"Viscid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ozokerite, sold as beeswax, and of a white purified form, which had been treated by sulphuric acid. Specimens from Utah had already been shown before the Academy. There was no mystery as to its genesis in either region, as it had been shown to be the result of inspissation of a thick and viscid variety of petroleum. The term "petroleum" includes a great variety of substances, from a limpid liquid, too light to burn, to one that is thick and tarry. These differ widely also in chemical composition: some yielding much asphalt by distillation, resembling a solution of asphalt in turpentine; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... first appeared had now, owing to there being but a minor degree of phosphorus in the brackish water, given place to a dulled, sickly, greenish reflection, accentuated however by thin, vivid streaks, caused by the exudation from the gills of a streaming, viscid matter, common to some species of sharks, and giving it a truly terrifying and horrible appearance. Presently a couple of natives, taking careful aim, fired at the creature's head; in an instant it darted off with extraordinary velocity, rushing through the water ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... commence making their nests in February, laying their eggs in March. The nests are in cavities of trees, at no great height from the ground, and unless observed in course of construction are difficult to find—the bird filling the whole cavity up with mud consolidated with some viscid seed of a parasitical plant, and merely leaving a small round hole for entrance. This composition hardens like pucca masonry in a very short time, and secures the nest from all marauders except the oologist. The nest consists of a few dry leaves at the bottom of the cavity at no great depth, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... nor under-done. If baked too little, the bread will be heavy, clammy, and unwholesome: if too much, its strength and goodness will be consumed. In general, bread should not be eaten hot; it is then more viscid, and harder of digestion. Bread is in its best state the first and second day after it is baked. Economical bread, or bread of an inferior quality, depraved by other mixtures, has frequently been recommended to poor ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... rapidly spread to all the muscles of deglutition and respiration, so that the patient not only has the greatest difficulty in swallowing, but has a constant sense of impending suffocation. To add to his distress, a copious secretion of viscid saliva fills his mouth. Any voluntary effort, as well as all forms of external stimuli, only serve to aggravate the spasms which are always induced by the attempt to swallow fluid, or even by ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... here being united into a distinct part known as the column. The pollen is, moreover, peculiar, being collected into more or less compact masses, and variously concealed in the flower. Some of these are club-shaped, with a viscid extremity, others of the consistency of a sticking-plaster, and all are hidden from external view in pouches and pockets, from which they never emerge unless withdrawn on the body of an insect. The various devices ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... the Queensland Upas-tree, "Ahm-moo" of the blacks (PISONIA BRUNONIANA), which are produced on spreading leafless panicles, exude a remarkably viscid substance, approaching bird-lime in consistency and evil effect. Sad is the fate of any bird which, blundering in its flight, happens to strike against any of the many traps which the tree in unconscious malignity hangs out on every side. In such event the seed clings to ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... skipping about over the surface with pitchforks, turning their victims as the cook turns her frying crullers in the sputtering fat, it would not much astonish you. This liquid is rather thick and viscid, but it is boiling furiously. Great masses of it are thrown up forty or fifty feet, and fall with a crash like that of the surf upon the shore. Livid jets are thrown up many feet high against the sides and drip back, cooling ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... laid hold of it, Lanyard dropped the garment in sheer surprise to find it damp and heavy in his grasp, sodden with viscid moisture. And when, in a swift flash of intuition, he examined his fingers, he discovered them discoloured ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... know, it is said, by what means the structureless viscid substance which we call protoplasm can build for itself a solid bone; we do not understand how an amoeba makes its test; no one understands how anything is done unless he can do it himself; and even then he probably ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Flowers infus'd in Vinegar, grateful both to the Stomach and Taste; attenuate thick and viscid Humours; and tho' the Leaves are somewhat rank of Smell, and so not commendable in Sallet; they are otherwise (as indeed is the intire Shrub) of the most sovereign Vertue; and the spring Buds and tender Leaves, excellently wholsome in Pottage ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... "which bore leaves and flowers widely different from the normal form." "The abnormal leaf is much less {378} divided, and not acuminated. The petals are considerably larger, and quite entire. There is also in the fresh state a conspicuous, large, oblong gland, full of a viscid secretion, on the back of each ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... seedling may be shown in fine flour. [1]"The flour is to be moistened in the hand and kneaded until it becomes a homogeneous mass. Upon this mass pour some pure water and wash out all the white powder until nothing is left except a viscid lump of gluten. This is the part of the crushed wheat-grains which very closely resembles in its composition the flesh of animals. The white powder washed away is nearly pure wheat-starch. Of course the other ingredients, such as the mineral matter and the like, might be referred ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... with a beleaguering of steeps and broken levels under a blockade of stark hardship. Peaks stood naked save for their evergreens, alternately wrapped in snow and viscid with mud. Morning disclosed the highways "all spewed up with frost" and noon found them impassably mired. Night brought from the forests the sharp frost-cracking of the beeches like the pop of small guns, and in wayside stores ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Main, where now, through the colonnades of its warehouse supports, the vistas are empty. Once you had to squeeze sideways through the stacked merchandise. There were huge hogsheads of sugar and hillocks of coconuts. Molasses and honey escaped to spread a viscid carpet which held your feet. The casual prodigality of it expanded the mind. Certainly this earth must be a big and cheerful place if it could spread its treasures thus wide and deep in a public place under the sky. It corrected the impression got from the retail shops ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... so!" He held the blade out for our inspection. The point was covered with some viscid-looking matter. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... with careless compassion in his deep, viscid voice. "If it's a short war, there'll be another war. You English will never leave it alone. So that whatever happens, if I take up explosives, I ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... storax and liquidambar. Balsam of Peru is the produce of a lofty leguminous tree, Myroxylon Pereirae, growing within a limited area in San Salvador, Central America and introduced into Ceylon. It is a thick, viscid oleo-resin of a deep brown or black colour and a fragrant balsamic odour. It is used in perfumery. Though contained in the pharmacopeias it has no special medicinal virtues. Balsam of Tolu is produced from Myroxylon ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... grew, did flourish most luxuriantly; so that I am scarce correct when I speak of life as being extinct in that land. For, indeed, now I think of it, I can remember that the very mud from which it sprang seemed veritably to have a fat, sluggish life of its own, so rich and viscid was it. ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... mustachios, which are full, perform that office; for if I stroke them but with my gloves or handkerchief, the smell will not out a whole day; they manifest where I have been, and the close, luscious, devouring, viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age left a sweetness upon my lips for several hours after. And yet I have ever found myself little subject to epidemic diseases, that are caught, either ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... yard, the process was found to be impracticable. The insect possesses silk of two colours, silver-grey and yellow; one is used for the foundation-lines of the web, and the other for the interlacing threads. The silk is drawn by the spider from its four spinnerets, and issues from them in a soft, viscid state, but it hardens by exposure to the air. If a web is examined with a magnifying-glass, it will be seen that its threads are closely studded with minute globules of gum, which is so sticky that flies caught in the web are held in this kind of birdlime until the ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... cavities which communicate with the air. The nostrils, the mouth, and the stomach afford examples. The external surface of this membrane, or that which is exposed to the air, is soft, and bears some resemblance to the downy rind of a peach. It is covered by a viscid fluid called mu'cus. This is secreted by small gland-cells, called ep-i-the'li-a, or secretory cells of the mucous membrane. The use of this membrane and its secreted mucus is to protect the inner surface of ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... fuselage. With the caps removed, a hose was inserted by Paul, and then John forced the gasoline up by a small but powerful handpump until the gauge told that the required additional twenty gallons were in. The same pump would work with the oil also, and soon the viscid fluid had been transferred from the storage can on the hangar floor to its proper tank in the airplane. Thence it would feed itself up into the carbureter of the working engine by a force-pump attached to the engine, ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... at the brink of the bottomless caldron of viscid muck and gazed out across the deadly plain. Bill stood still beside her, watching her face with eager, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... half-an-inch of those cells which were filled with the calcareous powder, and they did not contain an atom of free lime. It is obvious that the lava and lime have on a large scale been very imperfectly mingled; and where small portions of the lime have been entangled within a piece of the viscid lava, the cause of their now occupying, in the form of a powder or of a fibrous reticulation, the vesicular cavities, is, I think, evidently due to the confined gases having most readily expanded at the points where the incoherent ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... the south the young shoots are often sold in bundles as a salad. (Some writers give the name of Lady Fern, not to the Bracken, but to the Asplenium filix foemina, because of its delicate and graceful foliage.) The Bracken has branched riblets, and is more viscid, mucilaginous, and diuretic, than ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... there is always a possibility that overheating may occur in the centre of the masses, due to the baking of the exterior, even if the generator is fitted with a reaction grid. Manifestly, when carbide in lumps of reasonable size is dropped into excess of water which is not merely a thick viscid cream of lime, the temperature cannot possibly exceed the boiling-point—i.e., 100 deg. C.—provided always the natural convection currents of the water are ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... coal-digger, and inhales this noxious air,[6] there is ever after a manifest irritation in the lining membrane of the respiratory passages, which is apparent before carbon in any quantity can be supposed to be lodged in the lungs. The mucous membrane of the air passages, by its continually pouring out a viscid fluid, has the power of removing any foreign matter that may be lodged in them. Now, should this membrane, owing to previous irritation, lose to a certain degree this secretory power, then the foreign body adheres to it, and is retained, and this, I think, constitutes the preparatory ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... was probably the material procured from wine lees (dregs), deposited after fermentation has commenced, and which after considerable application of heat yields not only most of the tannin contained in the stones and fruit stalks, but a viscid compound characteristic of gelatine and of a red-purple color which in course ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... single layer of minute bubbles, nearly uniform in size, arranged in regular circles concentric with the axis of the structure. The beautiful, glistening whiteness of the object when the sun shines upon it makes it very conspicuous. The bubbles were slightly viscid, and in nearly every case there was a small fly pressed into the front end of the balloon, apparently as food for the Empis. In all cases they were dead. The balloon appears to be made while the insect is flying ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... so across the North Sea, past an island he calls Thule; his further progress, he asserted, was hindered by a barrier of a peculiar nature,—neither earth, air, nor sky, but a compound of all three, forming a thick viscid substance which it was impossible to penetrate. Now, whether this same Thule was one of the Shetland Islands, and the impassable substance merely a fog,—or Iceland, and the barricade beyond, a wall of ice, it is impossible to say. Probably Pythias did not get beyond the ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... the dilatation produced by the freezing of infiltrated moisture in the mass of snow; others accounting for it entirely by weight and pressure. There is yet a third class, who, disregarding the real properties of ice, would have us believe, that, because tar, for instance, is viscid when it moves, therefore ice is viscid because it moves. We shall see hereafter that the phenomena exhibited in the onward movement of glaciers are far more diversified than has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... naturally begins to freeze on the surface, the lava at first becoming viscid, much in the manner of cream on the surface of milk. Urged along by the more fluid lava underneath, this viscid coating takes a ropy or corrugated form. As the freezing goes deeper, a firm stone roof may be formed across the gorge, which, when the current of lava ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... in which LIFE is manifested is in a viscid gelatinous substance without colour or form, called Protoplasm. Wherever there is life there is protoplasm. Protoplasm, as before remarked, lies just under the bark in trees, and is the material from which the growth of the wood and bark cells and ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... the albumen, without the application of heat. This I have found in practice to be incorrect: for when I have excited albumenized paper, to which a sufficient heat has not been applied, I have invariably observed that a portion of the albumen becomes detached into the silver solution, making it viscid, and favouring its decomposition. Consequently, the sheets last excited seldom retain their colour so long as those which are first prepared. But even laying aside the question of the coagulation of the albumen, the paper, unless it is ironed, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... mildness looked a little more alert, and the pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was constitutionally mild, she was not de natura pensive; she had too much of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humor called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of pensiveness really spoilt her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. The same remark might ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... by a viscid watery secretion from the mucous glands, which are always found in the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... pitted tissue, some of which measure a line and half across; they form the whole inner face of each woody zone. When boiling water is poured over shavings of this wood a clear jelly, resembling tragacanth, is formed and becomes a thick viscid mass; iodine stains it brown, but not a trace of starch is indicated in it. No doubt the nutritious quality of the tree is owing to the mucilage, which is apparently of the same nature as that of the nearly allied Tragacanth tree ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... to his room after dinner in order to be alone with his soul, and at every step his soul seemed to sigh; at every step his soul mounted with his feet, sighing in the ascent, through a region of viscid gloom. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... it is fit for use as silk; for it must be remembered that with the spider, as with the silk-worm, the silk is formed and contained in little bags or glands in the abdomen, not as threads, but as a very viscid gum. This passes in little tubes or ducts to the spinners, through minute openings, in which it is drawn out into filaments, uniting and drying instantly in the air, and so forming the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... adjoining injected and apparent pustular parts. Tonsils ulcerated, and their investing membrane mostly destroyed. The oesophagus immediately below the glottis, smooth and sound. Yellowish matter flowing from the glottis. On opening the larynx, it was found half filled with a viscid light olive-coloured fluid; on removing which, the whole lining membrane, down to the bifurcation of the trachea, was found covered with clusters of ulcerated pustules of a yellow colour, with the intervening spaces of a brownish-red, highly injected, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... increasing the intensity of gravity tenfold in his laboratory. All the conditions of life would be modified to the extent of being unrecognizable. A living being borne in this space would remain small and squat. All objects would be stocky and be spread out in width or else be shattered. Viscid or semi-solid bodies, such as pitch, would rapidly spread out and take on a surface as plane and smooth as water under the conditions of gravity upon the earth. On still further increasing the gravity, we would see the soft metals behaving ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... is capable of protrusion till it exceeds in length the whole body of the creature. No sooner does an incautious fly venture within reach than the extremity of this treacherous weapon is disclosed, broad and cuneiform, and covered with a viscid fluid; and this, extended to its full length, is darted at its prey with an unerring aim, and redrawn within the jaws with a rapidity that renders ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... is used internally in dysentery. In India they use, for diarrhoea and vomiting, the viscid juice obtained from the petioles and the peduncles of the flowers. The rootstock contains a large quantity of starch which has been utilized for food in the periods of famine which have desolated India and Egypt. This flower was the Sacred Lotus of the Egyptians and the ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... or three times the first day, if practicable, useful specimens may be prepared, especially if a few notes be made as to colour, etc. The more important notes are as to the colour of the stem and pileus, together with any peculiarities of the surface, e.g., whether it be dry, viscid, downy, scaly, etc., and whether the flesh of the pileus be thin or otherwise; as to the stem, whether hollow or solid; as to the gills, whether they are attached to the stem or free; and especially what is their colour and that of the spores. It is not in general ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke |
