"Filament" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Tortoise-shell fish. Mrs. Meredith calls it Tortoise-shell Fish from its colour, when figuring it in 'Tasmanian Friends and Foes' under its former scientific name of Cheironectes Politus. The surface of its skin is hirsute with minute spines, and the lobe at the end of the detached filament of the dorsal fin—called the fintacle—hangs loose. The scientific names of the genus are derived from Grk. brachiown, "the arm," and cheir, "the hand." The armlike pectoral fins are used for holding ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... certain extent, until a surface is brought into contact with the glass having a silky lustre; this is the tongue; it is moved with a short sweep, and then the tubular proboscis infolds its walls again, the tongue disappearing, and every filament of Conferva being carried up into the interior, from the little area which had been swept. The next instant, the foot meanwhile having made a small advance, the proboscis unfolds again, the makes another sweep, and again the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... not; meanwhile the galaxy displayed Her fires, that like mysterious pulses beat Aloft;—momentous but uneasy bliss! 100 To their full hearts the universe seemed hung On that brief meeting's slender filament! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... Philip Morrow, the popular Governor of one of the Southern States, has learnt that his grandmother was a quadroon, and that consequently he has in him a much-attenuated strain of African blood. In the Southern States, attenuation matters nothing: if the remotest filament of a man's ancestry runs back to Africa, he is "a nigger all right." Philip has just suppressed a race-riot in the city, and, from the balcony of the State Capitol, is to address the troops who have aided him, and the assembled multitude. Having resolutely ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... remained in the trays, and they fastened greedily on fresh mulberry leaves that Jenny brought them. Others were but beginning their shrouds. They had sketched them and appeared to be busily weaving in the preliminary bag made of transparent and glittering filament. A few of the creatures began to turn yellow, though as yet they had not devoured their last meal. Jenny picked them up and held ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... or the changes produced by artificial mutilation and prenatal influences, as in the crossing of species and production of monsters; fourth, when we observe the essential unity of plan in all warm-blooded animals,—we are led to conclude that they have been alike produced from a similar living filament"... "From thus meditating upon the minute portion of time in which many of the above changes have been produced, would it be too bold to imagine, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of years before the commencement of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... MacHeath asked innocently. At the same time, he opened his mind wide to net in every wisp and filament of Nordred's thoughts ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... originated "from a single living filament" (p. 230), or, stated in other words, referring to the warm-blooded animals alone, "one is led to conclude that they have alike been produced from a similar living filament" (p. 236); and again he expresses the conjecture that one and the same kind of living filament is and has been ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... of Egypt would be represented by a green ribbon an inch wide and a yard long, lying upon the ground in a serpentine form; and to complete the model, we might imagine a silver filament passing along the center of the green to denote the Nile. The real valley of verdure, however, is not of uniform breadth, like the ribbon so representing it, but widens as it approaches the sea, as if there had been originally ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... new life, when I, who am a little your junior, am thinking of the end of mine. But I have had hard lines; I have been so long waiting for death, I have unwrapped my thoughts from about life so long, that I have not a filament left to hold by; I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius, that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption, and think it long of coming. Literally, no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... are employed to work the lights. Among the exhibits is the Cruto light. Engineering says: At the first glance it presents the same appearance as an Edison lamp, having the same form of globe, and apparently a similar luminous filament. But this latter is made in an entirely different manner. A platinum wire is employed, 1/100 of a millimeter in diameter. This is obtained by the Wollaston process, that is to say, a piece of coarse platinum wire is covered with a stout coating ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... which he continued to weave, for enwrapping his own judgment, such reasoner omitted wholly to cross the warp of combined result. He neglected that vastly-important filament—proper and value-enhancing handling of his valuable production; the reality that southern cotton, sugar and rice had become so great a factor in national wealth, mainly through manipulation by northern hands. ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... certain goats and of camels is generally classified under the same terms. The wool fiber is distinguished by its scale-like surface which gives it its felting and spinning properties. Hair as distinguished from wool has little or no scaly structure being in general a smooth filament with no felting properties and spinning only with great difficulty. Fur is the undergrowth found on most fur-bearing animals and has in a modified way the scaly structure and ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... sown at 11 A.M., as shown at a, had swollen (b) perceptibly by noon, and had germinated by 3.30 P.M., as shown at c: in d at 6 P.M., and e at 8.30 P.M.; the resulting filament is segmenting into bacilli as it elongates, and at midnight (f) consisted of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... stamina,) in weaving, the warp, the thread, any thing made of threads. In botany, that part of a flower, on which the artificial classification is founded, consisting of the filament or stalk, and the anther, which contains the ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... doctor adjusted the focus for him. Each filament was covered with countless tiny spheres that isolated and insulated the nerve from contact. That's why he couldn't feel anything. The spherical microbes did look like bubbles. As yet they didn't seem to have ...
— Bolden's Pets • F. L. Wallace
... infer that?' replied the other. 'When was it,' rejoined the first, 'that a solider of Allan's was obliged, as I am now, not only to eat the flesh from the bone, but even to tear off the inner skin, or filament?' The hint was quite sufficient, and MacLean next morning, to relieve his followers from such dire necessity, undertook an inroad on the mainland, the ravage of which altogether effaced the memory of his former expeditions for ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... in the pulpit mentions no name; but he talks of "The hand of God made visible amongst us." He tells us how, when the white stroke fell, quivering and naked, the soul fled, robbed of his earthly filament, and lay at the footstool of God; how over its head has been poured out the wrath of the Mighty One, whose existence it has denied; and, quivering and terrified, it has ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... earliest period of its existence the embryon would seem to consist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation, sensation, volition, and association, and also with some acquired habits or propensities peculiar to the parent; the former of these are in common with other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or produce the kind of animal, whether ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... does the membranous termination of the upper filament overlap the corresponding portions of the two middle stamens? Because this enables the bee to move the pistil and thereby to set free the pollen more easily than would be the ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... sorrowing, hoping, laughing, sinning world of men. And to those whom God had tempted beyond what they could bear, his heart went out. He read books with profit, and got great panoramic views out into the world of art and poetry; dreaming dreams and sending his swaying filament of thought out and out, hoping it would somewhere catch and he would be ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... longitudinal section of the tail of a human embryo, two-thirds of an inch long. (From Ross Granville Harrison.) Med medullary tube, Ca.fil caudal filament, ch chorda, ao caudal artery, V.c.i caudal vein, an ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... a mere filament of cloth would hold Andy suspended. He must act, and act quickly, or take a plunge ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... killed lost no time in beginning to lay eggs for the sustenance of the reformed castaways. As an extra precaution with the "rescued," when they were put to work, each of them with a kind of shirt of mail, worn over his coat, which could easily be electrized by a metallic filament connecting with the communal dynamo, and under these conditions they each did a full day's work during ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... summits tufted with firs. Between the two bramble bushes a spider had spun a large web, and he was sitting in the midst of it awaiting his prey. But the bramble and the web were still wet with the morning dew, whose little drops glistened in the sunshine like diamonds. Every tiny thread and filament of the web was dewy and lit by the newly-awakened sun. He lay on his back in the shade and pondered on the shape and nature of his gift of song, and on the deathless flowers that he must grow and gather ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... of the Concert-hall. They were a goodly company; and there was fun in the railway-carriage over Colney's description of Fashionable London's vast octopus Malady-monster, who was letting the doctor fly to the tether of its longest filament for an hour, plying suckers on him the while. He had the look, to general perception, of a man but half-escaped: and as when the notes of things taken by the vision in front are being set down upon tablets in the head behind. Victor observed his look at Nataly. The look was like a door ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is attached at the back of its base or middle to the top of the filament in the suture separating the two large cells. These anther-cells split along the outer ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... Roger, "all I need is the vacuum and of course the copper filament inside the inner third tube for sending and receiving. We can make it so the tubes screw together inside of each ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... organ of audition as it is to be observed in creatures of simple, comparatively speaking, organization is as simple as is the anatomy of the animals in which it is found. Commonly, it is a hollow hair, which is connected by a minute nerve-filament with the sensorium. Sound vibrations set the hair to vibrating, which in turn conveys the vibrations to the nerve-filament, and so on to the auditory centre. Sometimes the hair is not hollow; in this case, the root of the hair is intimately associated with nerve-filaments ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... in no way detracts from the glory of the Club's escape from the Undertakers. The ingenious way in which Dennison and his colleagues broke out of their seemingly impregnable prison, using only a steel belt buckle, a tungsten filament, three hens' eggs, and twelve chemicals that can be readily obtained from the human body, is too well known to ...
— Forever • Robert Sheckley
... than now, that Wesleyism spread widest and deepest. If any part of Wesley's mission tended to modify or abolish slavery, then a devotion to freedom so constant and generous as Conway's should link their names by an irrefragable, however subtle, filament of common piety. I wished to look into Finsbury Chapel for my old friend's sake, but it seemed to me that we had intruded on worshippers enough that morning, and I satisfied my longing by a glimpse of the interior through the pane of glass let into the inner door. It was past the time ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... note that the earliest incandescent lamps, as invented by Mr. Edison, had a resistance material composed of carbon, and that such a lamp retained its position as the most efficient small electric illuminant until the recent introduction of metal filament lamps. It is possible that some form of metal may be introduced as the resistance medium for telephone transmitters, and that such a change as has taken place in incandescent lamps may increase the ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller |
