"Semaphore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the isolated Beacon Hill, once a semaphore station between Portsmouth and London; but instead of taking at once to the heights, the pedestrian should first visit Elsted up on its own little hill, and Treyford a mile farther; both churches are ruined and ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... shall enjoy it immensely;" i.e., "He can't talk any more than a semaphore, and looks as sleepy as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... this particular hotel, when you ring for the waiter or the maid the bell sounds in the service room, where those functionaries are supposed to be stationed; but when you ring for the manservant a small arm-shaped device like a semaphore drops down over your outer door. But what has the manservant done that he should be thus discriminated against? Why should he not have a bell of his own? So far as I might judge, the poor fellow has few enough pleasures in life as ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... with loaded questions and stopped when Jimmy stated that Napoleon Bonaparte was responsible for the invention of canned food, the adoption of the metric system, and the development of the semaphore telegraph. This stopped all proceedings until Jimmy himself found the references in the Britannica. That little feat of research-reference impressed the visiting superintendent. Jimmy Holden was jumped ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... As it is of the utmost importance that the enemy should not read the message, the signal books on board a vessel are protected with the greatest care, and are destroyed along with the cipher code whenever it is seen that capture is inevitable. The semaphore system in use in the British navy was tried for a time aboard some of our vessels, but it never became popular, and has ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... 12th, we had a signalling competition amongst the companies. Each company had been teaching all the men the semaphore code. It is a good thing to start with, but at the Front they use only the Morse system. About seventy-five per cent. of the men of the regiment could read the semaphore alphabet very readily. When a warship sent ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... then about six o'clock in the morning. Thorpe passed the boarding-house, the store, and the office, to take himself as far as the little open shed that served the primitive town as a railway station. There he set the semaphore to flag the east-bound train from Duluth. At six thirty-two, the train happening on time, he climbed aboard. He dropped heavily into a seat and stared straight in front of him until the conductor had spoken to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... army signalling by wigwag and semaphore was started whenever a squad or two could be spared from the routine of detail. Then followed instruction on folding horse blankets, of care of horses and harness, and lessons in equitation, carried ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... himself, sittin' in a forked bough, an' watchin' me through his glass." Placing the telescope gently on the ground, Jake turned himself into a human semaphore, and gesticulated frantically with his arms. "That ought to fetch 'im," and he again placed his eye to the telescope. "Yes, he sees. He's wavin' his 'at. Good old Ben. It's better than a play. Comic opera ain't ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... is God working through his creature's natural development. The same is equally true of all man's 'toys.' Man moulded his language in pursuance of his ends under God. Under the same guidance he moulded the steam engine, the typewriter, shorthand, the semaphore, and all kinds of signals. What are the philosophical differentia that make Esperanto a toy, and natural language God's handiwork? Apparently the fact that Esperanto is 'artificial,' i.e. consciously produced by art. If this is the criterion, beware lest you damn man's works wholesale. ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... right, he would want to be certain that no train on the other line was converging on his. Danger is avoided and assurance given by interlocking the points and signals. To the left of the junction the home and distant signals are doubled, there being two semaphore arms on each post. These are interlocked with the points in such a manner that the signals referring to either line can be pulled off only when the points are set to open the way to that line. Moreover, before any ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... shutters until the shapely legs of his patron could be seen between the twisted iron railing. Then appearing suddenly and with assumed surprise, he would lift his hat with so great a flourish that his long, thin arms and body were jerked into semaphore angles, his face meanwhile ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... when we haven't the faintest conception of how the connection is gained, or why we are delayed. We ride on the fast train, but chafe and worry ourselves and everybody about us to a frazzle because we are stopped on a siding by a semaphore of a block station which we never have observed, and would not understand if we did. We reap but have not sowed, gather but have not strewed, and that is ever injurious and never beneficial. Our conceit is flattered and ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... everyday life slept, or rather lost the power of thought from extreme exhaustion, the heavy snow storm which was making the night doubly dark had so blocked the machinery of the semaphore that it refused to respond to the desperate efforts of the weary signal man, who heard a freight train approaching, and knew that unless it was flagged at once it would dash into the rear end of a passenger train, which was standing ...
— My Native Land • James Cox |
