"Humidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more popular sanatorium for this disease, is a complete delusion. Instead of the climate being essentially dry, it is saturated with humidity during a great part of the year; and the peculiar sirocco of the place is of a hot, dry, irritating nature. An intelligent medical author, who had resorted to Madeira for change of air, remarks, that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... Depot in charge of the home returning party, he passed by the spot where this animal had fallen; and, in elucidation of what I have stated, I will here give the extract of a letter I subsequently received from him from India. Speaking of the humidity of the climate of Bengal, he says: "It appears to me that heat alone is rather a preservative from decomposition; of which I recollect an instance, in the bullock that died in the march through the Pine scrub on the 1st of January, 1845. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... through "running"—that is, leakage of wind from one pipe to another. In poor chests of this description the slides are apt to stick when the atmosphere is excessively damp, and to become too loose on days when little or no humidity is present. ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... interested in how hot it gets in such tropics as we traversed. Unfortunately it is very difficult to tell them. Temperature tables have very little to do with the matter, for humidity varies greatly. On the Serengetti at lower reaches of the Guaso Nyero I have seen it above 110 degrees. It was hot, to be sure, but not exhaustingly so. On the other hand, at 90 or 95 degrees the ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the time appeased, he found a new discomfort. The humidity of the walls, and the wind that crept through the unseen ventilator, chilled him to the bone. To keep walking ...
— A Struggle For Life • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... hospital? Damn these nerves, I say! Damn them! I have to swelter here because I can't let an electric fan play on my face, nor near me, without getting neuralgia. And swelter is the word, for it has been 104-5 degrees, with humidity, to boot, this week. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... abundance of springs, producing water of the best quality, and the consequent permanent humidity of the soil; two advantages not existing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... hanging bushes grew out of holes in the wall. The waste water trickled through them and dripped continually as though from the wet locks of the forest. Inside, in the greenish, dripping darkness, sat curiously marked toads, like little water-nymphs, each in her grotto, shining with unwholesome humidity. And up among the timbers of the third story hung Hanne's canary, singing quite preposterously, its beak pointing up toward the spot of fiery light overhead. Across the floor of the courtyard went an endless procession of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... my light ones some two weeks ago. I got jerry that there would be some class to the humidity, so ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... gloominess, and humidity, of a Milanese sky in winter; which, I conclude, under the old regime, led to all the hospitality, and conviviality, practised here, by their ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... was most distressing. It had rained all night. The roaring of the overflowing gutters filled the deserted streets, in which the houses, like sponges, absorbed the humidity, which penetrating to the interior, made the walls sweat from cellar to garret. Jeanne had left the convent the day before, free for all time, ready to seize all the joys of life, of which she had dreamed so long. She was afraid her father would ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... them outside of the control of the operator that it is very difficult to predict results or to attain any fixed standard. This is necessarily so with an operation which has so many uncertain factors to deal with as agriculture. Humidity of the atmosphere and of the soil, the available plant food in the soil, methods of tillage, fertilizers used, recurrence of frosts, amount of sunlight, the altitude and latitude of different localities, all have a bearing upon ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... lowlands, so magnificently green in the Spring, displayed shades of dead straw in the depths of the valleys, and, on all the summits, beeches and oaks shed their leaves. The air was almost cold; an odorous humidity came out of the mossy earth and, at times, there came from above a light shower. One felt it near and anguishing, that season of clouds and of long rains, which returns every time with the same air of bringing the definitive ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... begins laying eggs in from 2 1/2 to 20 days after emerging, the time interval depending to a large extent upon temperature, humidity, and character and abundance of food. The number of eggs laid by an individual fly at one time ranges from 120 to 159 and a single female will usually lay two and sometimes four such batches. Dunn ...
— The House Fly and How to Suppress It - U. S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 1408 • L. O. Howard and F. C. Bishopp
... than any other northern nation. The humidity of the climate makes it almost a necessity, and the cheapness of tobacco puts it in everybody's power to satisfy this desire. To show how inveterate is this habit, it will suffice to say that the boatmen of the trekschuit (the stage-coach of the canals) measure ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... the barking of the dogs and the sound of the water. The camels were being picketed for the night's repose. The atmosphere was not actually cold, but there was no golden warmth in the air, and the wonderful and exquisitely clean dryness of Upper Egypt was replaced by a sort of rich humidity, now that the sun was gone. The vapour around the moon, the smell of the earth, the distant sound of the dogs and the near sound of the water, the feeling of dew which hung wetly about her, and the gleam of the light from that tent distant among the palm-trees, ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... Mrs. Pierce's generally meant a resort to a handkerchief, and Mr. Pierce did not care for any increase of atmospheric humidity just then. He therefore concluded that since his wit was taken seriously, he would try a bit of seriousness, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... unrepentant pagan. The greater number of the parishioners live at Polruan, distant rather more than a mile; the church is surrounded by fields and lanes, whose luxuriant growth of bank and hedge suggest a rich humidity of soil. In summer there is a remarkable abundance of ragged-robins by the wayside, with honeysuckles and wild-roses clustering above them in glorious profusion; here and there rises the stately spire of a foxglove. Ferns of exquisite grace and loveliness dispute ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... nutriment from the earth, then the whole grain disappears, being absorbed, save for the husk, which is the most solid part; and even that, decomposing in the earth, ultimately becomes invisible. In time some of the leaves put forth branches. The plant being thus produced by humidity from the seed is still soft and moist. Growing actively both above and below, it cannot as yet bear fruit, for it has not the quality of force and reserve (δυναμις ισχυρη και πιαρα {dynamis ischyrê kai piara}) from which a seed can be precipitated. But when, with ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... work-table where lay the opening chapters of my new novel, "The White Plume of Savoy." But now, in the light of Spencer's open scorn, I saw it was impudently false, childish, sentimental. My head ached, the humidity sapped my strength, at heart I felt sick, sore, discouraged. I was down and out. And seeing this, Temptation, like an obsequious floorwalker, came ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... was untenanted. Evidently its coolness and dryness made it untenable for most of Inra's humidity and heat loving life. Yet the floor was so smooth that it must have been artificially leveled. Faint illumination was provided by the rocks themselves. They appeared to be covered ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... go to Holland. There these inland navigators ply their vocation with only one ambition, and that to become the owner of a tjalk, and to rear thereon a family of towers. It is said that the life is one that requires the consumption of unlimited quantitics of 'schnapps,' and the humidity of the atmosphere is undoubted. But even free libations do not diminish the prosperity of the bargees. They are a thriving race, and it must also be noted to their credit that they are well behaved, and not given to quarrels. Collisions on the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... necessary to direct attention to C.W. Beebe's ("Zoologica: N.Y. Zool. Soc." Vol. I. No. 1, Sept. 25, 1907: "Geographic variation in birds with especial reference to the effects of humidity".) recent discovery that the pigmentation of the plumage of certain birds is increased by confinement in a superhumid atmosphere. In Scardafella inca, on which the most complete series of experiments was made, the changes took place only at the moults, whether normal and annual or artificially ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... and a flow of animal spirits, too; and I suspect that much of the dry and rarefied humor of New England, as well as the thin and sharp physiognomies, are climatic results. We have rain enough, but not equability of temperature or moisture,—no steady, abundant supply of humidity in the air. In places in Great Britain it is said to rain on an average three days out of four the year through; yet the depth of rainfall is no greater than in this country, where it rains but the one day out of four. John Bull shows those ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... charnel-house reeking with foul smells and putrefaction. He slackened his steps, and rested in that kitchen garden, as after a long perambulation amidst deafening noises and repulsive odours. The uproar and the sickening humidity of the fish market had departed from him; and he felt as though he were being born anew in the pure fresh air. Claude was right, he thought. The markets were a sphere of death. The soil was the life, the eternal cradle, the health ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... the gloom and consequent humidity of the town that the sides of the streets were connected, at the height of two or perhaps three stories, by thin arches—mere jets of stone from the one house to the other, with but in rare instance the smallest superstructure to keep down the key of the arch. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... time, [b] warme well your garments at the fire, and warm the linings of the same, for it helpeth concoction, and remoueth all humidity and moysture. But my father did not allow of this custome, warning men of strength, and those that are borne for the Common-wealth, not to accustom themselves to such kind of softnesse, which doe weaken our bodies. Also [c] when you put off your garments to go ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... penetrating rays of the sun. In April the horizon begins to resume the misty veil. The mornings are cool and overcast, but the middle of the day is clear. In a few weeks after, the brightness of noon also disappears. The great humidity gives rise to many diseases, particularly fevers, and the alternations from heat to damp cause dysentery. On an average, the victims to this disease are very numerous. It is endemic, and becomes, at apparently regular but distant periods, epidemic. The intermittent fevers ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the other, to perform and fulfil all the Works of the Lord; and so an influence was permitted the Earth to bring forth by the Lights of Heaven, as also an internal Heat, to warm and digest that which was too cold for the Earth, by reason of its humidity, as unto every Creature a peculiar fashion according to its kind; so that a subtile sulphurous Vapour, is stired up by the Starry Heaven, not the common, but another more clarified and pure Vapour, distinct from others, which unites it self with the Mercurial Substance; ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... guides pushed him towards the sea by thrusting their carbines against his back; when close to the water's edge they drew the triggers, but all the four muskets hung fire: a circumstance which was accounted for by the great humidity of the night. The Nablousian threw himself into the water, and, swimming with great agility and rapidity, gained a ridge of rocks so far off that not a shot from the whole troop, which fired as it passed, reached him. Bonaparte, who continued his march, desired ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... catching at points of color. It was one of those splendid mornings of full-blown Tune, when even New York,—that paradox of cities,—had beauty. It was too early in the year for the trees to have grown blowsy and the grass worn and burnt. The humidity of midsummer was held back by the energy of a merry breeze which teased the flags and sent them spinning against the oriental blue of the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... of water required will depend largely on the rainfall, velocity of the wind, atmospheric humidity, soil, etc. A loose, sandy soil will require much more water than a retentive clay. In general, however, it may be assumed that in the warm, growing months of May, June, July, August and September, most vegetation ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... it. The frail stem requires, so it seems to me, a ready-made way, a crevice through which it can slip; but this crevice I have never been able to discover. What about a dissolving fluid which would soften the mortar under the point of the ovipositor? No, for I see not a trace of humidity around the point where the thread is at work. I fall back upon a fissure, a lack of continuity somewhere, although my examination fails to discover any on the Mason-bee's nest. I was better served in another case. Leucopsis dorsigera, FAB., ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... cities and near the swamps, the yellow fever, that scourge of all hot climates, prevails from the middle of June to the last of October; but in the interior of the island, where the visitor is at a wholesome distance from humidity and stagnant water, it is no more unhealthy than our own cities in summer. It is doubtful if Havana, even in the fever season, is any more unhealthy than New Orleans at the same period of the year. Fevers of different degrees of malignity prevail ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... his head, that he might not fall alive into the hands of the Parthians, nor, when dead, be recognized as the general. While he was in this consternation, and all his friends about him in tears, the Mardian came up, and gave them all new life. He convinced them, by the coolness and humidity of the air, which they could feel in breathing it, that the river which he had spoken of was now not far off, and the calculation of the time that had been required to reach it came, he said, to the same result, for the night was almost spent. And, at the same time, others came ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... not been made on the temperature and humidity of much of the mountain country of northern Luzon. However, scientific observations have been made and recorded for a series of about ten years at Baguio, Benguet Province, at an altitude of 4,777 feet, and it is from the published data there gathered that the following facts are gained.[7] ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... cured all deliriums & frenzies whatsoever, & at once taking, with an elixir made of dew, nothing but dew purified & nipped up in a glass & digested 15 months till all of it was become a gray powder, not one drop of humidity remaining. This I know to be true, & that first it was as black as ink, then green then gray, & at 22 months' end it was as white & lustrous as any oriental pearl. But it cured manias at 15 months' end." Poor Brewster would have been the better for a dose of it, as well as some in ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... other end of the room and persistently turned my back. But I saw out of the corner of my eye they were far away above food, and, Mate, believe me, they did n't even know it was hot, though a rain barrel couldn't have measured the humidity. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... and evening that heat-stroke occurred in the main when the humidity of the air began to go up. A great many of the new troops had no idea of the danger of the sun. The Tommy does not estimate a situation very quickly. The attempt to change the main meal of the day to an ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... our thoughts with greater distinctness by means of words. And therefore in order to insure the perfection of sacramental signification it was necessary to determine the signification of the sensible things by means of certain words. For water may signify both a cleansing by reason of its humidity, and refreshment by reason of its being cool: but when we say, "I baptize thee," it is clear that we use water in baptism in order ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... since the heat generated by the inhabitants and the industrial processes would exceed the radiation from the exterior walls and roof of the city. Sunshine and "fresh air" they had not, but our own scientists had taught us for generations that heat and humidity and not lack of oxygen or sunshine was the cause of the depression experienced in indoor quarters. The air of Berlin was cool and the excess of vapor had been frozen out of it. Yes, the "climate" ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... to the interiour parts, to kill the flat wormes of the belly, to remedy venemous mushromes, to preserve flesh over moyst from corruption, consuming the moysture thereof by its heat, and constipating by his astriction the substance of it, and pressing forth the serous humidity. ...
— Spadacrene Anglica - The English Spa Fountain • Edmund Deane
... a long breath in the hall, as the curtain fell behind him. It was an immense relief to escape from the oppressive humidity and heat of the flower-room, and from that ridiculous bore of ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... painted in white and hung with chintz, seemed to keep some traces of the elegant gallantry of the eighteenth century. A heap of still-glowing ashes—which testified to the pains taken to dispel humidity—filled the fireplace, whose marble mantlepiece supported a bust of Marie Antoinette in bisuit. Attached to the frame of the tarnished and discoloured mirror, two brass hooks, that had once doubtless served the ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... always of short continuance. Nevertheless, there was the usual current of heavy, damp night air, which, passing over the summits of the trees, scarcely appeared to descend as low as the surface of the glassy lake, but kept moving a short distance above it, saturated with the humidity that constantly arose from the woods, and apparently never proceeding far in any one direction. The currents were influenced by the formation of the hills, as a matter of course, a circumstance that rendered even ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... period is commonly felt the harmattan, a dry and parching wind, blowing from the north-east, and accompanied by a thick smoky haze, through which the sun appears of a dull red colour. This wind, in passing over the Great Desert of Sahara, acquires a very strong attraction for humidity, and parches up every thing exposed to its current. It is, however, reckoned very salutary, particularly to Europeans, who generally recover their health during its continuance. I experienced immediate relief from sickness, ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of the dry land by animals, we must recognise the indispensable role of plants in preparing the way. The dry ground would have proved too inhospitable had not terrestrial plants begun to establish themselves, affording food, shelter, and humidity. There had to be plants before there could be earthworms, which feed on decaying leaves and the like, but how soon was the debt repaid when the earthworms began their worldwide task of forming vegetable mould, opening ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... sphere inclosed, How kindly Nature plac'd them vnder thee, And in my world, see how they are disposed; My hope is earth, the lowest, cold and dry, The grosser mother of deepe melancholie, Water my teares, coold with humidity, Wan, flegmatick, inclind by nature wholie; My sighs, the ayre, hote, moyst, ascending hier, Subtile of sanguine, dy'de in my harts dolor, My thoughts, they be the element of fire, Hote, dry, and piercing, still inclind to choller, Thine eye the Orbe vnto all ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... thing," continued Mr. Gordon. "Working condition's another. Go to the mills and see the wet spinners. The air of the room they work in is heavy with humidity. There are the women, waists open at the throat, sleeves rolled up, hair pulled back to prevent the irritation of loose ends on damp skins, bare feet on the cement floor. At noon they snatch up their shawls and rush home for a hurried lunch. It's not surprising ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... few moments later Jill heard the faint splashing of water. She walked to the parapet and looked down. On the windows of the nearer buildings the sun cast glittering beams, but further away a faint, translucent mist hid the city. There was Spring humidity in the air. In the street she had found it oppressive: but on the breezy summit of this steel-and-granite cliff the air was cool and exhilarating. Peace stole into Jill's heart as she watched the boats dropping ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... by the steam tramway which goes up the hill. The rain fell. Madame Marmet went to sleep and Choulette complained. All his ills came to attack him at once: the humidity in the air gave him a pain in the knee, and he could not bend his leg; his carpet-bag, lost the day before in the trip from the station to Fiesole, had not been found, and it was an irreparable disaster; a Paris review had just published one of his poems, ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... in September took their departure from Timor for Van Dieman's Land, having on board a large proportion of sick. On drawing near the coast, the humidity of the climate and short allowance of water caused ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... goes along—he is continually stretching forth his head and smelling the air, and he can do this easily with his long neck. As camels live in the desert they must keep smelling the air to find out its humidity. Every time the air is very humid they know that water is nearby. That is why we call camels the examiners of space; in your country you would call them ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... of increase of lateral pressure with depth is believed to be demonstrated beyond question. It must be conceded that a considerable arch action (so-called) actually exists in many cases; but it should be equally conceded by the advocates of the existence of such action that changes in humidity, due to moving water, vibration, and appreciable viscosity, etc., will invariably destroy this action in time. In consequence, the author's reasoning in regard to the pressures against the faces of retaining walls is believed to be open to grave question as to accuracy ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... of the Bowery, which cuts through like a drain to catch its sewage, Every Man's Land, a reeking march of humanity and humidity, steams with the excrement of seventeen languages, flung in patois from tenement windows, fire-escapes, curbs, stoops, and cellars whose walls are terrible and spongy ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... a rubber doll in a red woollen jacket—a combination to make the perspiration run right off one with the humidity at 98—looks wistfully down from the second-story balcony of the smallpox pavilion, as the doctor goes past with the last ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... we give it ventilation less successfully than we might, and finally we give it the human quality that is so modern. There are no dungeons in the good modern house, no disgraceful lairs for servants, no horrors of humidity. ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... strands and afterward arranging them for weaving or for the purpose for which the yarn is required. It is also the last time that the fibers are mechanically drawn over each other or drafted, and this is invariably done from a single roving. The humidity and temperature of the spinning room must be adjusted to conditions. Each spinner is provided with a wet and dry thermometer so that the best temperature can be ascertained. The most suitable heat and humidity can only be obtained by ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... wing, they detach wherever it is most convenient to them, their envelope, or web, a portion of which remains suspended to the trunk of the tree, where it waves to and fro like a streamer, and which becomes more or less white, according as the air and humidity of the season and situation admit. This natural silk paper has been gathered measuring a yard and a half, of an elliptical shape, which is peculiar to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... Lob-nor to the Tarim. At a later period the Koncheh-daria mostly influenced the lower Tarim, and each time a change occurred in the latter's discharge, the Koncheh took a more westward course, to the detriment of its old eastern branch (Ilek). Always following the gradually receding humidity, the vegetable life changed too, while moving sands were taking its place, conquering more and more ground for the desert, and marking their conquest ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... phosphorescence. A young stalk which had been split lengthwise, and the internal substance of which was very phosphorescent, could imbibe olive oil many times and yet continue for a long time to give a feeble light. By preserving these Rhizomorphae in an adequate state of humidity, I have been able for many evenings to renew the examination of their phosphorescence; the commencement of dessication, long before they really perish, deprives them of the faculty of giving light. Those which had been dried for more than ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... HUMIDITY. Something which comes in through the window and goes out through the pores. A warm proposition any way you take it. A brother-in-law to Torture and a ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... reigned an eternal night. From those stories, badly understood, and no doubt confusedly related, the imagination of the people composed the Elysian Fields, delightful spots in a world below, having their heaven, their sun, and their stars; and Tartarus, a place of darkness, humidity, mire, and chilling frost. Now, inasmuch as mankind, inquisitive about all that of which they are ignorant, and desirous of a protracted existence, had already exerted their faculties respecting what was to ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... The winter's humidity was worse still; the cold crept into the dormitory through the uneven floors and the thin walls, but after two hours of shivering the pupils might succeed in getting warm if they drew their knees up to their ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... while tempera, if protected from humidity, retain their brilliancy and clearness as long as the material on which they rest endures. The true occupation of the restorer is to put the work given to him in a condition as near as possible to its original state, carefully abstaining from obliterating the legitimate ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Indian, who was standing near him, lightly on the shoulder, and pointed out a thin line of vapor which was stealing slowly out of the wilderness of leaves, at a distance of about a mile, and was diffusing itself in almost imperceptible threads of humidity in the quivering atmosphere. The Tuscarora was one of those noble-looking warriors oftener met with among the aborigines of this continent a century since than to-day; and, while he had mingled sufficiently with the colonists to be familiar with their habits and even with ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... sank into a silently reflective and forgetful mood, while the rain-drops dribbled down our noses, sopped from our mackintoshes to our saddles, whence they re-ascended, through the capillary influence of garments, to our necks, and soon equalised our humidity. ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... computer or peripheral device that has been designed and built to military specifications for field equipment (that is, to withstand mechanical shock, extremes of temperature and humidity, and so forth). Comes from the olive-drab 'uniform' paint ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... is, indeed, our rampart against the hateful humidity of the coast and gives to us in the interior the dry, windless, exhilarating cold that is characteristic of our winters. We owe it mainly to this range that our snowfall averages about six feet instead of the thirty or forty feet that ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... the Department of the Gulf. Since then we have heard that it is to go directly to Holly Springs, Mississippi, for the summer, where a large camp is to be established. Just imagine what the suffering will be, to go from this dry climate to the humidity of the South, and from cool, thick-walled adobe buildings to hot, glary tents in the midst of summer heat! We will reach Holly Springs about the Fourth of July. Faye's allowance for baggage hardly carries more than ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... the whole Body of the Water) I might, I say, urge these and divers other Weaknesses of His Discourse. But I will rather take Notice of what is more pertinent to the Occasion of this Digression, namely, that Taking it for Granted, that Fluidity (with which he unwarily seems to confound Humidity) must proceed from the Element of Water, he makes a Chymical Oyle to Consist of that Elementary Liquor; and yet in the very next Words proves, that it consists also of Fire, by its Inflamability; not remembring that exquisitely pure Spirit of Wine ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... of the whole garment by the skirts, it cannot produce much; for so much as we saw of it consisted wholly of coral rocks, all over-run with woods and bushes. Not a bit of soil was to be seen; the rocks alone supplying the trees with humidity. If these coral rocks were first formed in the sea by animals, how came they thrown up to such an height? Has this island been raised by an earthquake? Or has the sea receded from it? Some philosophers ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... plant increases in size, and as the roots of course pierce deeper; for if the trenches are left at a depth of three feet, while the roots are six feet in the earth, it follows that the lower part of the cacao plant is in a situation of too great humidity, and rots at the level of the water. This precaution contributes not only to make the plantation more durable, but also to render the crop more productive. It is necessary, also, to abstain from cutting any branch from cacao plants that are already bearing. Such an ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... torrid spell of heat on record. It was a dry, high country, noted for an equable climate, with cool summers and mild winters. And this unprecedented wave would have been unbearable had not the atmosphere been free from humidity. ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... the high way of the quays. The bed of the Seine is above the floor of the prison. The surrounding earth was consequently saturated with water, and the oozing moisture diffused over the walls and the floors the humidity of the sepulcher. The plash of the river; the rumbling of carts upon the pavements overhead; the heavy tramp of countless footfalls, as the multitude poured into and out of the halls of justice, mingled with ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... from the islet and got over to the mainland, and slept in a hooked-thorn copse, with a species of black pepper plant, which we found near the top of Mount Zomba, in the Manganja country,[6] in our vicinity; it shows humidity of climate. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... adopt. The coast-line began to recede in a southerly direction, and the sea continued to be encumbered with islands. Some of the ships, which had been scraped by the reefs, had sprung; ropes, sails, and other tackle were rotted, and provisions were spoiled by the humidity. The Admiral was, consequently, obliged to retrace his course.[20] The extreme point of this country reached by him, and which he believed to be a ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... or sheet form into molds under a pressure of 1200 to 2000 pounds to the square inch it takes the most delicate impressions. Billiard balls of bakelite are claimed to be better than ivory because, having no grain, they do not swell unequally with heat and humidity and so lose their sphericity. Pipestems and beads of bakelite have the clear brilliancy of amber and greater strength. Fountain pens made of it are transparent so you can see how much ink you have left. ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... unquestionably true, that many of the surrounding objects in nature are constantly tending to man's destruction. The excess of heat and cold, humidity and dryness, noxious exhalations from the earth, the floating atoms in the atmosphere, the poisonous vapors from decomposed animal and vegetable matter, with many other invisible agents, are exerting their deadly influence; and were it not ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... supposition, manufactured articles would be no more the product of labor than agricultural ones. Does not the manufacturer, too, rely upon Nature to second him? Does he not avail himself of the weight of the atmosphere in aid of the steam-engine, as I avail myself of its humidity in aid of the plough? Did he create the laws of gravitation, of correlation ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... The humidity increased; the horses' heads hung heavily under their ridiculously pitiful straw bonnets. When the sun was vertical nobody stirred; when the bluish shadows began to creep out over baked sidewalks, broadening to a strip of superheated shade, a few stirred abroad in the deserted streets; ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... cloudy, rainy, hot, humid summers (southwest monsoon, June to September); less cloudy, scant rainfall, mild temperatures, lower humidity during winter (northeast ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was I alone in this feeling, for one and all, big and little,—in short, the whole party joined in pronouncing the entire landscape absolutely exquisite. Any insignificant change, a trifle more or less of humidity in the atmosphere, the absence or the intervention of a few clouds, a different hour or a different frame of mind, may have diminished our pleasure, for these are enjoyments which, like the flavour of delicate wines, or the melody of sweet music, are deranged ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... end of water, month after month! The heat is the same all the year round—not very excessive, seldom 104 deg., but still oppressive and enervating because of the humidity of the air. Yet the voyage was not monotonous. Leaning against the masts and gunwale, or leisurely moving the oars, the soldiers could observe the dolphins leaping in the river, the sudden darts of the alligators as they hunted ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... it—another mystery, profounder and graver, floats amid these thick mists, perhaps the mystery of the creation itself! For was it not in stagnant and muddy water, amid the heavy humidity of moist land under the heat of the sun, that the first germ of life pulsated and expanded ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... the merest toy—a complex plaything, nothing more. Allow me to explain. I have a line of very large greenhouses which extends from one end of my smoking-room. These different houses are kept at varying degrees of heat and humidity so as to reproduce the exact climates of Egypt, China, and the rest. You see, our crystal chamber is a tramway running with a minimum of friction along a steel rod. By pulling this or that handle I regulate ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... process was all gummed up at nine o'clock by the Portland humidity, which won its usual bet. From the heavy skies a light rain ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... year. Lowe's find was made in a year in which the summer rains were late, beginning in late July (Stebbins, 1951:137), whereas ours were made in a year having abundant and relatively early rainfall, beginning in late June. Microclimatic humidity is of extreme importance to both the ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston
... of mountains formed along the axis of elevation. By the first of these upheavals, the plants and animals inhabiting Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea, and the rest, would be subjected to slightly modified sets of conditions. The climate in general would be altered in temperature, in humidity, and in its periodical variations; while the local differences would be multiplied. These modifications would affect, perhaps inappreciably, the entire flora and fauna of the region. The change of level would produce additional modifications: varying in different species, and also ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... gardens. The violence everywhere done to nature repels and wearies us despite ourselves. The abundance of water, forced up and gathered together from all parts, is rendered green, thick, muddy; it disseminates humidity, unhealthy and evident; and an odour still more so. I might never finish upon the monstrous defects of a palace so immense and so immensely dear, with its accompaniments, which ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Atlantic. Hence the latter is known as the hot region (caliente), and the former the cold region (fria). Between the two climates, as the traveler mounts from the sea-level to the great plateau, is the temperate region (templada), an intermediate belt of perpetual humidity, a welcome escape from the heat and deadly malaria of the hot region with its "bilious fevers." Sometimes as he passes along the bases of the volcanic mountains, casting his eye "down some steep slope or almost unfathomable ravine on the margin of the road, he sees their depths glowing ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... to be, and not many minutes from now. Unless I miss my guess we'll have a thunderstorm, and a west wind which will make short work of this humidity. There, feel that breeze? Ouch, you little devil, get off my foot. It may be large but it wasn't ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... by evaporation, then they become infused with the saline properties of the soil,[31] and all about them is marked with barrenness. If the process of evaporation was less intense than it is,[32] all vegetation would die from the extreme humidity of the soil; as the gardener's phrase is, it would rot. Even in the city of Mexico itself, a couple of feet of digging in its alluvial foundation brings you to the water-level in the dry season, and seventy or eighty ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... died with fatigue. We should be looking like ghosts ourselves, and despair would be seizing on our hearts. We should be in continual squabbles with our guides and porters, and completely exposed to their unbridled brutality. During the daytime, a damp, penetrating, unendurable humidity! At night, a cold frequently intolerable, and the stings of a kind of fly whose bite pierces the thickest cloth, and drives the victim crazy! All this, too, without saying any thing about wild beasts ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... stretch themselves and turn in their webs so as to take it from the point of a pin or camel's-hair pencil. Besides water to drink, they require an atmosphere saturated with moisture, like that of their native island, the relative humidity being about seventy on the Hygrodeik scale. If stroked upon the back, they often raise their bodies as a cat does, and sometimes put back a leg to push away your finger. They may be allowed to run over one's person with perfect safety, but, if suddenly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... questions about it suggested by well-known scientific truths. If there is any scientific result which we can accept with confidence, it is that ten seconds after the sound of the last bomb died away, silence resumed her sway. From that moment everything in the air—humidity, temperature, pressure, and motion—was exactly the same as if no bomb had been fired. Now, what went on during the hours that elapsed between the sound of the last bomb and the falling of the first drop of rain? Did the aqueous vapor already ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... of summer, in northern Arizona, are as frigid or as torrid as the readings of the thermometer may seem to indicate. The cold or heat is not felt to such an extreme as in the East. A minimum of humidity is the basic reason for this wide difference between, for example, the July or January climate of New York, and the July or January climate of the Grand Canyon. Extremes that in New York drive people to the cool seashore or To California's winter warmth, here bring no discomfort. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... the moon, being a consequence of the humidity of the atmosphere, may well betoken wet ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... in the wintry night and thick tempest to recall the warmth and odor of that moist September morning, the smell of the dripping roses overhead, the balmy humidity of every breath she drew? What in her present companion that reminded her of the loving clasp that had thrilled her heart into palpitation? the earnest depth of the eyes that held hers during the one sharp, yet sweet moment of parting—eyes that pledged the fealty of her lover's soul, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... the armies was low and swampy, a character which it possessed in ancient times; the marshes on the southern side being supposed to be the same in which Marius concealed himself from his enemies during his proscription. [20] Its natural humidity was greatly increased, at this time, by the excessive rains, which began earlier and with much more violence than usual. The French position was neither so low nor so wet as that of the Spaniards. It had the advantage, moreover, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the longitude and the latitude, corrected for magnetic variation, and this gives us the exact location of the tragedy. We have the altitude, the temperature, and the degree of humidity prevailing —inestimably valuable, since they enable us to estimate with precision the degree of influence which they would exercise upon the mood and disposition of the assassin at that time of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The walls are the shade of green that's best for the eyes. Furniture and fixtures are always the same colors. Every compartment has a servoconsole to condition the air, control the temperature and humidity, bring you food or any other standard service, provide teleview shows, music or requests. You could live your life inside this square hole. Everybody has everything and nothing means anything—can't you ...
— DP • Arthur Dekker Savage
... warning of the approaching danger until a chill suddenly came over me on the first day out from Floresta. I had felt a peculiar drowsiness for several days, but had paid little attention to it as one generally feels drowsy and tired in the oppressive heat and humidity. When to this was added a second chill that shook me from head to foot with such violence that I thought my last hour had come, I knew I was in for my first experience of the dreaded Javary fever. There was nothing to do but to take copious doses of quinine and keep still ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... you ought to see a mill with the old vapour-pot system with the steam shooting out into the room. Look here!" He led Janet to the apparatus in which the pure air is forced through wet cloths, removing the dust, explaining how the ventilation and humidity were regulated automatically, how the temperature of the room ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... speak, standing on the north side of the cathedral, was always in the shadow thrown by that vast edifice, on which time had cast its dingy mantle, marked its furrows, and shed its chill humidity, its lichen, mosses, and rank herbs. The darkened dwelling was wrapped in silence, broken only by the bells, by the chanting of the offices heard through the windows of the church, by the call of ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... eddies, freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part of oxygen: ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Store It. A room of ordinary humidity, one in which the air is never dryer for any reason than the average, should be used to store these batteries. They should be shielded ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... in that Island, and whose names are consecrated in the books of our Augurs. One of them is male and the other female; and they bear the same relation to each other as the soul does to the body, humidity to dryness." The Curetes, in Crete, had builded an altar to Heaven and to Earth; whose Mysteries they celebrated at ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... But let me state that it is on the barometer that I now place my somewhat limited reliance on a hunting morning, and not on the hygrometer, on the weight of the column of air on a given point of the surface of the earth, rather than on the state of the evaporations, the relative humidity, and the dew point. And I have noticed that the best scenting days have been those when the thermometer has given readings from 38 up to 46 Fahrenheit in the shade. A high and steady glass, an almost imperceptible east or north-east ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... should be lined with velvet or chamois leather, that the delicate edges of the books may not suffer from contact with the wood. A leather lining, fitted to the back of the case, will also help to keep out humidity. Most writers recommend that the bookcases should be made of wood close in the grain, such as well-seasoned oak; or, for smaller tabernacles of literature, of mahogany, satin-wood lined with cedar, ebony, and so forth. These close-grained ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... This heavy humidity also tends to prevent radiation of heat, and the temperature at night does not drop exceedingly low, although frost is not uncommon even in summer. As our vegetation is acclimated and adapted to our environment no damage is done to growing crops ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... so formidable an undertaking—more formidable, as it now appeared to them, than before — were made the subject of long and serious discussion. It was at length decided that Pizarro should remain in his present quarters, inconvenient and even unwholesome as they were rendered by the humidity of the climate, and the pestilent swarms of insects that filled the atmosphere. Almagro would pass over to Panama, lay the case before the governor, and secure, if possible, his good-will towards the prosecution of the enterprise. If no obstacle were thrown in their ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... settled at Keswick, in a house, which if not built, was at least finished for him, by a then neighbour (a Mr. Jackson,) and for a time he occupied a part of it. But here his health greatly failed, and he suffered severe rheumatism from the humidity of a lake country, which was the main cause of his leaving ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... and yet no light appeared, another intimidating circumstance manifested itself. From the start everybody had noticed the excessive humidity of the dense air. Every solid object that the hands came in contact with in the darkness was wet, as if a thick fog had condensed upon it. This supersaturation of the air (a principal cause of the difficulty experienced in breathing) led ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... bodies remained several days undecayed;[585] or by means of the art of embalming; or lastly, owing to the nature of the earth in which they are interred, which has the power of drying up the radical humidity and the principles of corruption. I do not stop to prove all these things, which ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... heard of these acts of mercy, and the jailer and his wife were immediately arrested, and plunged into those dungeons into which they would have allowed the spirit of humanity to enter. The shoes of the queen, saturated with water, soon fell from her feet. Her stockings and her dress, from the humidity of the air, were in tatters. Two soldiers, with drawn swords, were stationed by her side night and day, with the command never, even for one moment, to turn their eyes from her. The daughter of the new jailer, touched with compassion, and regardless ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... were dressed for a ball, or sat at the play, I would liken her to some animate gem, without the hardness that belongs to real precious stones; for indeed she shone like a jewel, thanks to the lustre of her eyes in artificial light. Whether from humidity or some quality of their substance, I do not know, but they reflected the rays as I have rarely seen eyes do; and in their luminosity her whole face seemed to have part, so that her presence had an ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... were obliged at noon-day to visit them by the light of a candle. We saw the hooks of those chains, by which the prisoners were fastened by their necks to the walls of their cells; many of which being below the level of the water were in a constant state of humidity; from which issued a noxious vapour, which more than once extinguished the candles. Since the destruction of the building many subterraneous cells have been discovered under a piece of ground, which seemed only a bank of solid earth ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... which has left the hive for impregnation, is the same that returns to deposit her eggs, you will find it necessary to paint the thorax with some varnish that resists humidity. It will also be right to paint the thorax of a considerable number of workers in order to discover the duration of their life. This is a more secure method ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber
... conversation. They have found, for instance, that green is restful to the eyes, and the fact goes without saying, in a hint, in a mere word. They are aware that heat is more disagreeable when accompanied by a high degree of humidity, and do not put forth this axiom as a sensational discovery. They have noticed the coincidences known as mental telepathy usual in correspondence, and have long ceased to be more than mildly amused at the occurrence of the phenomenon. They do not speak ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... whom these moments are more than usually painful, and wiping his brow.] It's not so much the heat as the humidity. ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... air was observed both by August's psychrometer and Saussure's hygrometer. But I do not believe that these instruments give trustworthy results at a temperature considerably under the freezing-point. Moreover the degree of humidity at the place where there can be a question of setting up a psychrometer and hygrometer during a wintering in the high north, has not the meteorological importance which has often been ascribed to it. For the instruments are as a rule set ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... it turned out, though Thaouka understood him. The intelligent animal felt humidity in the atmosphere and drank it in with frenzy, moving and making a noise with his tongue, as if taking deep draughts of some cool refreshing liquid. The Patagonian could not mistake him ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... rain, the water stood to a depth of three palms, which leads us also to believe that the frightful floods of 1500 also extended to this place. It is to be remembered that the monks did their best to dry out this room, but unfortunately there remained enough humidity to penetrate it through and through; and they were even sensible ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... Veneering, and Stobbles was pointed out by an elderly female accustomed to the care of offices, who dropped upon Bella out of a public-house, wiping her mouth, and accounted for its humidity on natural principles well known to the physical sciences, by explaining that she had looked in at the door to see what o'clock it was. The counting-house was a wall-eyed ground floor by a dark gateway, and Bella was considering, as she ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... shapes of the wagons and carts, and the rudeness of the agricultural implements, which must be patterned upon those in vogue during the time of Odin, the founder of the Norwegian race. Owing to the humidity of the climate, it is necessary in harvest time to dry the hay and grain by staking it out in the fields on long poles, so that the sun and air may penetrate every part of it. The appearance of a farm is thus rendered unique as well as picturesque. In the long twilight nights of ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... known as "acetylithe," which is carbide treated specially with mineral oil, glucose and sugar. The object of using this treated carbide is to avoid the effects of the attack of atmospheric humidity or water vapour, which, with ordinary carbide, give rise to the phenomena of after-generation. The generator comprises a water-tank A with conical base, a basket C containing the treated carbide inserted within a cylindrical case ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... tempered by easterly trade winds, relatively low humidity, little seasonal temperature variation; rainy season May ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... lamp, and drew near the fire. She burned heaps of wood without succeeding in warming the spacious apartments reeking with humidity. She was cold all day long, everywhere, in the drawing-room, at meals, in her own apartment. It seemed to her she was cold to the marrow of her bones. Her husband only came in to dinner; he was always out shooting, or else he was superintending sowing the seed, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... only claims upon us; self-interest, nay, self-preservation demand, that they who yield us food and comfort, should have ample food and comfort themselves—that they who aid to clothe us should have at least sufficient covering to protect them from the rigour and humidity of the climate in which they labour—that they should have houses fitted for the inhabitants of a civilized country, not wigwams worse than those of the savage—that they should be taught and led and fostered till they understand and ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... hot and the humidity very heavy, and at Las Palmas inside the bungalow that served as a police-station the lamps on either side of the lieutenant's desk burned like tiny furnaces. Between them, panting in the moist heat and with the sweat from his ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... wintry mist rises low down in the little valleys of the sand. And that again we were not expecting; beyond question the latest invaders of this country, by changing the course of the old Nile, so as to water the earth and make it more productive, have brought hither the humidity of their own misty isle. And this strange cold, this mist, light as it still is, seem to presage the end of ages, give an added remoteness and finality to all this dead past, which lies here beneath us in subterranean labyrinths ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... like a new star created by the hand of man. From a natural cause, these constellations shone with a soft luster; they did not twinkle, for there was no atmosphere which, by the intervention of its layers unequally dense and of different degrees of humidity, produces this scintillation. These stars were soft eyes, looking out into the dark night, amid the silence ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... matter of fact, there is exceedingly little evidence to show that pure, fresh, open air at any reasonable temperature and humidity ever did harm when inhaled directly into the lungs. In fact, a considerable proportion of us, when swinging along at a lively gait on the country roads, or playing tennis or football, or engaged in any form ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... and they began to unscrew the lid. The humidity of the earth had rusted the screws, and it was not without some difficulty that the coffin was opened. A painful odour arose in spite of the aromatic plants ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... the case of the Kalahari, the great heated inland plains; there, meeting with the rarefied air of that hot, dry surface, the ascending heat gives it greater capacity for retaining all its remaining humidity, and few showers can be given to the middle and western lands in consequence of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... heat was so intense, that the new lawyer informed him he couldn't possibly sandwich him in unless he would consent to change his plea to "guilty", contending that the combination of humility and humidity would go a long ways towards softening the judge. But Cassius sturdily refused to ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... motive in wearing it. Popular to destruction would the cool juices of the cacti be in thirsty lands, if only they might be obtained without painful and often poisonous scratches. Given moist soil and greater humidity of atmosphere to grow in, spiny plants at once show a tendency to grow taller, to branch and become leafy. A covering of hairs which reflect the light, thus diminishing the amount that might reach the juicy interior area, has likewise ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... stations, this bulletin takes up the coal-dust question in the United States. Further chapters concern the tests as to the explosibility of coal dust, made by the Geological Survey, at Pittsburg; investigations, both at the Pittsburg laboratory and in mines, as to the humidity of mine air. There is also a chapter on the chemical investigations into the ignition of coal dust by Dr. J. C. W. Frazer, of the Geological Survey. The application of some of these data to actual mine ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... construction debris and found a pair of small wooden boxes that had held instruments. With Hassan as interpreter, Rick talked to the construction foreman and a plasterer was detailed to help. If the form could be prepared right away, the low desert humidity would harden it enough to use by the ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... minotaur, in the centre of a square or labyrinth equally mean the same as the Indian lingam,—that is the male personification of the productive attribute placed in the female, or heat acting upon humidity. Sometimes the bull is placed between two dolphins, and sometimes upon a dolphin or another fish; and in other instances the goat or the ram occupy the same situation. Which are all different modes of expressing different modifications ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... first buries itself until it reaches the liquid level. Arrived at this point, it makes a large lair in the soft soil, and effects communication with the outside by various openings. It can thus easily come and go and retire into its cave, where it finds security and a humidity favourable for branchial respiration. From time to time it cleans out the dirt and rubbish which accumulate in the hole. It makes a little pile of all the refuse which it finds, and, seizing it between its claws and abdomen, ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... inexorably blue while the temperature is hot and parching. In winter, clouds are almost as rare; but winds often play violently over the great tracts of unbroken country. When these blow from the south they soon lose their warmth and humidity at the contact of a soil which, but a short while ago, was at the bottom of the sea, and is, therefore, in many places still strongly impregnated with salt which acts as a refrigerant.[19] Again, when the north wind comes down ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... to the Atlantic. Near its edge, a seven-peaked range marked the neighbourhood of Libertad—the beginning of the gold-mining district. Descending the slope of the range, we found the savannahs on its eastern side much more moist than those to the westward of it; and as we proceeded, the humidity of the ground increased, and the crossings of some of the valleys and swamps were difficult for the mules. The dry season had set in, and these places were rapidly drying up; but in many it had just reached that stage when the mud ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... saw hard basalt rocks split under the influence of the early morning freshness. I have myself noticed similar phenomena in the Nile valley, but it must be added that the fragments of rock broken off by the combined influence of heat and humidity present very notable differences to those worked by the hand of man, and cannot really be ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... to remote Spots that were supplied with Steam Heat and French Cooking, together with Wines, Liquors, and Cigars, but no matter what the Altitude or the Relative Humidity, he felt discouraged every Morning when he awoke and remembered that presently he would have to rally his Vital Forces and walk all the way ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade |
