"Driest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he would not have found the title a misleading one and that he had been defrauded of his money. But with his singular fawn-like face and clear eyes on his listener it was impossible to fall asleep, or even to let the attention wander; and incidentally even in his driest discourse there were little bright touches which one would not ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... interest in any anatomical study surely lies in a consideration of the function of the organ or structure in relation to its anatomical form. Bare descriptions cannot and should not inspire interest, whereas the driest anatomical facts, if seen in their broader relationships, at once assume a significance in the student's mind which may be ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... coast of Jutland; while the small island of Anholt in the Cattegat has an annual rainfall of only 15.78 in. More than half the rainfall occurs from July to November, the wettest month being September, with an average of 2.95 in.; the driest month is April, with an average of 1.14 in. Thunderstorms are frequent in the summer. South-westerly winds prevail from January to March, and from September to the end of the year. In April the east wind, which is particularly searching, is predominant, while ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... of the voyage. For want of metallic sheathing below the waterline the ship was liable to be sunk by the terrible worm which, in Hakluyt's phrase, "many times pearceth and eateth through the strongest oake." For want of vegetable food in the larder, or anything save the driest of bread and beef stiffened with brine, the sailors were sure to be attacked by scurvy, and in a very long voyage the crew was deemed fortunate that did not lose half its number from that foul disease. Often in traversing ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... the neighbourhood were collecting branches and brushwood under the oak trees; the largest and driest they could find they carried into the village, and piled them up in a heap, and set them on fire; and men and maids danced, singing in a circle round ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... arms and seated her on the highest and driest of the tombs, then sat beside her. He kept his arm about her, but he did not kiss her. "Come now," he said, "let us have it out. We must not quarrel. I humble myself to the dust. I vow to be a saint. I will not exchange two consecutive sentences ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... rescues Irene. Crowds of the common people rush in, wildly asking one another what the row is about; Raimondo, the pope's legate, comes on, and in the name of holy mother church begs for peace; Rienzi, waked by this time, sees what has occurred, and in a speech—uttered mainly in the driest of dry recitative—taunts the patricians with their bad conduct and their reckless readiness to break all the vows they have made. The nobles announce their intention of going elsewhere to fight out their quarrel to the bitter end, and they go. Rienzi ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... saw in my newspaper an announcement that enraged me. It was made in the driest, most casual way, as though nobody would care a rap; and this did but whet the wrath I had in knowing that Adam Street, Adelphi, was to be undone. The Tivoli Music Hall, about to be demolished and built anew, was to have a frontage of thirty feet, if you please, in Adam Street. Why? Because ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... the coldest, windiest, highest, and driest continent; during summer more solar radiation reaches the surface at the South Pole than is received at the Equator in an equivalent ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... shall be the place of that man who has carried a corpse alone? Ahura Mazda answered: "It shall be the place on this earth wherein is least water and fewest plants, whereof the ground is the cleanest and the driest and the least passed through by flocks and herds, by the fire of Ahura Mazda, by the consecrated bundles of Baresma, and by the faithful." O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! How far from the fire? How far from the water? How far from the ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... in the island—one my little fortification or tent, with the wall about it, under the rock, with the cave behind me, which by this time I had enlarged into several apartments or caves, one within another. One of these, which was the driest and largest, and had a door out beyond my wall or fortification—that is to say, beyond where my wall joined to the rock—was all filled up with the large earthen pots of which I have given an account, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... well supplied with clean, soft running water, even in the driest of the season. There are no marshes, swamps, or bogs, no still water—not even a "puddle" for long—for the soil is of such a character, that surface water quickly filters away into the sands and mingles with the streams in the gulfs. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... there has been great error. Journals have usually consisted of the driest details, or exteriors of events. The young should be encouraged to record their feelings in them; their hopes and fears—their anticipations and their regrets—their joys and their sorrows—their repentances and their resolutions. Such journals, with old and young, could not fail to ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... the internal. Patients may visit Vichy, at any time; but the season suited to follow with success the course of treatment is from the 15th May till the beginning of October. The month of May is sometimes rainy. August and September are generally the driest months, and the most equable. The Vichy treatment lasts from 3 to 4 weeks. The waters are taken in the morning and during the day, and baths daily or every second day. For elderly people with sanguine and ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... sky; while those of the Courbaril and the Erythrina form, as they extend themselves, a thick vault of verdure. Plants of the family of Pothos with succulent stems, Oxalises, and Orchideae of a singular construction, rise in the driest clefts of the rocks; while creeping plants waving in the winds are interwoven in festoons before the opening of the cavern. We distinguished in these festoons a Bignonia of a violet blue, the purple Dolichos, and, for the first time, that ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... to this river took place at the close of a season which had been preceded by the driest one known since the occupation of the western coasts by Europeans. There was consequently but little fresh water in the bed of the river, and this only in small pools; but the breadth of its main channel ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... the lad arranged the heap, placing the dead leaves and the driest of the sticks at the bottom. On top he placed a mass of half green stuff, packing the whole down by throwing himself on the pile, after which he rounded it up in a mound shape, with a circle of stones in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... to be the driest and the wettest, in parts, of any country; and all its great rivers, except the Nile, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... he picked up some of the driest of the grass and palm leaves and applied a match to the stuff. It blazed up readily, and he threw the mass in with the other stuff about the ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... the south. The fall of Lemberg had given the German right a position far to the east of their left, and Mackensen advancing from Lublin and Cholm had driven the Russians across the Bug at Wlodawa before Brest-Litovsk was taken. The marshes of Pripet were at their driest in August, and Mackensen encountered few obstacles as he pressed on from Brest to Kobrin and thence to Pinsk along the rail to Moscow. In Galicia Ivanov was pushed back to the Strypa and then the Sereth, and on the upper reaches of those rivers Brody was captured and two of ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... nothing in the natural aspect of the mining belt to distinguish it from the rest of the Transvaal plateau. It is a high, dry, bare, scorched, and windy country, and Johannesburg, its centre, stands in one of the highest, driest, and windiest spots, on the south slope of the Witwatersrand ridge, whose top rises some 150 feet above the business quarters. Founded in 1886, the town has now a population exceeding 100,000, more than half of them whites. In 1896 the census (probably very imperfect) ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... late autumn of 1893, one of the driest years ever known, I went to the weir pool above the wood, and found the shepherd fishing. The river was lower than had ever been known or seen, and on the hills round the "dowsers" had been called in with their divining rods to ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... privileges by her love of system; for she knows that order was made for the family, and not the family for order. Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse or overlook. What the unwary disarrange she silently rectifies. Everybody in her sphere breathes easy, feels free; and the driest twig begins in her sunshine to put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her operations and movements, that none sees that it is she who holds all things in harmony; only, alas, when she is gone, how many things suddenly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Miltoun, was that your class is the driest and most practical in the State—it's odd if it doesn't save you from a poet's dreams. Good-night!" He passed out on to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... make vows of secrecy and protestations of zeal, but Lord Oldborough cut all that short with "Of course—of course," pronounced in the driest accent, and went on with, "Now, sir, you know my object; will you do me the honour to state yours?—you will excuse my abruptness—time in some circumstances is every thing—Do me and yourself the justice to say at once what return I can ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... which it has given name, and affords a public and commodious passage over a valley, which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance. The stream passing under it is called Cedar Creek: it is a water of James's River, and sufficient in the driest seasons to turn a grist mill, though its fountain is not more than ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... train to the grave have gone, And the waiting-women are here and are there, With birds at the windows and gleams of the sun Making the chamber of death to be fair. And under and over the mist unlaps, And ruby and amethyst burn through the gray, And driest bushes grow green with spray, And the dimpled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Courtney, sitting as rigidly at his desk as if he were in church, was handed the card of Morton Washer. He laid the card face down and placed a paper-weight on it, as if he feared it might get away. He turned a callous eye on his secretary and, in his driest and most husky tones, directed: "Tell Mr. Washer I will see him ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... heart's-ease of Europe; its proper colour an exquisitely clear purple in the upper petals, gradated into deep blue in the lower ones; the centre, gold. Not larger than a violet, but perfectly formed, and firmly set in all its petals. Able to live in the driest ground; beautiful in the coast sand-hills of Cumberland, following the wild geranium and burnet rose: and distinguished thus by its power of life, in waste and dry places, from the violet, which needs kindly ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... instantly of Lee Theresa Zapp quarreling with her mother, but he said nothing. He gathered the driest bits of thatch and wood he could find in the litter on the stable floor and kindled a fire, while she sat sullenly glaring at him, her face wrinkled and tired in the wan firelight. When the blaze was ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... Sasasquit; and about his business he went. He built the fire of sacrifice, piling it high with the driest trees of the forest, and he laid thereon the best offering he could procure—a fat fish from the river beside his cabin. He sung as before a song or invocation, in which he mentioned the wants of the wretched Indians, and the cunning endeavours of the Evil Spirit to keep them in his service, and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... on with an account of our journey. When we met with no habitations on our way, we were compelled to build sheds in the driest and most open spots we could find. At length, through an arched opening in the forest, the bright sheen of water caught our eyes, and hurrying on, we found ourselves standing on the bank of a stream, which opened up to us a watery highway ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mordecai's visionary excitability was hardly a reason for concluding beforehand that he was not worth listening to except for pity sake. Suppose he had introduced himself as one of the strictest reasoners. Do they form a body of men hitherto free from false conclusions and illusory speculations? The driest argument has its hallucinations, too hastily concluding that its net will now at last be large enough to hold the universe. Men may dream in demonstrations, and cut out an illusory world in the shape of axioms, definitions, and propositions, with ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... trout from the brook, and cooking them. Besides, we were far enough away from the river highway and from all habitations now to render the thing practically safe. Accordingly I lighted a small fire of the driest wood to be found, while the trapper stole up and down the brook, moving with infinite stealth and dexterity, tracking down fish and catching them with his ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... who surpasses yourself either in combining a love of the most romantic fiction with the coolest good sense, or in passing from the driest metaphysical questions to the heartiest enjoyment of humour,—I trust that even a modesty so true as yours will not grudge me the satisfaction of inscribing these ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... in any but the driest atmosphere, by its affinity for damp, and, consequently, often caused mildew in cases of birds, etc, into which it had been introduced. The fumes of sulphur during combustion are, on the contrary, really of service in destroying insect life, as evidenced in the fumigation of hospital ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... minimum. In the northern districts conditions are not so favourable as in the south, but even here dairying can be profitably carried on; the fact that land is much cheaper compensates for the shorter period during which the natural herbage supplies practically all the feed required. In some of the driest of our farming areas dairying has largely replaced wheat-growing, and, although the yield per cow is naturally not so high as under more favourable conditions, still low rents and large areas of natural pasture enable the farmer to make ...
— Australia The Dairy Country • Australia Department of External Affairs
... no reply. It was his manner, for he was the driest of men. That night when all had retired and I had been in bed some fifteen minutes I heard a knock at my door. I supposed it was some one of my friends who could not sleep ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... 20 degrees North of West might therefore be considered to express the common direction of these waters. In a country so liable to inundation as the district between these rivers appeared to be, it was a primary object with us to travel along the highest or driest part, and we could only look for this advantage in the above direction, or parallel to and midway between the rivers. We could in this manner trace out their junction with more certainty, and so terminate thus far the survey ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... down to rest on the coast of Zealand, near Borreby, where there stood the forest and the charming meadows. The young men from the neighbourhood assembled there, and collected brushwood and branches of trees, the largest and driest they could find. They carried them to the village, laid them in a heap, and set fire to it; then they and the village girls sang and danced ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... necessary to take up the most abstract of these questions of belief first, the metaphysical questions. It may be that to many readers the opening sections may seem the driest and least attractive. But I would ask them to begin at the beginning and read straight on, because much that follows this metaphysical book cannot be appreciated at its proper value without a grasp of ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... enters the throttle valve located in the highest part of the dome in order to get the driest steam, then passes through the standpipe and dry pipe out of the boiler to the steam pipe tee or nigger-head located in the front end, then through steam pipes to the steam chest. A steam valve in each steam chest distributes the steam so that it ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... leaves and dry sticks. Vincent had still in his pocket the newspaper he had bought in the streets of Nashville, and he always carried lights. A piece of the paper was crumpled up and lighted, a few of the driest leaves they could find dropped upon it, then a few twigs, until at last a good fire ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... law; until he could get the very commonplace but obstreperous moon into harmony with his law of falling bodies;—the story of Darwin, with his twenty-odd years of the most patient and persistent kind of toil; delving into the most unpromising materials, reading the driest books, always on the lookout for the facts that would point the way to the explanation of species;—the story of Morse and his bitter struggle against poverty, and sickness, and innumerable disappointments up to the time when, in advancing ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... its being seen on the mainland, as, if there were Lapps there, they might cross in their canoes to see who had made it. They had no trouble in collecting plenty of drift-wood along the shore, and carefully choosing the driest, so as to avoid making a great smoke, they lit a fire and erected the tent to leeward of it, so that the smoke might blow through it, and so keep out their enemies the mosquitoes. Godfrey's prediction about the weather was ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... our part would bring the whole structure down on our heads. Water was found not far off, and we soon had a fire, which blazed up cheerfully. Its warmth was very necessary, for it was bitterly cold and damp. I had brought with me a hammock made of twine; this I slung in the driest corner, and after supper I turned in and was soon asleep. The faculty of sleep is an immense comfort. A man may put it high up on the credit side in striking the balance of good and evil in ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... growing but no grass, not good for pasture nor for anything but one purpose which I didn't then suspect. Soon I found myself walking along a ditch which kept cutting me off from the hill, a ditch in the driest of sandy land and as deep as my chin, all shored up with cut poles, or sometimes with plank, or with bundles of twigs, or with willow basket work. And then I saw it ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... in his driest manner, a description of his recent visit to receive the accolade from the Queen. It was replete with the usual quaint Vicary details—such as the solemn warning whisper of an equerry in Vicary's ear as he walked backwards, 'Mind the ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... the world, And vile hands gather it? My song shall rise, Although none heed or hear it: rise it shall, And swell along the wastes of Nineveh And Babylon, until it reach to thee, Layard! who raisest cities from the dust, Who driest Lethe up amid her shades, And pourest a fresh stream on arid sands, And rescuest thrones and nations, fanes and gods, From conquering Time: he sees thee, and turns back. The weak and slow Power pushes past the wise, And lifts them up in triumph to her ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... who understand how to read and to read with ease, but to whom books—at any rate certain classes of books—are not interesting. Now interest in a subject may be so great that one will wade through the driest literature about it, but such interest belongs to the few—not to the many. I have come to the conclusion that more readers have had their interest killed or lessened by books than have had it aroused or stimulated. This is a proportion ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... and accompany us to the glacier in case we should need their help. Only three of the company, in the first place, availed themselves of this rare opportunity of meeting a glacier in the flesh,—Mr. Young, one of the doctors, and myself. Paddling to the nearest and driest-looking part of the moraine flat, we stepped ashore, but gladly wallowed back into the canoe; for the gray mineral mud, a paste made of fine-ground mountain meal kept unstable by the tides, at once began to take us in, swallowing us feet foremost with becoming glacial deliberation. Our next attempt, ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... wilderness of reedy sloughs, patched at intervals with ranges of bitter-weed, tufts of elbow-bushes, and broad reaches of saw-grass, stretching away to a bluish-green line of woods that closed the horizon, and imperfectly drained in the driest season by a slimy little bayou that continually vomited foul water into the sea. The point had been much discussed by geologists; it proved a godsend to United States surveyors weary of attempting to take observations among quagmires, moccasins, and arborescent weeds from ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... fro. The air seems traversed by incessant trails of smoke, so straight and rapid is the worker's flight. Those on the way to the nest carry tiny pellets of mortar, the size of small shot; those who return at once settle on the driest and hardest spots. Their whole body aquiver, they scrape with the tips of their mandibles and rake with their front tarsi to extract atoms of earth and grains of sand, which, rolled between their teeth, become impregnated with saliva and form a solid mass. The work ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... brought others a yield of fifteen or twenty bushels to the acre, Martin averaged thirty-three, without buying a ton of commercial fertilizer. His corn was higher than anybody's else; the ears longer, the stalks juicier, because of his careful, intelligent cultivating. In the driest season, it resisted the hot winds; this, he explained, was the result of his knowing how to prepare his seed bed and when to plant—moisture could be retained if the soil was handled scientifically. He bought the spoiled acreage of his neighbors, which he cut up for the silo—as yet the ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... and Resht on the north to the capital, is now Kazvin's sole importance. The road to Teheran was made some years ago at enormous expense by the Shah; but it has now, in true Persian style, been left to fall into decay. It is only in the finest and driest weather that the journey can be made on wheels, and this was naturally out of the question for us. A railway was mooted some time since along this, the only respectable carriage-road in Persia—but the project was ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... Horned Toads, because of their resemblance in the shape of their bodies to that of a toad and of their spiny scales which have the appearance of small horns. Their habitat is in the hottest and driest parts of the country. They are fond of the hottest sunlight and bury themselves in sand ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... than the atmosphere and yet derive no moisture from it; while at the same time the driest atmosphere is not devoid of moisture, but will part with it under ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... cover their light and inflammable dresses with the blankets of the party. So soon as this precaution was observed, the old man approached the opposite margin of the grass, which still environed them in a tall and dangerous circle, and selecting a handful of the driest of the herbage he placed it over the pan of his rifle. The light combustible kindled at the flash. Then he placed the little flame in a bed of the standing fog, and withdrawing from the spot to the centre of the ring, he patiently awaited ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and without looking at Harrigan: "There's plenty of it there. I made a little heap of the driest on the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Labrunie. It certainly would be difficult, from the same point of view of strict legality, to call anything of his exactly a novel. He was a poet, a dramatist, a voyage-and-travel writer, a bibliographer (strange trade, which associates the driest with the most "nectaweous" of men!) even sometimes a tale-teller by name, but even then hardly a novelist. Yet he managed to throw over the most unlikely material a novelish or at least a romantic character, which is sometimes—nay, very often—utterly ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... penetrated the canvas, and made it nearly as uncomfortable inside, as it would have been out. We were not prepared to catch water, having nothing to put it in. Our next object was to get fire, and after gathering some of the driest fuel to be found, and having a small piece of cotton wick-yarn, with flint and steel, we kindled a fire, which was never afterwards suffered to be extinguished. The night was very dark, but we found a piece of old rope, which when well lighted served ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... been offered, that you are invited to read every book in the Bible in the order in which it actually stands,—never, of course, skipping a chapter; much less a Book. In every mere catalogue of names, be resolved to find edification. Feel persuaded that details, seemingly the driest, are full of GOD. Remember that the difference between every syllable of Scripture and all other books in the world is, not a difference of degree, but of kind. All books but one, are human: that one ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... preserves and streams of humanity. He had lost all pleasure in his club; the most exciting themes of political life retained no piquancy for him. His old friends ceased to find any pleasure in him. He was become the driest of all dry wells. Poachers, and anglers, and Methodists, haunted the wretched purlieus of his fast fading-out mind, and he resolved to go to town no more. His whole nature was centered in his woods. He was forever on the watch; and when at Rockville again, if he heard a door clap when in ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... by the sign representing the victory of the Lion over the Bull, often abbreviated into that of the Lion alone, a sign plainly enough interpreted by the name "Month of Fire," so appropriate to the hottest and driest of seasons even in moderate climes—July-August. What makes this interpretation absolutely conclusive is the fact that in the symbolical imagery of all the poetry of the East, the Lion represents the principle of heat, of ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... a self-important air, "are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if ...
— Alice's Adventures Under Ground • Lewis Carroll
... mouse looked sharply at him. "How may I get to your house?" he asked. "We live in different elements, you and I. We mice want to be in the driest of dry places, while you frogs have your abodes in ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... who had not been dry for above thirty hours, or warm for a still longer period. Our eleven dogs were large, fine-looking animals, and an old one of peculiar sagacity was placed at their head by having a longer trace, so as to lead them over the safest and driest places, for these animals have a great dread of water. The leader was instant in obeying the voice of the driver, who did not beat, but repeatedly talked and called it by name. It was beautiful to observe the sledges racing to the same object, the dogs and men in full cry, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... branches of the castor-oil plant, and thence darts on grasshoppers and lizards. It is brightly coloured, but not so beautiful as the European species: in its flight, manners, and place of habitation, which is generally in the driest valley, there is also ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... windiest, highest (on average), and driest continent; during summer, more solar radiation reaches the surface at the South Pole than is received at the Equator in an equivalent ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... and that his breath was remarkably sweet. This was possibly caused by the hot and fiery constitution of his body; for sweet scents are produced, according to Theophrastus, by heat acting upon moisture. For this reason the hottest and driest regions of the earth produce the most aromatic perfumes, because the sun dries up that moisture which causes ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... extent. All around it was a black morass, of great extent, wooded with alders, among which green sedges grew, and sluggish streams meandered, and mossy tracts of verdure spread treacherously over deep bogs and sloughs. In the driest season of the summer the goats and the sheep penetrated into these recesses, but, excepting in the devious and tortuous path by which the cow-herd found his way to his island, it was almost ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... negress set to work collecting leaves and dry sticks. Vincent had still in his pocket the newspaper he had bought in the streets of Nashville, and he always carried lights. A piece of the paper was crumpled up and lighted, a few of the driest leaves that they could find dropped upon it, then a few twigs, until at last a good ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... more of Coleridge's opium and of Mill's blameless and energetic life. But this explains little. That Coleridge was a man of genius and, moreover, of exquisitely poetical genius, and that Mill was at most a man of remarkable talent and the driest and sternest of logicians is also obvious. It is even more to the purpose that Coleridge was overflowing with kindliness, though little able to turn goodwill to much effect; whereas Mill's morality took the form chiefly ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... a dense gloom, strongly pervaded by an odour of fungus and decaying onions. Groping into one of the casks, I found some straw, and spreading it on a piece of plank, I prepared to pass the night sitting with my back to the driest piece of wall I could find, which happened to be immediately under the airhole, a fortunate circumstance, as the closeness was often stifling. I had probably been dozing for some time in a sitting position, when I felt something tickle the top of my head. The ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... was again mild except for a short cold spell at the end of January, with plentiful precipitation up to the first week of June, and then a long drought with the driest July since 1944. However, the heavy rainfall of August, 8.69 inches,[19] made amends for this, and with the normal rainfall of 3.48 inches of September, prepared the trees to endure the long drought of October and early November. This serious drought,[20] which resulted in disastrous ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... country. The next camping place was in a sort of circular basin that had been cut out of the prairie by the floods, and was surrounded by high mud banks. He found plenty of drift in the eddy and picked out the driest; but experienced great difficulty in starting a fire with it. He only succeeded in getting sufficient heat to cook his supper; he was not able to coax enough blaze to warm himself. Night came down black as ink and he heard ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... for long, large, grown-up words; doubtless, in some measure, a result of my constant practice of reading grown-up people's books. It was a mere verbal memory, the driest of all the intellectual faculties. Scarcely a faint perfume of meaning lingered about the rattling piles of husks that I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... From the whole figure, attitude and countenance, there breathes something precise and decisive, something alert, wiry, and strong. You can understand, from the look of him, that sense, not so much of humour, as of what is grimmest and driest in pleasantry, which inspired his address before the fight at Camperdown. He had just overtaken the Dutch fleet under Admiral de Winter. "Gentlemen," says he, "you see a severe winter approaching; I have only to advise you ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his grave young fiancee seemed aware of any cause for mirth, but with Adela that was neither here nor there. She and Dot never had anything in common, and as for Fletcher Hill, he was the driest stick of a man she had ever met. But she was not going to be bored on that account. To give Adela her due, boredom was a malady from which ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... whilst laying, so that all the inhabitants on the banks may have an equal chance of procuring a supply of eggs. The natives collect from all quarters for this object. The turtles select the highest and driest banks composed of the finest sand, which will be a sufficient time above water to allow of the eggs being hatched by the heat of the sun. Some of these banks are of great extent—many miles long, and often one or more broad. They are ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... load in the snow, they felt their way between the trees, and then broke off some of the small branches for firewood. They got the driest ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... cold. It lays no bodily handicap on health and energy, as does the excessive heat of the Tropics. The coldest regions where tillage is possible are tolerable places of residence, because their winters are intensely dry. That of central Siberia, which is drier than the driest desert, makes tent life comfortable in the coldest season, provided the tenter be clad in furs. The low temperatures of the Canadian Northwest for the same reason have not repelled settlers even from ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... of this tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on its broad, fan-shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs down the grooved stalks of the plant into receptacles that cunning Nature has fashioned just where the stalk meets the trunk. Even in the driest weather, these little natural tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield nearly a tumblerful of pure sweet water, whence the popular name for the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come down to Barrackpore for Sunday, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... with the outside world, did he ever really think of the sense of his prayers as he gabbled them off, morning, noon, and night. There was so much to say—whole books full. It was a great temptation to skip the driest pages, but he never yielded to it, conscientiously scampering even through the passages in the tiniest type that had a diffident air of expecting attention from only able-bodied adults. Part of the joy of Sabbaths and Festivals was the change of prayer-diet. Even the Grace—that long prayer ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... wit is truly Attic. Luxuriant in the extreme, his allusions are always striking, and always happy. But to enumerate his talents, is to tell but half his praise. The application he has made of them is infinitely more to his honour. He has devoted himself for his country. The driest and most laborious investigations have not deterred him. Among a thousand other articles, that might be mentioned, his system of oeconomical reform must for ever stand forth, alike the monument of his abilities, and his patriotism. His personal character is of the most amiable ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... severe cold weather than the western, an earlier and heavier monsoon, but scantier winter rains. The total rainfall varies from 16 to 30 inches. The south-western zone, with a rainfall of from 5 to 15 inches, is the driest part of India proper except northern Sindh and western Rajputana. Neither monsoon current affects it much. At Multan there are only about fifteen days in the whole year ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... fell silent after a while—watching Friedland with small sharp eyes. He had come there to discuss a new edition of Sidonius Apollinaris,—was himself one of the driest and acutest of investigators. All this talk for babes seemed to him ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... inhabiting even the driest portions of the western prairies. It is 9 inches in length, and has a plumage of a pale buffy tone. It seems to be less aquatic than any other American Plover and is rarely found in the vicinity of bodies ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... to severe methods, to strict, dry, and dull learning, that made no attempt to adapt itself to the natural movement of the child's mind." (Ziller, Lehre vom E. U., p. 355.) Not those studies which are driest, dullest, and most disagreeable should be selected upon which to awaken the mental forces of a child, but those which naturally arouse his interest and prompt him to a lively exercise of his powers. For children of the third and fourth grade to narrate the story of the Golden Fleece ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... later years—heard such an advocate. The secret of his great success at the bar, beyond his intellectual power, lay, I think, in a peculiar charm and fascination of manner—a manner which could invest the driest and most technical matters with interest, and compelled the attention of the hearers to the subject under discussion. The melody of his voice was, to me, one of his greatest attractions. Then, again, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Harry-nobles as ever were melted into sack by a good fellow. So, luck to your enterprise, since you will needs venture on Tony Foster; but, by my credit, you had better take another draught before you depart, for your welcome at the Hall yonder will be somewhat of the driest. And if you do get into peril, beware of taking to cold steel; but send for me, Giles Gosling, the head-borough, and I may be able to make something out of Tony yet, for ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... its fruit is also called by the Arabs Homra delights in a sandy soil, and reaches its maturity in the height of summer when the ground is parched up, exciting an agreeable surprise in the traveller, at finding so juicy a berry produced in the driest soil and season.[Might not the berry of this shrub have been used by Moses to sweeten the waters of Marah? The words in Exodus, xv. 25, are: "And the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet." ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... the trees begin to rattle and break into pieces as the wind blows against them. Although they keep their greenness, they act like the driest leaves of autumn. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... climbed. Then they will find themselves in the morass among thick reeds. But they must not fire these till they have worked round to the place of the sunrise, whence the wind blows strongly. Then they must go from spot to spot and bend down the driest of the reeds, setting fire to them. Afterwards they can get to the back of the fire and wait till all is done one way or the other. If we win they will find us, if we are killed they can try to run away. But ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... not waste much time in consideration, having made up his mind on the previous visit as to which part of the rock he would drive the hole through. Sticking his last candle, therefore, against the driest part of the wall that could be found, he seized ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... are the driest months in Ireland. Tourists will find the Royal Irish Constabulary the best source of information, and they cannot do better than inquire at the various police barracks on the way for advice as to places of interest to be visited, and the condition of the roads. In unfrequented country districts ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... high rough masses of hillocks (HULLEN); between them the water settled, and had no flow. In the driest years we couldn't cart the hay out, but had to put it up in big ricks. Only in winter, when the frost was sharp, could we get it home. But now we have cut away the hillocks; and the trenches that your Majesty got made for us take the water off. And now the Luch is as dry as your Majesty sees, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Appendix - Frederick The Great—A Day with Friedrich.—(23d July, 1779.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wind came from the south again and the thermometer rose; the snow, however, kept falling. Some of the men were able to leave the ship for the driest hours of the day; but ophthalmia and scurvy kept most of them on board; besides, neither hunting nor ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... had followed the addition of Iyok-ok to their party. From that hour they had wanted nothing of food or shelter. Reared as he apparently had been in such wilds as these, the native skillfully had sought out the best of game, the driest, most sheltered of camping spots, in fact, had done everything that tended to make life easy in such ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... form, as they extend, a thick canopy of verdure. Plants of the family of pothos, with succulent stems, oxalises, and orchideae of a singular structure,* (* A dendrobium, with a gold-coloured flower, spotted with black, three inches long.) rise in the driest clefts of the rocks; while creeping plants waving in the winds are interwoven in festoons before the opening of the cavern. We distinguished in these festoons a bignonia of a violet blue, the purple dolichos, and for the first time, that magnificent solandra,* (* Solandra scandens. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... W.1/2S. direction, in order to keep on a ridge along the coast, which afforded the only tolerable walking, the snow being very deep on the lower parts of the land. We halted at half past seven A.M., on a fine sandy ground, which gave us the softest, as well as the driest bed which we had yet experienced on our journey, and which was situated close to a little hillock of earth and moss, so full of the burrows of hares as to resemble a warren. We tried to smoke them out by burning ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... hills, thrown together without system, and showing no signs of a plateau. They are parted by creek-valleys, gulches, and gullies, thick with tangled vegetation and varying in depth from a few feet to two and even three hundred. Many of them carry water even in the driest season. The country is remarkably like that behind Cape Coast Castle, where the Home Government, during the last Ashanti war (1873-74), proposed to ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... in a bark canoe, even when there has been a good deal of sea on. Well managed, they are the driest boats of which we have ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... for a king now," he said, with a little laugh, to scatter his former nervousness. "Just wait till I light a fire. I must gather the driest available sticks, so as to make as little ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... sort of advance agent of the rainy season, a sudden tropical downpour that ran in rivulets down across the pink card-boards and my victims. Yet strange to note, the writing of the medium soft pencil remained as clear and unsmudged as in the driest weather, and so clean a rain was it that it did not even soil my white cotton shirt. I continued unheeding, only to note with surprise a few minutes later that the sun was shining on the dense green jungle about me as brilliantly as ever and that I was dry again as when I had ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... white honeysuckle or clover growing once, and they could go dry with shoes only in summer. Now there is nothing but blue-joint and sedge and cut-grass there, standing in water all the year round. For a long time, they made the most of the driest season to get their hay, working sometimes till nine o'clock at night, sedulously paring with their scythes in the twilight round the hummocks left by the ice; but now it is not worth the getting when they can come at it, and they look sadly round to ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau |
