"Propel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when compared to the great benefits derived. The system is very simple and inexpensive, and the amount of traction secured is entirely within the control of the motor man, as in the electric system. It will be seen that the car here will not, with the traction circuit open, propel itself up hill when one end of the track is raised more than 5 inches above the table; but with the circuit energized it will readily ascend the track as you now see it, with one end about 131/2, inches above the other in a length of three feet, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... the bancas. Alternately with these were roses, pinks and baskets of fruits such as pineapples, kasuys, bananas, guayabas and lanzones. Ibarra had brought his carpets, blankets and rugs and arranged comfortable seats for the ladies. The poles and paddles used to propel the bancas had also been ornamented. In the better banca were a harp, guitars, accordeons, and a buffalo horn; while, in the other boat, a little fire had been lighted in an improvised stove in order that tea, coffee and salabat [8] might ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... mastication. The creature appeared to be a great lizard at least ten feet high, with a huge, powerful tail as long as its torso, mighty hind legs and short forelegs. When it had advanced from the wood, it hopped much after the fashion of a kangaroo, using its hind feet and tail to propel it, and when it stood erect, it sat upon its tail. Its head was long and thick, with a blunt muzzle, and the opening of the jaws ran back to a point behind the eyes, and the jaws were armed with long sharp teeth. The scaly body was covered with black ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hours. From the street hurried a jostling throng of men, women, and children. Longingly the Millionaire watched them. He had no mind to spend the next three hours where he was. If he could be pushed on to the boat, he would trust to luck for the other side. With his still weak left arm he could not propel himself, but if he ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... to their size; and they carry from five to six thousand bags of pepper. In ancient times they used to build larger ships than now; but owing to the great numbers of islands and shoals in some places of these seas, they now build them less[1]. Besides their sails, they use oars. occasionally to propel these ships, four men being employed to each oar. The larger ships are usually attended by two or three of a smaller size, able to carry a thousand bags of pepper, and having sixty mariners in each and these ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... divergent and at times superficially almost irreconcilable; that the majority of those taking part in it are driven into action as the result of the immediate pressure of the conditions of life, and are not always able logically to state the nature of all causes which propel them, or to paint clearly all results of their action; so far from removing it from the category of the vast reorganising movements of humanity, places it in a line with them, showing how vital, spontaneous, and wholly organic and unartificial ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... also, at Mrs. Tarbell's request, gave to the jury several interesting details concerning, first, her sewing-machine; second, the income she had been used to make by it; third, the effect of the accident upon her power to propel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... be likened to those great principles which guide the movements of the universe, contrasted with the contrivances by which men produce particular results for their own convenience; and one might as well expect to move a planet by machinery, or propel a comet by the power of steam, as to preserve the semblance of order in the moral world, without those fundamental principles of rectitude which form a part of the original ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... robes and propel the sleds, riding on them, too," declared Mark. "Such wind as there is is pretty steadily at ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... as they crossed the canon bottom and breasted the ascent as bravely as his three good legs would let him. At the top he puffed hard. Despite Pete's urging, he stood stolidly until he had gathered enough ozone to propel him farther. "Git along, you doggone ole cockroach!" said Pete. But Rowdy was firm. He turned his head and gazed sadly at his rider with one mournful eye that said plainly, "I'm doing my level best." Pete realized that the ground just traveled was anything but level, and curbed his ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and paddles had hitherto been used to propel ships, this last invention seemed very wonderful; and, to compliment Daedalus, the people declared that he had given their vessels wings, and had thus enabled them ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... movement, and by extensions of a portion of the mass and contraction of other parts, the whole creeps slowly along. Other naked cells (Fig. 12, B; Fig. 16, C) are provided with delicate thread-like processes of protoplasm called "cilia" (sing. cilium), which are in active vibration, and propel ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... the moment he put down Puck on the leafy flooring of the raft, the dog began to howl, making him take it up again in his arms. To add to his troubles, also, he had dropped his sculling pole during a lurch of his floating platform, so he had nothing now wherewith to propel it either towards the island or back to the shore, the raft wickedly oscillating midway in the water between the two, like Mahomet's ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... it is true, and one feels this although it is difficult to describe it. Look at those two men. When the wind blows George resists like a century-old tree, and men like the doctor subdue it and order it to propel his boat. There is in that some greater capacity for life, therefore the result is more easy to be foreseen. The tree is older, and although still strong, the more it is bitten by the storms, the ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... estimate the strength of the gale, the only apparent movement of the atmosphere being that due to their own passage through it. Though heading to the northward, with the engines making a sufficient number of revolutions per minute to propel them through still air at the rate of thirty miles per hour, it was quite on the cards that the adverse wind might be travelling at a higher speed than this, in which event they would actually be driving more or less rapidly astern, notwithstanding their apparent forward motion. It thus became ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground—as well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... are changed, and here I am Once more beside the brimming Cam, Where lo, those selfsame Loots and Subs Whirl madly by in punts and tubs, Which they propel by strength of will And muscle rather more than skill. For (if one may be fairly frank) They barge across from bank to bank, With zig-zag motions, in and out, As though torpedoes were about; Whilst I with all an expert's ease Glide by as gaily as you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... all his defects, had the soul of a true golfer. He declined to give up. In grim silence he hacked his ball through the rough till he reached the high road; and then, having played twenty-seven, set himself resolutely to propel it on its ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... tubular structure divided into chambers, lying just beneath the dorsal, which serves to propel the blood and controls ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to be remembered ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... and perpendicular; he then sank his fingers into and pressed his right foot against the firm blue clay with which it was stratified, and by this means advanced, bit by bit, up the stream, having no other force by which to propel himself against it. After this mode did he breast the current with all his strength—which must have been prodigious, or he never could have borne it out—until he reached the slope, and got from the influence ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... we notice how punctiliously each girl takes her proper turn and starts from the correct place; we notice also the dilapidated condition of their boots, that act as golf clubs and propel the "pitcher." We wonder how with such boots, curled and twisted to every conceivable shape, they can strike the "pitcher" at all. There is some skill in "hop-scotch" played as these girls play it, and with their ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... progress upon the power of the enormous engines by which its most important functions are now performed, the establishments where these engines are invented and made, and fitted into the ships which they are destined to propel, constitute really the heart of the metropolis; though, the visitor, who comes down for the first time by the East River, from the Sound, in the morning boat from Norwich or Fall River, is very prone to pass them carelessly by—his thoughts ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... wonder at the moment of wild regret and protest—the bitterer in its silence—when they had told him he must die; when in the last rally of the vital forces he had believed his will was still strong enough to command his ravaged body, to propel his brain, still teeming with a vast and complicated future, his heart, still warm and insistent with the image it cherished, on to the ultimates of ambition and love. How brief it had been, that last cry of mortality, with its accompaniment ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... Our belongings were deposited and two great, black natives were placed at each end of the boat or scow. They were without clothing, save for a short, full skirt of white cloth fastened around their waists on a band. Each used a long pole to propel the scow. We were the only family of women on board the steamer. There was Mr. Biggar and his wife and a bride and her husband, besides several colored women and their husbands coming out to take positions on the Pacific steamers. All the other passengers ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... while fast, and, when dead, it is certain that they drift at a pretty good rate right in the "wind's eye." This is accounted for by the play of the body, which naturally lies head to wind; and the wash of the flukes, which, acting somewhat like the "sculling" of an oar at the stern of a boat, propel the carcass in the direction it is pointing, Consequently we had a cruel amount of towing to do before we got the three cows alongside. Many a time we blessed ourselves that they were no bigger, for of all the clumsy things to tow with boats, a sperm whale ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... dreaming—but pleasant dreams now, for the fever gone, life was free to build its own castles. He thought he was dead, and floating through the air at his will, volition all that was necessary to propel him like a dragon-fly, in any direction he desired to take. He was about to go to his father, to receive his congratulations on his death, and to say to him that now the sooner he too died the better, that the creditors might have the property, everybody ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... long did the work continue,—only an interval of an hour being appropriated to the midday meal. Excursions, too, were made from point to point,—the oars serving to propel the half-constructed craft: the object of these excursions being to pick up such pieces of timber, ropes, or other articles as Snowball had not already secured. The aid of the others now rendered many items available which Snowball had formerly rejected as useless,—because unmanageable ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... They were of logs hollowed out until they were fairly light, but still seeming too clumsy for safe seagoing craft. In each were several men. One sat in the stern and steered, the others knelt in pairs, each man helping propel the boat by means of a stick some four feet long, more like a pole than a paddle, which he worked with great ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... filaments, which are capable of vibration are termed. And thus, although the polype itself may be a fixed creature unable to move about, it is able to spread its offspring over great areas. For these creatures not only propel themselves, but while swimming about in the sea for many hours, or perhaps days, it will be obvious that they must be carried hither and thither by the currents of the sea, which not unfrequently move at the rate of one or two miles an hour. Thus, in the course of a few days, ...
— Coral and Coral Reefs • Thomas H. Huxley
... about eight hundred; the logs were large, and were worth from five to six dollars each. Here then was a raft of timber worth at least $4000. They are navigated by about a dozen men, with large paddles attached at either end of the raft, which serve to propel and steer. Often, in addition to the logs, the rafts are laden with valuable freights of sawed lumber. Screens are built as a protection against wind, and a caboose stands somewhere in the centre, or according to western parlance it might be ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... way, Mr. Goschen's remarkable endowments are neutralised by the same limitations. He has infinite ingenuity, but he can neither initiate nor propel; an intrepid debater in council and in action, he is prey to an ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... longer in demand at home or abroad, and the world had discovered better machinery to propel better ships. As an offset to this pictorial argument, another might have been introduced, exhibiting in the background the mere blacksmiths' shops of the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, as they existed before the era of iron steamship building, and in the front the subsequent ...
— Free Ships: The Restoration of the American Carrying Trade • John Codman
... feet begin to sink, so that the teacher must follow close after the pupil to make the pupil keep the back well hollowed and the chest expanded. Beginners will be surprized at the ease with which back strokes propel the body through the water without any undue effort. To one who has never been used to swimming without support it gives a wonderful feeling of exhilaration to propel one's self through the water and then, when tired, to slowly bring the arms back under water until the thumbs come together ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... of your breast upward you will not be wet. But you can not remain so. The water will soon float your feet to the surface. You can not swim on your back and make any progress of any consequence, because your feet stick away above the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself with but your heels. If you swim on your face, you kick up the water like a stern-wheel boat. You make no headway. A horse is so top-heavy that he can neither swim nor stand up in the Dead Sea. He turns over on his side at once. Some of us bathed for more than ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ship we must conceive it WHOLLY submerged in the water and having no sail or other appendage projecting into the air, which would, of course, introduce other conditions. If, however, a man were to sit astride of the log and begin to propel it so that it travels either faster or slower than the stream, then in that case, either by paddle or rudder, the log could be guided, and the same might be said of Lana's air boat if only he had thought of some adequate ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... greater near the surface than toward the bottom. But, under all circumstances, it is plain that the various causes producing motion, gravitation, pressure, infiltration of water, frost, will combine to propel the mass at a greater rate along its axis than near its margins. For details concerning the facts of the case, I would refer to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... which supported it. Marcellus, despairing of success, drew off his ships as fast as possible, and sent orders to the land forces to retreat. In a council of war, it was determined to make another assault by night; for they argued that the straining cords which Archimedes used to propel his missiles required a long distance to work in, and would make the shot fly over them at close quarters, and be practically useless, as they required a long stroke. But he, it appears, had long before prepared engines suited ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... remaining level of scaffolding, and men swarmed on it and fastened it to the swelling hull. As soon as it was fast, other men hurried into it with the white pasty stuff to line it from end to end. The tubes would nearly hide the structure they were designed to propel. But they'd all be burned away ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... as if that was the one delight of his life. Some birds have wings, others have "pinions." The buzzard enjoys this latter distinctions. There is something in the sound of the word that suggests that easy, dignified, undulatory movement. He does not propel himself along by sheer force of muscle, after the plebeian fashion of the crow, for instance, but progresses by a kind of royal indirection that puzzles the eye. Even on a windy winter day he rides the vast aerial billows as placidly as ever, rising and falling ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... position in the bow, while the heavy weight of the expedition, Bumpus, who had been invited to go because of his discovery of the boat, occupied the middle. Bob White, paddle in hand, shoved off; and then squatted in the stern to propel the craft. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... small muzzle-loading cannon in the bows, and a crew of ten or a dozen in quaint uniforms, who, when wind fails, take to the sweeps, and standing up facing the direction in which they are going, and keeping good time, propel the boat at a fair pace. When at anchor an awning in blue and white stripes affords a commodious shelter. Being official vessels they are spic and span in light yellow varnish, and frequently fly a number of really beautiful flags of marvellous design and brilliant ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... energetically—so energetically that he was tired enough to be willing to resign the oars before a half hour had gone by. Under the circumstances he did not quite like to ask Sherm to relieve him. Sherm seemed to be oblivious to the fact that it required energy to propel the boat. He was strumming an imaginary banjo as an accompaniment to the familiar melodies the girls were softly singing, occasionally joining in himself. Katy did not fail to observe that Ernest ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... They have vireys and barangays, which are certain quick and light vessels that lie low in the water, put together with little wooden nails. These are as slender at the stern as at the bow, and they can hold a number of rowers on both sides, who propel their vessels with bucceyes or paddles, and with gaones [239] on the outside of the vessel; and they time their rowing to the accompaniment of some who sing in their language refrains by which they understand whether to hasten or retard their rowing. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... the Mulege, which waters the Mission of Santa Rosalia, and enters the Gulf in latitude 27 deg. N. These are not navigable. The streams on the ocean coast, also, are few and small. Some of them are large enough to propel light machinery, or irrigate considerable tracts of land, but none of them are navigable. In the interior are several large springs, which send out abundant currents along the rocky beds of their upper courses; but when they reach the loose sands and porous rocks of the lower ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... transmission would be effected with an exceedingly small loss infliction in transit. I believe I am right in saying that a 10 inch pipe a mile long would not involve much more than about 14 or 15 lb. differential pressure to propel the water through it at the rate of three feet in a second. If that be so, then, with 700 lb. to the inch, the loss under such circumstances would be only two per cent. in transmission. There is no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... For aught I know, it might be employed as a secondary agent in the marvellous organization and organic movements of my body. But, surely, it would be strange language to say, that I construct my heart! or that I propel the finer influences through my nerves! or that I compress my brain, and draw the curtains of sleep round my own eyes! Spinoza and Behmen were, on different systems, both Pantheists; and among the ancients ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... have no force-pump, like the arteries, to propel their contents towards their destination. The onward flow of the blood in them is due to various causes, the chief being the pressure behind of the blood pumped into the capillaries. Then as the pocket-like valves prevent ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... still blew strong, but steadily; the blue water of the ocean was rising in mimic mountains, that were crowned with white foam, which the wind, at times, lifted from its kindred element, to propel in mist, through the air, from summit to summit. But the ship rode on these agitated billows with an easy and regular movement that denoted the skill with which her mechanical powers ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... abreast of the encampment, and in spite of the frantic efforts of her crew to propel her shoreward she drifted momentarily closer to the cataract below. Manifestly it was impossible to row out and intercept the derelict before she took the plunge, and so, helpless in this extremity, the audience began to stream down over the rounded boulders ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... it must seem like an excess of caution for Kenton to hesitate to propel his boat across this open space when it confronted him. That there was any dusky foe crouching in the woods, with his eyes fixed upon that "clearing" in the water and watching for the appearance of Kenton, was a piece of fine-spun theorizing that entered ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... galley, being, essentially, an oar vessel, had to fulfil certain simple conditions. She had to be light, or men might not row her. She had to be long, or she might not carry enough oarsmen to propel her with sufficient swiftness. Her lightness, and lack of draught, made it impossible for her to carry much provision; while the number of her oars made it necessary for her to carry a large crew of rowers, in addition to her soldiers and sail trimmers. It was therefore impossible for such a ship ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... and only near the river should we be obliged to cut away the young trees. We demolished the old shanty, and taking half a dozen of the boards, laid down a track towards the river. The ground was nearly level for a short distance, and we used levers to propel the box forward. As fast as one roller ran out in the rear, we placed it forward, and thus managed to keep both ends of the box up ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... various modifications—beneath and through which a common plan of formation is discernible. But if I look at the same part physiologically, I see that it is a most beautifully constructed organ of locomotion, by means of which the animal can swiftly propel itself either backwards ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... market activity and government intervention. The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises) and extensively subsidizes agriculture, fishing, and areas with sparse resources. Norway also maintains an extensive welfare system that helps propel public sector expenditures to slightly more than 50% of the GDP and results in one of the highest average tax burdens in the world (54%). A small country with a high dependence on international trade, Norway is basically an exporter of raw materials and semiprocessed goods, with an abundance ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... the Beresfords left Lucerne for Zurich. They stayed there three days—Nan busy all the time in teaching herself how to propel a boat with two oars, her face to the bow; and she liked to practise most in moonlight. Then they left Zurich one afternoon, and made their way southward into the mountainous region adjacent to the sombre Wallensee. The stormy sunset deepened and died out; rain, rain, rain pursued them ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... developed which could propel a spaceship at half the speed of light. This was merely a matter of technological concentration, ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... That bound the Roman fleet, the larger craft With triple and quadruple banks of oars Gird in the lesser: so they front the sea; While in their rear, shaped as a crescent moon, Liburnian galleys follow. Over all Towers Brutus' deck praetorian. Oars on oars Propel the bulky vessel through the main, Six ranks; the topmost strike the waves afar. When such a space remained between the fleets As could be covered by a single stroke, Innumerable voices rose in air Drowning with resonant din the beat of oars And note of trumpet summoning: and all Sat on ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... comes to be turned far enough toward the right so that some of the light strikes the second eyespot (as will happen when the animal comes around facing the light), the second fin, on the right side, is set in motion, and the two together propel the animal forward in a straight line. The direction of this line will be that in which the animal lies when its two eyes receive equal amounts of light. In other words, by the combined operation of two reflexes the animal swims toward the light, while either reflex ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... no difficulty next day in taking observations, and found themselves about five hundred miles W.N.W. of Mizen Head. As it was no use depending on being picked up they made all sail in that direction, and so rapidly did the strong west wind propel them that on taking observations the next day they found themselves nearly one hundred and fifty miles nearer land. It was fortunate that they made such headway, for they had only one day's provisions ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... hole in the wall under the floor of Zeno's dwelling; he then lit a fire, which soon caused steam to pass through the tube in such a quantity as to make the floors to heave as if by an earthquake. But to return. We next come to Blasco de Garay (A.D. 1543), who proposed to propel a ship by the power of steam. So much cold water seems to have been thrown on his engine, that it must have condensed all his steam, as little notice is taken of it except that he got no encouragement. We find that it has also been used by some of the ancients in connection with ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... provided they be vicious. A man so neglected in his youth that he cannot spell the names of Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon, or read them if he see them spelt, may feel the strong incitement of ambition. This, instead of raising him, may only propel him forward on the level of his debased condition and society; and it is a favorable supposition that makes him "the best wrestler on the green," or a manful pugilist; for it is probable his grand delight may be, to indulge himself in an oppressive, insolent arrogance toward such as are unable ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... 'I have no wish to propel your grey hairs at a rapid run down the drive, so I will explain further. I am physically stronger than you. I mean to turn you out. How can you prevent it? Mr Abney is away. You can't appeal to him. The police are at the end of the telephone, but you can't appeal to them. ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... this same thing produced when one has been running rapidly for a few minutes? For a very good reason: in this case the rapid inhalations are preceded by the violent throes of the heart to propel the carbonized blood from the overworked tissues and have them set free at the lungs where the air is rushing in at the normal ratio of four to one. This is not an abnormal action, but is of necessity, or asphyxia would instantly result and the runner would drop. ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... may eventually become an angel—of some sort—but I'll wear no wings. We are accustomed to think of seraphs flying from heaven to earth, flitting from star to star—irrespective of the fact that feathers are useless where there's no atmosphere. An angel working his wings to propel himself through a vacuum were as ridiculous as a disembodied spirit riding a ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... She could propel the chair by means of rims attached to the wheels and, even as she spoke, began to roll herself out of the room. Mary Louise sprang to assist her, but the girl waved her away with ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... covering his insensible form with, furs, thought he was dead. But there was now no time for hesitation,—dead or living, Olaf Gueldmar's will was law to his vassal,—an oath had been made and must be kept. To propel the sledge down to the Fjord was an easy matter—how the rest of his duty was accomplished he ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... protest, and pray. Before they have been heard, the poignancy of their woe has been published by the orchestra, which at once takes its place beside the chorus as a peculiarly eloquent expositor of the emotions and passions which propel the actors in the drama. That mission and that eloquence it maintains from the beginning to the final catastrophe, the instrumental band doing its share toward characterizing the opposing forces, emphasizing the solemn dignity of the Hebrew religion and ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the approved method of bringing a "Corkis" to silence, but it was one that served in school and proved to do so here. While the silence lasted and the crowding guests craned their necks forward, she was seen to lead, push, or in some manner propel a reluctant boy toward a ladder resting against the hay-mow and in full sight ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... thought that she might not sink at all but would be carried out to sea only to be cast ashore at one of the elm-edged points. She felt strangely tempted to put herself to the test. She would lie perfectly still the whole time, she said to herself, and use neither hand nor foot to propel the coffin. She would put herself wholly at the mercy of her judge; he might draw her down or let her escape ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... thought that oars might be employed to propel and direct a balloon. The immediate failure of all endeavours of this sort, led them, still pursuing the analogy between a balloon and a ship at sea, to try to navigate the air with sails. This again proved futile. It is impossible for a balloon, or airship to "tack" or manoeuvre in any way by sail ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... why not a man! So the velocipede was constructed for the rider's feet to just reach the ground, and by pressing first one foot on the ground and then the other he managed in this undignified attitude, to propel the thing along! ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... the engine-room were the two motors, one designed to send the projectile through the atmosphere, the other intended to propel it through the space filled ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... instantly comprehended the sense of this last word, which is a compound, and signifies women living alone. The Indian confirmed my observation, and related that the Aikeambenanos were a community of women, who manufactured blow-tubes* (* Long tubes made from a hollow cane, which the natives use to propel their poisoned arrows.), and other weapons of war. They admit, once a year, the men of the neighbouring nation of Vokearos into their society, and send them back with presents. All the male children born in this horde of women are killed in their infancy." This history seems framed on the traditions ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... purifying the blood," writes Sir Morell Mackenzie, "the lungs are the bellows of the vocal instrument. They propel a current of air up the windpipe to the narrow chink of the larynx, which throws the membranous edges or lips (vocal cords) of that organ into vibration, and thereby produces sound. Through this small chink, the air escaping ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... this conductor, and causing the further part to rotate upon the nearer, I could divert the current through any required angle. Thus I could turn the repulsion upon the resistant body (sun or planet), and so propel the vessel in any ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... with the accuracy of the orbit of the planets, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship against the wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages ascend mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to convey intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to continent, under ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Obviously, therefore, the only line of escape ran through this cave, for, as I have explained, the channel by which I presume Babemba reached the open lake, was now impracticable. Lastly, we searched to see if there was any fallen log upon which we could possibly propel ourselves to the other side, and found—nothing that could be made to serve, no, nor, as I have said, any dry reeds or brushwood out of which ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... enjoyed their heritage," he said, taking up the conversation—"Our yacht's motive power seems complex, but in reality it is very simple,—and the same force which propels this light vessel would propel the biggest liner afloat. Nature has given us all the materials for every kind of work and progress, physical and mental—but because we do not at once comprehend them we deny their uses. Nothing in the air, earth or water exists which we may not press into ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... saw that the masts were exceedingly tall; they held enough canvas to propel ten ships. And each stick sloped back at so sharp an angle—much sharper than forty-five degrees—that the wind not only blew the craft along in its course, but actually supported ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... Their boots are shod with "caulks," or spikes, to keep them from slipping on the logs, and they carry either pike poles or peaveys, Fig. 17. The latter are similar to cant-hooks, except that they have sharp pikes at their ends. So armed, they have to "ride any kind of a log in any water, to propel a log by jumping on it, by rolling it squirrel fashion with the feet, by punting it as one would a canoe; to be skilful in pushing, prying, and poling other logs from the quarter deck of the same cranky craft." Altho the logs are carried by the river, ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... stream, A tear, a sigh, a passing breath,— A meteor, swallow'd up in death. But though so brief the space we view, Each has its portion'd work to do: Youth must unbind and bud the flow'rs, To bloom o'er manhood's sylvan bow'rs; He must propel the early shoot, And ripen it to golden fruit, And weave a chaplet, rich and rare, For age to twine around his hair,— As Faith looks up, with trusting eye, To ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James Rumsey, who haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch a secret trial of a boat moved by means of machinery which worked setting-poles similar to the ironshod poles used by the rivermen to propel their boats upstream. "The model," wrote Washington, "and its operation upon the water, which had been made to run pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I before thought next to, if not quite impracticable, ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... more or less accustomed to the work, he found the first few hours sufficiently arduous. It is not an easy matter to propel a loaded canoe against a strong stream with a single paddle, and it is almost as difficult to pole her alone; while there were two long portages to make, when the craft and everything in them had to be hauled painfully over a stretch of very rough boulders. Kinnaird took his share in it, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... John Fitch the sole right to use steamboats on the Hudson, and granting the privilege to Chancellor Livingston for a term of twenty years, provided that within a year he should build a boat of twenty tons capacity and propel it by steam at a speed of four miles an hour. John Fitch had disappeared, and with him his idea of applying steam to paddles. He had fitted a steam engine of his own invention into a ferry-boat of his own construction, and for a whole summer this creation ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... unavoidably turn its whole attention to the single object of raising food, and emancipating itself as soon as possible, from so uncertain and dangerous a dependence. The principle of fear would have sufficed to propel the colonists to a spontaneous application of their strength to the realization of this end, independent of any directing power whatever. It was, therefore, only on the attainment of this most important point, that the impolicy of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... one that could be taken on board ship and used to destroy any vessel that came to destroy them. It was fixed with a rotary steam engine and a screw wheel to propel it. It was intended to be guided from the ship or the shore. There were two steel wires fixed to the tiller of the rudder, and the operator could pull on one side or the other and guide the vessel just as a horse is guided with reins. It was so arranged that ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... that the ordinary means employed to propel light machinery by the foot are fatiguing in the extreme and although the best of these is the rock shaft with foot pieces, employed almost universally in modern sewing machines, this requires the operator to sit bolt upright, a position ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... paddled from point to point. We had dinner at what the Indians call Montreal Point, and then started for the long crossing to Old Norway House Point, as it was then called. It is a very long open traverse, and as lowering clouds threatened us we pulled on as rapidly as our three paddles could propel us. When out a few miles from land the storm broke upon us, the wind rose rapidly, and soon we were riding over great white-crested billows. My men were very skilful, and we had no fear; but the most skilful ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... cries of "Go it, Square." "Dry up, old boy!" "Propel with the show!" &c., &c. Tiffles adopted the latter suggestion, and without answering the lawyer's insinuation, proceeded to point out the natural appearance of the waves, the truthfulness of the distant ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... forward toward a freer, richer, more joyous life than he has yet known and that every effort brings him nearer to its realization. Thus dwelling on the subject in its various aspects he creates the ardent desire that serves to propel him forward. ...
— Self-Development and the Way to Power • L. W. Rogers
... by long action, or are habitually weaker than natural, the antagonist muscles replace the limb by stretching it in a contrary direction; and as these muscles have had their actions associated in synchronous tribes, their actions cease together. But as the hollow muscles propel the fluids, which they contain, by motions associated in trains; when one ring is fatigued from its too great debility, and brought into retrograde action; the next ring, and the next, from its ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the subject, they decided that the chamber of the Roman Senate was the proper place, and the Ides of March, the day on which he was appointed to be crowned, was the propel time for Caesar to ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... shipped the whole outfit by steamer down the Cowlitz River, and took passage with my assistants to Portland, thus reversing the order of travel in 1853. We used steam instead of the brawn of stalwart pioneers and Indians to propel the boat. On the evening of March the first I pitched my tent in the heart of the city of Portland, on a grassy ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... locomotives? It seems hard for you to realize such things, but still these are facts. In these days, the Apeman devotes his time to the construction of machinery with which to carry around his decaying and almost useless frame, while the Sageman utilized the power of his own body to propel himself as ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... efforts of the little one to support and propel itself are to be carefully watched, but not unnecessarily interfered with; neither frightened by expressions of fear, nor rendered timid by too ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... attached at the lower corner to the crank of the sprocket wheel and having a handle at each of its upper corners. It is hinged upon a fulcrum which slides upon the two vertical rods shown in the illustration. It will be seen that this gives a peculiar movement to the handles by which the operators propel the car, but it has been found that the motion is an excellent one, and it is claimed that a higher speed can be obtained with the mechanism here shown than with any other now in use. There is practically no dead center, as in the case where the ordinary crank and lever is used. A number ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... plantain-tree, twisted into cordage of the thickness of a finger; and three or four such cords marled together served for shrouds. This curious craft was steered by a long scull, the handle of which rose four or five feet above the deck. In calm weather, as I afterwards observed, the natives propel these canoes simply by sculling; a man standing astern and working the scull with both hands—a very slow process. They are, indeed, better fitted for ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Every second was precious and every argument futile. While Yamba was getting ready the canoe I rushed from one group of natives to the other, coaxing, promising, imploring. I pointed out to them that they could propel their catamarans faster than I could paddle my canoe; and I promised them that if I reached the ship I would send them presents from the white man's land of tomahawks and knives; gaily coloured cloths and gorgeous jewellery. But they were only too ready to help ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... and Bud now scrambled, as swiftly as hands and feet and body could propel them, Thure in the lead. The limb was sufficiently large and strong to make this neither difficult nor dangerous. In a few minutes they were at the face of the wall of rock. Here Thure paused for a moment, then he was seen to rise on his feet, push a few branches ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... may have contemplated, it was effectually prevented by the energy with which the Trapper pushed the sled after him. Indeed, it was all he could do to keep it off his heels, so earnestly did the old man propel it from behind; and so, with many a slip and scramble on the part of Wild Bill, and a continued muttering on the part of the Trapper about the "nonsense of a man's jibberin' in the snow arter a ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... which had sweetened his youth continued to propel him in full sail. He had only to show himself to be at once surrounded, felicitated, worshipped; and his mere presence would sway a crowd as the black peaks of the high cypresses are swayed by ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... that you could propel the car, and that although your gun was badly aimed you could steer towards a planet, how long ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... floating apparatus, which enables them to travel many miles by stream or river, or rain washes. Some of these not only float, but actually swim, having spider-like filaments, which wriggle like legs, and actually propel the tiny seed along to its new home. A recent writer says of these seeds that "so curiously lifelike are their movements that it is almost impossible to believe that these tiny objects, making good progress through the water, are ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... pushed himself along the corridor of the battleship Shane, holding the flashlight in one hand and using the other hand and his good leg to guide and propel himself by. The beam of the torch reflected queerly from the pastel green walls of the corridor, giving him the uneasy sensation that he was swimming underwater instead of moving through the blasted hulk of a battleship, a thousand light-years ...
— The Measure of a Man • Randall Garrett
... latitude. The peculiarities of this sea-bird's flight are a constant marvel, for it scarcely ever plies its wings, but literally sails upon the wind in any desired course. We wonder what secret power can so propel him for hundreds of rods with an upward trend at the close. If for a single moment he lights upon the water to seize some object of food, there is a trifling exertion evinced in rising again, until ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... Juaves is at once picturesque and curiously tame. The men spend much of their time on or in the water. They make great dugout canoes from large tree trunks. There are usually no paddles, but poles are used to propel the craft sluggishly over the waters of the lagoon. Few of the men can swim. The fish are chiefly caught with nets, and both seines and throw nets are used. The lagoons are said to abound in alligators, and the men, when fishing, generally carry with them spears with long iron ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... big copper switch, and grasped the black rubber handle to pull it over which would send the current from the storage battery into the combination of wheels and gears that he hoped, ultimately, would propel his electric automobile along the highways, or on a track, at the rate of a ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... him presently that he could steer as well as propel his float with his feet. So he set to work, threshing the water very slowly and carefully, and turning his head towards the mouth of the Licking. Occasionally he heard the sounds of both oars and paddles, but he judged very accurately ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... At certain distances, he will aim 45 deg. above the horizon at what is really but 30 deg. above it. So, in moral subjects, there is unfortunately a native and universal tendency downwards, which deflects us out of the line in which good resolutions would propel us. You aim to be distinguished, and you turn out only meritorious. You aim to be meritorious, and you fall into the multitude. You are content with being of the multitude, and you fall out of your class ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... workshops, where the engine drivers and stokers seemed glad to talk with a youngster who took an interest in their business. Especially interested was I in a rotary engine on "Barker's centrifugal principle,'' with which the inventor had prom- ised to propel locomotives at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, but which had been degraded to grinding bark in a tannery. I felt its disgrace keenly, as a piece of gross injustice; but having obtained a small brass model, fitted to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... for cleaving the water! They often seem to glide rather than propel themselves through its depths. Again, how swiftly the caudal fin moves when with straight unerring motion they dart upon their prey. At times one turns his body sideways, and, with a slow, upward-gliding motion, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... high curved piece suggestive of a gondola. These craft are propelled by two men standing one at each end like gondoliers and punting the boat along by poles. If the water is too deep to bottom it they sit and propel ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... all sorts of things to men in the navy, but we don't drown them for the sake of their pictures. Suppose I show you around, for at two bells the men will be back from their dinner. Now, aft here, is the gasoline engine, which we use to propel the boat on the surface. We can't use it submerged, however, on account of the exhaust; so, for under-water work, we use a strong storage battery to work a motor. You see the motor back there, and under this deck is the storage battery—large jars of sulphuric acid and lead. ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... rapid, usually at the rate of four or five miles an hour, when at its height; and it requires a strong wind to propel a boat with a sail against it. Steam overcomes its force, for boats ply regularly from St. Louis to the towns and landings on its banks within the borders of the state, and return with the produce of the country. Small steamboats have gone to ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... this power, if rightly employed, is powerful enough to propel a large engine and to move passengers and goods: the engine having whatever form men ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... interest his companion, thus diverting her thoughts and preventing her from dwelling too much upon the horrors of their present situation. He therefore set manfully to work and, shaping a course by the run of the sea, proceeded to propel the raft to windward, resting his hand upon its after end and striking out with his legs, in long, steady strokes that could be maintained for a considerable period without entailing ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... bedrooms, exquisitely furnished and enormously expensive. The horticultural department was very poor, except the rhododendrons, which drove me crazy. I only took a chair twice. You pay sixty cents an hour for one with a man to propel it, but can have one for three hours and make your husband (or wife!) wheel you. You do not pay entrance fee for children going in your arms, and I saw boys of eight or nine lugged in by their fathers and mothers. We think everybody should go who can afford it. Several countries ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... your body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we can catch you with a boathook or a fishline. Out there in empty space you will have nothing to kick against, and you will be unable to propel yourself in the direction of the car, and its attraction is so feeble that we should probably arrive at Mars before it ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... the ferry, is about two hundred yards wide, and with a current of perhaps five miles an hour. A dozen stalwart men with rude, heavy sweeps propel the boat across; but at every passage the swift current takes it down-stream twice as far as the river's width. After disembarking the passengers, the boatmen have to tow it this distance up-stream again before making the next crossing. The boatmen wear a single garment of blue cotton that ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... in the shadowy corner where the pulpit stood. A simple hymn was dictated and sung in strong nasal tones. The old man who led the singing prided himself upon the volume of sound which he could at any instant propel through his nose. Strangers were sometimes a little disconcerted by this feat, for it seemed as if some wholly new description of trumpet had been suddenly invented. This man of the trumpet voice was wont to close his eyes and turn his ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... three types the free balloon is by far the oldest and the simplest, but it is entirely at the mercy of the wind and other elements, and cannot be controlled for direction, but must drift whithersoever the wind or air currents take it. On the other hand, the airship, being provided with engines to propel it through the air, and with rudders and elevators to control it for direction and height, can be steered in whatever direction is desired, and voyages can be made from one place to another—always provided that the force of the wind is not ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... sought the barn, whither Ben and Creamer had preceded them on a similar errand. La Salle's boat was a flat-bottomed "sculling-float," twelve feet long by three feet beam, and ten inches deep, with a hole through the stern-board, through which, with a short, crooked oar, a man could silently propel himself within shot of a flock of fowl. Davies's boat aimed at the same end in another way, being a large side-wheel paddle-boat, propelled by cranks, for two persons. Both boats were painted white, so as ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... any means whatever is what is commonly indicated by restive in the best English speech and literature. Dryden speaks of "the pampered colt" as "restiff to the rein;" but the rein is not used to propel a horse forward, but to hold him in, and it is against this that he is "restiff." A horse may be made restless by flies or by martial music, but with no refractoriness; the restive animal impatiently resists or struggles to break from control, as by bolting, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... piping hot but magnificent; corridor, piazza, colonnade, and garden were empty of life, except for a listless negro servant dawdling here and there. Virginia managed to find a wheel-chair under the colonnade and a fat black boy at the control to propel it; and with her letter hidden in her glove, and her heart racing, she seated herself, parasol tilted, chin in the air, and the chair rolled noiselessly away through the ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers |
