"Vegetation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where vegetation is found at all, it is more ungrateful than the blankness of Aracama. Tangled thickets of wiry bushes, without fruit and without a name, springing up among deep fissures of calcined rock, and treacherously masking them; or a parched growth of ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... result of the recent stocking of the country with cattle. More cattle have been brought into the country than in its natural state it will support. One of the results of this overstocking is a very high death rate among the cattle; another and more important result is that the grasses and other vegetation have no chance to seed or mature, being cropped off close to the ground almost as soon as they appear. As a result of this, many of the river terraces and little valleys among the foothills, once celebrated for luxuriant grass, are now bare, and would hardly afford ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... almost as easy for the sun to call up vegetation by the side of an iceberg, as for the abolitionists to move the South extensively, whilst their influence is counteracted by a pro-slavery spirit at the North. How vain would be the attempt to reform the drunkards of your town of Lexington, whilst the sober in it continue to drink ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... nonsense about the laws of nature, as if they were the only agents known in this world. But every man knows that he himself possesses the power to control the laws of nature, by bringing a higher law to arrest a lower; as when the power of vegetation arrests the law of gravitation, and sends the drop of rain which had trickled down the outside of the bark of the pine, climbing up again a hundred feet; or as when the power of animal life converts a hundred weight of grass into a leg of mutton; or as when the power of the human ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... in the latter part of the last century, speaks of passing through a great extent of ancient Indian fields, now silent and deserted, overgrown with forests, orange groves, and rank vegetation, the site of the ancient Alachua, the capital of a famous and powerful tribe, who in days of old could assemble thousands at bull-play and other athletic exercises "over these then happy fields and green plains." "Almost every step we take," adds he, "over these fertile ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... education. To-day it is not intellect but cleverness that promenades the streets. From every crevice in the rocky surface of society brilliant flowers burst forth as the spring brings them on the walls of a ruin; even in the caverns there droop from the vaulted roof faintly colored tufts of green vegetation. The sun of education permeates all. Since this vast development of thought, this even and fruitful diffusion of light, we have scarcely any men of superiority, because every single man represents the whole education of his age. We are ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... northward, toward the equator once more; and his votaries, as was their wont, had all come forth to do him honor in due season, and to pay their respects, in the inmost and sacredest grove on the island, to his incarnate representative, the living spirit of trees and fruits and vegetation, the very high ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... till it was pretty late. Notwithstanding occasional explosions of violence, we were all delighted upon the whole with Johnson. I compared him at this time to a warm West-Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxuriant foliage, luscious fruits; but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightning, earthquakes, in ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... within the crater. It was a small, circular valley, surrounded on all sides by a ridge of earth, apparently one or two hundred feet high. The valley might have been about a third or a quarter of a mile in diameter. The bottom of it was level, and was covered with a scanty vegetation. The soil was very white, as if it were formed of substances calcined ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... rebellious force. Yet here and there the two powers had combined to offer an example of beauty neither could have effected alone. A passion vine had overrun and enclasped a vase with a perfect symmetry no sculptor could have achieved. A heavy balustrade was made ethereal with a delicate fretwork of vegetation between its balusters like lace. Here, however, the lap and gurgle of water fell gratefully upon the ear of the perspiring and thirsty Mr. Potter, and turned his attention to more material things. Following the sound, he presently ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... the sight which met his glance. The fire seemed to have swept down in two wide converging curves, rushing through the bush and setting it ablaze all round before it advanced on to the cleared land of the selection. It had just attacked the vegetation in the paddocks as Dickson got outside the hut, and which ever way he looked he saw a line of leaping flames sweeping towards him. The heat was scorching; the air stifling. The voice of the man in the hut fell on unheeding ears, for only one chance of escape appeared, and that ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... Alps to the November of the other that we get some notion of the way in which the actual range and freedom of life is cramped by the "chill north-easters" in which Mr. Kingsley revelled. The unchanged vegetation, the background of dark olive woods, the masses of ilex, the golden globes of the orange hanging over the garden wall, are all so many distinct gains to an eye which has associated winter with leafless boughs and a bare landscape. One ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... nautical matters; while the monograph of Mr. Elton, which apparently did not promise much at first, since the author has followed some untrustworthy leaders as regards his facts, proved to be full of a fragrant charm produced by the writer's knowledge of and interest in sub-tropical vegetation; and it is delightfully filled with the names of gums and spices. To Mr. Vignaud I owe special thanks, not only for the benefits of his research and of his admirable works on Columbus, but also for personal help and encouragement. Equally cordial thanks are due to Mr. John Boyd Thacher, whose ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... the first ridge of the main Cordillera, in the ravine of Maricongo, and at an elevation which, from the extreme coldness and appearance of the vegetation, I estimated at about ten thousand feet, I found beds of white sandstone and of limestone including the Pecten Dufreynoyi, Terebratula aenigma, and some Gryphites. This ridge throws the water on the one hand into the Pacific, ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... the same degree of latitude in the Western Hemisphere that Egypt occupies in the Eastern, the Tropic of Cancer dividing both countries in the centre. There is a striking resemblance between them, also, in many other respects, such as architecture, vegetation, domestic utensils, mode of cultivating the land, ancient pyramids, and idols, while both afford abundant tokens of a history antedating all accredited record. Toltec and Aztec antiquities bear a remarkable resemblance to the old Egyptian remains to ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... was now past midday; and he seated himself once more to repose his limbs, wearied with the fatigues of the ascent and overcome by the heat that was there intolerable. At the distance of about two hundred yards on his right was a solitary tree, standing like a sign to mark the tomb of nature's vegetation. Upon this tree his eyes were fixed listlessly, and he was marveling within himself how that single scion of the forest could have been spared, when the burning lava, whenever the eruption might have taken place, had hurled down and reduced to ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... to within a mile of the rocks, and then the forward engine was connected with the dynamo, and the searchlight, which had so disconcerted the Cossacks on the Tobolsk road, was turned on to the cliffs, which they carefully explored, until they found a little plateau covered with luxuriant vegetation and well watered, about two thousand feet above the ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... A view of Mossbrae Falls, where a subterranean stream coming down from the glaciers of Mt. Shasta breaks through the vegetation and flows into the Sacramento River. From a photograph by Herbert ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... visible body the thought already clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor's brain. And, indeed, if I mistake not," I said, starting up, as a sudden ray of light arrived at that moment through a crevice in the roof, and lighted up a small portion of the rock, bare of vegetation, "this very rock is marble, white enough and delicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an ideal woman in ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... demand. Although millions of rubber trees still stood untouched in the Brazilian forests, only those trees near the river banks could be tapped because of the impossibility of getting the rubber out of the dense vegetation. Life in the jungle was dangerous and lonely, and therefore rubber gatherers were not easy to find. They were compelled to work far from their families and friends, and in constant danger from wild beasts, reptiles and death-bearing fevers. It is no wonder that rubber ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... She's a lily, and she draws the kind of beauty that lilies have from her personal chastity and her religious enthusiasm. Touch those things and bruise them, as—as marriage would touch and bruise them—and she would be a mere fragment of stale vegetation. You want him to clasp that to his bosom for the ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine:—no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 584 - Vol. 20, No. 584. (Supplement to Vol. 20) • Various
... at a distance of eight miles up the Mississippi from the fort, the Falls of St. Anthony was reached. Although only sixteen feet high, the breadth of almost six hundred yards, broken in the middle by a rocky island gave to it an impressive majesty, and the thick vegetation on the island and banks returned a gloomy reflection from ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... of color through the general waving of cat-heads, blood-weeds, wild cane, and marsh grasses. For, at a hasty glance, the general appearance of this marsh verdure is vague enough, as it ranges away towards the sand, to convey the idea of amphibious vegetation,—a primitive flora as yet undecided whether to retain marine habits and forms, or to assume terrestrial ones;—and the occasional inspection of surprising shapes might strengthen this fancy. Queer flat-lying and many-branching things, which resemble ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... Saxony, from Lusatia to the Elbe, resembled one vast desert, where nothing was to be seen but towns laid waste and plundered, villages reduced to ashes, naked and famishing inhabitants;—that there was no appearance of any other living creature; nay, not even a trace of vegetation remaining. These accounts we naturally regarded as exaggerations, little imagining that in a short time we should have to give to our distant friends the same details of horror respecting our own vicinity. ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... might last. As I have stated, it was the beginning of the hot season in a Southern climate. There was no telling what the casualties might be among Northern troops working and living in trenches, drinking surface water filtered through rich vegetation, under a tropical sun. If Vicksburg could have been carried in May, it would not only have saved the army the risk it ran of a greater danger than from the bullets of the enemy, but it would have given us a splendid ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... solidly built of which are connected with farms that belonged to the late President Lopez. At times appear palm trees, the feathery leaves of which mingle with beautiful effect with the pale or dark foliage of an exuberant vegetation. Lopez had established telegraphic communication between the mouth of the Paraguay and Paraguari, but the line having been broken between the latter terminus and a place called Cerro Leon, and nobody having been sufficiently interested in it to have it repaired, it now stops at Cerro ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... and steeper; the vegetation became more scant. The heat of the sun was tempered by the cold of the upper air. It was easier to climb, and the boy felt that his muscles were ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... produced a man of genius, never; and never will until civilization, fighting the heat that way and the cold this, widens this portion of the earth until it is capable of producing great men and great women. It is the same with men that it is with vegetation; you go into a garden, and find there flowers growing. And as you go up the mountain, the birch and the hemlock and the spruce are to be found. And as you go toward the top, you find little, stunted trees getting a miserable subsistence out of the crevices of the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to form a steaming river. Vegetation grew savagely under the huge sun. The air, kept at almost constant temperature by the blanketing effect of the hot springs, was ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... a vestige of its former magnificent vegetation covered the slope. Nothing in the world could be more awful, more desolate, more disheartening to behold than the area the two chums were now crossing. Never had either seen anything that so oppressed him. For not only had the slope of Old Ironsides been laid waste, but the entire bottom had ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... a broad flowing muddy river—that was all that greeted the eyes of the eager lookers-on, till darkness set in. Not a trace of town or village, not even a fisherman's hut or a boat. All was vegetation and ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... which could be passed only by carrying the canoe and luggage to the smoother waters above. It was apparent that the river frequently overflowed its banks, for immense quantities of driftwood lined both shores, while the vegetation had been swept away to that extent that a space of a dozen feet from the margin of the stream was comparatively free from it. Thus both ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... Washington, DC Land boundaries: none Coastline: 68.5 km Maritime claims: Exclusive fishing zone: 12 nm Territorial sea: 12 nm Disputes: none Climate: tropical marine; little seasonal temperature variation Terrain: flat with a few hills; scant vegetation Natural resources: negligible; white sandy beaches Land use: arable land 0%; permanent crops 0%; meadows and pastures 0%; forest and woodland 0%; other 100% Environment: lies outside the Caribbean hurricane belt Note: 28 km ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and the day wore on in sorrow and despair, for their position seemed to be absolutely hopeless, and it was nothing to them that the sun shone down from the pure blue sky on the gorgeous vegetation, whose leaves seemed to shed silver beams of light down amongst the dark shade beneath. Plan after plan was suggested and referred to the ladies, who also made proposals. But the result was always the same. They acknowledged that ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... phantom but wretched, stooping to pay blackmail which is not only blackmail but ignominious, may divert the reader and remind him that the faults of the past are the faults of the present. Again, "The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown by noxious vegetation, and swarming with deer and tigers"—do, what does any one suppose, perform what forlorn part in the economy of the world? Why, they "supply the cultivated districts with abundance of salt." It is ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... a good pace, without jolting, over the white road. A warm mist rose around us laden with the smell of vegetation, ripe corn, and clover from the overheated earth and the neighboring fields, which had drunk their full of sunlight. Now and again a breath of fresh air was blown to us from the mountains. As the darkness deepened the country grew to look ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of their third day's journey, they crossed Laurel Hill. The vegetation on this ridge appears superior to that of the Allegheny. The mountain called Little Chesnut Ridge succeeds Laurel Hill. The difficulties of the road were here extremely great. These arose not only from the height of the mountains, but from the enormous stones ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... sites were four and six miles northeast of Cloudcroft, Otero County, at 8600 to 8800 feet in elevation. Vegetation was either almost pure stands of Englemann spruce (Picea englemanni) or mixed stands of spruce, Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga taxifolia) and white fir (Abies sp.). At each locality small oaks (Quercus) were present among the dominant conifers. ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston
... trace led through heavy bottom-timber, such as we had traversed, after leaving the settlement of Swampville. The black earth, of alluvial origin, was covered deeply with decayed vegetation; and the track of horses and cattle had converted the path into mud. At intervals, it was intersected by embayments of wet morass—the projecting arms of a great swamp, that appeared to run parallel with the creek. Through ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... kind of mountain is it from among whose rugged snow peaks first sprang those plunging cascades, which, leaping and tossing over their rocky beds, join each other at its base to form the river itself? Through what wild forests, filled with curious vegetation, may it not flow, and how strange, perhaps, are the people who, together with wild beasts and unknown birds, inhabit its ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... rapid tropic vegetation has reclaimed its old domains, and Amyas and his crew are as utterly alone, within a few miles of an important Spanish settlement, as they would be in the solitudes of the Orinoco ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... in a shallow ford. The road dipped to it on both sides, the constant flow of water having stripped away the soil and left a barrier of naked rock which dammed back the stream to form a wide pool sheltered among the hills and fringed by a more luxurious growth of vegetation than clothed the ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... pair, now that the stout figure of the girl's companion had disappeared towards the Bayswater Road. In that oasis in the desert of aristocratic London one can obtain quite sylvan surroundings. True, the trees and vegetation are covered with a film of grime from the millions of smoking chimneys of the giant metropolis, still Kensington Gardens ever possesses a charm all its own as a clandestine meeting-place for well-born lovers and ill-born loafers, for nursemaids and soldiers, and for persons of both sexes ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... wind and rays of the sun and rise in vapor. When formed into clouds in the atmosphere it is borne back on the wings of the wind, condensed by the cold air and falls in copious showers of rain upon the earth, to purify the atmosphere, moisten and fertilize the fields and cause vegetation to spring forth in its beauty. The rain falling upon the just and the unjust makes the heart of the husbandman leap for joy, at the prospect of a bountiful harvest, causes the foliage and the gardens ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... formations that are always inherent in volcanic regions. The region surrounding Naples is abrupt, picturesque, with the same irregular outline of hills that characterizes the elevations in the Tonto basin in Arizona. The vegetation is of the tropical type. The cactus is common, although it grows to no such monstrous heights as in Arizona. Orange and lemon groves prevail as far as the eye can see. On every height towns and villages crown the crests and sweep in winding terraces around the hillsides. Olive orchards ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... all, let him imagine his world of man stationary. Let him plot out in turn the distribution of heat, of moisture, of diseases, of vegetation, of food-animals, of the physical types of man, of density of population, of industries, of forms of government, of religions, of languages, and so on and so forth. How far do these different distributions bear each other out? He will find ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... irregularity and severity of climate. But though the law is obeyed by many plants, it does not determine the periodical changes of the whole, nor do they all submit to it with equal readiness and regularity. It would add, I conceive, to the natural history of vegetation, and improve our knowledge of the geography of plants, were the facts concerning their habits and changes, under ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... better example in support of "Natural Selection" could hardly have been chosen. Let the fact of the {25} occurrence of occasional, severe droughts in the country which that animal has inhabited be granted. In that case, when the ground vegetation has been consumed, and the trees alone remain, it is plain that at such times only those individuals (of what we assume to be the nascent giraffe species) which were able to reach high up would be preserved, and would become the parents ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... from the Valley. From the terraced banks of the Rappahannock, sixty miles north of Richmond, to the shining reaches of the James, where the capital of the Confederacy stands high on her seven hills, the lowlands of Virginia are clad with luxuriant vegetation. The roads and railways run through endless avenues of stately trees; the shadows of the giant oaks lie far across the rivers, and ridge and ravine are mantled with the unbroken foliage of the primeval forest. In this green wilderness the main armies were involved. But ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... feet. The sun delivers about 200,000,000,000 horse-power to the earth continuously, which is estimated to be about one million times the amount of power generated artificially on the earth. Of this inconceivable quantity of energy a small part is absorbed by vegetation, some is reflected and radiated back into space, and the balance heats the earth. To store some of this energy so that it may be utilized at will in any desired form is one of the dreams of science. However, artificial ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... the degradation of limited arable land, periods of drought, and dust storms; coastal degradation (damage to coastlines, coral reefs, and sea vegetation) resulting from oil spills and other discharges from large tankers, oil refineries, and distribution stations; lack of freshwater resources, groundwater and seawater are the only sources ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... unseen, and their song dies away unheard; the torch-thistle which blossoms only for a night withers without having been admired in the wilds of southern forests; and these forests, groves of the most beautiful and luxuriant vegetation, with the most odorous and fragrant perfumes, perish and waste, no more enjoyed. The work of art is not so unconsciously self-immersed, but it is essentially a question, an address to the responsive soul, an appeal to the heart ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... I agree with some scholars that Krishna is mainly and primarily a deity of vegetation. All Indian ideas about the Universe and God emphasize the interaction of life and death, growth and decay, spring and winter. Krishna is undoubtedly associated with life, growth and generation, but so is Siva the destroyer, or rather the transmuter. The ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... which between the years 1832 and 1907 has received no less than eight different names accorded by European and American botanists. It is a remarkable shrub, in that it occurs higher on the mountain than any other form of vegetation except lichens. The roots penetrate deeply into the crevices of the lava rocks, enabling it to withstand the fierce winds. The flowers, which appear in August, are white, shading to pink, and the red berries, which are not especially palatable on account of ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... a day's journey the traveller may pass from tropical to almost Alpine conditions of climate, so great also is the range of the flora and fauna. In the valleys and lowlands the vegetation is dense, but the general appearance of the plateaus is of a comparatively bare country with trees and bushes thinly scattered over it. The glens and ravines on the hillside are often thickly wooded, and offer a delightful contrast to the open downs. These conditions are particularly ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... regards the anthropomorphic gods of Greece has been that the conception of the deity preceded the adoption of the ritual. Moreover, one school of anthropologists ably represented by Professor Ridgeway, has maintained that the phenomena of vegetation spirits, totemism, etc., rose from primary elements, notably from the belief in the existence of the soul after the death of the body. Miss Harrison and those who agree with her hold that this view involves an anthropological ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... the horse, it was possible to reduce the breadth of roadways by half or a third, to construct them of smooth concrete from grass to grass, leaving no soil to be disturbed by wind or water, and such ways once built, last like Roman roads, and can never be overgrown by vegetation. These paths, penetrating every nook and corner of the land, have, together with the electric motors, made travel such a luxury that as a rule we make all short journeys, and when time does not press even very long ones, by private conveyance. Had land travel remained in the condition ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the human figure. The second kind of ware dates from about the middle of the seventh century. It shows meander, wave, and other designs, and is called the "geometrical" style. Later on animals, rosettes, and vegetation appear that show Assyrian influence. The decoration is profuse and the rude human figure subordinate to it. The design is in black or dark-brown, on a cream-colored slip. The third kind of ware is the archaic or "strong" ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... travels hastily through this part of the country must have been agreeably surprised with the luxuriant vegetation of the fields, with the orchards and vineyards which cover the hillside's, with the size of the villages, with the breadth of their streets, with the beauty of their official buildings, with the cleanliness and stateliness of their houses, with the good clothing in which the ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... through all the intermediate stages, I saw it attain to that fixed, unalterable gold of fine days, on which the sharply cut shadows of the wrought iron of the balustrade were outlined in black like a capricious vegetation, with a fineness in the delineation of their smallest details which seemed to indicate a deliberate application, an artist's satisfaction, and with so much relief, so velvety a bloom in the restfulness of their sombre and happy mass that in truth those large and leafy shadows ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... develops with a rapidity which gives to this season in Russia a special charm, unknown in warmer climates; and the rapid melting of snow at the same time raises the rivers, and renders a great many minor streams navigable for a few weeks. But a return of cold weather, injurious to vegetation, is observed throughout central and eastern Russia between May 18 and 24, so that it is only in June that warm weather sets in definitely, reaching its maximum in the first half of July (or of August on the Black Sea coast). The summer is ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... these terms may appear to eyes or ears polite, it is a homely but just representation, and calculated to make a lasting impression on every reader. Afflictions, trials, crosses, are used as a means of creating or reviving spiritual life, as manure is applied to vegetation.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... scenery of the West Indies had to wait till its real poet appeared in the author of 'Paul and Virginia.' Grainger was hardly able to cope with the strange and gorgeous contrasts it presents of cliffs and crags, like those of Iceland, with vegetation rich as that of the fairest parts of India, and of splendid sunshine, with tempests of such tremendous fury that, but for their brief continuance, no property could be secure, and ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... this position we counted twenty-three islands, the northernmost of which were supposed to be the Montalivet Isles of Baudin. The whole have an uninteresting and rocky appearance but are not altogether destitute of vegetation: a greenish tinge upon the nearest islet saved them from being ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... puss!—Does the vegetation hereabouts support nothing but pigs?' said Miss Hazel, with a despairing glance from the dish of ham to a yellow haired lassie in a blue gown, who just then brought in a pitcher of water. Mr. Falkirk waited till the damsel had withdrawn, and went to the window and came back again ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... not a tree or a plant was to be seen. The water used was of poor quality, brought from the Springs of Moses by camels and donkeys. It was a poverty-stricken place. But the opening of the fresh-water canal from the Nile vivified everything, and vegetation has come into being ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... feeling of the ground underfoot brought me to myself; I bent down and found I was treading on vegetation—a tiny forest extending for quite a distance in front and to the side of me. A few steps ahead a little silver ribbon threaded its way through the trees. This I judged to ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... the hour of his birth, and how he was called. By visitations, I kept informed of the various countries, their conditions, and their relations with each other; for as the state of the earth points favorably or unfavorably to its vegetation, so do the conditions of nations indicate the approach of changes, and give encouragement to those predestined to bring the changes about. Again I say, my Lord, as the stars are the servants of God, they have their servants, whom you shall never know except as you are able to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others—some singly, some in clumps; but the general coloring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest in configuration, running up sheer from almost every ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sulphurous green, pressing low upon a country utterly flat and nearly barren. The only sign of vegetation I could perceive were strange growths that remotely resembled trees—inverted trees, with wide-spreading branches hungrily nursing the black and barren soil, and gnarled, brief roots reaching out tortured arms ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... of the round-up, usually are thin, mean-looking, and half-starved. Two weeks of the delicious spring grass and the fat on their ribs and loins rolls and shakes as they move, growing almost visibly under the succulent influence of the delicate vegetation. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... River—rises far away in the south, frequently expanding during the early part of its course into broad lakes, and in some places closely approaching the Atlantic coast. The southern point of Florida reaches to within twenty-five degrees of the equator, so that the vegetation is of a tropical character. Alligators swarm in the streams and pools; flowering shrubs of rare beauty clothe the banks of every river; and birds innumerable inhabit the forests, lakes, islets sand-banks, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... way over a bed of decayed vegetation often meandering through a dense growth of wiry reeds in a channel set well below the general level. Banks of attenuated grass and rank foliage lined its course, and the welcome sunlight poured down upon its water in sharp contrast with ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... thousand feet. Those of the second class are of crystalized limestone, and vary in height from one hundred to five hundred feet. The hills on these are not so wild or broken as those of the first class, but are richly clothed with vegetation, and very beautiful. I have no doubt that the Coral Island on which you were wrecked was one of this class. They are supposed to have been upheaved from the bottom of the sea by volcanic agency, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... aviator, two British river monitors, Severn and Mersey, aided by a cruiser and minor vessels, began to fire upon the stationary vessel. Their fire was directed by the aviator who had discovered her, but it was at first almost ineffective because she lay so well concealed by the vegetation of the surrounding jungle. She answered their fire and succeeded in damaging the Mersey, but after being bombarded for six hours she was set on fire. When the British monitors had finished with her she was a ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... botanizing-box, and, leaving Paris as soon as it was day, he would wander far into the valley of Montmorency, the wood of Meudon, or among the windings of the Marne. Excited by the fresh air, the penetrating perfume of the growing vegetation, or the fragrance of the honeysuckles, he would walk on until hunger or fatigue made itself felt. Then he would sit under a hedge, or by the side of a stream, and would make a rustic feast, by turns on watercresses, wood strawberries, ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... completely filled the narrow valleys. Upon either side of the Nile are vestiges of ancient forts. The land appears as though it bore the curse of Heaven; misery, barrenness, and the heat of a furnace are its features. The glowing rocks, devoid of a trace of vegetation, reflect the sun with an intensity that must be felt to be understood. The miserable people who dwell in villages upon the river's banks snatch every sandbank from the retiring stream, and immediately plant ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... day he came back till he had finished it. Food was very scarce for a couple of months, and after the Elk was eaten, Wahb lost all the fat he had when he awoke. One day he climbed over the Divide into the Warhouse Valley. It was warm and sunny there, vegetation was well advanced, and he found good forage. He wandered down toward the thick timber, and soon smelled the smell of another Grizzly. This grew stronger and led him to a single tree by a Bear-trail. Wahb reared ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton
... was some surf on and I jumped short, landing (if such an expression may pass) in the sea. Wet feet rather refreshing than otherwise on so hot a day. Tenedos is lovely. Each of these islands has its own type of coasts, vegetation and colouring: like rubies and diamonds they are connected yet hardly akin. Climbed Tenedos Hill, our ascent ending in a desperate race for the crest. My long legs and light body enabled me to win despite the weight of age. Very hot, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... Rome best, in this respect, is Piranesi. His edifices, always immensely too big, his vegetation, extravagantly too luxurious, are none too much to render Rome. And those pools of blackness and immense lakes ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... EMBALM, v.i. To cheat vegetation by locking up the gases upon which it feeds. By embalming their dead and thereby deranging the natural balance between animal and vegetable life, the Egyptians made their once fertile and populous country barren and ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... civilians—planters, merchants, and so on, from Kingston and the surrounding neighbourhood. This was my first experience of the West Indies, and after the glorious scenery of the island and the marvellous luxuriance, beauty, and strangeness of the tropical vegetation which everywhere clothed it, I think that what impressed me most was the amazing hospitality of its inhabitants, who positively seemed to vie with each other in their efforts to show us kindness. Did ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... garment which gives them the charm of youth. With me it will be green in winter also, that is, only in the head, but—God help me—in the heart the greatest ardour, therefore, no one need wonder that the vegetation is so luxuriant. Enough...yours for ever...Only now I notice that I have talked too much nonsense. You see yesterday's impression [he refers to the name-day festivity already mentioned] has not yet quite ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... frequent and latterly prolonged residence at Avignon, Mr. Mill, carrying on his botanical propensities, had become very well acquainted with the vegetation of the district, and at the time of his death had collected a mass of notes and observations on the subject. It is believed to have been his intention to have printed these as the foundation ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... without a greatcoat who can endure a May wind and live? But of all months it is the prettiest. The grasses are then the greenest, and the young foliage of the trees, while it has all the glory and all the colour of spring vegetation, does not hide the form of the branches as do the heavy masses of the larger leaves which come in the advancing summer. And of all villas near London The Horns was the sweetest. The broad green lawn swept down to the very margin ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... huge river of labor that winds its course through arid plains of want and poverty and starvation, which it is capable of fertilising and converting into a modern Paradise? True that on its banks and in its immediate neighbourhood are strips of luxuriant vegetation. But those only show up in painful relief the utter barrenness of the "region beyond." Why should the dwellers upon the banks be allowed to monopolise and appropriate that which they cannot even utilise, and that which is ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... there, wallowing in the shallow water and grazing on the lush vegetation. He smiled. It would be several days before their feeble minds threw off the impression he had forced on them that this was their ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... and quiet streets of the Hill, the boys were shocked and stunned by the life that teemed in the close-packed quarter. It seemed some thick and monstrous growth of vegetation, and that they were wading through it. They shrank closely together in the tangle of narrow streets as though for protection, conscious of the strangeness of it all, and how unrelated they ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... material. It is curious and depressing. This volcanic region of the Rhine, however, has so many unexpected beauties strewn pell-mell in the midst of stony barrenness that it also bears some likeness to Naples and Ischia, where beauty of color, and even of vegetation, alternate surprisingly with tracts of parched and rocky wilderness pierced with holes whence gas and ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... spick-and-span Riviera note is at its highest development. Not a leaf is out of place; they have evidently been groomed and tubbed and manicured from the hour of their birth. And yet—is it possible? Lurking among all this modern splendour of vegetation, as though ashamed to show their faces, may be discerned a few lowly olive trees. Well may they skulk! For these are the Todas and Veddahs, the aboriginals of Monte Carlo, who peopled its sunny slopes ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... was an overgrown wilderness of vegetation, for the one gardener, realising the impossibility of doing the work of the six who would have been required to keep the place in order, resigned himself to doing nothing at all, or as little as was compatible with the ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... when ascending to the top of a somewhat lofty mound, could see no signs of pursuers in the vast stretch of desert behind him. In front, the ground was already becoming dotted here and there with vegetation, and he doubted not that after a few hours' ride he should be fairly in the confines of cultivated country. He gave his camel a meal of dates, and having eaten some himself, again set the creature in motion. These camels, ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Saddles and bits. The Courier. Leather clothes. The Serape. The Rag-fair of Mexico, Thieves. Gourd water-bottles. Ploughing. Travelling by Diligence. Indian carriers. Mules. Breakfast. Bragadoccio. Robbers. Escort. Cuernavaca. Tropical Vegetation. Sugar-cane. Temisco. Sugar-hacienda. Indian labourers. The evensong. The Raya. Strength of the Indians. Xochicalco. Ruins of the Pyramid. Sculptures. Common ornaments. The people of Mexico and Central America. Their civilization. ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... all this evidence of elaborate syncretism, this practical identification of all the Mystery-gods with the Vegetation deity Adonis-Attis, we are confronted in the concluding paragraph, after stating that "the True Gate is Jesus the Blessed," with this astounding claim, from the pen of the latest redactor, "And of all men we alone are Christians, accomplishing the Mystery at ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... leap, swells, wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed; glancing down into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep and emerald clear, and seeing there wilder and stranger and huger vegetation than is found on land, with treasure of shells—some green, some purple, some pearly—clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry. Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall, pale thing—shaped like man, but made of ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... it had been at the time of their first visit. The rank Carboniferous vegetation, intensely, vividly green, was motionless in the still, hot, heavy air; the living nightmares inhabiting that primitive world were lying in the cooler depths of the jungle, sheltered from the torrid rays of ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... ever marshy, notwithstanding the insupportable heat, disappears beneath an inextricable mass of creepers, ferns, and tufted reeds, of a freshness and vigor of vegetation almost incredible, reaching nearly to the top of the ajoupa, which lies hid like a ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... it a stiffish climb up out of the valley of the Jonte. By the time he had managed it, the sun had already robbed all vegetation of its ephemeral jewellery, the Causse itself showed few signs of a downpour which had drenched it for seventy-two hours on end. To that porous limestone formation water in whatever quantity is as beer to a boche. Only, if one paused ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... with eyes dilated and with quickening spirit, half afraid, half enraptured. The feeling that I experienced in the presence of these unfamiliar things was one of reflection rather than of astonishment. I knew that the bright green vegetation closing in about me was every where in no less measure than in the heart of this forest, and emotions, sad and weird and vague took possession of me and affrighted but fascinated me. That I might remain hidden ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti |
