"Curvature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up and secured by a lariat; willow rods of the required dimensions are then cut, heated, and bent into the proper shape for knees, after which their centres are placed at equal distances upon the keel, and firmly tied with cords. The knees are retained in their proper curvature by cords around the ends. After a sufficient number of them have been placed upon the keel, two poles of suitable dimensions are heated, bent around the ends for a gunwale, and firmly lashed to each knee. Smaller willows are then interwoven, so ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... account the ancients preferred for it such subjects as admitted of an indefinite extension, sacrificial processions, dances, and lines of combatants, &c. Hence they also exhibited bas-reliefs on curved surfaces, such as vases, or the frieze of a rotunda, where, by the curvature, the two ends are withdrawn from our sight, and where, while we advance, one object appears as another disappears. Reading Homer is very much like such a circuit; the present object alone arresting our attention, we lose sight of that which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... motion of a planet in its orbit. If we know the successive positions of the moving body at successive short intervals of time, the rules of the differential calculus enable us to calculate the speed, the change of speed, the change of direction of motion (i. e. the curvature of the path), and the effective force acting on the body. Conversely, given the force at every point, and the initial position and velocity, the rules of the integral calculus assist us in calculating the position and velocity ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... 'Wheeling round, like the planet Mercury in the curvature of its orbit, Jishnu (Arjuna) once more slew large number of the samsaptakas. Afflicted with the shafts of Partha, O king, men, steeds, and elephants, O Bharata, wavered and wandered and lost colour and fell down and died. Many foremost of animals tied to yokes and drivers ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Europe. The nucleus presented to the naked eye a distinct disc of brilliant white light, from which the tail rose at an angle of about 30 deg. or 35 deg. with the horizon, curving slightly downwards, and terminating in a broad brush of faint light, the curvature of which diminished till it was nearly straight at the end. The portion of the tail next the comet appeared three or four tunes as bright as the most luminous portion of the milky way, and what struck me as a singular ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... see that the top of a true billiard-table must, theoretically, be spherical, just like a portion of the orange-peel that George cut out. Of course, the table is so small in proportion to the surface of the earth that the curvature is not appreciable, but it is nevertheless true in theory. A surface that we call level is not the same as our idea of a true ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... are in the habit of shaving off a little from one side of the horns of these animals when still growing, in order to make them curve in that direction and assume fantastic shapes. The stranger the curvature, the more handsome the ox is considered to be, and the longer this ornament of the cattle-pen is spared to beautify the herd. This is a very ancient custom in Africa, for the tributary tribes of Ethiopia are seen, on some of the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... tail, for example, besides varying in length, vary in the proportionate length of each feather, and this causes their outline to vary considerably in shape. The bill also varies in length, width, depth, and curvature. The tarsus varies in length, as does each toe separately and independently; and all this not to a minute degree requiring very careful measurement to detect it at all, but to an amount easily seen without any measurement, as it averages one-sixth of the whole length and often ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the ribs is the amount of curvature which is imparted to them in the same way that a motor car spring or a road has a camber ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... But farther. Not only the curvature, but even the tapering by straight lines, would be somewhat difficult of execution in the pieced column. Where, indeed, the entire shaft is composed of four or five blocks set one upon another, the diameters may ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... were capable of. A great painter, who flourished many olympiads ago, has, in his volume entitled the Canon, defined the line of beauty. It was here in its perfection: it followed with winning obsequiousness every member, but delighted more especially to swim along that placid and pliant curvature on which Nature had ranged the implements of mastication. Pawing with his cloven hoof, he suddenly changed his countenance from the contemplative to the wrathful. At one effort he rose up to his whole length, breadth, and height: ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... times the men ceased paddling, and looked about them at the scene, as new glimpses opened from behind points, enabling them to see farther down the lake, or to get broader views of the wooded mountains. The only changes, however, were in the new forms of the hills, the varying curvature of the bays, and the wider reaches of the valley south; the whole earth apparently being clothed in a gala-dress ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... children began to work in the mills. Thus far I have seen about a hundred such cases, and can, most decidedly, express the opinion that they are the consequences of overwork. So far as I know they were all mill children, and themselves attributed the evil to this cause. The number of cases of curvature of the spine which have fallen under my observation, and which were evidently consequent upon too protracted standing, was not ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He wrought feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, by his play impeding his father in his labors. When at last the work was done, the artist, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... peculiar position. The thigh is slightly bent and rolls outward. For convenience the child drops the half of the pelvis corresponding to the diseased hip-joint, and naturally raises the other half. From this apparently a curvature of the spinal column results in the lumbar region. Apparently only, for when the child is laid down and the morbid position of the thigh is restored the curvature of the ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... turban—hereafter to be particularly alluded to—there was no taking it off and putting it on again with anything like dignity. At any rate, then, here goes a how. But, another difficulty presented itself; my loose frock was so voluminous that I doubted whether any spinal curvature would be perceptible. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... time. A child may be placed on his feet at too early an age, and the bones of his legs form the habit of remaining bent. The Flathead Indian binds a board on the skull of his child, and its head forms the habit of remaining flat on the top. Wrong bodily postures produce curvature of the spine, and pernicious modes of dress deform the bones of the chest. The muscles may be trained into the habit of keeping the shoulders straight or letting them droop; those of the back, to keep the body well up ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... halted and seemed to wave to me. I waved back and found myself weeping. "You fool!" I said to myself, "Go on"; and it was by an effort that I kept on my way instead of running back to her again. Presently the curvature of the slope came up between us and hid her altogether, hid the hotel, hid the lakes and ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... perception, deviate in the slightest degree from a straight line even in a million of years, is a proposition not to be entertained; and yet these ancient astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears, into believing that a decisive curvature had become apparent during the brief period of their astronomical history—during the mere point—during the utter nothingness of two or three thousand years! How incomprehensible, that considerations ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... next halting-place, forma something of a crescent on the west shore of the river, and is distinguished by a seven-storied pagoda at the southern extremity of its curvature. As seen from the east bank, the city and its background of reddish hills, two peaks of which rise to the respectable height of, I should judge, two thousand feet, is not without certain pretensions to beauty. Many of the houses on the river front are built over the water on piles, and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... or two beyond due west, our own Susquehanna being less crooked. The stream was not broad, but its numerous isles, willowy banks, and verdant meadows, formed a line for the eye to follow. Rouen in the distance, with its ebony towers, fantastic roofs, and straggling suburbs, lines its shores, at a curvature where the stream swept away west again, bearing craft of the sea on its bosom. These dark old towers have a sombre, mysterious air, which harmonizes admirably with the recollections that crowd the mind at such a moment! Scarce an isolated dwelling was to be seen, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... money she earns is needed for the support of some one dependent upon her, thus following habits established by generations of virtuous women who cared for feeble folk. I know one such girl living in a disreputable house in Chicago who has adopted a delicate child afflicted with curvature of the spine, whom she boards with respectable people and keeps for many weeks out of each year in an expensive sanitarium that it may receive medical treatment. The mother of the child, an inmate of the house in which the ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... Its date, plainly marked upon the panels at the bottom of the front posts, was, he told me, 1111. On {359} examining this astounding date a little closely, I soon perceived that the two middle strokes had a slight curvature, a tendency to approach the shape of an S, which distinguished them from the two exterior lines. The date was, in fact, 1551; yet so small was the difference of the figures, that the mistake was really ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... among the young, are now very prevalent among the children taught in the schools. These diseases are attributed to the many hours during which children are required to sit and to the bad positions they assume during those hours. Skoliosis—curvature of the spine—a serious disease, as it produces displacement of the internal organs, nose bleeding, aenemia, chlorosis, nervous irritation, loss of appetite, headache, and myopia, are diseases which are declared by experts to accompany the ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... ... Dreadfully bony! And my face has become..." She turns her face towards him. He sees tears trembling on the lower lashes of her grey eyes, but something has come into the features, some irradiation of love—is it the light of the sunset?—which imparts a tender youthfulness to the curvature of cheek, lips and chin. Her face, indeed, might be of any age: it held the undying beauty of a goddess, in whom knowledge has sweetened to tenderness and divinity has dissolved in a need for compassion; and the youthful assurance of a happy woman ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... dozen or so already, the most palpable engagement rings I think I ever saw. One of them had visible on its inner curvature the four letters MIZP—. He looked at them, saw the posy, and then, glancing at me, laughed affably. "I meant to tell you yesterday, George—I will take these," to the shopman. And we emerged with a superficial amiability; ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... use them among bushes, without frequent overthrows, nor to rise afterwards without help. Each shoe weighs about two pounds when unclogged with snow. The northern Indian snow-shoes differ a little from those of the southern Indians, having a greater curvature on the outside of each shoe; one advantage of which is, that when the foot rises the over-balanced side descends and throws off the snow. All the superiority of European art has been unable to improve the native contrivance of ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... of the sea formed by the curvature of the land between two capes or headlands, often used synonymously with gulf; though, in strict accuracy, the term should be applied only to those large recesses which are wider from cape to cape than they are deep. Exposed to sea-winds, a bay is mostly insecure. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... conceded to be pernicious. Formal exercises should never be given to any child without examination and prescription by a physician. Children with heart weakness, enlarged tonsils, adenoid growths, spinal curvature, uneven shoulders, are frequently seen doing exercises for which they are physically unfit, and which but serve to deplete further their already low vitality. Attention might be called to many a class engaged ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... Manning, had first generated the curvature field and overcome gravity, had left his grandson a fortune that approached the five-billion mark. But that had not been all. From his famous ancestor, Manning had inherited a keen, sharp, scientific mind. From his mother's father, Anthony ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... "Curvature of the spine. The doctor says she will outgrow it. Cissy will be quite strong and healthy although she may never have what you would call a good figure. But there is a matter on which I want to speak to you. The fact is, I ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... these schools. I examined her, and found that the little girl could hold her own with many of larger growth. 'Did she go to school to-day?' asked I. 'No,' was the answer, 'she has not been for some time, as she was beginning to get quite a serious curvature of the spine; so now she goes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... the same design with modification in the position of the median figure, and a slight curvature in ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... I. In both these pieces of building, the only line that traces the architrave round the arch, is that of the masonry joint; yet this line is drawn with extremest subtlety, with intention of delighting the eye by its relation of varied curvature to the arch itself; and it is just as much considered as the finest pen-line of a Raphael drawing. Every joint of the stone is used, in like manner, as a thin black line, which the slightest sign of cement would spoil like a blot. And so proud is the builder of his fine jointing, ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... the strong men wield their axes and hew asunder the tough ropes and spars. Bax, as usual, was prominent in action. He toiled as if for life; and so it was for life, though not his own. Small was the hope, yet it was enough to justify the toil. The curvature of the lifeboat was so great that it was possible a portion of air sufficient to maintain life might be confined within it. And so it turned out. For twenty minutes they toiled; the boat was finally cleared; Bax struck the blow that set it free, and dragged the coxswain out as ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... learning that this image can be viewed with a microscope, and magnified; thus came the telescope revealing unheard of suns and galaxies. The first telescopes colored everything looked at, but by a hundred years of mathematical research, the proper curvature of objectives formed of two glasses was discovered, so that now we have perfect instruments. Great results followed; one can now peer into the profound solitudes of space, bringing to view millions of stars, requiring light 5,000 years to traverse their awful ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... out from the portal in what seemed to be the arc of an immense circle. The shining walls held a perceptible curve, and from this curvature I estimated that the roof was fully ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... the open sea finally—a broad, empty expanse, with a mirrorlike surface. The curvature of the planet was even more apparent now; it seemed almost as though the water should be sliding back downhill ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... of moral curvature of the spine. When he was inaugurated last December, I chanced to be at the Capital, and heard two old codgers from the piney woods felicitating the State upon having a Governor, 'Fit to tie to; honest as the day is long, and walks so straight, he is powerful swaybacked.' ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... sea, of the whole length of the beach, would rise and advance, growing higher and more distinct as it approached, and then it would break over upon the shore in one long line of foam, white and beautiful, and gracefully curved to adapt itself to the curvature of the shore. At the extremities of the beach, points and promontories of ragged rocks extended out into the water, white with the breakers which foamed and struggled around them. From the whole there arose a continued and solemn ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... continued my studies. I had no consciousness of monotony, for, to the intellect, monotony cannot exist: it was one of those emotions I had left behind. One day, however, in the year 2132, a great discovery was made by a man called Zarentzov. It had to do with the curvature of space, quite changing the conceptions that we had all followed since Einstein. I had long ago mastered the last detail of Einstein's theory, as had, in time, the rest of the world. I threw myself immediately into the study of ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... forward of a thwart-ship bulkhead that cut the poop in two. The fore part formed a kind of miscellaneous store-room, with a double-bunked division for the cook (as Nares supposed) and second mate. The after part contained, in the midst, the main cabin, running in a kind of bow into the curvature of the stern; on the port side, a pantry opening forward and a stateroom for the mate; and on the starboard, the captain's berth and water-closet. Into these we did but glance, the main cabin holding us. It was dark, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... conversation dexterously but not insistently towards hats. He was to suggest trying on various types of hat and to show by his manner and bearing, but without any coarse flattery, the enhanced impression made by the hats he wished to sell. He had several mirrors, adapted by various subtleties of curvature and tint to different types of face and complexion, and much depended on the proper use ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... me of the character of Germanic mysteriousness. We must have been at a great elevation, though the mountains were not prominent objects; on the contrary, the eye ranged until it found the horizon, as at sea, in the curvature of the earth. The rills near us flowed into the Rhine, and, traversing half Europe, emptied themselves into the North Sea; while the stream that wound its way through the valley below, took a south-easterly direction towards ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... little appetite either for food or drink, and dry skin, with cold extremities. She has at times been occasionally worse, and been relieved in some degree by the bark. She began to bend forwards, and to lift up her shoulders. The former seemed owing to a beginning curvature of the spine, the latter was probably caused to facilitate ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... adjacent islands. Figure 1 shows the strongly curved margin of the Celebes species, Papilio gigon, compared with the much straighter margin of Papilio demolion from Singapore and Java. Figure 2 shows the abrupt bend over the base of the wing in Papilio miletus of Celebes, compared with the slight curvature in the common Papilio sarpedon, which has almost exactly the same form from India to New Guinea and Australia. Figure 3 shows the elongated wing of Tachyris zarinda, a native of Celebes, compared with the much shorter wing of Tachyris nero, a very closely allied species found in all the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Rheumatism—Palsy, curvature of the Spine, Chronic Diseases, Tic-doloureaux, Paralysis Tubercula of the brain, heart, liver, ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... horizontal bones lay like the bars of a gridiron, a mature specimen of a type that Ellen had met in her school-days. There had been several girls at John Thompson's, usually bleached and ill-favoured victims of anaemia or spinal curvature, who had seemed to be compelled by something within themselves to spend their whole energies in trying, by extravagances of hair-ribbon and sidecombs and patent leather belts, the collection of actresses' postcards, and the completest abstention from study, to assert ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... of the church is Perpendicular, the choir aisle windows are very low, and the curvature of the sides of the arches is so slight that they almost appear to be straight lines. The choir roof is flat, and is invisible from the exterior of the church. It is probable that at one time a parapet ran along the ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... with nerves new-braced and spirits cheered, We tread the wilderness, whose well-rolled walks, With curvature of slow and easy sweep— Deception innocent—give ample space To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next; Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms We may discern the thresher at his task. Thump after thump resounds the constant flail, That seems to swing uncertain and yet falls Full ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... similar objectionable character are many of the devices which ignorant men connected with the medical profession urge upon the public for the sake of remedying curvature of the spine, restoring the figure, or supporting the abdomen. Not a few of such braces and supporters are seriously dangerous. A good brace, well-fitting, carefully adjusted, suited to the particular case, ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... as well here to remark, that if such distortion is timely noticed, it is capable of correction, even after evident curvature has taken place. It is to be remedied by using those means that shall invigorate the frame, and promote the child's general health (a daily plunge into the cold bath, or sponging with cold salt water, will be found signally efficacious), and by avoiding the original cause of the distortion—never ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... of a masonry arch structure as can be found (figs. 8 and 9). The design was made by John Rennie the elder, and the acting engineer was his son, Sir John Rennie. The semi-elliptical shape of the arches the variation of span, the slight curvature of the roadway, and the simple yet bold architectural details, combine to make it a singularly beautiful bridge. The centre arch has a span of 152 ft., and rises 29 ft. 6 in above Trinity high-water mark; the arches on each side of the centre have a span of 140 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... must needs pity your own mishandling of the obstinate wood. Have you courage to smile at the misshapen handiwork, or do you cowardly, discard the deformity you have created? How it grunts and groans as pressure is applied to its stubborn bent limbs! Curvature of the spine is the least of its ills. It limps and creaks when fixed tentatively for trial. Tender-footed, it stands awry, heaving one leg aloft—as crooked and as perverse as Caliban. In good time, botching here, violent constraint there, the chair finds itself or is forced so to ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... little sandy plain two or three acres in extent, which in this land of steep mountains is called a pampa. Were the dwellers on the pampas of Argentina—where a railroad can go for 250 miles in a straight line, except for the curvature of the earth—to see this little bit of flood-plain called Mandor Pampa, they would think some one had been joking or else grossly misusing a word which means to them illimitable space with not a hill in sight. However, to the ancient dwellers in this valley, where level land was so scarce that ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... diagram reproduction, on the part of the organism, is represented by a line which repeats the curvature of the parent organism originating at such a point as P in the path of the latter, when the rate of consumption of energy has become constant. The organism A has now ceased to act as a unit. The products of fission each carry on the vital ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... on the features of that king of old; gray haired, prematurely gray; the eyebrows unlike in their curvature, giving a quaint expression to the face, a mild and good-tempered face, but somewhat deficient in character, forming the strongest contrast to that tall commanding figure on his right hand, with the stern and manly features, the greatest of the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... earth's surface makes it impossible for the sides of townships to be truly north and south and at the same time six miles square. The excesses and the deficiencies due to the convergency of meridians and the curvature of the earth are by law added to or deducted from the western and northern ranges of sections and half sections of the townships. While the above has been the rule in laying out public lands for more than a century, there are many ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... notions and dry-goods, flanking the right wall in stacks and bolts, merge into blur, the outline of a white-sateen and corseted woman's torso surmounting the topmost of the shelves with bold curvature. ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... in shape and proportions, radiating in a lunetted, curved base triangle from the middle chamber; the curvature of the enclosing globe forming back wall and roof; the translucent slicings the sides; the circle of floor of the inner ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... of measurement in Purneah was to take the tiger as he lay before he was put on the elephant, and measure from the tip of the nose, over the crest of the skull, along the undulations of the body, to the tip of the tail. That is, we followed the curvature of the spine along the dividing ridge of the back, and always were careful and fair in our attempts. I am of opinion that a tiger over ten feet long is an exceptionally long one, but when I read of sportsmen denying altogether that even that ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... step or setback to the ordinary thickness of about a foot. These walls, as usual in such structures, were about 2 feet thick; they are slightly curved, the front wall markedly so, and the interior corners are well rounded. No reason for this curvature is apparent, and it is certainly not dictated by the occurrence of the rock over which the wall is built, as only the point of this rock comes through the wall in the western side of the front wall. There may have been an opening into the room through ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... bacon and could do so truthfully, for its crisp and steaming shavings would have put to shame the efforts of my London cook. Indeed, I should have enjoyed the meal heartily were it not for the lowness of the sofa and table, causing a curvature of the body which made swallowing a more lengthy process than usual, and induced a periodical yearning to get up and stretch—a relief which spelt disaster to the skull. I noticed, too, that Davies spoke with a zest, sinister to me, of the delights of white ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the meagre narratives which have descended to us, there are slight discrepancies which it is impossible to reconcile. Entering Lake Michigan at its northern extremity through the Straits of Mackinac, they paddled down the eastern coast, passed the mouth of St. Joseph's River, rounded the southern curvature of the lake, and reached the mouth of the Chicago River on the 4th of January, 1682. The winter in that region was short, but very severe. The Chicago River presented a solid surface ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... and gave it a new grace that amounted almost to artifice. A parallel might be found among the products of the so-called art nouveau of to-day, in which old designs are revived with just that added suavity or profusion of curvature that robs them of character. Fig. 16 again might be mistaken almost for a piece of the Chow dynasty, were not the grandeur of its form modified by just so much harmony in the curvature of the body ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... that if sufficient elevation be obtained to overcome the curvature of the earth's surface and to reduce to the minimum the earth's absorption, electric telegraphing or signalling between distant points can be carried on by induction without the use of wires connecting such distant points. This discovery is especially applicable to telegraphing across ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... the doubtful matter. Had the hive of these bees been BEYOND that wood, the angle of intersection would not have been there, but at the hive across the prairie. The reader will understand that creatures which obey an instinct, or such a reason as bees possess, would never make a curvature in their flights without some strong motive for it. Thus, two bees taken from flowers that stood half a mile apart would be certain not to cross each other's tracks, in returning home, until they met at the common hive: ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... His coat was of white cloth, faced with black, and cut in a very antique fashion; and, in lieu of a waistcoat, he wore a buff jerkin. His feet were cased with loose buskins, which, though they rose almost to his knee, could not hide that curvature, known by the appellation of bandy legs. A large string of bandaliers garnished a broad belt that graced his shoulders, from whence depended an instrument of war, which was something between a back-sword and a cutlass; ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... possibility of improving them. His main improvements consisted (1) in lowering the height of the model—that is, the arch of the belly; (2) in making the four corner blocks more massive, and in giving greater curvature to the middle ribs; (3) in altering the setting of the sound holes, giving them a decided inclination to each other at the top; (4) in making the scroll more massive and permanent. Every violin of Stradivari was a special study, modified in various ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... them all if he would. But Bellini, thinking he was misunderstood, said: "No, I don't mean these, but the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke; they must be rather spread out and more divided, otherwise in a long sweep such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved." "I use no other than these," says Albrecht, "and to prove it, you may watch me." Then, taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... are not cambered to the same extent: some have a very small curvature; in others the curve is greatly pronounced. Planes of the former type are generally fitted to racing aeroplanes, because they offer less resistance to the air than do deeply-cambered planes. Indeed, it is in the degree of camber that the various types of flying machine ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... Seilles, a fervid Orleanist, was thanked for having advised the curvature of the route homeward to visit 'the spot of so impressive a monument': as it, was phrased by the Rev. Septimus Barmby; whose exposition to Nesta of the beautiful stained-glass pictures of incidents in the life of the crusading St. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Rainbows" on the north-eastern coast of the Sea of Showers. "From Cape Laplace (9000 feet high) on the western extremity, to Cape Heraclides (4000 feet high) on the eastern extremity, this great bay is about 140 miles across, the depth of its curvature being over eighty miles. It bears a very strong resemblance to many large bays on our sea-coasts in various parts of the world, but I am not aware of any such bay which is bordered by a mass of such ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... raised great stone circles, namely, in the late Pleistocene period, we find that there existed all over Europe and North Asia and the northern part of America another elephant very closely allied to the Indian elephant, but having a bow-like outward curvature of the tusks, their points finally directed towards one another, and a thick growth of coarse hair all over the body. This is "the mammoth," the remains of which are found in every river valley in England, France and Germany, and of which ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... are over 34 ft. high, and diminish from a diameter of 6.15 ft. at the bottom to 4.81 ft. at the top. The outline between these points is convex, but so slightly so that the curve departs at the point of greatest curvature not more than 3/4 in. from the straight line joining the top and bottom. This is, however, just sufficient to correct the tendency to look ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... whose blood is without taint or cross. Her ear was thin, sharply pointed, delicately curved, nearly black around the borders, and as tremulous as the leaves of an aspen. Her neck rose from the withers to the head in perfect curvature, hard, devoid of fat, and well cut up under the chops. Her nostrils were full, very full, and thin almost as parchment. The eyes, from which tears might fall or fire flash, were well brought out, soft as a gazelle's, almost human in their intelligence, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... no colour exists in nature without gradation, which is to colours what curvature is to lines. The difference in mere beauty between a gradated and ungradated colour may be seen by laying an even tint of rose-colour on paper, and putting a rose leaf beside it. The victorious beauty of the rose, as compared with other flowers, depends wholly on the delicacy ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... eyes were more accustomed to the queerness of this night upon Wandl, we could ignore the colored light-beams of the landing stage and the disembarking palisade upon which we were standing. Gazing into the distance, the curvature of the surface of this little world was immediately apparent. The reddish firmament of stars came down to meet the sharply-curving surface at a horizon line which seemed about ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... desks that are too low. It has been erroneously maintained by some that the top of the desk should be on the same plane with the elbow when the arm hangs by the side. When the desk is higher, it has been said the tendency is to elevate one shoulder, to depress the other, and to produce a permanent curvature of the spinal column. Although this may have been frequently the result of sitting at a high desk, yet it is not a necessary result. To prevent the projection of one shoulder, and the consequent spinal curvature, both of ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... of the bones was very extraordinary, and the elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles were developed in an unusual degree. Some of the ribs, also, were of a singularly rounded shape and abrupt curvature, which was supposed to indicate great power in the thoracic muscles.* (* Professor Schaaffhausen's "Memoir" translated ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... closely trimmed behind, he could do as much for the apparent shape of his head at the rear. If the forehead needed still more change, the line of implantation could be altered by removing hairs with tweezers; and the same painful but possible means must be used to affect the curvature of the eyebrows. By removing hairs from the tops of the ends, and from the bottom of the middle, he would be able to raise the arch of each eyebrow noticeably. This removal, along with the clearing of hair from the forehead, and thinning the eyelashes by plucking out, would ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... lateral curvature of the spine, and consequent bulging out of the ribs that you have just now described, arise either from delicacy of constitution, from the want of proper exercise, from too much learning, or from too little play, or from not sufficient or proper nourishment for a rapidly-growing body. I am happy ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... whereby a thing is white." Accordingly in defining an accident in the abstract, we do not put the subject as though it were the first part of the definition, viz. the genus; but we give it the second place, which is that of the difference; thus we say that simitas is "a curvature of the nose." But if we take accidents in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates in the concrete, the relation begins in the subject and terminates at the accident: for "a white thing" is "something that has whiteness." Accordingly in defining ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... definition arises from the fact that any distortion at the surface of a mirror affects the direction of a ray of light three times as much as the same distortion would do at the surface of a lens. And this applies equally both to permanent errors of curvature and to temporary distortions produced by strains and by inequality of temperature. The perfect achromatism of a reflector is, of course, a great advantage, but the chromatic aberration of refractors is now so well corrected that their inferiority in that respect may ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... with the Pennsylvania Railroad, near Harrison, N. J., to Woodside, Long Island, a distance of 13.66 miles, there is an average of 1.5 curves per mile; the line having a total curvature of 230 degrees. The maximum curvature ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond
... question, how far the development of Ligia is repeated in the other Isopoda, I can only give an unsatisfactory answer. The curvature of the embryo upwards instead of downwards was met with by me as well as by Rathke in Idothea, and likewise in Cassidina, Philoscia, Tanais, and the Bopyridae,—indeed, I failed to find it in none of the Isopoda examined for this purpose. In Cassidina ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... muscles, m, and it is by the action of these muscles that the lens is able to become small and thick, or large and thin; that is, to become more or less curved. When we look at near objects, the muscles act in such a way that the lens bulges out, and becomes thick in the middle and of the right curvature to focus the near object upon the screen. When we look at an object several hundred feet away, the muscles change their pull on the lens and flatten it until it is of the proper curvature for the new distance. The adjustment of the muscles is so quick and unconscious ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... the current, Trowbridge essayed to use the air. He believed that this was possible, and that it would be accomplished at no distant date. He believed, however, that such a system could not be operated over considerable distances because of the curvature of the earth. He endeavored to establish communication through the air by induction. He demonstrated that if one coil of wire be set up and a current sent through it, a similar coil facing it will have ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene; they have themselves experienced what they teach others; they have been trained to observe, and deal gently and carefully with growing girlhood. They have also studied deformities such as spinal curvature, round shoulders, and flat feet, and are able to take all such ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... thing: It recalls the picture in the joggerfy that proved the earth was round because the hull of a ship disappears before the sails, as it would if the ship was going over a hill. You sweep your eye along where the sky and water meet, and it seems you can note the curvature of the earth. Maybe it is that, and maybe it is all in your own ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... Curved Fire.—"High angle fire," as defined officially, "is fire at elevations greater than 15deg," and "curved fire is fire from howitzers at all angles of elevation not exceeding 15deg." In these cases the curvature of the trajectory becomes considerable, and the formulae employed in direct fire must be modified; the method generally employed is due to Colonel Siacci of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... lot, evidently the leader of them, who bore a close resemblance to the so-called Neanderthal man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. There was the same short, stocky trunk upon which rested an enormous head habitually bent forward into the same curvature as the back, the arms shorter than the legs, and the lower leg considerably shorter than that of modern man, the knees bent forward and never straightened. This creature and one or two others who appeared to be of a lower order than he, yet higher than that of the apes, carried ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and vivid only in the middle of the field. All about that centre the dead fibres and seeds were magnified and distorted by the curvature of the glass. But we could see enough! One after another all down the sunlit slope these miraculous little brown bodies burst and gaped apart, like seed-pods, like the husks of fruits; opened eager mouths. that drank in the heat ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... with curvature of the spine in Mr. Mellaire's watch. He's a proper hobo, too, and a land lubber, and don't weigh more'n a hundred pounds, and must be fifty years old, and he's got curvature of the spine, and he's able seaman, if you please, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... gorilla. There were the cradle in which I had lain, as a child, stupefied with soothing syrups; the perambulator, seated in which and propelled from behind, I overthrew the schoolmaster, and in which my infantile spine received its curvature; the nursery-maid, surrendering her lips alternately to me and the gardener; the old home of my youth, with the ivy and the mortgage on it; my eldest brother, who by will succeeded to the family debts; my ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... they may be seen from what follows. He was born at Melassa, but recognizing the natural advantages of Halicarnassus as a fortress, and seeing that it was suitable as a trading centre and that it had a good harbour, he fixed his residence there. The place had a curvature like that of the seats in a theatre. On the lowest tier, along the harbour, was built the forum. About halfway up the curving slope, at the point where the curved cross-aisle is in a theatre, a broad wide ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... species, namely, the summer-forms and those which live in the warm southern climate, exhibit, for instance, in the case of butterflies akin to the sailor, the same features, the elongation and more marked curvature of the fore-rim of the fore-wings and the consequent more extended form, that are produced by the action of artificial heat. Manifestly this is a matter of vital importance for the solution of the question: heat, whether ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... occasionally upon grave matters, which they do not understand, and do not really relish. You may interrupt a discussion on the beauty of a dahlia, by observing that as you know that they take an interest in such things you mention the discovery of a new method of analyzing curves of double curvature. Men who talk only of trifles will rarely be popular with ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... which the man asked was not asked as one interrogates, but as one puts a question that has personal application to himself. The trapper felt this. He looked into the man's face, and studied his countenance a moment; noted the breadth of brow, the large, deep-set eyes, the fine curvature of the chin and cheek; saw the beauty and splendor of it; saw what some might not have seen,—both the beauty of its peaceful mood and the terribleness of the wrath that might surge out of it,—saw all this, and without ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... another large species, of which South Africa is the home. This is remarkable for a noble appearance; but its most striking characteristic is its magnificent horns—each of which is four feet in length, sweeping widely outwards in an elegant spiral curvature. The koodoo loves the shade of the forest, and especially delights to dwell on the banks of rivers—taking freely to the water ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... brilliant silver-grey, very much like the central zone of Jupiter. North of this on the one side stretched the long shadow of the rings, and southward other bands of alternating white and gold and deep purple succeeded each other till they were lost in the curvature of the vast planet. The poles were of course invisible since the Astronef was now too near the surface; but on their approach they had seen unmistakable evidence of snow ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... these was Jumieges; it occupied a delightful situation in a peninsula, formed by the curvature of the stream, where the convent had existed from the reign of Clovis II. and had, with only a temporary interruption, caused by the invasion of the Normans, maintained, for eleven centuries, an even course of renown; celebrated alike for ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... Symmetry develops solemnity, but in landscape it must be balanced, not formal. Continuity: as in a succession of pillars or promontories or clouds involving change and relief, or else it would be mere monotonous repetition. Curvature: all beautiful objects are bounded by infinite curves, that is to say, of infinitely changing direction, or else made up of an infinite number of subordinate curves. Radiation: illustrated in leaves and boughs and in the structure of organic bodies. Contrast: of shapes ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... reports and opinions after examination. These opinions can be seen in full in nearly any large medical library. At this time they had diseased and atheromatous arteries, and Chang, who was quite intemperate, had marked spinal curvature, and shortly afterward became hemiplegic. They were both partially blind in their two anterior eyes, possibly from looking outward and obliquely. The point of junction was about the sterno-siphoid angle, a cartilaginous band extending from sternum to sternum. In 1869 Simpson measured ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... these data to calculation, we shall find that the profile of the bow is represented by a logarithmic curve, of which the ordinates increase in arithmetical progression; while the abscissae increase in geometrical progression; and lastly, that the curvature of the profile will be expressed by ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... found that the image on the lens grew smaller, the effect being exactly the same as that from a balloon rising. The picture at first appeared slanting at an angle of about thirty degrees, owing to the curvature of the Earth, but by manipulating a small lever close at hand that operated a mirror in the radioscope, this defect ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... thing, of course," said Marion ironically. "Yes, you; with color of eyes, hair, length of index finger of the right hand, curvature of thumb, disposition—whether peaceable or otherwise, and ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... was, so far as the soldier could see, not a living thing left upon the common, and every bush and tree upon it that was not already a blackened skeleton was burning. The hussars had been on the road beyond the curvature of the ground, and he saw nothing of them. He heard the Martians rattle for a time and then become still. The giant saved Woking station and its cluster of houses until the last; then in a moment the Heat-Ray was brought to bear, and the town became ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... flit by on wings and at haphazard instants. They must be caught in air. In this respect one thinks American writers ought to have an advantage over English, for American trousers are made with hip-pockets, in which a small note-book may so comfortably caress the natural curvature ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... possibly this that caused Mr Pickering to visualize Percy as a sort of little Lord Fauntleroy, his favourite character in English literature. He had a vision of a small, delicate, wistful child pining away for his absent sister. Consumptive probably. Or curvature of ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... not corrected, all the structures on the affected side of the neck undergo organic shortening, with the result that the deformity becomes accentuated. In advanced cases a lateral curvature, with the convexity towards the normal side, occurs in the cervical region, the vertebrae becoming wedge-shaped from side to side, and a compensatory curve may develop in ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... marble; the outer orders are carried up from the base without any capitals or imposts. The height of the crown of the inner arch above the capitals from which it springs is somewhat less than half the width at the bottom, and the radius of the curvature of the arches is greater than the width. Over the arch is a square-headed two-light window, lighting the room over the entrance. The roof differs from all the other roofs of the church since it is covered with stone ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... decision; and fortunately, our sealer, who was so wary and procrastinating in a bargain, never had occasion to make two drafts on his thoughts, in situations of emergency. As the ship cleared the promontory on the eastern side of the cove, we again opened a curvature of the ice, which gave a little more water to leeward. Tacking was impossible, and the helm was put hard aweather. The bow of the Walrus fell off, and as she rose on the next wave, I thought its send would carry us helplessly down upon the berg. But the good craft, obedient to her ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... presented on the interior surface of these amphitheatres, being notably downward from the exterior plane, a contrary form to that which terrestrial craters present. It follows, therefore, that the general curvature at the bottom of these amphitheatres gives us fear of an inferior diameter to that of ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... the wind shall blow at a future time; they have several ways of doing this, of which however I know but one. "They say, that the Milky-way, is always curved laterally; but sometimes, in one direction, and sometimes in another: And that this curvature is the effect of its being already acted upon by the wind, and its hollow part therefore towards it; so that, if the same curvature continues a night, a corresponding wind certainly blows the next day. Of their rules, I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr |
