"Propel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shipmates were unsparing in their reproaches for my ignorance of the important art of sculling. I was completely crest-fallen; but during the few remaining days we remained in port I applied myself with zeal to gain a practical knowledge of the art, and could soon propel a boat through the water with a single oar over the stern, with as much dexterity as the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... end to be used as a rudder. Suspended by a number of slender ropes, which met under the centre of the gas-bag, were the car for the sailors and a small electric engine for driving a powerful screw, the wings of which striking against the air would propel the 'ship' at the rate of some nine feet a second. The baby balloon may be said to have set the example for all modern air-ships, though others something like it had been built before. Two years later Messrs. Tissandier made ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... all sorts of things to men in the navy, but we don't drown them for the sake of their pictures. Suppose I show you around, for at two bells the men will be back from their dinner. Now, aft here, is the gasoline engine, which we use to propel the boat on the surface. We can't use it submerged, however, on account of the exhaust; so, for under-water work, we use a strong storage battery to work a motor. You see the motor back there, and under this deck is the storage battery—large ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... to go up or down any stairs. This is one of the beauties of the hut system. It consumes a big area, but it is all on one level—the ground level. The patient on crutches can go anywhere without fear of tripping, the patient in a wheeled chair can propel himself anywhere, the orderlies can push wheeled stretchers or dinner-wagons anywhere. Our visitor for C 13, having escaped from the back of the Scottish baronial building, emerges into a vista of covered corridors, wooden-floored, galvanised-iron roofed. It is a heartbreaking ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet's coffin 'twixt heaven ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... and Chapman. I felt moved by some singular enthusiasm; the exaltation of the moment possessed me, and unannounced, as yet unquestioned, I rose to my full height upon a narrow rostrum in the platform, and turning from side to side spoke with an elation that seemed to propel my ringing words over the great assembly with the power ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... of the turbine or steam-jet—used to propel a fly-wheel filled with liquid as described—has for its object the supply of the electric light in country houses. In this case the fly-wheel is fitted, on its lower side, to act as the armature of a dynamo, and the magnets are placed horizontally ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... conductor, and causing the further part to rotate upon the nearer, I could divert the current through any required angle. Thus I could turn the repulsion upon the resistant body (sun or planet), and so propel the vessel ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... I endeavored to support my assertion that the lizard belongs where I had placed it, be-. cause he has four distinct legs which propel him everywhere, on the ground or in the water. But my opponent claimed that the creature under dispute does not walk, but creeps. My strongest argument was that it had legs; but Oesedah insisted that its body touches the ground as it moves. As a last resort, I volunteered to go find ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... stockholder in the public morality. Children make men better citizens. Of what use would an engine be to a ship, if it were lying loose in the hull? It must be fastened to it with bolts and screws, before it can propel the vessel. Now a childless man is just like a loose engine. A man must be bolted and screwed to the community before he can begin to work for its advancement; and there are no such screws ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... forms. The creature, in this case, propels itself by the alternate contraction and expansion of its disk, thus striking the water, and driving itself forward. These movements take place at regular intervals, and serve a double purpose. They not only propel, but at the same time drive the water over the lower surface of the disk. Here is situated a complicated net-work of vessels, and the fluids of the body are thus exposed to the influence of oxygen, and receive the needed aeration. The stroke of the disk, therefore, is not only a locomotive, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... the work which of old had to be done by horses, can, at a slight increase of cost, be effected by mechanical engines. Ploughing, except on steep hillsides and in very stony ground, can be cheaply and effectively done by steam. The same agent can propel the harvesters and work the threshing machines. Even farmers who till fields of no great extent find it desirable to do much of their work by steam-engines, for the reason that fuel is less costly than horse feed. An interesting instance to show how far mechanical inventions have taken ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... and it came time to return to the top of La Cumbre, O'Reilly asked himself if his strength would prove sufficient for the task in hand. He was spiritless, sore, weak; he ached in every bone and muscle, and it required all his determination to propel himself up the hill. He wondered if he were wise thus to sacrifice his waning energies on a hope so forlorn as this, but by now he had begun to more than half believe in the existence of the Varona treasure and he felt an almost irresistible curiosity to learn what secret, ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... She could propel the chair by means of rims attached to the wheels and, even as she spoke, began to roll herself out of the room. Mary Louise sprang to assist her, but the girl waved her away with ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... like a flock of locusts. Despite his utmost efforts, Leo could not do more than keep up in rear of the hunters, for the sharp shuttle-like kayaks shot like arrows over the smooth sea, while his clumsier boat required greater force to propel it. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... bar of the river; but this was a trifle; all we thought of was to return to Zanzibar, and hurry on our preparations there. This, however, was not so easy: the sea current was running north, and the wind was too light to propel our vessel against it; so, after trying in vain to make way in her, Grant and I, leaving her to follow, took to a boat, after giving the captain, who said we would get drowned, a letter, to say we left the ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Spiritual Improvement of the Snow." And then with a closing volley of every text winch figures under the head of "Snow" in the Concordance, the discourse comes to an end; and every liberated urchin goes home with his head full of devout fancies of building a snow-fort, after sunset, from which to propel consecrated missiles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Muscles.*—The mechanical part of digestion is performed by the muscles that encircle the food canal. Their uses, which have already been mentioned in connection with the different organs of digestion, may be here summarized: They supply the necessary force for masticating the food. They propel the food through the canal. They mix the food with the different juices. At certain places they partly or completely close the passage until a digestive process is completed. They may even cause a reverse movement of the food, as in ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... forces, in conjunction, Propel the high poetic function, As in a love-adventure they might play! You meet by accident; you feel, you stay, And by degrees your heart is tangled; Bliss grows apace, and then its course is jangled; You're ravished quite, then comes a touch of woe, And there's a neat romance, ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... passing ourselves over in a small canoe. The method of swimming horses over so broad a stream as the Sacramento is as follows. A light canoe or "dug-out" is manned by three persons, one at the bow one at the stern and one in the centre; those at the bow and stern have paddles, and propel and steer the craft. The man in the centre holds the horses one on each side, keeping their heads out of water. When the horses are first forced into the deep water, they struggle prodigiously, and sometimes upset the canoe; but, when the canoe gets fairly under way, they cease their ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... horse used its feet to draw a coach and why not a man! So the velocipede was constructed for the rider's feet to just reach the ground, and by pressing first one foot on the ground and then the other he managed in this undignified attitude, to propel the thing along! ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... now. He would accept Hawkes' offer, become the gambler's protege, learn a few thing about life. The experience would not hurt him. And always in the front of his mind he would keep the ultimate goal, of finding a spacedrive that would propel a ship faster than ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... thin, structureless membrane. This prevents their putting out pseudopodia as organs of motion. Instead of these they have at one end of the ovoid or pear-shaped body a long, whiplash-like process or thread, a flagellum, and by swinging this they propel themselves through the water. These flagellata seem to have a rather marked tendency to form colonies. The first individual gives rise to others by division. But the division is not complete; the new individuals remain connected by the undivided rear end of the body. And such ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... it, Square." "Dry up, old boy!" "Propel with the show!" &c., &c. Tiffles adopted the latter suggestion, and without answering the lawyer's insinuation, proceeded to point out the natural appearance of the waves, the truthfulness of the distant mountains, the absolute fidelity ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the ancient Wainamoinen Built the boat with magic only, And with magic launched his vessel, Using not the hand to touch it, Using not the foot to move it, Using not the knee to turn it, Using nothing to propel it. Thus the third task was completed, For the hostess of Pohyola, Dowry for the Maid of Beauty Sitting on the arch of heaven, On the bow ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... portion of the mass and contraction of other parts, the whole creeps slowly along. Other naked cells (Fig. 12, B; Fig. 16, C) are provided with delicate thread-like processes of protoplasm called "cilia" (sing. cilium), which are in active vibration, and propel the cell ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eyespot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... than natural, the antagonist muscles replace the limb by stretching it in a contrary direction; and as these muscles have had their actions associated in synchronous tribes, their actions cease together. But as the hollow muscles propel the fluids, which they contain, by motions associated in trains; when one ring is fatigued from its too great debility, and brought into retrograde action; the next ring, and the next, from its association in train falls into retrograde action. Which continue ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... structure, the perfect formation of the viscera, eyes, and even organs of hearing. Moreover, "it has three hearts, two of which are placed at the root of the two branchiae (or gills); they receive the blood from the body, and propel it into the branchiae. The returning veins open into the middle heart, from which the aorta proceeds."[7] Of Cuttle-fish there are several species. That represented in the annexed Cut is the common or officinal Cuttle-fish, (Sepia officinalis, Lin). It consists of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... the same short masts and broad, square sails. The hull is too broad for speed, but this adds to the security of the vessel in a gale. With a fair wind, it rarely makes more than eight knots an hour, and in a calm, the sailors (if not too lazy) propel it forward with six long oars. The hull is painted in a fanciful style, generally blue, red, green and white, with bright red masts. The bulwarks are low, and the deck of such a convexity that it is quite impossible to walk it in a heavy sea. Such was the vessel to which I found myself consigned. ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... many yards, and with a sufficient terminal velocity to explode the charge by impact. Also, in the United States, experiments have been made with a compressed air gun of 40 feet in length and 4 inches in diameter (probably by this time replaced by a gun of 8 inches in diameter), to propel a dart through the air, in the front of which dart there is a metallic chamber containing dynamite. Although no doubt the best engineer is the man who does good work with bad materials, yet I presume we ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... was that he would leave the track; and to remedy this defect the early railroad builders hit upon a happy device. Sometimes they would fix a treadmill inside the car; two horses would patiently propel the caravan, the seats for passengers being arranged on either side. So unformed was the prevalent conception of the ultimate function of the railroad, and so pronounced was the fear of monopoly that, on certain lines, the roadbed was laid ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... stream, he had rowed directly to the foot of the orchard, and landed at the bars, after floating over forty or fifty yards of water where people were lately making hay. I entered the boat with him, in order to have the benefit of a lesson in rowing and paddling.... I managed, indeed, to propel the boat by rowing with two oars, but the use of the single paddle is quite beyond my present skill. Mr. Thoreau had assured me that it was only necessary to will the boat to go in any particular direction, and she would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... principles which guide the movements of the universe, contrasted with the contrivances by which men produce particular results for their own convenience; and one might as well expect to move a planet by machinery, or propel a comet by the power of steam, as to preserve the semblance of order in the moral world, without those fundamental principles of rectitude which form a part of the original constitution of ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... for them as long as possible. Consequently, I decided to divide our energies so we wouldn't both be worn out at the same time, and this was the arrangement: while one of us lay on his back, staying motionless with arms crossed and legs outstretched, the other would swim and propel his partner forward. This towing role was to last no longer than ten minutes, and by relieving each other in this way, we could stay afloat for hours, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... the same name, and discharges itself into the bay of San Barnabas. The other is the Mulege, which waters the Mission of Santa Rosalia, and enters the Gulf in latitude 27 deg. N. These are not navigable. The streams on the ocean coast, also, are few and small. Some of them are large enough to propel light machinery, or irrigate considerable tracts of land, but none of them are navigable. In the interior are several large springs, which send out abundant currents along the rocky beds of their upper courses; but when they reach the loose sands and porous rocks of the lower country, they ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... produced, and we notice how punctiliously each girl takes her proper turn and starts from the correct place; we notice also the dilapidated condition of their boots, that act as golf clubs and propel the "pitcher." We wonder how with such boots, curled and twisted to every conceivable shape, they can strike the "pitcher" at all. There is some skill in "hop-scotch" played as these girls play it, ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... energetically that he was tired enough to be willing to resign the oars before a half hour had gone by. Under the circumstances he did not quite like to ask Sherm to relieve him. Sherm seemed to be oblivious to the fact that it required energy to propel the boat. He was strumming an imaginary banjo as an accompaniment to the familiar melodies the girls were softly singing, occasionally joining in himself. Katy did not fail to observe that Ernest dropped one of his oars to regard a blister ruefully, ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... the engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a youngster who took an interest in their business. Especially interested was I in a rotary engine on "Barker's centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom- ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross injustice; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted to it a tin boiler and placed it on a little stern-wheel ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... to sea only to be cast ashore at one of the elm-edged points. She felt strangely tempted to put herself to the test. She would lie perfectly still the whole time, she said to herself, and use neither hand nor foot to propel the coffin. She would put herself wholly at the mercy of her judge; he might draw her down or let ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... vireys and barangays, which are certain quick and light vessels that lie low in the water, put together with little wooden nails. These are as slender at the stern as at the bow, and they can hold a number of rowers on both sides, who propel their vessels with bucceyes or paddles, and with gaones [68] on the outside of the vessel; and they time their rowing to the accompaniment of some who sing in their language refrains by which they understand whether to hasten or ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... should we be obliged to cut away the young trees. We demolished the old shanty, and taking half a dozen of the boards, laid down a track towards the river. The ground was nearly level for a short distance, and we used levers to propel the box forward. As fast as one roller ran out in the rear, we placed it forward, and thus managed to keep both ends of the box ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... fire, the higher, it was thought, would grow the flax. In the district of Freiburg and at Birseck in the district of Bale it was the last married man or woman who must kindle the bonfire. While the bonfires blazed up, it was customary in some parts of Switzerland to propel burning discs of wood through the air by means of the same simple machinery which is used for the purpose in Swabia. Each lad tried to send his disc fizzing and flaring through the darkness as far as possible, and in discharging it he mentioned ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... no easy job to propel the old "billy-cart" over the fields, but Glen managed it. The scouts were just getting together for their evening camp-fire. They were all attracted by the queer vehicle and its jolly occupant and cheerfully and noisily responded to the introductions ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... of all matter. But we see the stars; their light reaches us, even though it may take centuries to do so. We conceive, then, that it is the universal ether which conveys that light. All the energy which has reached the earth from the sun and which, stored for ages in our coal-fields, is now used to propel our trains and steamships, to heat and light our cities, to perform all the multifarious tasks of modern life, was conveyed by the ether. Without that universal carrier of energy we should have nothing but ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... canoes which are very much less ingeniously formed than even the frail ones of the Port Jackson natives; being merely sheets of bark with the ends slightly gathered up to form a shallow concavity, in which they stand and propel them by means of poles. Their huts are more substantially constructed and more useful as dwellings than any to the southward, and will contain eight or ten persons; while those to the southward are seldom large enough to hold three; ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... pretty Bostonianisms, but all their rooms within range of ordinary means are beyond the range of ordinary strength. The achievement of twenty flights a day, back and forth, would leave but small surplus of vigor. While the steam power is there for heating purposes, why not use some of it to propel the passengers up and down that wilderness of rosy boudoirs? Is there any reason why this labor-saving machine, the steam-elevator, which we now associate with Fifth Avenue luxury, should not be the common possession ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... scarcely knew or cared whither. The excited state of his mind seemed to propel him to celerity of flight. This quickness of movement acted as a safety-valve, and let ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... and shook the little doors; they resisted her, and her temper rose. Then some force seemed to propel her to commit sacrilege. She shook and shook and tore at the golden clasp, her irritation giving strength and cunning to her hands; and at last the small bolt came undone and the doors flew open—and an exquisitely painted ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... geographical detail. He pointed out that, although the rise and fall of the tide at mid-ocean islands would be but small, yet on stretches of coast the wave would fling itself, and by its momentum would propel the waters, to a much greater height—for instance, 20 or 30 feet; especially in some funnel-shaped openings like the Bristol Channel and the Bay of Fundy, where the concentrated impetus of ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... engine-room were the two motors, one designed to send the projectile through the atmosphere, the other intended to propel it through the space filled ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... sinewy arms impelled. Upon the wings That bound the Roman fleet, the larger craft With triple and quadruple banks of oars Gird in the lesser: so they front the sea; While in their rear, shaped as a crescent moon, Liburnian galleys follow. Over all Towers Brutus' deck praetorian. Oars on oars Propel the bulky vessel through the main, Six ranks; the topmost strike the waves afar. When such a space remained between the fleets As could be covered by a single stroke, Innumerable voices rose in air Drowning with resonant din the beat of oars And note of trumpet summoning: and all Sat on ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... also, at Mrs. Tarbell's request, gave to the jury several interesting details concerning, first, her sewing-machine; second, the income she had been used to make by it; third, the effect of the accident upon her power to propel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... saw that the masts were exceedingly tall; they held enough canvas to propel ten ships. And each stick sloped back at so sharp an angle—much sharper than forty-five degrees—that the wind not only blew the craft along in its course, but actually supported ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... his fate. He could not lock the door. Either he must stay or go back with the haunting conviction that this hungry-eyed old fiend who could strum with diabolic skill upon the sensitive strings of his very soul, would propel himself in his wheel-chair to the stairway, there to sit like a ghoul at the top. Rain beat in Kenny's ears like a trumpet of doom. He felt sick and dizzy. No! with the memory of that last wonderful moment when the music had ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... their form for cleaving the water! They often seem to glide rather than propel themselves through its depths. Again, how swiftly the caudal fin moves when with straight unerring motion they dart upon their prey. At times one turns his body sideways, and, with a slow, upward-gliding ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... perception of general causes, and the generalizing faculty of enlarged philosophy. He must combine in his mind the powers of the microscope and the telescope; be ready, like the steam-engine, at one time to twist a fibre, at another to propel an hundred-gun ship. Hence the rarity of eminence in this branch of knowledge; and if we could conceive a writer who, to the ardent genius and descriptive powers of Gibbon, should unite the lucid glance and just discrimination of Robertson, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... supported it. Marcellus, despairing of success, drew off his ships as fast as possible, and sent orders to the land forces to retreat. In a council of war, it was determined to make another assault by night; for they argued that the straining cords which Archimedes used to propel his missiles required a long distance to work in, and would make the shot fly over them at close quarters, and be practically useless, as they required a long stroke. But he, it appears, had long before prepared ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... principles with the Eskimo kayak; the only difference between the two being that the "Rob Roy" canoe is made of thin wood instead of skin, and is altogether a more elegant vessel. An account of it will be found in our chapter on "Boats." The South Sea islanders also use a canoe which they propel with a double-bladed paddle similar to that of the Eskimos. They are wonderfully expert and fearless in the management of this canoe, as may be seen ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... upon my feet, the slight muscular effort that I made in walking lifted me again into the air, and I found myself once more in equilibrium. At first this discouraged and perplexed me; but observing that I could propel myself with the greatest ease by just fanning the air, as before, with my cap, I concluded that this was a very easy as well as rapid mode of locomotion. As I advanced farther and farther into the cavity, I found that the grating noise, to which ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... amount of force applied in front, it would have been difficult to give the first impetus to so great a mass, a lever was skilfully applied behind to raise the hind part of the sledge slightly, and so propel it forward, while to secure a sound and firm fulcrum, wedges of wood were inserted between the lever and the ground. The greater power of a lever at a distance from the fulcrum being known, ropes were attached to its upper end, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... the craft, and with an oar which was kept in it to propel it in case the engine gave out, he poled it along the shore of the lake until he was some ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... next day in taking observations, and found themselves about five hundred miles W.N.W. of Mizen Head. As it was no use depending on being picked up they made all sail in that direction, and so rapidly did the strong west wind propel them that on taking observations the next day they found themselves nearly one hundred and fifty miles nearer land. It was fortunate that they made such headway, for they had only one day's provisions left, and the water was getting pretty scarce; ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... for a little breeze that might bring us together! Bertha was on that vessel, trusting, perhaps, entirely to me: and what could I do if some breeze did not bring us together? I looked about for something on which I might float to her; but if I made a raft I was not sure that I could steer or propel it, and I might float away and become a third derelict. Once I thought of boldly springing into the water, and swimming to her; but the distance was considerable, my swimming powers were only moderate, ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... it might have been the middle of Atlantic wastes. They were in the river channel—worse luck!—and the south wind was dead on to it, bringing up the swell from outside; and the swell, that had set that way for days, was so heavy as to drive him back faster than his powerful limbs could propel him in the other direction. At first the launch seemed to want to dance over him, but when he rose on a swirl of water to take his bearings after the first bewilderment, she was a couple of lengths away, cutting the most ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... bending ends; Rings join to rings, and irritated tubes Clasp with young lips the nutrient globes or cubes; And urged by appetencies new select, Imbibe, retain, digest, secrete, eject. In branching cones the living web expands, Lymphatic ducts, and convoluted glands; 260 Aortal tubes propel the nascent blood, And lengthening veins absorb the refluent flood; Leaves, lungs, and gills, the vital ether breathe On earth's green surface, or the waves beneath. So Life's first powers arrest ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... that you could propel the car, and that although your gun was badly aimed you could steer towards a planet, how long would ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... not yet fully enjoyed their heritage," he said, taking up the conversation—"Our yacht's motive power seems complex, but in reality it is very simple,—and the same force which propels this light vessel would propel the biggest liner afloat. Nature has given us all the materials for every kind of work and progress, physical and mental—but because we do not at once comprehend them we deny their uses. Nothing in ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... government intervention. The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises), and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. Norway maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public sector expenditures to more than 50% of GDP and results in one of the highest average tax levels in the world (46%). A small country with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... various modifications—beneath and through which a common plan of formation is discernible. But if I look at the same part physiologically, I see that it is a most beautifully constructed organ of locomotion, by means of which the animal can swiftly propel ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... this power, if rightly employed, is powerful enough to propel a large engine and to move passengers and goods: the engine having whatever form men may choose ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... one man. In this we were to embark, with ten days' provisions for three men, three blankets, three small bundles, and a little travelling-case belonging to myself; besides three paddles wherewith to propel us forward, a tin kettle for cooking, and an iron one for boiling water. Our craft being too small to permit my taking the usual allowance of what are called luxuries, I determined to take pot-luck with my men, so that our existence for the next eight ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... place at one time can be easily refuted by a woman with a baby-carriage. Experience shows that such a woman, if she be put five feet from a sidewalk, with forty feet of open road behind her for an auto to pass through, will cover the forty feet backward with incredible speed and propel herself right in front of the car. What would happen if two cars came in opposite directions on opposite sides of a hundred-foot avenue cannot be predicted. Either the woman would be accompanied by another woman with a baby-carriage, ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... propels the light of the sun to the various planets, and that it is the individual eighth ray of each planet which "reflects," or propels the light thus obtained out into space once more. The solar eighth ray would be absorbed by the surface of Barsoom, but the Barsoomian eighth ray, which tends to propel light from Mars into space, is constantly streaming out from the planet constituting a force of repulsion of gravity which when confined is able to lift enormous weights from the surface of ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... rate right in the "wind's eye." This is accounted for by the play of the body, which naturally lies head to wind; and the wash of the flukes, which, acting somewhat like the "sculling" of an oar at the stern of a boat, propel the carcass in the direction it is pointing, Consequently we had a cruel amount of towing to do before we got the three cows alongside. Many a time we blessed ourselves that they were no bigger, for of all the clumsy things to tow with ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... other heavy carriages; and as the engines which are to draw the trains along the railroad do not enter these tunnels, there is a large building at this entrance which is to be inhabited by steam engines of a stationary turn of mind, and different constitution from the travelling ones, which are to propel the trains through the tunnels to the terminus in the town, without going out of their houses themselves. The length of the tunnel parallel to the one we passed through is (I believe) two thousand two ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... fix up a sail anyhow, we might press it into our service to propel the sledge,' said ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... there, and he sank back into the water, and, holding on with his hands, used his feet vigorously to propel the raft toward the bank, where he had left his loved sister but a ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... craft was a big washtub, which he was required to propel a certain distance without sinking it, the one who went the farthest being adjudged ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... air as they were it was, of course, impossible for them to estimate the strength of the gale, the only apparent movement of the atmosphere being that due to their own passage through it. Though heading to the northward, with the engines making a sufficient number of revolutions per minute to propel them through still air at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards that the adverse wind might be travelling at a higher speed than this, in which event they would actually be driving more or less rapidly astern, notwithstanding ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the little finger. The right hand must be extended in the same manner as the left, but with the palm turned downwards resting on the top of the ball of tea leaves. Both hands are now employed to roll and propel the ball along; the left hand pushing it on, and allowing it to revolve as it moves; the right hand also pushes it forward, resting on it with some force, and keeping it down to express the juice which the leaves contain. The art lies here in giving the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... and paddles had hitherto been used to propel ships, this last invention seemed very wonderful; and, to compliment Daedalus, the people declared that he had given their vessels wings, and had thus enabled them to ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... necessary, to know how to swim. The human body in the water weighs little more than a pound; so that one finger placed upon a piece of board, an oar or a paddle, will easily keep the head above water, and the feet and the other hand can be used to propel the body toward the shore. It is all important for the person in the water to breathe and keep a cool ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the harbors of bewildered and terrified Japan a fleet of great steamships. The threatened nation, having admitted no foreigners since the Jesuits in the seventeenth century plotted against its political independence, and not knowing how to use steam to propel engines, saw that there was no alternative to violent conquest by their uninvited guests but peaceful ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... the plucky little fellow accomplished. He was becoming quite expert in the use of the paddles, and, of course, as soon as he came to the hedge-top, he was able to propel the bath along more quickly. He fastened the tub and bath together, and then transferring himself to the former, set to work to bring both to the bank. He found it a difficult task, but he persevered, and in a short time was successful. At last he leaped on dry ...
— The Island House - A Tale for the Young Folks • F. M. Holmes
... was arranged that Timotheus should drive the Squire and the lawyer to the masked road and leave them there, after which he was to take the others to Richards place, put up the horses, and help them to propel the scow through the lakes and channels. Accordingly, the treasure seekers got out the pick and shovel, and trudged along to the scene of the late fire. As they neared the Encampment, their road became a difficult and painful one, over fallen trees blackened with fire, and through ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... audaciously seated himself in that exalted position from which Bismarck thought never to fall before his death? The great man is a poor appraiser of ideas, accepting them from every quarter whence they blow to him if only they will fill his sails and propel his bark; but he will never understand what mischief he could work to his enemies by opposing a programme of advanced democratic reform to the imperial programme whose fixity resembles the rigidity of death. But what liberty ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... scow was abreast of the encampment, and in spite of the frantic efforts of her crew to propel her shoreward she drifted momentarily closer to the cataract below. Manifestly it was impossible to row out and intercept the derelict before she took the plunge, and so, helpless in this extremity, the audience began ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... fact, which it is unnecessary to dilate upon. It is to the agency of this cause, namely, the broken continuity of surface, that, I have no doubt, is also to be ascribed the failure of the attempt of Sir George Cayley to propel a Balloon of a somewhat similar shape to the present, which he made at the Polytechnic Institution a short while since, when he employed a series of revolving vanes, four in number, disposed at proper intervals ...
— A Project for Flying - In Earnest at Last! • Robert Hardley
... family alone. Our belongings were deposited and two great, black natives were placed at each end of the boat or scow. They were without clothing, save for a short, full skirt of white cloth fastened around their waists on a band. Each used a long pole to propel the scow. We were the only family of women on board the steamer. There was Mr. Biggar and his wife and a bride and her husband, besides several colored women and their husbands coming out to take positions on the Pacific steamers. All the other passengers were men, coming ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... last remaining level of scaffolding, and men swarmed on it and fastened it to the swelling hull. As soon as it was fast, other men hurried into it with the white pasty stuff to line it from end to end. The tubes would nearly hide the structure they were designed to propel. But they'd all be burned away when it ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... of about three feet, and lashed with sealskin thongs to stout transverse poles. Over these was laid a floor or platform about ten feet by twelve, leaving room at the bow and stern of each canoe for men with paddles who were to guide and propel the unwieldy craft in some unknown, but, doubtless, satisfactory manner. On the platform, which was covered to a depth of six inches with freshly cut grass, we pitched our little cotton tent, and transformed it with ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... a much limited man, She saw the Lustrous, her great lord, appear Through that smoked glass her last privation brought To point her critic eye and spur her thought: A heart but to propel Leviathan; A spirit that breathed but in earth's atmosphere. Amid the plumed and sceptred ones Irradiatingly Jovian, The mountain tower capped by the floating cloud; A nursery screamer where dialectics ruled: Mannerless, graceless, laughterless, unlike ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pleasure of swinging. Swinging another person may be a source of voluptuous excitement, and one of the 600 forms of sexual pleasure enumerated in De Sade's Les 120 Journees de Sodome is (according to Duehren) to propel a girl vigorously ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... dreaming—but pleasant dreams now, for the fever gone, life was free to build its own castles. He thought he was dead, and floating through the air at his will, volition all that was necessary to propel him like a dragon-fly, in any direction he desired to take. He was about to go to his father, to receive his congratulations on his death, and to say to him that now the sooner he too died the better, that the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... recurring discharges of four hundred pieces of heavy ordnance, within a space so small, had the effect to repel the regular currents of air, and, almost immediately, to lessen a breeze of six or seven knots, to one that would not propel a ship more than two or three. This was the first observable phenomenon connected with the action, but, as it had been expected, Sir Gervaise had used the precaution to lay his ships as near as possible in the positions in which he ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reflection that their God has deserted them, lament, accuse, protest, and pray. Before they have been heard, the poignancy of their woe has been published by the orchestra, which at once takes its place beside the chorus as a peculiarly eloquent expositor of the emotions and passions which propel the actors in the drama. That mission and that eloquence it maintains from the beginning to the final catastrophe, the instrumental band doing its share toward characterizing the opposing forces, emphasizing the solemn dignity of the Hebrew ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... rapid, usually at the rate of four or five miles an hour, when at its height; and it requires a strong wind to propel a boat with a sail against it. Steam overcomes its force, for boats ply regularly from St. Louis to the towns and landings on its banks within the borders of the state, and return with the produce of the country. Small steamboats have ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... have made us so well acquainted, there is no sufficient ground for asserting that Caesar was concerned in it.[194] That he was greatly concerned in the treatment of the conspirators there is no doubt. He had probably learned to appreciate the rage, the madness, the impotence of Catiline at then propel worth. He too, I think, must have looked upon Cicero as a meddling, over-virtuous busybody; as did even Pompey when he returned from the East. What practical use could there be in such a man at such a time—in one who really believed in honesty, who thought of liberty and the Republic, and ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... step by the necessity of telling the further end of the room that it was going wrong!—how splendidly issue the edict to "chassee-crossee" and "gent. solo," finding time, even in the press of his double occupation, to propel his panting partner in the way she should go! His voice rang out over the room, indicating each figure as it came—there was no excuse for making any mistake in a square dance when Mr. Boone was in command. And all the ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... motives; in these it is a mere want of energy and resolution, that is, an inherent natural defect of vigour of nerve and voluntary power. There is a specific levity about such persons, so that you cannot propel them to any object, or give them a decided momentum in any direction or pursuit. They turn back, as it were, on the occasion that should project them forward with manly force and vehemence. They shrink from intrepidity of purpose, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... psychology. The simplest mental operation, a sensuous perception, is an act of memory, the appliance of a name, an ordinary act of judgment is the play of complicated mechanism, the joint and final result of several millions of wheels which, like those of a clock,[3413] turn and propel blindly, each for itself, each through its own force, and each kept in place and in functional activity by a system of balance and compensation.[3414] If the hands mark the hour with any degree of accuracy it is due to a wonderful if not miraculous conjunction, while hallucination, delirium ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... puzzling facts for thought to interpret, and more puzzling breaks for thought to bridge, but, on the whole, exhibiting man as moving and man as moving forward. If we scrutinize the character of this progress, we shall find that the forces which propel society in the direction of improvement, and the ideas we form of the nature of that improvement, are the forces and the ideas of youth. The world, indeed, moves under the impulses of youth to realize the ideals of youth. It has ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... clasped by beautifully decorated curbs of silica, and seem to be set in rings of gold, with mineral colors running through them like enamel. So delicate are the touches of the magic water, as the persistent heart-beats of old Mother Earth propel it over their ornamental rims, that every ripple leaves its tiny mark. Hence it is no exaggeration, but literal truth, to say that beautiful mosaic work is being formed each time the films of boiling water are dimpled by ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... out one morning, while camping upon the river San Joaquin, to indulge in the sport of fowling. There were three of us, and we possessed two skiffs, but an accident had reduced our sculls to a single pair, which my companion used to propel one of the boats down the stream, after securing the other, with me as its occupant, in the midst of a thicket of tule, where I awaited in ambush the flying flocks. As geese and ducks abounded, and nearly all ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... swimming in the sea found that a floating log supported his weight as he rested from his efforts. By the strokes of his arms or of a club in his hand, he could propel this log in a desired direction; thus the dugout canoe arose, to be steadied by the outrigger as the savage enlarged his experience. A cloth held aloft aided his progress down or across the wind, and it became an integral element of the sailing craft, ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... no longer in demand at home or abroad, and the world had discovered better machinery to propel better ships. As an offset to this pictorial argument, another might have been introduced, exhibiting in the background the mere blacksmiths' shops of the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, as they existed before the era of iron steamship building, and in the front the subsequent ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman |
