"Steeper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... few new railways would be in direct competition with the old. The old lines have level roads; they can run quicker and with less wear and tear than the new ones, which would generally have steeper gradients. The new Free Trade lines would be in the main a network in the interstices of the present lines. By this the existing companies would gain enormously; they would be the trunk lines which ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... fairly frisked in the delicious air of sea and mountain after being so long cramped on board ship, stopping continually with screams of delight over violets or anemones, or the views that unfolded themselves as they went higher and higher. The path Mr. White chose was a good deal steeper than the winding carriage road cut out of the mountain side, and they arrived before the mules with Mrs. Grinstead and her brother, at the Italian garden, with a succession of broad terraces protected and adorned with open balustrades, with vases of late blooming flowers at intervals, and broad ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the transverse and lateral ones. The transverse ones were readily accounted for after the motion of the glacier was admitted; they must take place, whenever, the glacier advancing over inequalities or steeper parts of its bed, the tension of the mass was so great that the cohesion of the particles was overcome, and the ice consequently rent apart. This would be especially the case wherever some steep angle in the bottom over which it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... gradual. Most of the way we kept the voice of the creek in our ear on the right. I approached it once, and found it swarming with trout. The water was as cold as one ever need wish. After a while the ascent grew steeper, the creek became a mere rill that issued from beneath loose, moss-covered rocks and stones, and with much labor and puffing we drew ourselves up the rugged declivity. Every mountain has its steepest point, which is usually near the summit, in keeping, I suppose, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... The slope became steeper; ledges of rock, little at first, became larger and more frequent; he came to bluffs that barred his progress, slow and painful at best; he was forced to search to left or right for broken places where he could climb. Bits ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... which has determined the existence of these elevations. Wherever the bed rocks are revealed he will recognise the fact that they have been much disturbed. Almost everywhere the strata are turned at high angles; often their slopes are steeper than those of house roofs, and not infrequently they stand in attitudes where they appear vertical. Under the surface of plains bedded rocks generally retain the nearly horizontal position in which ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... descend and ascend in order to reach the next plateau. Another couple of hours' march brought us to the gate's of Begemder. In front of us arose the plateau of Dahonte, only about a couple of miles distant, but we had to ascend a more abrupt precipice than the one we had just passed and climb again a steeper ascent before we could reach it. The valley of the Jiddah, a tributary of the Nile, was between us and our halting-place—a stiff march, as the silver thread we viewed from the narrow passage between the basaltic columns of the ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... neatly divert the mule up Birches Street, which is steeper even than Longshaw Road. The mule for a few instants pretended that all gradients, up or down, were equal before its angry might. But Birches Street has the slope of a house-roof. Presently the mule walked, and then it stood still. And half Birches Street emerged to gaze, ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... took the trail to the uplands, deciding to visit the farthest camp first, and then, if she had time, to call at one or two other camps on her way back to the rancho. As the trail grew steeper, she curbed the impatient Challenge to a steadier pace and rode leisurely to the level of the timber. On the park-like level, clean-swept between the boles of the great pines, she again put Challenge to a lope until she came to the edge on the upper mesa. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... Molly had to go down a narrow lane overshadowed by trees, with picturesque old cottages dotted here and there on the steep sandy banks; and then there came a small wood, and then there was a brook to be crossed on a plank-bridge, and up the steeper fields on the opposite side were cut steps in the turfy path, which ended, she was on Croston Heath, a wide-stretching common skirted by labourers' dwellings, past which a near road to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks he might crouch, and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... stone and boulder, and although exposed to a terrific fire, gradually pushing on until they reached a stone wall which ran round the face of the hill. Beyond this the ground was much rougher and very much steeper—so steep, indeed, that it was almost impossible to climb it. The fire of the enemy was now terrific. The troops were some three hundred yards from the crest, and it was certain death to show a head above the wall. ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... with her husband's opinion when he led her up into the stupendous gorge and the walls of rock began to tower on each side ever steeper and loftier. ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the ascent. How much steeper the acclivities were than they had seemed to be when I came down! My limbs ached before I had gone many rods, and my breath came short. Upward I toiled, and by the time my trail reached the cog-road I was ready to drop from exhaustion. Yet I had not gone more than a third of the way to ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... by the footpath, the spur of the hill yonder looks larger and steeper and more ponderous in the mist; it seems higher than this, a not unusual appearance when the difference in altitude is not very great. The level we are on seems to us beneath the level in the distance, as the future is higher than the present. In the hedge or scattered ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... extremes were many variations; but every man contributed to the uproar, and tapped his load rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... the water of the ocean should be suddenly drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma;[121] while, finally, the island with a fringing ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... object was still to escape. The heath of Tiel, on which Spaniards, Italians, Walloons, Germans, Dutchmen, English; Scotch, and Irishmen now all found themselves together, was a ridgy, spongy expanse of country, bordered on one side by the swollen river, here flowing again through steeper banks which were overgrown with alders and pollard willows. Along the left of the Spanish army, as they moved in the direction of Herenthals, was a continuous fringe of scrub-oaks, intermixed with tall beeches, skirting the heath, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Kit as well as the boy. The little mare had grown accustomed to a quiet, even pace on the forest trails, and the use of the spur was a thing not to be borne. Wilbur felt as if he were fairly flying through the pine woods. Still he remembered to keep the mare well in hand going down the steeper slopes, and within a couple of hours he found himself at the fire. Then Wilbur found how true it was that a blaze could easily be put out if caught early. There was little wind, and the line of fire was not more than a mile long. By ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... slowly over the rocks, up the passage; and in this toilsome manner we advanced for an hour or two, bare precipices, hundreds of feet high, shooting up on either hand. Raymond, with his hardy mule, was a few rods before me, when we came to the foot of an ascent steeper than the rest, and which I trusted might prove the highest point of the defile. Pauline strained upward for a few yards, moaning and stumbling, and then came to a dead stop, unable to proceed further. I dismounted, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouch and watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the wind fell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time he crouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamers across ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment of the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for nearly ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... once called 'The Rebel Trail,'" he explained to Jess after they had climbed a steeper hill than ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... about a third of the paintings and among them is an interesting variation of the "Sower," narrower in shape than the others and with a steeper hillside. It would have been a delight to have seen Mr. Shaw's "Sower" temporarily lifted from its place in the modest house which conceals so many treasures, and brought here, especially as it was not possible to borrow the replica belonging to the estate of ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... the palate, cool in the throat, but leaden in the legs, of a hot afternoon. He felt a man of substance as he emerged in the blinding sunshine, but even by the foot of the down the sun was insisting again that his skull was too small for his brains. The hill had gone steeper, the chalky road blazed like a magnesium light, and his front wheel began an apparently incurable squeaking. He felt as a man from Mars would feel if he were suddenly transferred to this planet, about ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... down the path, Martha being obliged, as the descent grew steeper, to fling herself back like a person in a tug-of-war, for Mrs. Marston gathered way as she went, and ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... begun to stir in their nests and call their morning greetings across from one tree top to another. As far as Mollie could see stretched the unbroken forest. A narrow path ran down the hill between the trees. A steeper incline rose back of them and this was broken with deep ravines. Mollie could neither see nor hear anyone. Yet it seemed to her that she was not alone. She had a sense of some ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... man to figure out in his mind—as Bill Jordan had done—the start of "the doggonedest Injun fight this country ever knowed!" And far into the night the old cowpuncher thought of this other page, added to the book that was to entertain him as he went down the steeper side of the hill ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... rendered them capable of climbing grades which, in the early days of railroad engineering, were deemed out of the question. The improvements proved a serious stumbling block in the way of the inventors, who found that an ordinary locomotive was able to climb a much steeper grade than was commonly supposed. The first railroads were laid almost level, but it was soon discovered that a grade of a few feet to the mile was no impediment to progress, and gradually the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... ill-poised upon its creaking hinges, crippled and decayed swings to and fro before its glass, like some fantastic dowager; while our own ghostly likeness travels on, Yoho! Yoho! through ditch and brake, upon the ploughed land and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall, as if ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... little stroll between each dose being advisable. With regard to the air-cure, visitors are reminded that at Pougues they find the four kinds of walking exercise recommended by a German specialist, namely, that on quite level ground; secondly, a very gradual climb; thirdly, a somewhat steeper bit of up-hill; and, fourthly, the really arduous ascent of Mont Givre. In order to entice health-seekers, all kinds of gratifications await them on the summit, restaurant, dairy, reading room, tennis court, and croquet ground, to ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... us half a day to get our load to the top of the Twelve-Mile summit, a rise of about one thousand three hundred feet from the creek bed as the aneroid gave it. In the steeper pitches we had to take the axe and cut steps, so hard and smooth does the incessant wind at these heights beat the snow, and on our second trip to the top we were just in time to rescue a roll of bedding that had been blown from the cache and was about to descend a gully from ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... round it at either end or surmount it in the middle. Finally he literally pawed and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and performed prodigious ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... however, is the absence of any fixed frame. In all machines, bicycles and tricycles, with the usual fixed frame, a position is found for the saddle which is, on the whole, most suitable. For some particular gradient it will be perfect; on a steeper gradient the treadles will be further in advance, but with a steeper gradient the rider should be more over the front of the treadles. To get his weight further to the front, he has to double up in the middle, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... who, upon occasions, shows Taste very like her master's, left the highway And took a grass-grown wheel-track that led down Zigzag athwart the broad curved banks of lawn Coating a valley between rounded hills Which faced the sea abruptly in huge crags. Each slope grew steeper till I left my seat And led the mule; for now Hipparchus' snore Tuned with the crooning waves heard from below. We passed two narrow belts of wood and then The sea, that first showed blue above their tops, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... they had cause to remember the ascent. The route led up through belts of brush and between scattered pines, and leaving it inadvertently every now and then, they got entangled among the scrub. Two of them plodded at the stumbling horses' heads, four pushed the sled, and at the top of every steeper slope every one stopped and gasped for breath. It was now near dawn and they had marched all night after a ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... The Conti were possess'd Of Montemurlo still: the Cerchi still Were in Acone's parish; nor had haply From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte. The city's malady hath ever source In the confusion of its persons, as The body's, in variety of food: And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge, Than the blind lamb; and oftentimes one sword Doth more and better execution, Than five. Mark Luni, Urbisaglia mark, How they are gone, and after them how go Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and 't will seem No longer new or strange to thee to hear, That families fail, when cities have their ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... China must be eight or tenfold this amount. Such enormous field erosion as is tolerated at the present time in our southern and south Atlantic states is permitted nowhere in the Far East, so far as we observed, not even where the topography is much steeper. The tea orchards as we saw them on the steeper slopes, not level-terraced, are often heavily mulched with straw which makes erosion, even by heavy rains impossible, while the treatment retains the rain where ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... is steeper than your easy fancies thought, Keep on climbing for the summits and the glories that you sought; And if winter comes and pelts you with the snows that crowd along, Lift your heart and feet together to the sunshine's ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... With the camera set halfway up a gentle slope commanding a steeper hill beyond, down which the boys would send the cattle in a slow, uneasy march before the storm, Luck focused his telephoto lens upon bleakness enough to satisfy even his voracious appetite for realism. Bill Holmes, his tan pumps wrapped ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... hollows in the wavy line of skids, which vanished at the edge of a steeper dip and reappeared below, to plunge out of sight again. Its end was banked up with wet gravel near the track. Festing could not see the track, but the opposite side of the river was visible, with the island, near which two wire-ropes skimmed the surface of the flood. A man stood ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... sticks, sharpened at the end, to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving labor in California;—two Indians to two oxen. Now, the hides were to be got down; and for this purpose, we brought the boat round to a place where the hill was steeper, and threw them down, letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we had to let ourselves down and set them agoing again; and in this way got covered with dust, and our clothes torn. After ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... commenced ascending over the debris of stony avalanches, the path becoming steeper and steeper, until the far-off summit almost hung over our heads. It was now a zigzag ladder, roughly thrown together, but very firm. The red mare which my friend rode climbed it like a cat, never hesitating, even at an angle of 50 deg., and never making a false ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... us in all some four hundred fighting men, together with a crowd of nearly two thousand women and many children. Now although this teocalli was not quite so lofty as that of the great temple of Mexico, its sides were steeper and everywhere faced with dressed stone, and the open space upon its summit was almost as great, measuring indeed more than a hundred paces every way. This area was paved with blocks of marble, and in its centre stood the temple of the war-god, where ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... he pulled first Desiree, then myself, up after him. The whole performance had occupied a scant two seconds, and, waiting only to pick up the three spears he had thrown up the sloping surface of the rock to another yet higher and steeper. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... after walking up the hill. The exercise made him puff. In the old days he used to run up steeper gradients, now it sometimes distressed him to walk ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... reverberation of the stones intolerable, my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... valley had been left behind them, and the road from being hilly grew steeper and more steep until it became a mere rutted trail over the mountains. More or less dilapidated farm-houses, each with its patch of cleared ground, appeared now and then, and before the gate of one of these a huge, canvas-covered wagon ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... her as if he meant to catch her himself. Away we all dashed, losing sight of the dignity of fox-hunters—all mad as hatters (though why hatters should be madder than cappers it would be difficult to say). The pace becomes tremendous; the pack tails by twos and threes; the valleys grow steeper; the field lingers and halts more and more at each steeper comb; the lads who have hurried straight up the hillsides, instead of creeping up by degrees blow their horses and come to a full stop; while old hands at Devonshire combs and Surrey steeps take their nags ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... its way to the foot of the steeper slopes, above the tree line, hesitated, eyed me, then started up a narrow little passage that led up between two cliffs. A rock-slide cluttered this granite stair. Stable footholds were impossible for the loose rocks slipped and slid, rolled ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... not have people harnessing up horses on the Sabbath Day on his account. This resolution he maintained to the end of his life. Sometimes, when he met an old acquaintance, as he toiled up the street which led to his favourite church, he would cheerfully greet him by saying, "John, this hill has grown steeper than it used to be," but he climbed the hill to the end, and the last Sunday he was able to be out of his bed he walked to church as usual. He also took a deep interest in all humane and philanthropic objects as well as in ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... Francisco, which is alleged to have a gradient of 34 per cent., with twenty-three persons on board. As 25 per cent. is regarded as the maximum safe gradient for an Abt rack railway, since the cog-wheel is liable to climb out of the rack on any steeper grade, it will be seen that the strain upon the credulity of the hearer of this story is almost as great as that upon ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... on either side, I could not see. It was solitude of the most awful kind. There was nothing but the storm, which had already wet me through, and the bleak gray waste of rocks. It grew sleeper and steeper; I could barely trace the path by the rocks which were worn, and the snow threatened soon to cover these. Added to this, although the walking and fresh mountain air had removed my illness, I was ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They followed a descent much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward. They stopped to taste, for the first time, the waters of the Columbia; and, after a few minutes, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... the bed of the canon had become much rougher and steeper. The pony, for all his goat-like agility and sure-footedness, found difficulty in scrambling ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... our Lord proved too heavy in the steeper ascents for His exhausted strength, and His slow advance so delayed the procession that the guard became impatient. Here comes a foreigner! A Jew of Cyrene! Harmless and inoffensive, gladly would he make way for the crowd. Why should he not bear this burden under which Jesus of Nazareth is falling ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... fathom line, the submarine slope surrounding the British coast is so much steeper that a second elevation of equal amount (or of 600 feet) would add but slightly to the area of gained land; in other words, the 100 and 200 fathom lines run very near each other.* (* De la Beche, "Geological Researches" ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... above mean low water. Graham, who has carefully surveyed the extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with the horizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest land in North Truro. Even this vast clay-bank is fast wearing away. Small streams of water trickling down it at intervals of two or three rods have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... imagine Lulworth, with a narrower entrance, its water blue as a sapphire shot with amethystine violet, its cliffs taller, steeper, hung with matted creeper and, high aloft, holding the heaven in a three-part circle almost as regular as you could draw with a pair of compasses. We were floating in the cup of a dead volcano, broken on the seaward side; and broken many hundreds of years ago—for on ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... behind them, and were now climbing the long, winding ascent that led to Staplegrove. As the road grew steeper, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-arched galleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and where Durdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... together in a most amicable way, so that, when at the top, it is equally easy to descend down either of them. We found very soon that Dent-dale is much more beautiful than that by which we had ascended. The sides of the hills are steeper, and perhaps higher: the bottom is richer. The road is also better. The river is a continued succession of very pretty falls, almost all of which have scooped out the lower strata of the rock, so that the water shoots clear over. For ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... river along ground that grew swiftly steeper, conscious that perforce my journey must end soon, for my mule ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... thereafter they lay down, and slept as soundly as if they were in the best of the halls of men. On the morrow betimes they arose soberly and went their ways with few words, and, as they deemed, the path still led them onward. And now the great ridge on the north rose steeper and steeper, and their crossing it seemed not to be thought of; but their half-blind track failed them not. They rested at even, and ate and drank what little they had left, save a mouthful or two of wine, and then went on again by the light of the moon, which was so bright that they still saw ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... forehead. "Not entirely, Stumpy. Be generous, dear! It may have hastened matters a little—only a very little. And even so, what of it, if the journey has been shortened? Perhaps the way has been a little steeper, but it has brought me more quickly to my goal. Stumpy, Stumpy, if it weren't for leaving you, I would go as gladly—as gladly—as a happy bride—to ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... went well. He was borne up the seas; he slid down the seas in a lather of white foam. Presently the rise and fall grew steeper, and the foam began to break over his head. Robert could no longer guide himself; he must go as he was carried. Then in an instant he was carried into a hell of waters where, had it not been for his lifebelt and the plank, he must ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... the barograph in our Weather Bureau station at Galveston. In the jerky, scrawling fashion of a child writing his first copy on a slate, I saw the pen gradually draw what looked like a rough profile map—a long declining plateau, a steep and then a steeper slope, ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... time she came to some rough rocks tumbled about in great confusion, as if angry giants had hurled them at each other. Soon the path grew steeper and steeper, and the rocks sharper and sharper, until they cut her feet. Before her she could see nothing but more rocks until they piled themselves into a great mountain, which frowned down upon her, as much as to say, "How dare you attempt to climb to my summit?" The brave child hesitated. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... succeeded in discovering for ourselves, in creeping, dwarf bushes, that told of the blighting influences of the sea-spray; the pale yellow honeysuckle, that we had never seen before, save in gardens and shrubberies; and on a deeply-shaded slope that leaned against one of the steeper precipices, we detected the sweet-scented woodroof of the flower-plot and parterre, with its pretty verticillate leaves, that become the more odoriferous the more they are crushed, and its white delicate flowers. There, too, immediately in the opening of the deeper cave, where ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... hauled our canoes and camp-stuff over the terrible road that leads to the lake, with much creaking and groaning of wagons, and complaining of men, who declared that the mud grew deeper and the hills steeper every year, and vowed their customary vow never to come that way again. At last our tents were pitched in a green copse of balsam trees, close beside the water. The delightful sense of peace and freedom descended upon our souls. Prosper and Ovide were cutting ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... to help them with the horses. He was a Finlander, Olaf Neilsen, who kept boats in summer, fished, and tended two buoy lights at the river entrance for a living. His hut stood on a point, with the sandy beach of the bay in front of it, and the steeper bank where the river ran on the left. All the time the water was rushing out, out, out of the river and creeping down on the sand ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... black under the sun-bathed steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange and all round the south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... heels, pressing her on. Time had been lost, and the camp-site was a long way off. The stag-hounds began to lag and get footsore. The sharp rocks of the trail were cruel to their feet. Then, as Madeline began to tire, she noticed less and less around her. The ascent grew rougher and steeper—slow toil for panting horses. The thinning rain grew colder, and sometimes a stronger whip of wind lashed stingingly in Madeline's face. Her horse climbed and climbed, and brush and sharp corners of stone ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... triangle being so constructed as to rest on a horizontal base, the oblique sides bearing the relation to each other of two to one. Stevinus found that his chain of balls just balanced when four balls were on the longer side and two on the shorter and steeper side. The balancing of force thus brought about constituted a stable equilibrium, Stevinus being the first to discriminate between such a condition and the unbalanced condition called unstable equilibrium. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... feel the clutch of fear. It is an unreasoning thing, that fear of the desert which comes when the last drop is gone; and yet it is real and known to every wanderer, and guarded against by the bravest. He screwed the cap on his canteen and hurried up the slope, which grew steeper and rockier with each mile, but the phantom gateway seemed to lead on before him and recede into the black abyss of night. It was there, right before him, but instead of getting nearer, the Gateway loomed higher and higher; and daylight was near before he passed through its portals ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... road dipped into a little valley and rose again, breasting the slope of a wooded hill which thrust itself out from the steeper flank of the mountain-range. Down the hill-side a song floated to meet us—that most noble lyric of old ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... Jack up a deep gully. On either hand the sides of the chasm shot up, steeper than the roof of a house, while in some places they ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... to take longer to move through a long arc than through a short one, if impelled by the same force; but the subject appears in a different light upon more mature reflection, for it is then seen, that the weight which performs the longer journey starts down the steeper declivity, and therefore acquires a greater velocity. A ball does not run down a steep hill and a more gently inclined one at the same pace; neither, therefore, will the suspended weight move down the steeper curve, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... that the boat was no longer gaining on the dhow. Still he kept firing the gun, hoping that a fortunate shot might bring down her yard. Some way ahead, on the south side of the river, he observed a small bay, where the bank was steeper than in any other place and free of trees; the dhow appeared to be edging away towards it. "I must knock away that fellow's yard. I'd give a hundred guineas to see it come down," he ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... nearer our work and it progressed much faster, although as the ridge rose it became steeper and steeper and even more rugged and chaotic, and the difficulty and danger of its passage increased. Our situation up here was decidedly pleasanter than below. We had indeed exchanged our large tent for a small one in which we could sit upright but could not ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... he moved among the great rocks. Open sand lay beyond, running off at a steeper pitch to make a throat—a smaller pit in the great pit of the crater itself. Rawson noted it, then forgot it as he stooped for something that lay half hidden, its protruding end shining under the light of the stars, as he had seen it gleam before at ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... the fortress; you are politely asked to "please take care," as your clumsy foot strays along the delicate brink of the canal. Suggestions that have a mechanical turn about them, hints on the best way of reaching the water or the possibility of a steeper slope for the sand-walls, are listened to with attention and respect. You are rewarded by an invitation which allows you to witness the very moment when the dyke is broken and the sea admitted into ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... the wolf grew faint and far away; he fell into an uneasy slumber and saw himself, aged and gray, trying to keep pace with a fair youth, who mounted with free and graceful step a mountain whose summit was crowned with the light of everlasting day. Steeper and steeper grew the path, yet he strove with failing strength. The youth reached out a strong hand to him and said, "Lean on me;" but he put it back, crying fiercely: "No! no! climb thou alone farther I cannot ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... easy task to tell with what toil and sweat this mountainous place was turned into a level plane, and this sandy soil made abundantly fruitful. Very heavy and long was the labour of preparing a site for the burial-ground and church, for here the slope was steeper than in other places, and extended over the whole face of the ground. Yet by little and little and by labour done at divers times this hill was taken away and the matter thereof thrown outside the boundary wall into a deep valley toward the ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... mounted ahead; for the woodland path grew smaller, steeper, and more twisted, till they felt as if they were ascending a winding staircase. The priest's voice came from above out of ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... well until they reached the end of the ridge. A mile back, where they had ascended the slope, the pitch had not been great, but as they neared the river the sides grew steeper, until they were confronted by a three hundred foot slope with an extremely steep pitch. This slope was sparsely timbered, and great rocks protruded from the snow. Connie was for retracing the ridge to a point where the ascent was not so ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... two brothers, and the son, as they passed the outmost tents of Israel, and turned, while yet the dew lay round about the camp, towards the slopes of Mount Hor; talking together for the last time, as step by step they felt the steeper rising of the rocks, and hour after hour, beneath the ascending sun, the horizon grew broader as they climbed, and all the folded hills of Idumea, one by one subdued, showed, amidst their hollows in the haze of noon, the windings of that long desert journey, now at last to close. ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... ourselves to feel any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We set off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... pass through Martigny Bourg, and presently, turning aside from the road which had led me to the Grand St. Bernard, we took the way on the right, almost at once feeling the rise of the hill. Steeper and steeper it grew, and warmer and warmer we, though the day was young. Often we were glad of the excuse the view gave us to stop and look back, down into the wide bowl of the Rhone Valley, with a heat-haze of quivering ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... only approach was by the irregular, but for some distance nearly parallel, gorges cut out from the soft clay of the bluffs by Sandy Creek and one of its many arms. The course of these streams being toward the Confederate works, the hollows grew deeper and the banks steeper at every step. At most the creeks were but two hundred yards apart, and the ridge that separated them gave barely standing room. Within a few feet of the breastworks the smaller stream and its ravine turned sharply toward the north and served as a formidable ditch until ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... highland forest, which stretched before us farther than we could see, and through the dense underwood of which the axe of our pioneers had to cut us a way. The ground had been gradually ascending for two days—that is, ever since we had left the Amboni—and it now became steeper; we had reached the foot of the Kenia mountain. The forest zone proved to be of comparatively small breadth, and on the morning of the 30th we emerged from it again into open undulating park-land. When we had scaled one of the heights in front of us, there lay before us, almost within reach ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... always so. Only when we are carrying something rare and precious do we appreciate the possible perils of the road. How much steeper the hills are now, how much deeper and darker the ravines, how much more frequent the crags that might so easily conceal a marauder, than when we passed them some months ago chanting the reckless roundel ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... on the other a cut between two savage mountains. Down this we made our way, taking presently the bed of a small brook: woodroad or footpath never can be there. For a while there was room to walk on dry land: soon the cliffs closed in upon us, on the right rising sheer, on the left sloping, but steeper than I would want to climb. At first the stream was very shallow and narrow, and the fish small and scarce; but think of the creatures that must come there to drink at night! It was the only watercourse for miles, Jim said. He pointed out the tracks of a bear or two, ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... the ages long ago the hill was much steeper than it now is, and there were no trees or undergrowth. On that side it was impregnable. The river, however, in receding, silted up much earth and boulders at the bend, and has ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... she had been his sister. The path led upwards first through the pine-woods, with moss a foot deep on either side, where the wood was damp with the dividing arms of the stream, and the moss on the trees hung in solemn grey clusters, like banners swinging from the branches. And then the path grew steeper and runnels of water dripped down the rocks, all covered with ferns and saxifrage. Down below on one side lay the rushing stream and the valley where the village was, and up above on the other side rose the great mountains, dark with pine-woods ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn
... through sleep and we have slept while we walked. The rise is steeper. Our oil lamp is still burning and our shadows fall behind us into the blackness. There will be light for perhaps ...
— Out of the Earth • George Edrich
... pleasure with toil, I, with two brothers, used occasionally to disport ourselves, as the lawyers call it, at this sand-hill. Our diversion was this: we used to go to the top of the hill, which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used to draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself down with his arms by his sides; and then the others, one at head, and the other at feet, sent him rolling down the hill like a barrel or ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... extremely glad of it, for although it is not to be compared to Mount Ararat, it is still rather difficult. Trusting to my Ararat experience, I thought of descending in the snow, and started. I was much astonished at finding the slope far steeper than I expected, and consequently went down like a shot, and reached the bottom one hour and a half before the others. A Russian doctor tried it after me, and in trying to change his direction was turned round, and went to ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... her hand in his, his other arm through the hamper handle, and ran with her up the slope. At the edge of the steeper climb to come they stopped, breathing fast. "This isn't the way to begin, of course," he admitted as they both regained their breath, laughing at their own enthusiasm, "but I couldn't resist that dash—a sort of dash for freedom. Now ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... end of another quarter of an hour they were approaching a steeper place than usual, but their pursuers were very near now, and the gentlemen owned to themselves that though they might shoot down a few of their enemies, the Malays would certainly conquer; when Ned, who had been staring about him wildly for some minutes, suddenly uttered ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... go down on the other side,' urged Mary. 'It is a little steeper on the Cumberland side, but ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... would progress more rapidly than in our atmosphere, that the tension of such waves would be greater, that they could be so "heaped up" as he expressed it—(In the Slaby-Arco system an apparatus is employed consisting of a Ruhmkorff coil with a centrifugal mercury interrupter, by which a steeper wave front of the disruptive discharge is secured.—Editor)—that their reception over the almost impassable distances of space ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grew steeper, he fastened the rope to the dog's harness and advanced a little at a time, dragging Brave up after him. Soon he was forced to snub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet. Toward noon—at least he thought it was noon—it began snowing again, and the valley below was blotted ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... the sand spit is the steeper. There the folds of the sea fall in velvety thuds ever so gentle, ever so regular. On the southern slope, where the gradient is easy, the wavelets glide up with heedless hiss and slide back with shuffling whisper, scarce moving the garlands of brown seaweed which a ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... distance of twelve and a gain in elevation of 3,600 feet. It is probably unique in its grades. It has no descents. Almost everywhere it is a gentle climb. {p.062} Below Longmire Springs the maximum grade is 2.5 per cent., and the average, 1.6 per cent. Beyond, the grade is steeper, but nowhere ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, it mattered not. She strode down with giant steps, she plunged, she ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... having the same section in all its parts, with a lower, steeper and longer part. See Curb Roof ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Up the longer and steeper hills I constantly walked, and was often an hour in advance of the stage. This mountain region is certainly a very fine one, and I do not think its grandeur has ever been done justice to in description. Its attributes ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... get back to you," she continued, sinking into a chair near the mantel and unfastening her cloak. "The stairs seem to grow steeper every time I come up. Thank you. Just hang it behind the door. And now my hat, please." She lifted the cheap black straw from her head, freeing a fluff of light-golden hair, and with her fingers combed it back ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I ran forward as both boats went over the side and the men were tumbling into them. As I ran I noticed the steeper incline to the deck, and that the forecastle was submerged; but I was not prepared for the sudden launch of the ship into the sea, nor the sickening crash of riven timbers as her after body was torn away, and which drowned my shouts ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... be able to find a way up," Nessus said; "the sides seem to get steeper and steeper, and we may find ourselves caught in a trap at the end of this gorge. At any rate we will try that way first. I wish the moon was up; it is as black as a wolf's mouth here, and the bottom of the gorge is all covered with boulders. If we stumble, and our arms strike a stone, it ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... determination; and I thought I knew to what appropriate place he was going, and that it was my fate to follow him like a moving omen. I lost sight of him later, for I had to complete the journey by train; but the train followed the same direction, which was up steeper and steeper hills. I began to realise more clearly where I was; and to know that the garden in the desert that had bloomed so suddenly about me had borne for many desert wanderers the name of the promised land. As the rocks rose higher and higher on every side, and ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... ascent of a winding canyon. After two or three turns, to Darrell's surprise, every sign of human habitation vanished and only the rocky walls were visible, at first low and receding, but gradually growing higher and steeper. On they went, steadily ascending, till a turn suddenly brought the distant mountains into closer proximity, and Mr. Britton, pointing to a lofty, rugged range on Darrell's ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... "I've been looking at it and feel sure we can manage it, although it's a little steeper than we usually recommend for tractors, but we want to demonstrate that our machine will take care of all the fields you have on the farm, with the exception, of course, of 'Round Top,' which ought ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... outside of the building. Such stairways should not be spiral stairways, but should be made in short straight runs with square landings, because in the spiral stairway the portion of the stairs near the center is of so much steeper pitch that it renders them dangerous when the help are crowding out of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... bridge we plunged into a dark hole directly opposite; then passing by torchlight through some small caves which were entered by very low portals, we began to ascend the inclined plane which wound up the interior of the rock, and which gradually became steeper till it ended in a flight of steps, our guides lighting us on our uncertain path, until we emerged into daylight by a large iron trap-door, pierced with innumerable small holes, the object of which, as well as of a groove in the rock communicating ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... stone to stone; whilst I, fearless from long practice, would triumphantly perform the feat two or three times, to show that I was not in the least afraid, devising, moreover, short cuts for myself even steeper than ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... you about all the windings of the stream; it went through fields and woods and meadows, and at last the banks got steeper and higher, and the trees overhead darkly arched their mysterious branches, and we felt like the princes in a fairy tale who go out ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... we began to climb a long hill, washed into crooked gullies by the water that tore down to the creek at the bottom whenever it rained hard. After this was a short and steeper hill, and then another long one, and we were on the edge of a clearing, very bright and sunny after the ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... day wore away, and the road led into a more and more mountainous country. The hills were longer and steeper, and the tracts of forest more frequent and solitary. The number of passengers increased too, until the coach was pretty heavily loaded; and sometimes all but the female passengers would get out and walk ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... was too dark to see more than a few yards ahead; and Jack issued orders that should the enemy appear, his men were to fire a volley and charge, when he had little doubt but that the Maoris would give way. The path made several bends to avoid the steeper portions of the hill. It might easily have been defended by a determined body of natives. As none showed themselves, Jack began to hope that he should gain the position without fighting. Suddenly ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... mounted the steeper part of the incline the unhappy engine so laboured that each revolution of the wheels threatened to be the last. Still they moved onward with a sort of grim persistence, and it occurred to Esther that if she did not ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... coincidence, that while Napoleon was modernizing the political world, Bichat was revolutionizing the science of life and the art that is based upon it; that while the young general was scaling the Alps, the young surgeon was climbing the steeper summits of unexplored nature; that the same year read the announcement of those admirable "Researches on Life and Death," and the bulletins of the battle ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... The trail grows steeper and harder to climb as we ascend. We hear the sound of falling water ahead of us, and around a bend in the path, and through an opening in the trees, we come upon a beautiful waterfall pouring over the rocks like ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... 2,200 yards from the breakers, Captain Fitzroy found no bottom with a line of 7,200 feet in length; hence the submarine slope of this coral formation is steeper than that of any volcanic cone. Off the mouth of the lagoon, and likewise off the northern point of the atoll, where the currents act violently, the inclination, owing to the accumulation of sediment, is less. As the arming of the lead from all the greater depths showed a smooth sandy ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... fine specimens of the crowberry. This kind of ground lasted to within a mile and a half of the summit, but the grass became scarcer, and was in patches only. Then all vegetation ceased, I did not notice even moss, and the ascent became much steeper, about as steep as from St. Ann's Well to the top of the Worcestershire Beacon. But the going was much harder because the ground offered no sure foothold, consisting as it did of loose burnt stones and earth which ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... or inclination of the tables, both copper and blanket strakes, is also regulated by the class of ore. If it should be heavy then the fall must be steeper. A fair average drop is 3/4 inch to the foot. Be careful that your copper tables are thoroughly water-tight, for remember you are dealing with a very volatile metal, quicksilver; and where water will percolate mercury ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... and reach the foot of the mountain by passing directly down its side over an immense glacier of snow and ice, and thus save time and a journey of several miles. After a while his way down the glacier grew steeper and more difficult, until he reached a point where he could not advance any further, and found, to his consternation, that he could not return by the way he had come. There he clung to the side of the immense ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... angel crossing our flight Where the thunder vapours loom, From his upcast pinions flashing the light Of some outbreaking doom! Up, brothers! away! a storm is nigh! Smite we the wing up a steeper sky! What matters the hail or the clashing winds, The thunder that buffets, the lightning that blinds! We know by the tempest we do not lie Dead in the pits ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... it begins to descend between these two mountains, its descent is so gentle that one is not at all tired in going down it; but if you should happen to miss the way between the two rocks and continue on the heights, you are in great danger of falling from the rock, which every moment becomes steeper ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... hours passed the way grew rougher, the hills steeper, and Lizzie's strength began to fail. Her shoes, too, which were not made for such rough journeys, were soon so worn that her feet ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... end of the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down in the midst of a cloud of snow upon a snow-slope even steeper than the one above. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible, but without a bone broken in his body; and then at last came to gentler slopes, and at last rolled out and lay still, buried amidst a softening ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... built upon many hills and it has the beauty and distinction of possessing steeper roads than any other city in Europe. He was on his way to the Grand Hotel, and this necessitated his passing through Podol, crossing the Hill of the Cliff, and descending ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were much steeper than the roof of a house—as perpendicular as can be imagined—but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority. But the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... now about seven miles from Honolulu, and very near the end of our up-hill journey. After walking up a steeper ascent than usual, the scenery becoming even more romantic and picturesque, we pass through a thicket of hibiscus and other trees, when suddenly, on turning round a small pile of volcanic rocks, we emerge on an open space, and the grand precipice ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... of grit flying up about them, and afterward came to a stop again. Next they tried pushing; and after several rests they arrived, breathless and gasping, at the crest of the rise. There was a big hollow in front, and on the opposite side a ridge which looked steeper than the ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... The successive rise and fall of the land, always with its limited outlook, became tedious, and the labyrinthine hillocks with their intricate windings seemed to enclose them inextricably. But on reaching the summit of a longer steeper incline that had perceptibly slowed the galloping horses, he saw spread out before him a level tract of country stretching far into the distance, with a faint blue smudge beyond of the chain of hills that Said told him marked the boundary of the territory ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the other side of the valley. It was a steep climb, and Lucia was tired when she reached the top. She sat down for a while to rest before going on the remainder of the way. The next path that she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill to a tiny plateau above. From it one could look down on Cellino across the valley. When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade of a big ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... old man was going forward consciously to meet death. Every morning when the dawn awoke him he felt weaker as he rose from his bed; every day his sight was dimmer and his hand less steady; every night the steep flight of stairs seemed steeper, and he ascended them feebly by his hands as well as feet. He could not bring himself to write upon his slate or to spell out upon his fingers the dread words, "I am dying;" and Phebe was not old or experienced enough ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... out, some ten or twelve miles off, into the dead level of the plains. The only drawback to the picturesque beauty of these lower ranges is the absence of forest, or as it is called there, bush. Behind the Malvern Hills, where they begin to rise into steeper ascents, lies many and many a mile of bush-clad mountain, making deep blue shadows when the setting sun brings the grand Alpine range into sharp white outline against the background of dazzling Italian ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... stretched to him from out the dark, Which grasping without question, he is led Where there is work that he must do for God. The trial still is the strength's complement, And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales 230 The sheer heights of supremest purposes Is steeper to the angel than the child. Chances have laws as fixed as planets have, And disappointment's dry and bitter root, Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind, And break a pathway to those unknown realms ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Murphy's Throat was reached, Dallas drove out to the left, watered the thirsty pair at a slough, and ate with Marylyn the long-deferred breakfast. After that they went at a better pace for a time. Soon, however, the road became steeper, and Betty slacked up. The sun was high, now, and unpleasantly warm. So the wise old mule merely humped her back as Dallas applied the lash, and doggedly ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army stiffened, and their ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... on, the ascent becoming steeper and steeper as we mounted upwards, often casting wistful looks at the beacon rock. Just before we gained the summit, smoke was seen curling up from the copse at a little distance ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... perception of this touched Flora as the houses, gliding past, grew older, grayer, with steeper gardens, narrower streets, here and there even trees, lone, sentinel, at the edge of cobbled gutters. From the crest of the last hill they had looked a mile down the long gray throat of the street to where the ferry building lay stretched out with its one tall tower pricked up among the masts ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the shore. After an hour's walking, they found that the character of the forest was changing: the ground rose rapidly, the thick, tangled undergrowth disappeared, and they were able to walk briskly forward, under the shade of the large trees. The hill became steeper and steeper, as they advanced; and Will knew that they were ascending the hill that they had seen from the ship, when she ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... undergrowth, and in which we could walk freely. We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope of even rock, extending along the mountain side farther ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... turned into San Francisco, and took the long sweep of the descending hills at a rate that caused pedestrians to turn and watch them anxiously. Through the city streets the bright sweaters flew, turning and twisting to escape climbing the steeper hills, and, when the steep hills were unavoidable, doing stunts to see which would first gain ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... precipice along a natural fissure in the rocks, which, having been transformed with loose stones into a kind of ladder, was formerly, before these peaceful times, the only means of access to the summit. A steeper scramble would be hard to find. I must confess, however, that before taking either of these routes, we halted to enjoy a lunch for which the drive had given us the keenest appetite, and which we ate al fresco in the shadow of a ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... he sprang from the carriage to retrace his way; but he only climbed up a ladder that grew every instant steeper; and all at once he was plunged downwards after his horse and carriage into the stream. He could swim, and as he swept down this thought came to him—that he might be able to get the shore, as he heard the cries of people on the bank. It was a hope that died at the moment of its birth, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the mountain—the side facing the sea—the timber line is far higher up than on this. Nor, again, is it a matter of angle that makes the timber line here so low, for those forests on the Sierra del Cristal were growing luxuriantly over far steeper grades. There is some peculiar local condition just here evidently, or the forest would be up to the bottom of the wall of the crater. I am not unreasonable enough to expect it to grow on that, but its conduct in staying where it does ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... yourself down this next one," said Eben, as he was starting for the next descent; "it's a bit steeper. Let your hands run along the wall over your head, just touching it, and that'll be enough. Don't shove hard, or you'll ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... turned the car for Camporossa. Three hundred yards up the road he came to another patch of dust, and saw the wheel-tracks of the carriage deep and plain. He sent along the car as hard as he dared, for, as the road grew steeper along the hillside, it grew stonier and stonier, thanks to its serving, like most Italian hill roads, as a watercourse to carry off the rain from the hills. A very slow and painful jolting brought him among the olive groves of Camporossa and ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... or conserve the water, first, by leaving the steeper slopes covered with vegetation; second, by keeping the soil loose; and, third, by building reservoirs to hold the floods. We can make use of the conserved water by carrying it in pipes or ditches to those regions where it ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... the capital be just safe on a given scale, as its excess over the shaft diameter increases, the projection will be unsafe, if the slope of the bell remain constant. But it may be rendered safe by making this slope steeper, and so ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... at the street level; they continued on down another ramp, around a bend, descending an even steeper incline toward the bowels of Jupiter. Their descent ended at last before a huge metal barrier which, at a signal from the leader, drew smoothly up into the ceiling to disclose a gigantic, red-lit chamber underlying the ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... to the stream and drank of its waters, and washed the night off him in a pool thereof, and then set forth on his way again. When he had gone some three hours, the road, which had been going up all the way, but somewhat gently, grew steeper, and the bent on either side lowered, and lowered, till it sank at last altogether, and then was he on a rough mountain-neck with little grass, and no water; save that now and again was a soft place with a flow ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... the trees were gemmed with drops that still dripped. The ground was strewn with wet leaves, slippery, and affording treacherous foothold. Progress was slow and laborious. As the hillside grew steeper, a man here and there slid, lurched and fell. To maintain any semblance of formation was impossible. The fire grew hotter. Ball and buckshot and half-ounce bullets down-poured on them from above. "Death crouched behind every rock and ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... precipice falls sheer away, by cut stone guard-posts. So extensive and substantial are these improvements that one instinctively looks for a real-estate dealer's sign: "This beautiful lot can be yours for twenty-five dollars down and ten dollars a month for a year." Climbing higher, the roads become steeper and narrower and, because of the heavy rains, very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your brakes is quite likely to bring your career to an abrupt and unpleasant termination. To motor along one of these military mountain ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... except that the question of side thrust should be considered also as a factor. The thrust against the side of a tunnel in dry sand having a flat angle of repose will necessarily be greater than in very moist sand or clay, which stands at a much steeper angle, and, for the same reason, the arch thrust is greater in dryer sand and therefore the load on a tunnel structure should not be as great, the material being compact and excluding cohesion as a factor. This can ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... Caerphilly about seventeen; but these are nothing to the castles in the air we have seen built by the touch of a female magician; nor is it an unusual thing with artists of the fair sex to order their plumed chivalry to gallop down precipices considerably steeper than a house, on animals apparently produced between the tiger and the bonassus. When they have succeeded in getting something like the appearance of water between what may be conjectured banks, they are not very particular about its running occasionally up-hill; ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... hours at a foot-pace, and by the time we left our horses and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. Except that, looming ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the distance, where the mountains and the clouds have business together, its aspect rises to grandeur. To his first glance probably not a tree will be discoverable; the second will fall upon a solitary clump of firs, like a mole on the cheek of one of the hills not far off, a hill steeper than most of them, and green to ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... once more and other ladders, steeper and even more dangerous than those we had climbed before, and suddenly the fresh air of the wide heavens. We had reached the highest gallery. Above us the sky. Below us the city—a little toy-town, where busy ants ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... first, it was a hard climb. Fallen timber at the mountain's foot covered with thick brush swallowed us up and plucked us back. Beyond, on the steeper slopes, grew dwarf evergreens, five or six feet high—the same fir that towers a hundred feet with a diameter of three or four on the river banks, but here stunted by icy mountain winds. The curious blasting of the branches on the side next to the ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... march we came in sight of the luminous mountain, which cheered me considerably. It was a curious thing, indeed. A straight-sided cone of light it was, rather steeper than the average volcano. Its point was sharp, its sides smooth as if cut with a mammoth plane. And it shone with a pure white light, with a steady and unchanging milky radiance. It rose out of the black and dull yellow ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... steeper now, and came in more swift succession, as the horsemen plodded wearily along the southern slope of the Rand. Piggie was breathing heavily; and Weldon, clinging to his saddle with the purely mechanical ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... thirty feet square, and stands upon an artificial mount about eight feet high, by the side of a small river. The mount slopes insensibly from the main front, which is northwards, but on the other sides it is somewhat steeper. The four corners of the temple consist of four posts, about a foot and an half diameter, and ten feet high, each made of the heart of the cypress tree, which is incorruptible. The side-posts are of the same wood, but only about a foot square; and the walls are of mud, about nine inches ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz |
