"Whalebone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could better describe the macrocephalous cachalot, which is sometimes more than seventy-five feet long. Its enormous head occupies one-third of its entire body. Better armed than the whale, whose upper jaw is furnished only with whalebone, it is supplied with twenty-five large tusks, about eight inches long, cylindrical and conical at the top, each weighing two pounds. It is in the upper part of this enormous head, in great cavities divided by cartilages, that is to be found from six to eight hundred pounds ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... people about him seemed more like strangers than those he had passed in the street. He stood in the doorway, studying the petty manoeuvres of the women and the resigned amenities of their partners. Was it possible that these were his friends? These mincing women, all paint and dye and whalebone, these apathetic men who looked as much alike as the figures that children cut out of a folded sheet of paper? Was it to live among such puppets that he had sold his soul? What had any of these people done that was noble, exceptional, distinguished? Who knew them by name ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... breeches apparently buttoned closely at the knee, but in reality they were loose enough to enable a finger and thumb to be passed between them and the stocking, and in the lining of the breeches was a pocket in which the cards had been placed, being held there by two pieces of whalebone, that closed the pocket. The searchers, among whom were Dick and Boldero, did not have it all their own way; four or five men rushed upon them, and endeavored to pull them off Emerson. The din of voices was prodigious, but Mark, still standing on the table, stilled ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... that's a whalebone whale, Hank?" asked the boy, turning to a lithe Yankee sea-dog with a scraggy gray beard who had been busily working over ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... through ten years of self-imposed privation. India-rubber was now seen to be capable of being adapted to at least five hundred uses. It could be made "as pliable as kid, tougher than ox-hide, as elastic as whalebone, or as rigid as flint." But, as too often happens, his great discovery enriched neither Goodyear nor his family. It soon gave employment to sixty thousand artisans, and annually produced articles in this country alone worth ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... with hinges, which permitted it to fold together in a small compass, so that more than two persons might sit on one seat of a coach—a feat not easily performed, when ladies were encompassed with whalebone hoops of six feet extent. My curiosity was excited by the first sight of this machine, probably more than another child's might have been, because previous agreeable associations had given me some taste for mechanics, which was still a little further increased by the pleasure I took in examining ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... between the King and Queen; the head only becoming the King's property, and the tail the Queen's. The reason of this whimsical distinction, as assigned by our ancient records, was to furnish the Queen's wardrobe with whalebone. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... needs go sometimes to buy whalebone, and other trifles which I must have for my business here. So I just go and come ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... a stronger man, but he left much to be desired. He had too much whalebone in his composition, not enough steel, but ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... inquisitorial etiquette. It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries since the time of the great Anne of Austria. The sagacious and prudent provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra of royal female policy. A cargo of whalebone was yearly obtained by her to construct such stays for the Maids of Honour as might adequately conceal the Court accidents which generally—poor ladies!—befell them in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... dignity. The music ceased, and Sancho seated himself at the head of the table, for there was only that seat placed, and no more than one cover laid. A personage, who it appeared afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by his side with a whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a fine white cloth covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of different sorts; one who looked like a student said grace, and a page put a laced bib on Sancho, while another ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... think of grace, either imitated or learned (I would willingly call it theatrical grace, or the grace of the dancing-master). It is the pendant of that sort of beauty which a woman seeks from her toilet-table, reinforced with rouge, white paint, false ringlets, pads, and whalebone. Imitative grace is to true grace what beauty of toilet is to architectonic beauty. One and the other could act in absolutely the same manner upon the senses badly exercised, as the original of which they wish to be the imitation; and at times even, if much art is put into it, they might ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... her stay in Vienna, the French ambassador, who had fallen a victim to her charms, became so madly jealous of the Portuguese minister, that he drew his sword on Catarina upon one occasion, and had it not been for her whalebone bodice she would have lost her life. As it was, she received a slight scratch, which calmed the enraged diplomat and brought him to his knees. She would pardon him only on condition that he would present her with his sword, on which were to ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Spoon-bill. So called from the construction of the bill, which is flat the whole length, but widens towards the end in the form of a spoon or spatula; and is equally remarkable in its substance, not being hard like bone, but flexible like whalebone. They feed on snakes, worms, frogs, and fish, even on shell-fish, which they first break with ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... them, and promised to get liberty to come on board in the evening, for some curiosities, etc. Accordingly, as soon as we were knocked off in the evening and had got supper, we obtained leave, took a boat, and went aboard and spent an hour or two. They gave us pieces of whalebone, and the teeth and other parts of curious sea animals, and we exchanged books with them—a practice very common among ships in foreign ports, by which you get rid of the books you have read and re-read, and a supply of new ones in their ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... time that Mary completed the fifth year of her age, her father removed to a small distance from his former habitation, and took a farm near the Whalebone upon Epping Forest, a little way out of the Chelmsford road. In Michaelmas 1765, he once more changed his residence, and occupied a convenient house behind the town of Barking in Essex, eight miles from London. In this situation some of their nearest neighbours were, Bamber Gascoyne, ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... greatest diameter would not reach ten feet. His snout was long and pointed, while both top and bottom of his head were nearly flat. When he came up to breathe, which he did out of the top of his head, he showed us that, instead of teeth, he had a narrow fringe of baleen (whalebone) all around his upper jaws, although "I kaint see whyfor, kase he lib on all sort er fish, s'long's dey ain't too big. I serpose w'en he kaint get nary fish he do de same ez de 'bowhead'—go er siftin eout dem little tings we calls whale-feed wiv ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... were almost confined to the genus Delphinus, or the common Porpoise of our coasts. I repeated all his dissections, and found them, as they almost always were, scrupulously exact; but when I came to examine Cetacea with whalebone instead of teeth, I was surprised to find how different, in fact, the anatomy of the two great families was. Scarcely in any great natural family do we find Cuvier's favourite theory of anatomical and physiological co-relations so entirely at fault as in the Cetacea. The teeth or whalebone, ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... Meri, n. (pronounced merry), a Maori war-club; a casse-te^te, or a war-axe, from a foot to eighteen inches in length, and made of any suitable hard material—stone, hard wood, whalebone. To many people out of New Zealand the word is only known as the name of a little trinket of greenstone (q.v.) made in imitation of the New Zealand weapon in miniature, mounted in gold or silver, and used ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... interview by the brooklet. He looked much less like an author,—but more perhaps like a perch-fisher. He had a new white hat, stuck on one side of his head, a new green overcoat, new gray trousers, and new boots. In his hand was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle. Nothing could be more vagrant, devil-me-Garish, and, to use a slang word, tigerish, than his whole air. Yet, vulgar as was his costume, he did not himself seem vulgar, but rather eccentric, lawless,—something out of the pale of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a little hook. the nostrils, which commence near the head are long, narrow, connected, and parallel with the beak; the beak is much curved, the curvature being upwards in stead of downwards as is common with most birds; the substance of the beak precisely resembles whalebone at a little distance, and is quite as flexable as that substance their note resembles that of the grey plover, tho is reather louder and more varied, their habits appear also to be the same, with this difference; that it sometimes rests on the water and swims which I do not recollect ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... waist began to be made very full round the hips, by means of large padded rolls, and these were still more enlarged, under the name of vertugadins (corrupted from vertu-gardiens), by a monstrous arrangement of padded whalebone and steel, which subsequently became the ridiculous paniers, which were worn almost down to the commencement of the present century; and the fashion seems likely to come into ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... nearly destroyed the mammals that live in the ocean. Among them are the whales, which were once numerous in the arctic regions. Few whaling ships now arrive with profitable cargoes of oil or whalebone. The sea otter, the fur of which is more highly prized than that of any other animal, and the walrus, valuable for its oil, ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... who handles the cloth. Some mechanics like a stiff cloth, but the writer has always used a flexible cloth. The sizes, shape, and methods of folding and breaking in as shown in Fig. 21 below have proved successful. Cloths made of whalebone ticking are inexpensive and make the best ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... once. I was gone from home that time more than three years. When we came back, we had our large ship all full of oil and whalebone. We got the oil and the whalebone out of the whales which we had caught. Whales, you know, are very large fish. They sometimes get two or three hundred barrels of ...
— Jack Mason, The Old Sailor • Theodore Thinker
... band of metal or a stiff piece of whalebone be fixed at one end in a vice, and then sharply pulled to one side and suddenly let go, a sound results. The same effect is produced when a tight cord or small rope is plucked at and then suddenly released. ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... about a blue cotton umbrella, though there may have been under it at times and seasons. Skeletons of the species, much faded as to color, much weakened as to whalebone, may still be found here and there in backwoods settlements, where they are known as "umbrells;" there are but few ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... why it shouldn't. You're as tough as a piece of whalebone, and a little nick like that can't put you on the retired list. Sit down here—I've got a few ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... thunder by shaking one of the lower corners of a large thin sheet of copper suspended by a chain; the distant firing of signals of distress he imitated by striking, suddenly, a large tambourine with a sponge affixed to a whalebone spring—- the reverberations of the sponge producing a curious echo, as from cloud to cloud, dying away in the distance. The rushing sound of the waves was effected by turning round and round an octagonal pasteboard box, fitted with shelves, and containing small ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... scene. Among those ancestral people there is a young man, dressed in the very fashion of to-day: he wears a dark frock-coat, almost destitute of skirts, gray pantaloons, gaiter boots of patent leather, and has a finely wrought gold chain across his breast, and a little silver-headed whalebone stick in his hand. Were we to meet this figure at noonday, we should greet him as young Jaffrey Pyncheon, the Judge's only surviving child, who has been spending the last two years in foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow hither? If dead, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... two or three inches from their hair), made of diamonds, pearls, red, green, and yellow stones, that it certainly requires as much art and experience to carry the load upright, as to dance upon May-day with the garland. Their whalebone petticoats outdo ours by several yards circumference, and cover ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and iron. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... appearance of the Maltese women, whose national dress is at once nunlike and coquettish. A black petticoat envelopes the form from the waist, and over that is thrown a singular veil, gathered into a hood, and kept out with a piece of whalebone. This covering, which is called the faldetta, is capable of many arrangements, and is generally disposed so as to "keep one eye free to do its worst of witchery." When one of the poorer classes is enabled to clothe herself in a veil and petticoat of silk, she considers that she has ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... which old fabrics of this kind exhibit. She wore a stomacher. On her wrinkled fingers appeared some rings of great size and seeming value; but, what was most remarkable, she wore also a satin hood of a peculiar shape. It was glossy like the gown, but seemed to be stiffened either by whalebone or some other material. Her age seemed considerable, and the face, though not unpleasant, was somewhat hard and severe and indented with minute wrinkles. I confess that so entirely was my attention ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the ornamental drawings with which the picture was surrounded. They consisted of whip handles, canes, piano keys, mouth-pieces for wind instruments, all sorts of umbrellas, and many more things, of every sort, made of cane and whalebone. The arrangement was so ingenious, the designs so fanciful, and the execution so good, that nothing could be prettier. But what of course was of the most importance, was the face and head that they were meant to ornament. ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... to be near enough to see what is termed "an exciting finish," one's general conception of the manliness of racing may be modified. From afar off the movement of the jockeys' whip-hands is no more suggestive than the movement of a windmill's sails; but, when one hears the "flack, flack" of the whalebone and sees the wales rise on the dainty skin of the immature horse, one does not feel quite joyous or manly. I have seen a long lean creature reach back with his right leg and keep on jobbing with the spur for nearly four ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... or beautiful women, dragons, horses, monsters of various kinds, the symbol of the sun, or huge Chinese characters. Among the faces most frequently seen on these kites are those of the national heroes or heroines. Some of the kites are six feet square. Many of them have a thin tense ribbon of whalebone at the top of the kite which vibrates in the wind, making a loud humming noise. The boys frequently name their kites Genji or Heiki, and each contestant endeavors to destroy that of his rival. For this purpose the string for ten or twenty feet near the kite end is first covered ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... waistband a small battle-axe, and handed it up to Hereward. It was a tool the like of which in shape Hereward had seldom seen, and never its equal in beauty. The handle was some fifteen inches long, made of thick strips of black whalebone, curiously bound with silver, and butted with narwhal ivory. This handle was evidently the work of some cunning Norseman of old. But who was the maker of the blade? It was some eight inches long, with a ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Ben surrounded by tools, scraps of wood and whalebone, bits of brass and tin, etcetera, busy as bees, and as happy as any two children who ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... authority was that he would be obeyed, but because it would not do to let little people see the mischief that was going on abroad. So, while boys had their hair powdered, and wore long coats and waistcoats, and little knee-breeches, and girls were laced tight in stays all stiff with whalebone, they were trained to manners more formal than are ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... usual place for rips Our gloves are stitched with special care, And guarded well the whalebone tips ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... 23d the weary but still energetic travelers started off again. After having gone round the foot of the mountain, they crossed the long prairies where the grass seemed made of whalebone. It was a tangle of darts, a medley of sharp little sticks, and a path had to be cut through either with the hatchet ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... identical with epidermis, hair, wool, feathers, and whalebone, in yielding 'keratin,' a substance intermediate between albumin and gelatine, and containing from 60 to 80 ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... thrust his fist into his mouth, as Mynheer put him down upon the floor. Soon he sat erect, and looked with a sweet scowl at the company. With his lace and embroideries, and his crown of blue ribbon and whalebone (for he was not quite past the tumbling age), he looked like the king ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... true, none will deny, for the evidence is before us. Now fix your attention on that needle. There is an active and acting principle in that as well as in the magnetized blade; for the blade will not attract a splinter of wood, of whalebone, or piece of glass, tho equal in size and weight. It will have no operation on them. Then it is by a sort of mutual affinity, a reciprocity of attachment, between the blade and needle, ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... innocent gaiety which belongs to rural and to primitive manners. In person this emperor was tall and dignified (statura elevata decorus;) but latterly he stooped; to remedy which defect, that he might discharge his public part with the more decorum, he wore stays. [Footnote: In default of whalebone, one is curious to know of what they were made:—thin tablets of the linden-tree, it appears, were the best materials which the Augustus of that day could command.] Of his other personal habits little is recorded, except that, early in the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once and a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back into his wigwam. During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the craft, and as often I asked about ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... had tender whalebone ribs and a slender stick of cherry-wood. It lived with the wilful child in the white-house, just beyond the third milestone. All about the trees were green, and the flowers grew tall; in the pond behind the willows the ducks swam ...
— Very Short Stories and Verses For Children • Mrs. W. K. Clifford
... the same date, the green silk calash,—that funniest and quaintest of all New England feminine headgear,—a great sunshade that could not be called a bonnet, always made of bright green silk shirred on strong lengths of rattan or whalebone, and extendible after the fashion of a chaise top. It could be drawn out over the face by a little green ribbon or "bridle" that was fastened to the extreme front at the top; or it could be pushed in a close-gathered mass on the back of the head These ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... retained a guide overnight, Henri Renaud by name, and he appeared punctually at eight o'clock in the morning, got up in the short-tail coat of the country, and a large green umbrella with mighty ribs of whalebone. The weather was extremely unpleasant, a cold pitiless rain rendering all attempts at protection unavailing; but, fortunately, the glaciere is only an hour and a quarter from the village. The path is ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... fishery in vessels fitted for cruises of moderate length had its origin in Europe, where the Basques during the Middle Ages fairly drove the animals from the Bay of Biscay, which had long swarmed with them. Not a prolific breeder, the whales soon showed the effect of Europe's eagerness for oil, whalebone and ambergris, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century the industry was on the verge of extinction. Then began that search for a sea passage to India north of the continents of Europe and America, which I have described in another chapter. The ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... were, indeed, those of the footman, and the mystery of the death-chamber began to grow lighter, for it was evident that for some reason he had entered the room in the night. For no good mission, certainly, a short whalebone-handled life-preserver hanging by a twisted thong ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... and dart a harpoon into or lance him. The reason for this immunity of primary attack by boats is that the finback is in the first place of little value when compared to either the humpback or "right" whale, for the coating of blubber is thin, and the plates of baleen (or whalebone) he possesses are very short; and in the second place he is, although so timid a creature, too dangerous to be struck with a harpoon, for he would take the entire whale-line out of three or four boats and ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... out of a piece of whalebone, and did very well without him. We had reached that exciting scene where Gesler, the Austrian tyrant, commands Tell to shoot the apple from his son's head. Pepper Whitcomb, who played all the juvenile and ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... wave swept her from head to foot, causing her body, untrammelled by whalebone, to tremble against his, and he loosened the white cloak and let it fall, holding her pressed to him in her thin silk dress, laughing down at her, delighting in her eyes, her ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... clearly did not. But Miss Wollaston herself, if she hadn't been more or less rigidly laced, stayed, gartered, pinched, pried and pulled about; if she could have moved freely in any direction without an admonitory—"take care"—from some bit of whalebone somewhere, wouldn't have felt dressed at all. There ought to be something perpetually penitential about clothes. The biblical story of the fall of man made that clear, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... and other streams near London, when he was not fishing the Itchen, or Shawford Brook. The Angler's Vade Mecum recommends eighteen-feet rods: preferring a fir butt, fashioned by the arrow-maker, a hazel top, and a tip of whalebone. This authority, even more than Walton, deals in mysterious 'Oyntments' of gum ivy, horse-leek, asafoetida, man's fat, cat's fat, powdered skulls, and grave earth. A ghoulish body is the angler of the Vade Mecum. He recommends up-stream fishing, with worm, in ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... not meet with barbarous natives, but only with vestiges of their former presence. It was not until the twelfth century that, in roaming the icy deserts of the far north in quest of seals and bearskins, the Norse hunters encountered tribes of Eskimo using stone knives and whalebone arrow-heads;[273] and it was not until the fourteenth century that we hear of their getting into a war with these people. In 1349 the West Bygd was attacked and destroyed by Eskimos; in 1379 they invaded the East Bygd and wrought sad havoc; and it is generally believed that some ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... never used, and there the komatiks are wider and shorter with runners of not much more than half the thickness, and as you go south the komatiks continue to grow wider and shorter. In the south, too, hoop iron or whalebone is used ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... in bed for three weeks; flat on her back as much as possible, which was terribly irksome to her, since her strength and vitality were coming back so fast. The irksomeness was added to by a horrible harness largely of whalebone. Rose got the notion, too, that the purpose of all this was not quite wholly hygienic. Harriet had said once: "You know the most distinguished thing about you, Rose, dear—about your looks, I mean—is that ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a pleasant savour of food. It resounds with the dull rumble of cruising drays, which bear the names of well-known brands of groceries; it is faintly salted by an aroma of the docks. One sees great signs announcing cocoanut and whalebone or such unusual wares; there is a fine tang of coffee in the air round about the corner of Beach Street. Here is that vast, massy brick edifice, the New York Central freight station, built 1868, which gives an impression ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... galled me, yet I loved him like a brother, and wept as much as would have filled an ink bottle when at last he went off to Edinburgh to study his father's profession. Five years after that did I tide at Birtwhistle's, and when I left had become cock myself, for I was wiry and as tough as whalebone, though I never ran to weight and sinew like my great predecessor. It was in Jubilee Year that I left Birtwhistle's, and then for three years I stayed at home learning the ways of the cattle; but still the ships and the armies were wrestling, and still the great ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not more than twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep and twenty swine, and the little that he ploughed he ploughed with horses. But their wealth consists mostly in the rent paid them by the Fins. That rent is in skins of animals and birds' feathers, and whalebone, and in ship-ropes made of whales'[26] hides, and of seals'. Every one pays according to his birth; the best-born, it is said, pay the skins of fifteen martens, and five rein-deers, and one bear's skin, ten ambers of feathers, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... Lawrence, there may be seen disporting in the waves the white whale of aquariums, which is not a whale at all, but a true porpoise (Delphinopterus Catodon, as he is now called by naturalists), having teeth in the jaws, and being destitute of the fringed bone of the whalebone whales. This interesting creature is very abundant in the Arctic Ocean on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides, and has its southern limits in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, although one is occasionally seen in the Bay of Fundy, and it is ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... should strike at once, as they will reap an immediate harvest; they may sell their manufactures for any price they please to ask, they will get in payment tobacco, rice, indigo, deerskins, furs, wheat, flour, iron, beeswax, lumber, fish, oil, whalebone, pot and pearl ashes, and various other articles, and, if they please, here is an ample field to employ their shipping, and raise seamen for ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... hunters had noticed small human tracks, but never could see any one. At last several men were scattered all over the island, and Charlie Brown was the first to discover her. He thought at first it was only a black crow sitting on a whalebone. I give his version, as his language is far more picturesque and vivid than my paraphrase ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... he answered. "I'm all rawhide and whalebone, and it isn't in you to hurt me. Confound you, I'll get you at something or other yet. Want to ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... seem inclined to break it. Hamish had caught up a bit of whalebone, which happened to be lying on the drawers, and was twisting it about in his fingers, glancing at Arthur from time to time. Arthur leaned against the chimneypiece, his hands in his pockets, and, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the Americans knew how to make and use harpoons. As many as twenty. eight different kinds are known.[73] In some the barbs are bilateral, but most of them have them on one side only. Some, however, are made of stag or elk horn, and one harpoon from Maine is made of whalebone. A harpoon-point found near Detroit (Michigan) is nearly a foot long by one inch thick. Excavations in a rock shelter in Alaska yielded a harpoon which lay side by side with some of the most ancient Quaternary mammals of America. ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... head and hid all but a few tufts of her frizzled, "pepper-and-salt" locks, was evidently a contribution from the family stock of worn-out pillow-cases. She was very aged—upward of seventy—and so thin that, had she not been endowed with speech and motion, she might have passed for a bundle of whalebone thrown into human shape, and covered with a coating of gutta-percha. It was evident she had been a valued house-servant, whose few remaining years were being soothed and solaced by the kind and indulgent ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... jeered new ribaldry, until some one suddenly shot out from behind Cunningham, and before he had recovered from his surprise he saw the fakir sprawling on his back, howling for mercy, while Mahommed Gunga beat the blood out of him with a whalebone riding-whip. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... he made no attempt to take the reins. Victoria had drawn the whalebone whip from its socket, and was urging on the horse as fast as humanity would permit; and the while she was aware that Hilary's look was fixed upon her—in fact, never left her. Once or twice, in spite of her anxiety to get him home, Victoria blushed faintly, as she ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... she taunted, "try it, try it. I'd slip through your fingers like oil. It's no good to flash your over-sized man-muscles on me; I'm made of whip-cord and whalebone. Do you get that?" ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... small tail to jackets hitherto tail-less; my collars, which had been wont, spaniel-like, to flap and fall about my neck, now, terrier-wise, stood erect and rampant, encompassed with a circumvallation of whalebone, buckram, and black silk. I was, in truth, nearly seventeen, and I gave myself the airs of a man. Now, be it observed that that crisis in adolescent existence wherein we first pass from Master Sisty into Mr. Pisistratus, or Pisistratus Caxton, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete. Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up. He represents the Strong. Look ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... suspected stricture, and to aid in the detection of foreign bodies. Various forms are employed, of which the most generally useful are the round-pointed gum-elastic or silk-web bougie, and the olive-headed metal bougie, consisting of a flexible whalebone stem, to which one of a graduated series of aluminium or steel bulbs is screwed. For some purposes, such as pushing onward an impacted bolus of food, the sponge probang—which consists of a small round sponge fixed on a whalebone stem—is to ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... purchase a towline; he took with him 1000 cash (about two shillings), and returned with a coil 100 yards in length and 600 cash of change. The rope he brought was made of plaited bamboo, was as thick as the middle finger, and as tough as whalebone. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... most certain that a woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of outworks and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge's way of making love in a tub as in the midst ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Exhibition Prize Goat's-head Crochet Cotton. No. 4 Penelope Hook; 1 long strip of Whalebone; 1 yard of Satin Ribbon 1 inch in width. 2 yards ditto, 2 or ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown
... blue" which is today so cherished a link with the past, and for the lacquer cabinets and carved ivory which give distinction to many a New England home. Meanwhile the sturdy whalers of New Bedford scoured the whole ocean for sperm oil and whalebone, and the incidents of their self-reliant three-year cruises acquainted them with nearly every coral and volcanic isle. Early in the century missionaries also began to brave the languor of these oases of leisure and the ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... their produce. Also, in course of trade, spermaceti oil and salt-fish may be supplied to Prussia and Germany as cheap, or cheaper from the Colonies, than from Holland and Germany. The United Colonies exported to Europe chiefly, indeed, to Great Britain, fish-oil, whalebone, spermaceti, furs, and peltry of every kind, masts, spars, and timber, pot and pearl ashes, flax-seed, beef, pork, butter and cheese, horses and oxen; to the West Indies chiefly, wheat-flour, bread, rye, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... may appear, Miss Wimple's Hoop was a shaved-whalebone fact; and the quilted petticoat would never have been missed, but for the officious scrutiny of the eyes, and the provoking prating of the tongues, of a sophisticated few who marvelled greatly at the pliancy and the "perfect set" of Miss Wimple's Alboni,—"and that demure little prig, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... in pretty colors—some green, some blue, and pretty colors. And it was strong cloth, too. Times got so hard during de war dat de white folks had to use de cloth woven by hand, themselves. De ladies would wear bustles, and hoops made out of oak. Old times, they'd make underbodies with whalebone in it. There was something they'd put over the hoop they call, 'Follow me, boy'. Used to wear the skirts long, with them long trains that trail behind you. You'd take and tuck it up behind on some little hook or something they had to fasten it up to. And the little ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... all this?" gasps Mr. MCLAUGHLIN, struggling affrightedly in his suffocating cage of whalebone and alpaca. "What's this here old lady's hoop-skirt ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... carrying off a respectable young lady, whose flaxen curls lay lovingly over the dreadful shoulders of the beast, which, with ludicrous failure, endeavored to caress the pallid face of the young lady with his hairy jaws, stiff with padding and whalebone, and nicely ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Whalebone is not bone, nor does it possess any properties of bone. It is a substance attached to the upper jaw of the whale, and serves to strain the water which the ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... ill luck, advanced to me, and demanded that I should either lay the newspaper aside or quit the room. I very promptly declined to do either, when he snatched the paper from my hands, and instantly drew his sword. I was unarmed, with the exception of a good sized whalebone cane, but my anger was so great that I at once sprung at the scamp, who at the instant made a pass at me. I warded the thrust as well as I could, but did not avoid getting nicely pricked in the left ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... heiress of Gawthorpe, to whom he had been recently united. In his attire, even when habited for the chase or a merry-making, like the present, the Knight of Whalley affected a sombre colour, and ordinarily wore a quilted doublet of black silk, immense trunk hose of the same material, stiffened with whalebone, puffed out well-wadded sleeves, falling bands, for he eschewed the ruff as savouring of vanity, boots of black flexible leather, ascending to the hose, and armed with spurs with gigantic rowels, a round-crowned small-brimmed black hat, with an ostrich feather placed in the side ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... woman" at Worsley [a "happy woman" was the term used by me from my childhood to describe a woman on horseback], and, as sometimes happens, had even too much of my happiness. My friend Lady Francis is made of whalebone and india-rubber in equal proportions, very neatly and elegantly fastened together with the finest steel springs, and is incapable of fatigue from ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the seal so successfully, is hunted in turn for the sake of his thick soft fur, and often falls a victim both to white men and Esquimaux. The latter sometimes kill him by rolling a thick piece of whalebone, about two feet long and four inches wide, into a small coil, and wrapping it in a piece of seal blubber so that it forms a ball. Placed outside the hut, it soon freezes hard. Provided with this frozen bait, the natives search ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as fast as they might, and proceed over the fields in a fierce crawl of destruction, like an army of locusts, and finally they begun to wax impatient. And finally up rose that termagant, Mistress Longman, straightening her back with a spring as if it were whalebone, showing us her face shameless with rage, and stained green with tobacco juice, and here and there red with blood, for she had slashed ruthlessly. She flung back her coarse tangle of hair, threw up her arms with a wild hurrahing motion, and screamed out in ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... recover herself. She stood up and brushed herself, remarking: "By jove, that parachute cloak of yours is a great dodge. I wish I'd thought of it. I always keep my full-dress togs put away, like the ass that I am. A stitch or two, and a few lengths of whalebone ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... same costume as Marie Antoinette and her female favourites are described to have worn in the gardens of Trianon, or in the bowers of St. Cloud,—to the horror of all old dames d'atours, and all the partisans of the ancient regime of whalebone and buckram! The chemise of transparent muslin, or robe a la Poliynae, chapeau de paille a la bergere, tied down with a lilac ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... a tree a score of long, blunt thorns, tough and black as whalebone, and drove them through a strip of wood in which I had burnt a row of holes to receive them, and made myself a comb, and combed out my long, tangled hair to improve ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... this don't beat all natur, I give it up! What are you made of, young man, all spring and whalebone? I'd a bet he would 'a cleaned out a school-house full o' such dainty book chaps. I give it up. Let me feel o' you," taking Bart good-naturedly by the shoulder. "You'll do, by——. My Valdy said that when Grid gathered himself up the first ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... out of the breast pocket of his faded jumper. It was the tip of a cow's horn securely plugged. Into this plug were inserted two strips of whalebone, and these he grasped, as he had clutched the "legs" of the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... and long bushed tails; we found a bone in the pizels of their dogs. Then we went farther and found two sleds made like ours in England. The one was made of fir, spruce, and oaken boards, sawn like inch boards; the other was made all of whalebone, and there hung on the tops of the sleds three heads of beasts which they had killed. We saw here larks, ravens, ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... years, the manufacture of whips was the most important business in Amherst. It gave employment to several persons and furnished the means of support to ten or twelve families. The purchases of ivory, whalebone, and other raw material, were usually made from first hands and in such quantities as often gave the firm control of the market; while in the style and workmanship of their handmade ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... be constructed of a pasteboard box and whalebone, for the capture of small birds, and used with good success. The size we have mentioned is adaptable for rabbits and animals of the same size, but is really larger than necessary ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... renounce all kind of occupation during the navigation of these rivers, might bring some particular garment from Europe in the form of a bag, under which they could remain covered, opening it only every half-hour. This bag should be distended by whalebone hoops, for a close mask and gloves would be perfectly insupportable. Sleeping on the ground, on skins, or in hammocks, we could not make use of mosquito-curtains (toldos) while on the Orinoco. The toldo is useful only where it forms a tent so well closed around the bed ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... whale is one of the most wonderful animals in the world, and the baleen, or whalebone, one of its greatest peculiarities. The baleen consists of a row, on each side of the upper jaw, of about 300 plates or laminae, which stand close together transversely to the longer axis of the mouth. Within the main row there are some subsidiary rows. The extremities ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... of France had but to change the position of a ribbon to set all the ribbons in Christendom to rustling. A single word from her convulsed the whalebone market of the ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... reindeer, With sheep and swine beside; I have tribute from the Finns, Whalebone and reindeer-skins, And ropes ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the man," and even more is woman dependent upon her clothes for physical, moral, and intellectual support. An uncorseted body will soon make its influence felt upon the mind. The steel-and-whalebone spine which properly reinforces all feminine vertebra is literally the backbone of a ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... under man's feet, that all things are in subjection to man—the fish of the sea, and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea. For even the great whale cannot stand before the cunning of man—God has taught man the means of killing even it, and turning it to his own use. The whalebone which we use, the oil which we burn in lamps, comes from the bodies of those enormous creatures which wander in the far seas like floating houses, ten ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... writes Caudle, "I fell asleep; and dreamt that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs; that, in fact, the whole world turned round under a ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... waiting and quivering grievously, and beginning to sweat about it. Then her master gave a shrill, clear whistle, when her ears were bent towards him, and I felt her form beneath me gathering up like whalebone, and her hind legs coming under her, and I knew that I ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... morning long pieces of sacred history and grammar to learn. Josefina retired to a corner and made desperate efforts to commit them to memory. A little before the dinner hour Concha, who was deputed for the task, took a chair, drew out the famous whalebone, and with that in one hand, and the book in the other, she commenced her pedagogic functions. Every time the child hesitated or forgot a word, it cost her a blow from the whalebone on her face, hand, or neck; and as her memory was not very ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... be cracked; the former being much more necessary to a horsewoman than the latter. The crop should therefore be of a serviceable length. It is the very silly fashion at present to have hunting whips that are less than two feet long. Many are made of whalebone, and are covered with catgut, their special advantage being that their flexibility greatly facilitates the process of cracking. A more serviceable crop for a lady is one of stiff cane, the thick end of ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her jib—boom bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts whipping about like a couple of fishing—rods, as she thrashed at it, sending the spray flashing over her mastheads at every pitch; but notwithstanding her weatherly qualities, the heavy cross sea, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... ocean night, there were forty-one vessels, of a total tonnage of 9,257 tons, registered in New South Wales, employed in the fishery. In the same year twenty-two vessels arrived in Sydney from the various grounds, their cargoes of whalebone, sealskins, and sperm and black oil valuing altogether about L150,000. Now the whaling trade in Southern Seas is represented by two or three small and poorly equipped ships from Hobart, though the whales—sperm, right, and humpback—are again as plentiful as they were in the first years of the ...
— The Beginning Of The Sea Story Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... grass or bristles. On each shoulder was a wide strip of black, bordered with whitish bands; and the tail, which was full three feet long, was clothed with a thick growth of coarse hair, several inches in length, that looked like strips of whalebone. This was carried aloft, and curving over the back. But the most curious feature of the animal was ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... a sack, That hides the outline of her back, I cry, in sore distress, "Alack!" She showed a dainty waist when dressed In jacket; true, the size confessed That whalebone had its shape compressed. Still was her form sweet as her face, But now what change has taken place! This "sack coat" hides all maiden grace. Although men's clothes are always vile, The coat, the trousers and the "tile"! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... "I'll back whalebone against Spanish flies any day. Will you bet, Dick?" said he to his brother-in-law, who was a wild, helter-skelter sort of fellow, better known over the country as Dick the Divil than ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... were at home. We entered, and I gave a curious and somewhat fearful glance round the place. The shop was set out partly with umbrellas and partly with shoes, but everything seemed dirty and in confusion. Shoe-lasts, umbrella-sticks, and a large quantity of whalebone, were lying in heaps about the floor, while in one corner stood a large pan of dirty water in which they soaked the leather, and which, not being often changed, sent forth a most unpleasant smell; the floor did not appear as if it was ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... a rag-bag in his hand, was picking up a number of small pieces of whalebone, which lay on the street. The deposit was of such a singular nature, that we asked the quaint-looking gatherer how he supposed they came there? "Don't know," he replied, in a squeaking voice; "but I s'pect some unfortunate ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... the window; she turned her eyes to the sky; and in the end she retired for a time to her own chamber, and returned shortly after, dressed for going out, with a short black cloak, richly trimmed, cast over her shoulders, and a silk hood, stiffened with whalebone and deeply fringed with lace, covering her head and the greatest ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... only twenty head of cattle, twenty sheep, and twenty swine; and what little land he had in tillage was ploughed by horses. The principal wealth of the Norman chiefs in that country consisted in tribute exacted from the Fins; being paid in skins of wild beasts, feathers, whalebone, cables and ropes for ships, made from the hides of whales or seals. Every one pays in proportion to his substance: the wealthiest paying the skins of fifteen martins, five rein-deer skins, and one bear-skin, a coat or cloak made of bear-skin ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... intention. The site of the fire was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the furze having burnt completely away. Once within the circle he whirled her round and round in a dance. She was a woman noisily constructed; in addition to her enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore pattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her boots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with her, the clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams of surprise, formed a ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... man of gunpowder, steel, whalebone, and gutta-percha! I positively have nothing but guesses to give you. Besides, do you think you have nothing to do but rush into Alice's arms when you find her? Take some valerian to quiet your nerves, and go to bed. In the morning, try to smooth over those sharp features ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... shouts rent the air. "Hurra, my lads, hurra! we've killed our first fish well," shouted the excited chief mate, who had likewise had the honour of being the first to strike the first fish. "She's above eleven feet if she's an inch," (speaking of the length of the longest lamina of whalebone); "she'll prove a good prize, that she will." He was right. I believe that one fish filled forty-seven butts with blubber—enough, in days of yore, I have heard, to have repaid the whole expense of ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... talked of buying a whalebone-and-steel-and-snow bull terrier, or a more formidable if more greedy Great Dane. But the Mistress wanted a collie. So they ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... stores. I received only four dollars a week; but, as our rent was small and our living expenses the very minimum, I was able to meet my half of the joint expenditure. I worked four months at selling pins and needles and thread and whalebone and a thousand and one other things to be found in a well-stocked notion department; and then, by a stroke of good luck and Minnie Plympton's assistance, I got a place as demonstrator of a new brand of tea and coffee in the grocery department of the same "emporium." ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... does well enough. He can't be taught right, for it would be too bad to use Greenland whip; but I make this little one, and can drive very well;" and as he spoke, he held up a wand of supple whalebone, tipped with a slender "snapper" of plaited leather, and lightly touching the noble animal with the harmless implement, the dog gave a playful bark, and started ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the whalebone whale which was cast ashore at North Berwick last year, and whose measurement so far exceeds the ordinary dimensions of animated nature as positively to require to be seen before being believed, is now in course of preparation, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... three strips of lime-tree, two of which are stained black. Whalebone purfling has been frequently used, particularly by the old ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... moderately stiff whalebone bristles may be passed gently over the hair several times during the day, to brush out the dust and the dandruff, and to keep the hair smooth, soft, and clean; rough and hard brushing the hair with brushes having very stiff bristles in them, especially ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... have hitherto given you an Account of our Diversion on ordinary Club-Nights; but must acquaint you farther, that once a Month we demolish a Prude, that is, we get some queer formal Creature in among us, and unrig her in an Instant. Our last Months Prude was so armed and fortified in Whalebone and Buckram that we had much ado to come at her; but you would have died with laughing to have seen how the sober awkward Thing looked when she was forced out of her Intrenchments. In short, Sir, 'tis impossible to give you a true ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... here to describe my personal appearance on this important day, when, for the first time, I posed as a great chief, and led my people into battle, filled with the same enthusiasm that animated them. My hair was built up on strips of whalebone to a height of nearly two feet from my head, and was decorated with black and white cockatoo feathers. My face, which had now become very dark from exposure to the sun, was decorated in four colours—yellow, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... by the same process employed upon her face; happily, for the sake of exhibiting her magnificent laces, she partially veiled the charms of these chemical products. She always wore the body of her dress stiffened with whalebone and made in a long point and garnished with knots of ribbon, even on the point! Her petticoats gave forth a creaking noise,—so much did the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... where she sat down. The schooner was at the time under the two gaff-top-sails, the main boom and sheets eased off a little, those long masts, with the sticks above them running clear away up the sky, almost out of sight, bending like whalebone, and reeling over the long swell when the breeze freshened; and not a sound to be heard save now and then a light creak from the main boom as the broad white sail strained flat and taut over to leeward, or the rush ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... your waist could be harmful? Listen, dear, and I will tell you. Let us take the corset and examine it. It certainly looks very innocent and pretty, but just see how stiff it is. These steel ribs and this whalebone make it more like a piece of harness than anything else I can think of. When worn about the waist, it produces pressure upon the vital organs and thus deforms the body. These long strings at the back are often drawn so tightly as to ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... As for Bildad, he carried about with him a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... party had gone into the steerage to examine some of those curious specimens of whalebone work, in the fabrication of which whalemen employ so much patience and time, during their long and often unsuccessful voyages. As Isabella and Morton stood together by the cabin table, the lady opened a bible that was lying there, and seemed ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... went over the same river which we now pass at Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which we now call Hainault Forest, came into that which is now the great road, a little on this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so called because the rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in the River Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwell died, 1658, was fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... discovered a fine yellow petticoat, beautifully edged round the bottom with a narrow piece of half gold lace which was now almost become fringe: beneath this appeared another petticoat stiffened with whalebone, vulgarly called a hoop, which hung six inches at least below the other; and under this again appeared an under-garment of that colour which Ovid intends ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... are there no cases in which, as implied by the recapitulation theory, variations in any organ are confined to the period in which the organ is functional and do not affect it in the embryonic stages? The teeth of the whalebone whales may be cited as a case in which this is said to occur; but here the teeth are only imperfectly developed in the embryo and are soon absorbed. They have been affected by the change which has produced their disappearance in the adult, but not to complete extinction. Nor are they now likely to ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... valuable uses. The wild cattle of South America are slaughtered by millions for their hides and hairs; the buffalo of North America for his skin or his tongue; the elephant, the walrus, and the narwhal for their tusks; the cetacen, and some other marine animals, for their whalebone and oil; the ostrich and other large birds, for their plumage. Within a few years, sheep have been killed in New England, by whole flocks, for their pelts and suet alone, the flesh being thrown away; and it is even said that the bodies of the same quadrupeds have been used in Australia as fuel ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... fish-like, the hind-limbs are wanting, the fore-limbs are converted into powerful "flippers" or swimming-paddles, and the terminal extremity of the body is furnished with a horizontal, tail-fin. Many existing Cetaceans (such as the Whalebone Whales) have no true teeth; but others (Dolphins, Porpoises, Sperm Whales) possess simple conical teeth. In strata of Eocene age, however, we find a singular group of Whales, constituting the genus Zeuglodon (fig. 228), in which the teeth differed from those of all existing forms in being ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... there are monkeys, which have no thumbs for use, but only rudimental thumb-bones hid beneath the skin; the wingless bird of New Zealand (Apteryx) has wing-bones similarly developed, which serve no purpose; young whalebone whales are born with teeth that never cut the gums, and are afterwards absorbed; and some sheep have horns turned about their ears which fulfill no end. And inasmuch as there are some organisms in nature which serve no purpose of utility, it is argued there ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... their price did not cease to fall until they had entirely disappeared. But, if a person wishes to have one made to-day for a masquerade, for the stage, etc., he would pay as much for it as its former price. On the other hand, the price of whalebone has never been again as high as it was in the time when hooped petticoats ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... you, Bub," commented Pike, "the minute she sees you commence to open the cook kit she is rustling for firewood. That little devil is made of whalebone for toughness. Why, even the burros are played out, but she is fresh as a daisy after a half ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... other bore, and which the face of the woman possessed in a yet more remarkable degree. For the rest, he wore drab breeches, with certain strings at the knee, a rather gay waistcoat, and tolerably white shirt; under his arm he bore a mighty whip of whalebone with a brass knob, and upon his head was a hat without either top ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... any teeth,—our branch of the family; and we live on creatures so small, that you could only see them with a microscope. Yes, you may stare; but it's true, my dear. The roofs of our mouths are made of whalebone, in broad pieces from six to eight feet long, arranged one against the other; so they make an immense sieve. The tongue, which makes about five barrels of oil, lies below, like a cushion of white satin. When ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... divided into the Denticete, or Toothed Whales, and the Mysticete, or Whalebone Whales. The former contains the river dolphins, the ziphoid whales, the gigantic sperm whale, the sea dolphins, and the narwhal or sea unicorn. The latter contains the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... projecting muscular development; the back very slightly arched, and not sloping too suddenly towards the tail, which should be set up tolerably high. This ought to be thick and long, the end well furnished with a double fringe of very long thick hairs or whalebone-looking bristles. The legs should be short in proportion to the height of the animal, but immensely thick, and the upper- portion above the knee ought to exhibit enormous muscle. The knees should be well ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... his ribs the whalebone stung, A madness it did seem! And soon it rose on every tongue That Jack Macpherson rode among ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Honourable John into this fashionable frock-coat, there was a hardness about it which made me wonder whether his tailor had stitched into it several strips of buckram, or cleverly inserted beneath the collar, and down the breast, a piece of flexible whalebone. Whatever it was that gave this part of his coat its rigidity, I dismissed it from my mind with the thought that the Honourable John was a greater fop than either Syd ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... leviathan, of fifty or sixty feet in length, which boasts of a mouth big enough to hold a jollyboat and crew, who would doubtless find their quarters exceedingly uncomfortable on account of the forest of whalebone hanging down from the roof, the white whale cannot keep under water long without coming up to breathe; but the one Johannes had so cleverly struck nearly carried out the whole of the line, which Steve watched darting out ring by ring over the bows, ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... assigned, (as good as could be given,) for their admixture, in the composition of brass." "A lady's parasol, and a gentleman's watch were described in the same manner. The ivory knob, the brass crampet, the bamboo, the whalebone, the silk, were no sooner adverted to, than they were scientifically described. When their attention was called to the seals of the gentleman's watch, they immediately said, 'These are of pure, and those of jeweller's gold,' ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... broad beavers to keep the rain out of their necks, faring not a jot the worse for it. Umbrellas are only fit for men-milliners, Cockney travellers, and women. The nature of a hat, we flatter ourselves, is something independent of cotton and whalebone; and instead of the umbrella claiming precedence over the hat, the hat, we take it, should be above the umbrella. An Englishman's hat, then, should be something that will keep the rain off his face and neck when the weather is bad, and shield his eyes from the glare of the sun on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... stumbled over a child, a girl about five, crawling on her hands and knees. He picked her up. She bit and thrashed and tore at him, her bare little body hard as whalebone and slippery with sweat. He could not hold onto her. She kicked herself free of his hands and rushed wildly out of reach, and one of the black hunters pounced in and bore her away, shrieking thinly like a fledgling bird in the jaws of ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... over the coins with the business-like air of people satisfied that they are getting its full equivalent. Consequently I am not much astonished when, rounding Seraglio Point, my companion calls my attention to several large sections of whalebone suspended on the wall facing the water, and tells me that they are placed there by the fishermen, who believe them to be a talisman of no small efficacy in keeping the Bosphorus well supplied with fish, they firmly adhering to the story that once, when the bones were ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... regularity, but seldom without drawing blood in many places, and occasioning some inflammation. Where so large a portion of the surface of the body is to be covered, it must become a painful as well as tedious process, especially as, for want of needles, they often use a strip of whalebone as a substitute. For those parts where a needle cannot conveniently be passed under the skin they use the method by puncture, which is common in other countries, and by which our seamen frequently mark their hands and arms. Several of the men were marked on the back part ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... old whale laughed so violently that he coughed up all the creatures; who swam away again very thankful at having escaped out of that terrible whalebone net of his, from which bourne no traveller returns; and Tom went ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... oncet in fifty years, if it was ever done at all, for the English brag so there is no telling right. Old Clay can do his mile in two minutes and thirty-eight seconds. He has done that, and I guess he could do more. I have got a car, that is as light as whalebone, and I'll bet to do it with wheels and drive myself. I'll go in up to the handle, on Old Clay. I have a hundred thousand dollars of hard cash made in the colonies, I'll go half of it on the old hoss, hang me if I don't, and I'll make ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... than himself with the lovely Gabrielli. His suspicions being confirmed at one of his visits, he drew his sword in a transport of rage, and all that saved the operatic stage one of its most brilliant lights was the whalebone bodice, which broke the point of the furious Frenchman's rapier. The sight of the bleeding beauty—for she received a slight scratch—brought the diplomat to his senses. Falling on his knees, he poured forth his remorse in passionate self-reproaches, but ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... because they have been driven from their old grounds by the noise of firearms. The bows, four feet long, are very stout, and strongly reinforced with cords of sinew along the back. The arrows, a little under a yard in length, are tipped with a well-polished piece of whalebone. A sharp and barbed piece of whale's tooth fits into a hole bored in the end of the bone, and a cord of considerable length is tied to the detachable arrow head, the other end of the cord being wound around and fastened to the middle ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... such a shock was stout SIR CALIPEE, But he couched his new umbrella, and "Police" aloud cried he! Crash—smash—slap-dash! The whalebone snaps, the saddle seat is bare, And the Knight, in mazy circles, is ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... three horses, one in the shafts, and one on each side. The postillion had ridden on the one on the driving side; he was a little punch fellow, and in a pair of boots like fire-buckets. The travellers consisted of an old French lady and gentleman; Madame in a high crimped cap, and stiff long whalebone stays. Monsieur informed me very courteously of the cause of the accident, whilst Madame alternately curtsied to me and menaced and scolded the postillion. The French postillions, indeed, are the most intolerable set of beings. They never hesitate to get off their horses, suffer ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... having doubled himself up, like people passing on a coach top under a low gateway, that it would be utterly impossible to remain long in that position, unless the human back were as pliable as a piece of whalebone. After all, perhaps, the bearers are compelled to rest the palanquin on the ground, and the abashed stranger, creeping hastily in, is glad to escape from the ill suppressed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... whale can be flensed, as the operation of taking off the fat and whalebone is called, some preliminary measures are requisite. These consist in securing the whale to the boat, cutting away the attached whale-lines, lashing the fins together, and towing it to the ship. Some curious ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... countenances of our fellow-travellers. Gentlemen who had lounged on sofas, and balanced themselves in chairs, all the way from Philadelphia, with all the conscious fascinations of stiff stays and neck-cloths, which, while doing to death the rash beauties who ventured to gaze, seemed but a whalebone panoply to guard the wearer, these pretty youths so guarded from without, so sweetly at peace within, now crushed beneath their armour, looked more like victims on the wheel, than dandies armed for conquest; their ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope |
