with a sort of wooden scraper into heaps, where, after a time, by the action of the atmosphere, it becomes crystallised. I picked up and brought away with ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... his head whimsically upon one side, gazed after him not altogether unsympathetically, then descended again into the excavation whence he had lately emerged. Being a philosopher he was not surprised, that afternoon, in the course of a drive he took in the old carriage with the Major, when, George was encountered upon the highway, flashing along in his runabout ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... the king of his lady's death. In despair he leaped from the rock, and was dashed to pieces. The legend of the unhappy lover is familiar throughout the East, and is used to explain many traces of rock-cutting or excavation as far east as Beluchistan' (Persia and the Persian Question, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P. (London, 1892), vol. i, p. 562, note. See also Malcolm, History of ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... kangaroo rats. The eyes are large, as is very often the case in nocturnal animals, and when brought out into the bright light of day the rats perhaps do not see well. Yet, if an animal leaves a den which is in process of excavation, and follows one runway, even in bright sunlight, it makes excellent speed to the next opening, often a distance of several yards. Whether this is accomplished chiefly by the aid of sight or in large measure ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... reached the entrance to the chamber they heard the sounds of a pick. When they came nearer and looked in they saw the detective poking away at a heap of "gob" which lay in one corner of the excavation. He worked industriously, and apparently without fear of discovery. Now and then he stooped down to peer into a crevice in the wall, but soon ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... woman, as stout and strong as the men, and clad in a short, loose, linsey gown, from beneath which peeped out a pair of coarse leggins, was adjusting a long wooden trough, which conveyed the liquid rosin from the "still" to a deep excavation in the earth, at a short distance. In the pit was a quantity of rosin sufficient ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... was stowed away. When the hole was nearly full, a skin was laid over the goods, and on this earth was thrown and beaten down, until, with the addition of the sod first removed, the whole was on a level with the ground, and there remained not the slightest appearance of an excavation. In addition to this, we made another of smaller dimensions, in which we placed all the baggage, some powder, and our blacksmith's tools, having previously repaired such of the tools as we carry with us that require ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... He was like an engineer boring a tunnel through a mountain, but ignorant of how near he was to the pleasant valley on the other side; and, above all, ignorant how rapidly he was being met by a much more mighty excavation from the other side. To use what is perhaps a more exact simile: he was like a child with half the pieces of a puzzle-map, slowly linking them together as far as they would fit, and quite ignorant that presently the ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... twenty-five, and arrived upon the scene of action the Celestial grave-digger made a further bid of eight francs, two Chinese coins (value unknown) and a tract in his native tongue. This being likewise met with a reluctant but unmistakable refusal, the work of excavation was commenced. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... the new and curious fact of the bees making smooth cups or saucers when they excavated in a thick piece of wax, which saucers stood so close that hexagons were built on their intersecting edges. And, lastly, because when they excavated on a thin slip of wax, the excavation on both sides of similar smooth basins was stopped, and flat planes left between the nearly opposed basins. If my view were wholly false these cases would, I think, never have occurred. Sedgwick and Co. may abuse me to their hearts' ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... of Salinas was viceroy of Mexico; and the operations were commenced with great pomp, the viceroy assisting in person, mass being said on a portable altar, and fifteen hundred workmen assembled, while the marquis himself began the excavation by giving the first stroke with a spade. From 1607 to 1830, eight millions of dollars were expended, and yet this great work was not brought to a conclusion. However, the limits of the two lakes of Zumpango and San Cristobal, to the north of the valley, were thus greatly reduced, and the lake ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... 1810, as Sir Carnaby Haggerstone's workmen were digging in Flodden Field, they came to a pit filled with human bones, and which seemed of great extent; but, alarmed at the sight, they immediately filled up the excavation, and ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... but a few huts and broken walls in a sheltered spot. We went to see the tomb of Lazarus, which is a small empty rock chamber. About forty yards to the south we were shown the supposed house of Martha and Mary. We passed a little field where Christ withered the tree, marked by an excavation in the rock, where there is always a fig. The way we returned to Jerusalem was that by which Jesus rode upon the ass in triumph upon Palm Sunday, down the Mount of Olives, and in at the ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... Some one thousand different specimens are to be found. The facades of these caves are perfect, generally in the form of an arch, executed in the rock with every variety of detail, and therefore imperishable without violence. The process of excavation extended through ten centuries from the time of Asoka; and the interiors as well as the facades were highly ornamented with sculptures. The temple-caves are seldom more than one hundred and fifty feet deep and fifty feet in width, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... they were called—and did good service daily in the caverns of the earth. Thus a whole army of gnomes were noiselessly at work to destroy and defend the beleaguered city. The mine advanced towards the gate; the besieged delved deeper, and intersected it with a transverse excavation, and the contending forces met daily, in deadly encounter, within these sepulchral gangways. Many stratagems were, mutually employed. The citizens secretly constructed a dam across the Spanish mine, and then deluged their foe with hogsheads of boiling water. Hundreds were thus scalded to death. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was not quite wasted, however. They had planned for a thrilling result; and there was thrill enough while it lasted. In the first place, the stone nearly caught Will Bowen when it started. John Briggs had just that moment quit digging and handed Will the pick. Will was about to step into the excavation when Sam Clemens, who was already there, leaped out with ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... numbers, were found all over the country. They lie either scattered and single, in which case they are never hatched, and are called by the Spaniards huachos; or they are collected together into a shallow excavation, which forms the nest. Out of the four nests which I saw, three contained twenty-two eggs each, and the fourth twenty-seven. In one day's hunting on horseback sixty-four eggs were found; forty-four of these were in two nests, and ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... some small bits of blue metal containing iron pyrites, all of them very soft. In one passage that was lower was found on the level a small stream of clear water which empties through another opening lower down than it, both of those openings having been made for one excavation. To all appearances those mines were abandoned long ago; and although they were not being worked, and were seen to be so neglected, they contained the best-appearing metal that was seen. The said miners got about ten small baskets of it ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... Once he had hoped Mr. Bronson would be the one to show him the way out of the backwater of Crawberry. Hiram had not forgotten how terribly disappointed he had been when he could not find the gentleman's card in the sewer excavation. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... in the usual costume, were 'tending the still,' and a negro-woman, as stout and strong as the men, and clad in a short, loose, linsey gown, from beneath which peeped out a pair of coarse leggins, was adjusting a long wooden trough, which conveyed the liquid rosin from the 'still' to a deep excavation in the earth, at a short distance. In the pit was a quantity of rosin sufficient to fill a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... day after Abe Lee's return to Kingston the surveyor and his employer were in Mr. Worth's office. The work of excavation for the foundation of the power plant would begin in the morning, and Mr. Worth had planned to leave town the following morning for a week's business trip ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... temperature, however, made the work very exhausting; and by lunch time they had only succeeded in excavating a hole some twenty-five feet long—or the distance between the two masts—by six feet wide and four feet deep. They had widened this excavation by a couple of feet and sunk it some four feet deeper by six o'clock that evening; and then they knocked off work for the day, returning to the Flying Fish stiff, and exhausted with their unwonted exertions, but with more voracious appetites than they ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... one—or rather, was, before the house was built—it is generally easy to secure a slope from the house on all sides, by filling in about the building with the soil thrown up from the cellar or in making excavation for the walls. If no excavation of any kind has been made—and quite often, nowadays, foundation walls are built on the ground instead of starting a foot or two below the surface,—a method never ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... beginning to consider his excavation almost deep enough to bury two ten-gallon kegs and forty bottles of whisky, when the shadow of a head and shoulders fell across the hole. Casey did not lift the dirt and rocks he had on his shovel. He froze to a tense quiet, ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... the school-house at Wallsend, the old parish church being at the time in so dilapidated a condition from the "creeping" or subsidence of the ground, consequent upon the excavation of the coal, that it was considered dangerous to enter it. On this occasion, Robert Gray and Anne Henderson, who had officiated as bridesman and bridesmaid at the wedding, came over again to Willington, and stood godfather and godmother ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... door-way, which constituted an entrance to this subterraneous region; and as the moonlight streamed over the wide waste of waters, and fell upon this little door-way in the face of the cliff, he became convinced that it was the entrance to that excavation, and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... to store two or three thousand boxes of apples for three or four months and propose to do it in this way: Make an excavation in dry earth, putting at the bottom of the excavation straw. Upon this straw place the apples, then dry straw over the apples, and upon the top of this two or three feet of dry earth. Will it be a good plan to pour on water from time to time over the top ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... mound was used, at least in part, for burial purposes. Nearly fifty years ago, when the writer of this note explored this remarkable artificial elevation of eighty feet in height, he found in the excavation numerous beads of shell or bone, or both, ornaments of the dead buried ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... newspapers how little can be culled! Manifestations are there made manifest to us and we are taught, with tedious iteration, the things we knew, and need not have known, before. In my research, I have had only such poor guides as Punch, or the London Charivari and The Queen, the Lady's Newspaper. Excavation, which in the East has been productive of rich material for the archaeologist, was indeed suggested to me. I was told that, just before Cleopatra's Needle was set upon the Embankment, an iron box, containing ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... engraving, the subject of which was sketched on the road to La Palud, whither we were bound for the night. In our way thither, we made a short detour, accompanied by our host, to the Roche Courbiere, a natural excavation on the rock, within sight of the terrace, and to the left of the road. This cool retreat, it may be recollected, was discovered and chosen by Mad. de Sevigne, as a sort of summer pavilion; and was embellished ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... The excavation is high enough and broad enough for two tall men to walk abreast, and on its winding way, screw fashion, doubling upon itself, it leads down one hundred and fifty feet into the bowels of the earth, all the way through solid rock that had remained undisturbed ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... over, Miss Mehitable made a fruitful excavation into a huge chest in the attic, and emerged, flushed but happy, with enough scraps ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... as the hog of wallowing in mud. When he comes upon a marshy spot he lies down and rolls about until he has worn out a large and shallow excavation into which the water oozes through the damp soil. Lying down again he rolls and turns until he is plastered from head to tail with mud. Though it cannot be said that it adds to his attractiveness, yet the coating no doubt serves well as a protection against the swarms of insects, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... and were then dispersed to various museums, Oxford, Philadelphia, Chicago and Manchester, receiving the largest shares. I have to acknowledge much help received both in Egypt and England. To Mr. Clarke, besides the financial support mentioned already, we owe thanks for help in the work of excavation, in plan-making, drawing, etc., and for his untiring hospitality. To Miss A. A. Pirie, who was with us for the later two-thirds of the season, we are indebted for several coloured drawings of tombs, etc., now at University College, and to her, as also to my sister, for constant aid in ...
— El Kab • J.E. Quibell
... the north of us, leading westwards from the main valley, we found a beautiful mausoleum tomb,—a building, not an excavation in rock,—containing six sarcophagi, or ornamented stone coffins, ranged upon ledges of masonry, along three sides of the chamber. These were very large, and all of the same pattern—the lids remaining upon some of them, but shifted aside. ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... other paths, it will be greatly to his advantage to stake it out and remove about four inches of the surface-soil, piling it near the stable to be used for composting purposes or in the earth-closet. The excavation thus made should be filled with small stones or cinders, and then covered with fine gravel. A walk that shall be dry at all times is thus secured, and it will be almost wholly free from weeds. In these advantages alone one is repaid for the extra first cost, and in addition the rich surface soil ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... shovel was touching him. Sure enough this was the case, for the next shovelful of rubbish that was lifted revealed the top of his head! We cleared the way to his mouth as carefully as we could, and then gave him a drop of brandy before going on with the work of excavation. His comrade was found in a stooping position, and was more severely bruised than old Harvey, but both of them lived to tell the tale of their burial, and to thank God for their deliverance. Yes," continued the captain, detaching his candle ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the "parallax of profundity"[451]—that is, of apparent displacements attendant on the sun's rotation, due to depression below the sun's surface. He found that in every case it fell short of 4,000 miles, and averaged not more than 1,321, corresponding, on the terrestrial scale, to an excavation in the earth's crust of 1-1/5 miles. Of late, however, the reality of even this moderate amount of depression has been denied. Mr. Howlett's persevering observations, extending over a third of a century, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... planks, which were taken up and put down as required, the rock was excavated to a depth of 9 feet, and the balks supported upon stout props. Then from the driftway or rough boring beneath well holes were bored to the upper excavation, and through them the strong upright iron pillars designed to support the roof of the new tunnel station were passed, bedded and securely fixed in position. No sooner were they in situ than the most troublesome part of the task was entered upon, for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... snapped back; "then I suppose it was mine! I suppose I fell down the elevator shaft just to please mother, eh? Maybe you think I dropped into the excavation just to pass the time away? Have you an idea that I dove down into the earth because I wanted to get back to the mines? Wasn't your fault, indeed! Maybe you think I fell in the well simply because I wanted to give an imitation of the old ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... soulfully the noise and dirt caused by the work of excavation, shut the back windows to keep out the dust and returned to the front room—his study, library and reception-room in one. With the addition of the bath off the bedroom in the rear, and a large hall-closet opening from the study, these two rooms ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Breckenridge. "Now I'll tell you what we'd better do. You and the girls go along down the trail and visit the Indian camp. That is evidently what Kie wants you to do. I'll send Tommy over to the tunnel with two men to start the excavation work and maybe by the time we get the professor back, we'll have something to show him. Who knows, Bet? Sometimes I'm half hopeful, although my common sense tells me ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... that found in the ancient temples of Egypt, in connection with the stone-work, which is known to be at least four thousand years old. This, the only wood used in the construction of the temple, is in the form of ties, holding the end of one stone to another. When two blocks were laid in place, an excavation about an inch deep was made in each block, into which a tie shaped like ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was here eight or ten feet deep, and a number of workmen were engaged in excavating from it fragments of machinery and other articles. They had cleared out the ground-rooms of the house, though little more than the base of the walls remained. The scene was precisely like an excavation at Herculaneum. The outline of the rooms was beginning to be traceable. A grate and a fireplace appeared. We observed a child's shoe taken out and laid aside—an affecting image of the household desolation which had taken place. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... strong. I'se woan open it jes' yet, feared de missus or de colored boys 'spec' someting. Ki! I isn't a-gwine ter be tied up, an' hab dat box whip out in me. I'll tink how I kin hide an' spen' de money kine of slowcution like." With this he restored the prize to its shallow excavation and covered it with leaves that no trace of fresh ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... must also tell in addition to this for what purpose the earth was used, which was taken out of the trench, and in what manner the wall was made. As they dug the trench they made the earth which was carried out of the excavation into bricks, and having moulded enough bricks they baked them in kilns; and then afterwards, using hot asphalt for mortar and inserting reed mats at every thirty courses of brickwork, they built up first the edges of the trench and then the wall ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... makes his hearers weep. Then the two processions form into one, which takes its way to the cemetery where the grave has already been prepared. The two coffins are lowered together, so that their sides touch as they rest at the bottom of the excavation. Then the yama-no-mono [1] folk remove the planks which separate the pair—making the two coffins into one; above the reunited dead the earth is heaped; and a haka, bearing in chiselled letters the story of their fate, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... of excavation, which I made clear to my mind before quitting Niagara, are revealed by a close inspection of the present Horseshoe Fall. We see evidently that the greatest weight of water bends over the very apex of the Horseshoe. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Abu-Habba (Sippara) and Jokha (Isin) by Dr. Scheil, working for the Turkish government. But the most important finds have been at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, in Northern Babylonia, where the American expedition has brought to a close its long work of systematic excavation. Here Mr. Haynes has dug down to the very foundations of the great temple of El-lil, and the chief historical results of his labours have been published by Professor Hilprecht (in The Babylonian ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... of the result of this excavation are still at Cholula, and the fact is mentioned in several American works; my inference from the fact is the only ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... phenomenon, an excavation produced by internal cataclysms or by the imperceptible action of the rushing sea and the soaking rain? Or was it a superhuman work executed by human beings, Gauls, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... the pit, they concluded that they would have to continue the excavation. But to their intense astonishment the officer in charge ordered them to throw all the excavated soil back again into the hole! This was one of the most glaring examples of performing a useless task, merely to satisfy ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... electric train cars within an hour, and while there is not much to see it is still an excursion well worth making. Dr. de Petra, of the chair of Archaeology in the University of Naples, and formerly the Director of the National Museum, is warmly in favor of the proposed excavation of this buried city, as is Professor Spinazzola of the San Martino museum, who believes that Italy may well become one vast museum of antiquities. "As the theatre of Herculaneum is actually at present a subterranean excavation," he ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... the forest-trees. At length I emerged from the wood, and stood upon the fertile pastures of the mountain; from whence the ascent to the immense block of marble which crowns Mont l'Heris, is tolerably easy. It is a singular mass, on the southern side of which is an enormous excavation; amongst the debris of which was a path that led to the top. If the view below was lovely, this was magnificent; my eyes were, however, riveted on one object—the towering height of the Pic du Midi, which seemed almost immediately above my ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... and forwards on the grass-grown pathway, and I kept the old gentleman as far as I could from the open grave. The voice of the doctor giving directions and the muffled answers of the men working in the excavation came to us occasionally. ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... common among traders who bring merchandise into the country of Indians of doubtful integrity, that of digging a hole in the ground, small at the top, but widened in the descent, somewhat like the shape of a kettle. Choice was made of a dry situation; and the sod, being carefully removed, the excavation was completed, a flooring of wood and hides was laid at the bottom, and the goods were covered with skins: the earth was then thrown into the river, and the sod laid on again with so much care, that not the slightest appearance remained of the surface ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... from Detroit to Mackinack, on Lake Huron, a Mr. Wetzler, of Rock River, Wisconsin, stated to me that a Mr. Davy, an English emigrant, found, in making an excavation in his land near "Oregon," some antiquities, consisting of silver coins, for which Mr. Wetzler offered him, unsuccessfully, $50. The story looks very much like a humbug, but it was told with all seriousness by a respectable ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... roar the excavation squad went into straining action. Oxen, their eyes bulbous in their skulls from effort, set brute energy against yokes along with the men. The mud eventually gave ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... had laid out was six feet square; and when he had thrown out all the sand and gravel to this depth, in order to save any unnecessary labor he began to dig in the middle of the excavation, for this was directly under the centre of the projecting rock. If Harvey Barth's statement was exactly correct, the bag would be found where Leopold was now at work. Faster and faster he plied the shovel, the deeper he went, and, when he judged ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... of the earliest important discoveries at Pompeii, made in 1771, was that of the "Villa of Diomedes," named from the tomb of Marcus Arrius Diomedes across the street. Since then every decade has seen some progress in the work of excavation, and among other buildings brought to light are the "House of Pansa," the "House of the Tragic Poet," the "House of Sallustius," the "Castor and Pollux," a double house, and the "House of the Vettii"—the last, a recent discovery, being left with all its furnishings as found. Many interesting objects ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... together, it is calculated, is more than twelve miles in perpendicular depth, and if to these are added the horizontal galleries, which perforate the hill in all directions, the extent of subterranean excavation ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... ended speaking, he rose; and taking Helen by the hand, led her into an inner excavation of the rock, where a bed of dried leaves lay on the ground. "Here, gentle lady," said he, "I leave you to repose. In the evening I expect a lay brother from St. Oran's Monastery, and he will be your messenger to the friends you may wish to rejoin. At present, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... see from the above description of the torments which the wicked were supposed to suffer, that the writer had in his mind some of the pictures with which we are now familiar, thanks to the excavation of tombs which has gone on in Egypt during the last few years; and it is also easy to see that he, in common with many other Coptic writers, misunderstood the purport of them. The outer darkness, i.e., the blackest place of all in the underworld, the river of fire, the pits of fire, the snake ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... view it is a misfortune in the study of archology that, with the progress of excavation, fresh discoveries are continually being made. If only the evidence of the facts were all in, the case might be summed up and a final judgment pronounced on points in dispute. As it is, the ablest scholar ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... the place where it had most usually been opened, and where, alas! it would have been most desirable to have kept it whole; and that the smaller fragments have been lost amid the dust and rubbish of the excavation, while the two extremities have been made distinct properties, which have been sold, as we have seen, to separate collectors. So, at all events, such matters are managed ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... conditions as to ventilation, without very bad effects on the men, Messrs. Sooysmith & Company had an experience with a work on which men were engaged in six-hour shifts, separated into two parts by half-hour intervals for lunch. This work was excavation in open, seamy rock, carried on for several weeks under about 45 pounds pressure. The character of the material through which the caisson is being sunk or upon which it may be resting at any time bears quite largely upon the ability of the men to stand ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... first urged against Sir Charles Lyell's noble views on "the modern changes of the earth, as illustrative of geology;" but we now seldom hear the agencies which we see still at work, spoken of as trifling and insignificant, when used in explaining the excavation of the deepest valleys or the formation of long lines of inland cliffs. Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... at the very first moment, my knees and feet, propped against the inner wall, had smashed in a thick layer of plaster which closed up an old excavation in the well; and this I at once perceived. It was a stroke of luck, wasn't it? And it changed the whole situation. My plan was settled at once. While I went on acting my little part of the gentleman about to tumble ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... counter attack from the Bolo, as our force was much smaller than his, and spent the first part of the night making trenches. An excavation deeper than eighteen inches would have water in the bottom. We were very cold, as it was October in Russia, and every man wet to the skin, with no blankets or overcoats. About midnight the British sent up two jugs ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... grass, or thread of moss! You cannot approach it and put your hand into it without violating the place more or less, and yet the little architect has wrought day after day and left no marks. There has been an excavation, and yet no grain of earth appears to have been moved. If the nest had slowly and silently grown like the grass and the moss, it could not have been more nicely adjusted to its place and surroundings. There is absolutely nothing to tell the eye it is there. Generally a ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... called, but a stone edifice with battlements and a round tower at one corner, and a gate which looked as if it might have had a portcullis, and narrow windows in a portion of it, and a cannon mounted upon a low roof, and an excavation called the moat,—but which was now a fantastic and somewhat picturesque garden,—running round two sides of it. In very truth, though a portion of the castle was undoubtedly old, and had been built when strength was needed for defence and probably for the custody of booty,—the battlements, and ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... past year the work of construction upon the canal has progressed most satisfactorily. About 87 per cent of the excavation work has been completed, and more than 93 per cent of the concrete for all the locks is in place. In view of the great interest which has been manifested as to some slides in the Culebra Cut, I am glad to say that the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his pulses throbbed, and he could feel his blood tingling, he fell to work systematically, groping about the excavation the dead man had made where the snowslide had rent apart the forest and scored out the rock for him. Here and there he smashed a fragment of it with the back of the axe, or picked up a discoloured stone of unusual gravity and compared it with the pieces he took out ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... the fulfillment of the pledge. Gratifying progress has been made during the past year, and especially during the past four months. The greater part of the necessary preliminary work has been done. Actual work of excavation could be begun only on a limited scale till the Canal Zone was made a healthful place to live in and to work in. The Isthmus had to be sanitated first. This task has been so thoroughly accomplished that yellow fever has been virtually extirpated from ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Spanish engineers had made a survey for a carriage road into this country, and had prepared a profile of it with estimates of the amount and cost of the necessary excavation ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... conquest of Babylon to Darius, but inscriptions of Cyrus and of Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, make it certain that Cyrus was the real conqueror. These inscriptions are preserved on cylinders of baked clay, of the type made familiar by the excavation of the past fifty years, and they are invaluable ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... he says of the cave-dwellings may be illustrated by Burnes's account of the excavations at Bamian, in a neighbouring district. These "still form the residence of the greater part of the population.... The hills at Bamian are formed of indurated clay and pebbles, which renders this excavation a matter of little difficulty." Similar occupied excavations are noticed by Moorcroft at Heibak and ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... not often the wish or pleasure of an Englishman, who has more frequent need to solicit than exclude the sun; but Pope's excavation was requisite as an entrance to his garden, and, as some men try to be proud of their defects, he extracted an ornament from an inconvenience, and vanity produced a grotto where necessity enforced a passage. It may ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... peat-stack, out of the dark hole made by the excavation of last winter's stock of fuel, came the voice of ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... substituted in place of them. * * * * * As to the mode of construction—the route is selected upon a minute survey, with as little elevation as possible, with a view to economy—the line is then graded by excavating the earth to near a level, say 50 feet slope to the mile. The excavation for a single line of rails need not be more than one-third the width of a turnpike and, of course, this part of the work is proportionately cheaper than grading for a turnpike. Large pieces of limestone, ...
— A Pioneer Railway of the West • Maude Ward Lafferty
... there thrust out a wrinkled boulder, prevented the site from being used for building purposes. The street ran on either side of the hill, from one part of which a quantity of rock had been removed to form the underpinning of the new jail. This excavation made the approach from that point all but impossible, especially when the ragged ledges were a-glitter with ice. You see what a spot it ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... me that in a recent excavation twenty cartloads of oyster shells were discovered behind one house. Think of that! Twenty cartloads to a single house! What a family must have lived there—indeed the Romans ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... of shores which Nature had made separate, the draining of Nature's marshes, the excavation of her wells, the dragging to light of what she has buried at immense depths in the earth; the turning away of her thunderbolts by lightning rods; of her inundations by embankments, of her ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... one of unusual size fell into his palm he uttered an exclamation of delight, and turned and held it up for Ariel to admire. She smiled at his pleasure, and showed her sympathy by assisting in the excavation of ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... of 1852 Layard, assisted by H. Rassam, continued the excavation of the "South West Palace" at Kuynjik. In one part of the building he found two small chambers, opening into each other, which he called the "chamber of records," or "the house of the rolls." He gave them this name because "to the height of a foot or more from the floor they ...
— The Babylonian Story of the Deluge - as Told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh • E. A. Wallis Budge |
