"Low water" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on further, where within an ile [a mile] we were intercepted with great craggy stones in the midst of the riuer, where the water falleth so rudely, and with such a violence, as not any boat can possibly passe, and so broad disperseth the streame, as there is not past fiue or sixe Foote at a low water, and to the shore scarce passage with a barge, the water floweth foure foote, and the freshes by reason of the Rockes haue left markes of the inundations 8. or 9. foote: The south side is plaine low ground, and the north side high mountaines, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... impracticable. On every other side it is defended by the ocean, into which the town seems to have dropt perpendicularly from the clouds. At high water, Granville cannot be approached, even by transports, nearer than within two-thirds of a league; and of course at low water it is surrounded by an extent of sharply pointed rock and chalk: impenetrable—terrific—and presenting both certain failure and destruction to the assailants. It is a GIBRALTAR IN MINIATURE. The English sharply cannonaded it a few years since, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... space I saw not, and my ears Were shut from hearing; but when sense grew clear Once more, I only saw the vacant pool Unrippled,—only saw the dreadful sward. Where dogs lay gorged, or moved in fretful search, Questing uneasily; and some far up The slope, and some at the low water's edge, With snouts set high in air and straining throats Uttered keen howls that smote the echoing hills. They missed their master's form, nor understood Where was the voice they loved, the hand that reared;— And some lay watching by the ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... tower, the remains of a castle built by Henry, Earl of Warwick. Three miles to the east are two Roman encampments; many Roman coins have been found at Loughor, from whence there is a ferry to the Carmarthenshire side opposite, which is fordable at low water. There is a large colliery here. It is a delightful sail from this village down the Burry River to Whitford Point, or round the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... before us extends for half a mile or more, we decide for luncheon, and the canoes are beached on an island, submerged in springtime, but at low water a heap of yellow sands. And I wish I might reconstruct for you the picture which memory too faintly outlines. Mere words will not do it, and yet one is impelled to try. "All literature," says Mr. Arnold Bennett, in one of his stimulating essays, ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... Montcalm's camp and Fraser writes: "I was sent orderly officer to the Camp, at Montmorency, where I had an opportunity of seeing our own, and the French posts nigh the Fall. The river is fordable below the Fall at low water." On July 24th, 350 of the Highlanders under Col. Simon Fraser were sent down the river to bring in prisoners and cattle. The Highland leader met with misfortune. On July 26th Fraser writes: "Lieut. Alexander ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... little vessel broke her back, and the after part, with the engines, fell away into deep water. Courtenay happened to be on the bridge; the forward half held intact, so he and the other survivors clambered ashore at low water. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... doing anything, by the fact that they always live where it is low tide. Perhaps that is because it is always low tide where they live. At any rate, the more we learn of the history of the men who have succeeded, the more apparent it becomes that if they were born in low water, they patched up their tattered circumstances, and beat out to sea on a tide of ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... shake its dust from our feet. When dust is ankle-deep that is not very feasible. It rose in clouds, as we met the long lines of Tatar carters, transporting flour and other merchandise to and from the wharves across the "dam" which connects the town, in summer low water, with Mother Volga. In spring floods Matushka Volga threatens to wash away the very walls of the Kremlin, and our ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... as certain other Trinity land became William Rhinelander's property; and then, by agreement of the Common Council on May 29, 1797, and confirmation of Nov. 16, 1807, he was given all rights to the land water between high and low water mark, bounding his property, for an absurdly low rental.[107] These water grants were subsequently filled in and became of ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... each other. No one but a madman would have ventured to cross it. It seemed doubtful if even a boat could live in such a turmoil of waters. If the flood ran up thus strong, what might be the effects of the ebb? It would not be low water again till past midnight, and it would then be very dangerous, if not altogether impracticable, to get on shore. They must, therefore, make up their minds to remain on board till ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... further, he was retreating with his booty, when Count Egmont, with a few thousand Burgundians and Flemings, cut in at Gravelines between the French and their own frontiers. They had no means of passing, except at low water, between the town of Gravelines and the sea, and the English ships, which were in {p.312} communication with Egmont, stood in as near as they could venture, so as ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... entire length of the Rapids, from Montrose to Keokuk, has been built by the United States, through which steamboats can now pass at any stage of water—but designed more particularly for low water—so that there is no longer any detention to lighten steamboats over ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... the chart. "Look here, Joe." He reached forward and laid a finger on the map. "Here's where we were, or where we ought to have been, when we heard the surf first. According to this we were a good mile from the shore and the only shoal is that one and it's marked six feet at mean low water. There's a black-and-red spar buoy there, as you see, but we haven't sighted it. Now, what I want to know is how the dickens we could have got a mile off our course to starboard. Also, if we are off our course, where ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... house. They would be of an average of 30 ft. above the water. The river, after babbling over its expanse of shallows, swerved sharply and coursed along at their feet in a kind of gut, which was said to give the best low water holding ground in ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... tottering to their final fall; and the people, poorer than ever, came out of their huts to beg openly and shamelessly as we passed. Over the head of the valley, which here turns westward to the low water-shed dividing it from the famous Romsdal, rose two or three snow-streaked peaks of the Hurunger Fjeld; and the drifts filling the ravines of the mountains on our left descended lower and lower ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... 'Twas low water, and the mud-larks now intent on their several vocations, engaged the eye of the Squire.—"What are those people about?" he asked, "What are ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Unconscious of what awaits you, you surrender yourself so eagerly to the sway of sentiment that you are unable to observe the perfections of your idol. You see only its vast size. You are content to believe the official statement that 305 feet separate the tip of the lady's torch from low water. You know that you gaze on the largest statue upon earth. And surely it should be the largest, for it symbolises a greater mass of Liberty than ever before was gathered together upon ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... 260 yards back from the river, and is three miles in length, from Deer Creek to Mill Creek; the other is fifty feet higher than the first, and is called the Hill; this extends back about a mile. The bottom is sixty-five feet above low water mark. In 1815 the population was estimated at 6000, and at present it is supposed to be upwards of 25,000 souls. By means of the Dayton canal, which runs from that town nearly parallel with the "Big Miami" river, a very extensive ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... early the next morning; and in the afternoon the dear soul arrived at Kylmington to embrace her future daughter. We sat late in the little parlour of the Hermitage; a dreary cottage, looking out on the flat shore, half sand, half mud, and the low water lying in greenish pools. Margaret told us of ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... anchor the water by the ship's side was very fresh at high water, and very salt at low water, contrary to what might have been expected; and at high water it was very fresh on one side of the ship, and very salt on the other. In a gust of wind at N.W. on the 25th, our ship drifted and broke a cable, by which we lost the anchor. We bought this day a calf, a sheep, and a lamb, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... low water it was possible to get to Cuxhaven on foot; and as some of the islanders offered their services as guides, and the tide served, it was settled that the first lieutenant and half the officers and men should start with the guides on the ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... a fiction that kegs of the good cognac were sown at low water, and reaped at high, near the river-gate of the old Pilot Inn garden; but it was greatly to Mrs. Boulby's interest to encourage the delusion which imaged her brandy thus arising straight from the very source, without villanous contact ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... St Wilfrid thus founded at Selsey, thereby establishing the bishopric of Sussex, have long since disappeared beneath the sea. Camden, however, tells us that he saw the foundations at low water; they lay about a mile to the east of the little church of Our Lady, which remained complete until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was all pulled down except the chancel which we ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... overland trip is undoubtedly the most pleasant and presents the fullest opportunity for appreciating the scenery. The return might be by river boat or train, necessitating a ride down the Chelan gorge, where the river drops 400 feet in its brief course of four miles, and furnishes at low water 125,000 horsepower. ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... which were to act in concert. The front attack demanded high water, in order that under the impulse of the oars the boats might get as near as possible before they took the ground, whence the advance to the assault must be by wading. The flanking movement required low water, to facilitate passing the ford. Between the two, the hour was fixed for an ebbing tide, probably to allow for delays, and to assure the arrival of the infantry so as to profit by the least depth. At 11 A.M. of June 22 the boat division arrived off the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... a hard winter we've had, with this low water and no January rise, and all that ice in the Ohio. They say they're starving for coal down in Cincinnati, and here we've no end of it stacked up. Well, Hammond, he's had hard work enough to keep the men along through the winter. Many another man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... previously any hopes of being enabled ultimately to push the boat over the flats that were before us, a view of the channel at low water, convinced me of the impracticability of any further attempt. The water was so low that every shoal was exposed, and many stretched directly from one side of the channel to the other; and, but for the treacherous nature ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... small. By their fire-places we should always find great heaps of fish-shells of several sorts; and it is probable that these poor creatures here lived chiefly on the shell-fish, as those I before described did on small fish, which they caught in wires or holes in the sand at low water. These gathered their shell-fish on the rocks at low water but had no wires (that we saw), whereby to get any other sorts of fish; as among the former I saw not any heaps of shells as here, though I know they also gathered some ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... fishermen plunged and splashed this way and that, with shouts of triumph or disappointment, may be better imagined than described. In the daytime a rather different method was adopted. Some acres of the shallow lagoon would be staked out at low water in the shape of an inverted V, an opening being left for ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... well knew she would float again with the tide of flood; whereas, before, he was much afraid she might be totally lost. He therefore gave orders to carry all their anchors out to deep water, to prevent her from getting farther on the shoal. By the time this was done day broke, and soon after at low water the St Raphael was quite dry on a sand bank, having taken no harm in striking. While waiting for the tide of flood, our people named these sands Os baixos de Sam Rafael, or the Shoals of St Raphael, and named certain islands and hills of the continent, then ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... perhaps 50 yards of line lies in the bottom of the canoe. Probably each of the blacks will have his fishing-line, for sometimes the turtle do not rise according to expectations. At high tide these feed among the rocks close to the shore, at low water out among the coral on the reef, and the hunters wait and watch and fish silently and with all passivity. Then, when maybe they have caught schnapper, red bream and parrot-fish, they drift among the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... call that handsome. One could not want more, and you can rely on it that Tring will jump at the offer. He has not been able to get a fight on lately, and he is rather in low water." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... I began to write to you, Mary Penrose, entrenched in a nook among the steep rocks between the cottage and the sea, a figure coming up the sand bar, that runs northward and at low water shows a smooth stretch a mile in length, caught my eye. Laboriously but persistently it came along; next I saw by the legs that it was a man, a moment later that he was lugging a large basket and that a potato ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... nor fleas, and as yet the mosquitoes have not molested us. We owe much of our comfort to the house we are in, for there are scarcely any furnished lodgings, and the hotels are bad and dear, besides situation is everything at this season, when the smaller canals become offensive at low water, for, though there is little tide in the Mediterranean, there are four feet at new and full moon here, which is a great blessing. We have now seen everything, and have become acquainted with everybody, and met with kindness and attention beyond ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... prominent. Coming out of the region of controversy it is a safe generalization to say that the general rule is: big flies for spring fishing when rivers are probably high, small flies for summer and low water, and flies medium or small in autumn according to the conditions. Spring fishing is considered the cream of the sport. Though salmon are not as a rule so numerous or so heavy as during the autumn run, and though kelts ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of the sea—it being constantly high and low water every six hours. In the year 1645, early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... depth. As soon as you perceive it is deeper, you have passed the east point. Then keep along this shore if the wind be fair, for there is a rock almost directly in the channel. You can go around it close enough, but this should not be done. As it was low water when we entered, it stuck up out of the water. At high tide it is covered. There is a spar or pole upon it, which cannot be seen far, but the breakers are sufficiently visible. When you sail in, in this ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... blinds, commanding a fine view of the whole of Back Bay, with Malabar Point to the right and the governor's house imbedded in trees. Long lines of surf marked the position of ugly rocks which were visible at low water, but among these there was a pathway of soft sand marked off by stakes, along which the shore-end of ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... lucky in bringing back all the boat's crew, Clinch. You know it's low water with us as to men, just now; and our fellows are not all to be trusted ashore, in a country that is full of stone walls, good wine, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... saline contents; but often fouled with mud containing much animal and vegetable matter, which are rather suspended than held in true solution. Such is the water of the river Thames, which, taken up at London at low water mark, is very soft and good; and, after rest, it contains but a very small portion of any thing that could prove pernicious, or impede any manufacture. It is also excellently fitted for sea-store; but it then ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... personally explored the southern and western coasts of the island in a small boat, while the ships kept to the channel. He was amazed to find oysters in the brackish creeks hanging to the branches of the mangrove trees at low water, and he examined also the now famous liquid pitch of Trinidad. Twenty years afterwards, in writing The History of the World, we find his memory still dwelling on these natural wonders. At the first settlement the English fleet came ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... of beauty and peace. There is not much difference between the height of high and low water on this coast, and the lake-like illusion would have been perfect had it not been that the rocks were tinged with gold for a foot or so above the sea by a delicate species of fucus. In the exquisite inlet where I spent the night, trees and trailers ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... ten miles. A thousand islands send the channel in as many different directions. Only natives who are thoroughly familiar with the river are entrusted with the piloting of boats up the stream during the season of low water. Even at the season of high water it is still so shallow as not to be navigable anywhere by seagoing vessels, but only by flat-bottomed boats with a carrying capacity of four to five hundred tons. The draft of steamers ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... is going to blow away, Uncle Rube? You remember that our church blew into the harbor, pews and floor as well as walls and roof. You could see the pews at low water till ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... out one tree by the roots, butted another that staggered the boat without injuring the tree, but left about twenty feet of the guards in the water as the tree's trophy in the encounter. Such incidents were in those days quite common in steamboat travel in low water. ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... the only river between the Niger and the Congo which escapes, through favouring depressions, from the highlands flanking the great watery plateau of Inner Africa. By its plainly marked double seasons of flood at the equinoxes, and by the time of its low water, we prove that it drains the belt of calms, and the region immediately upon the equator. The explorations of Lieutenant Serval and others, in "Le Pionnier" river-steamer, give it an average breadth of 8,200 feet, though broken by sand- banks and islands; the ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... motionless they watch and listen, now and then raising their heads when a light splash tells them of the approach of some heedless frog, or of the falling of some dead fish like manna from the nests above. May is the dry season, and the low water of the swamp accounted in a measure for the unusual number of snakes to {212} be seen. Exercising a fair amount of caution, I slew that morning fourteen poisonous reptiles, one of which measured more than five feet in length ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... way; but Hazel ascribed this to her people's fear of the reefs he had indicated to all comers. The better to watch her maneuvers, and signal her if necessary, they both went up to Telegraph Point. They could not go out to her, being low water. Seen from this height, the working of this vessel was unaccountable. She was to and off the wind as often as if she was drunk herself, or commanded by a drunken skipper. However, she was kept well clear of the home reefs, and made a good offing, and so at ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... of land. It was land lying between high and low water, over which the United States claimed to have and to exercise authority, because of the terms on which Alabama had been admitted into the Union. In that connection the Court ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... required, and soon stood—upward of seventy of us—ranged along its side from one end to the other. Let it be remembered that this splendid sea cave is forty-two feet wide at the entrance; sixty-six feet high from low water; and runs into the rock two hundred and twenty-seven feet. Let it be imagined that at eight or ten feet below us it was paved with the sea, which came rushing and foaming along it, and dashing up against the solid rock ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... took in more water at a single draught than is generally to be found in the Lake of Geneva, though that is above thirty miles in circumference. On the second day of our confinement in these regions of darkness, I ventured at low water, as we called it when the ship was aground, to ramble with the Captain, and a few of the other officers, with lights in our hands; we met with people of all nations, to the amount of upwards of ten thousand; they were going to hold ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... before the automobile had made the Marsh accessible to the Hythe and Folkestone crowds, it was a little old forgotten silent wind-bitten village crouching under the lee of the great sea wall. At low water there were miles of sand as smooth and shining as the skin of a savage brown woman. Shining and with a texture—the very same. And one day as I was mucking about by myself on the beach, boy fashion,—there were some ribs of a wrecked boat buried in the sand near a groin and I was busy with ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... receive him warmly. He occupied a suite of rooms at Beaufort's, the expensive and luxurious hotel which is the London home of foreign royalties and American millionaires. Kings, I suppose, can hold out longer than ordinary men without paying their bills. Konrad Karl was in low water financially. His private fortune was small. Madame Corinne had no money of her own, though she had jewels. Perhaps Mr. Beaufort—if the proprietor of the hotel is indeed a Mr. Beaufort—makes enough money out of the millionaires to enable him ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... and of the several risings and depressions thereof, to be assured that the Water may be conveyed to the greatest rising, and to the highest Sluce; and lastly, of the quantity, that may be had at high, middle, and low Water, to have enough for all times; that all these things being first made out, 'tis then time enough to judge of the possibility of the thing, and to calculate ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... ships of the Easterlings, at war both with France and England, bore down upon their vessels. At the risk of drowning they ran ashore near Alcmaer. The large ships of the Easterlings followed as far as the low water would permit, "intendeing at the fludde to have obtained their prey." [Hall.] In this extremity, the lord of the province (Louis of Grauthuse) came aboard their vessels, protected the fugitives from ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... apartments are light and agreeable, and overlook the canal, and, when the tide is up, and the canal full, and the grassy bleaching ground on the opposite bank is dotted with white linen, it is a pleasant scene indeed; but when the tide is out—ugh! the River Thames at low water is a paradise to it. The tidal changes are carefully watched, and it is not an unusual occurrence to hear the solemn gun booming through the air as a warning to the inhabitants to block and barricade their cellars and kitchens ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... it was when I was only a year or two old. There were three merchantmen wrecked within five miles of Deephaven. This one was all stove to splinters, and they used to say she had treasure aboard. When I was small I used to have a great idea of going out there to the rocks at low water and trying to find some gold, but I never made out no great." And he smiled indulgently at the thought of his ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... tried violence. I chucked lumps of coral at him from a safe distance, but he only swallowed them. I shied my open knife at him and almost lost it, though it was too big for him to swallow. I tried starving him out and struck fishing, but he took to picking along the beach at low water after worms, and rubbed along on that. Half my time I spent up to my neck in the lagoon, and the rest up the palm-trees. One of them was scarcely high enough, and when he caught me up it he had a regular Bank Holiday with the calves of my legs. It got unbearable. I ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... of nine days, during which we had baffling winds and calms, we reached Leith Roads about seven in the evening. It was low water, and the brig could not enter the harbour for several hours. I was put ashore in the boat, and hastened up to the Black Bull Inn, in order to secure a seat in the mail for Glasgow, which was to start in a few minutes. As I came up Leith Walk, my feelings became of a mixed nature. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... marked difference between the area of the Fergus at high and low water. What at one time is an inland sea, is at the other a vast lake of mud rich in the constituents of fertility. As we reach this point of the river a mist arises compelling reduced speed, and as we pass by the upper station of the Slob Works a low range of corrugated ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... at low water, and Jim Airth spent hours cutting the hurried niches into proper steps, so as to leave a staircase to the ledge, up which people, who chanced in future to be caught by the tide, might climb to safety. Myra sat on the beach and watched him, her eyes alight ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... Those animals run wild all the winter, without any shelter or subsistence, but what they can find among the heath. When the snow lies so deep and hard, that they cannot penetrate to the roots of the grass, they make a diurnal progress, guided by a sure instinct, to the seaside at low water, where they feed on the alga marina, and other plants that grow upon ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... proceedings, and wondering how polite they were to each other; for, though there were a great many spoons to only one dish, they never got entangled. At last, seeing that the mush was getting thinner and thinner, and that it was getting low water, or rather low molasses in the little pool, I ran on deck, and after searching about, returned with a bit of stick; and thinking I had as good a right as any one else to the mush and molasses, I worked my way into the circle, intending to make one of the party. So I shoved in my stick, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... almost tempted to exclude on account of its cruelty, but as our volume is especially devoted to traps of all kinds and as this is a variety in very common use, we feel bound to give it a passing notice. Our illustration fully conveys its painful mode of capture, and a beach at low water is generally the scene of the slaughter. A long stout cord is first stretched across the sand and secured [Page 96] to a peg at each end. To this shorter lines are attached at intervals, each one being supplied with a fish hook baited with a piece of the tender rootstock of a certain water reed, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... and protects the flow of streams. Its effect is to reduce the height of floods and to moderate extremes of low water. The official measurements of the United States Geological Survey have finally settled this long-disputed question. By protecting mountain slopes against excessive soil wash, it protects also the lowlands upon which this wash would otherwise be deposited and the rivers whose channels it would ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot
... Devonport; this time I went, and these school-days I recall with pleasure, though they were fraught with a powerful temptation, which I shall presently describe. I have a vivid recollection of the first day. Steaming up the lake at very low water, and being somewhat foggy, our boat stuck on the mud. Worst of all, it was ebb tide, and here we had to wait for the return of the in flowing tide. We schoolboys gathered together in the engine-room and did our home-lessons. In a few hours we ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... to himself." He began to think of the "bally long spears." As a matter of fact, considering that the people inside the stockade had to run to the gate, then get down to the landing-place, get into boats, and pull round a point of land, he had more advance than he imagined. Besides, it being low water, the creek was without water—you couldn't call it dry—and practically he was safe for a time from everything but a very long shot perhaps. The higher firm ground was about six feet in front of him. "I thought ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... the river stood upon a great rock, and this rock (which was known as the swimming-rock, whence the boys on summer evenings dove into the deep pool by its side) was a favorite spot with John when he could get an hour or two from the everlasting "chores." Making his way out to it over the rocks at low water with his fish-pole, there he was content to sit and observe the world; and there he saw a great deal of life. He always expected to catch the legendary trout which weighed two pounds and was believed to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... broadens to 12 1/2 m. The marshy soil is covered by rice-fields, and on higher ground by kampongs full of trees. The river at its mouth is 327 ft. broad and 20-33 ft. deep, but before it lies a sandbank covered at low water by a depth of only 4 ft. The Dutch garrison in Kotaraja occupies the old Achinese citadel. The town is connected by rail with Olehleh, and the line also extends up the valley. The construction of another railway has been undertaken along the east coast. The following ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a very rum kind of a squid," said Josh, who, while the mackerel catching went on and no more curiosities were turned out, seemed disposed to be communicative. "Reg'lar great one he was, at low water ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... to that rock; it was but the breadth of the beach, that at low water stretched uncovered; and yet how slowly the boat sped, with the ruthless tide sweeping it back as fast as the oars bore ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... camp in the bend of an enormous river, wide and shallow and unbridged; the river Kadarin, traditionally a point of no return for humans on Darkover. The river is fed by ocean tides and we would have to wait for low water to cross. Beyond the river lay thick forests, and beyond the forests the slopes of the Hellers, rising upward and upward; and their every fold and every valley was filled to the brim with forest, and in the forests ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... sound the place and search for shelter. The whole shore was more or less lined with grounded masses of ice; but, after examining the soundings within more than twenty of them, in the space of about a mile, I could only find two that would allow the ships to float at low water, and that by some care in placing and keeping them there. Having fixed a flag on each berg, the usual signal for the ships taking their stations, I rowed on board the Fury, and found four pumps constantly going to keep the ship free, and Captain Hoppner, his officers and men, almost exhausted ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... there the walls are broken by lateral canyons, the channels of little streams entering the river. Through two or three of these we found our way down to the Green in early winter and walked along the low water-beach at the foot of the cliffs for several miles. Where the river has this general easterly direction the western part only has cut for itself a canyon, while the eastern has formed a broad valley, called, in honor of an old-time trapper, ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... more than six weeks getting to the city of New Orleans, in consequence of low water. We were shifted on to several boats before we arrived at the mouth of the river Ohio. But we got but very little rest at night. As all were chained together night and day, it was impossible to sleep, being annoyed by the bustle and ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... volunteer police force, raised because of the absence of so many of the young men of the city at the islands, and because of the supposed necessity of keeping a strong hand over the negroes. A malicious citizen assured me that it was in training to take Fort Sumter by charging upon it at low water. On the opposite side of the square from where I stood rose the Citadel, or military academy, a long and lofty reddish-yellow building, stuccoed and castellated, which, by the way, I have seen represented in one of our illustrated papers as the United ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... tide, which he ascertains rises and falls every six hours; the greatest depth of water being usually found at the time when the tide is full in, and vice versa. He has also made the valuable discovery, that a considerable portion of the shore is always left uncovered at low water, at which periods he availed himself of the opportunity afforded him of examining it more minutely, and of collecting a large number of curious specimens in natural history, and interesting antiquarian relics. As we have had the privilege of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... twenty-four hours the sea water creeps slowly up the beach until high water is reached, and twice every twenty-four hours it recedes again toward the ocean. It is therefore about twelve hours from one low water to the next. On a gently sloping beach, the distances between the high water mark and the low water mark may be many hundreds of feet, while on a steep beach or a straight cliff this area may be only ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... was to provide food for the party. The boat had been sent over every day for seals, but they were already becoming wary, and fewer were killed than at first. Some mussels had been found on the rocks, but they were only to be obtained at low water, and in no large quantities. The doctor and Captain Twopenny had also gone out every day with their guns in search of wild-fowl; but they were compelled to be very economical of their powder, of which they had only a limited supply. Before long that must come to an end. What then ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... consulted by the builder. This far-famed structure is ugly and cumbrous, and a passenger feels a very unpleasing sensation if he happens to stand upon it when a loaded waggon drives along it at low water, at which time there is a considerable descent from the side of the suburbs. An undulatory motion is then occasioned, which goes on gradually from boat to boat till it reaches the opposite shore. The bridge is supported upon nineteen large barges, which rise and fall with the tide, and are ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... time and attention to details; also a careful supervision. The spring increased, burst into leaf and bloom, and settled into summer. Orde was constantly on the move. As soon as low water came with midsummer, however, he arranged matters to run themselves as far as possible, left with Newmark minute instructions as to personal supervision, and himself departed to Redding. Here he joined a crew which Tom North had already collected, ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... up the Sabaki, we discovered a beautiful waterfall about a hundred and fifty feet high—not a sheer drop, but a series of cascades. At this time the river was in low water, and the falls consequently did not look their best; but in flood time they form a fine sight, and the thunder of the falling water can then be plainly heard at Tsavo, over seven miles away, when the wind is in the right direction. We ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... same view," as such retreat would have left him in a less favorable situation to pursue his explorations. Two weeks longer the brig was warped to the east during high water, whenever she was not jammed by huge floes against the rugged coast; but at low water the brig grounded and was daily in danger of total destruction. Finally, on September 9th, she was put in winter-quarters in 78 deg. 37' N., 71 deg. 14' W., in Rensselaer Harbor, which, says Kane, "we were fated never to leave together—a long resting-place to her, for the same ice is round ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... more convenient for the observation of the Mollusca and Radiata than Cape Venus. At a few hundred paces from the shore is a coral reef, which at low water is completely dry. In the shoal water, between the reef and the shore, is found the greatest variety of the more brittle kinds of coral, and among their sometimes thick bushes, mollusca and echinodermes lie concealed. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... the River St. Charles where the French passed the winter is supposed, on good authority, to have been the site of the old bridge, called Dorchester Bridge, where there is a ford at low water, close to the Marine Hospital. That it was on the east bank, not far from the residence of Charles Smith, Esq., is evident from the river having been frequently crossed by the natives coming from Stadacona to visit the French.—Picture of ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... satisfaction to us to feel that we could not well sink lower. There is nothing left for us but to rise. The tide turns at low water as ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... the case, these creeks are not merely tidal estuaries, but receive brooks or rivers from the upland, provision must be made, as will be hereafter directed, for either diverting the upland flow, or for allowing it to pass out at low water, through valve gates or sluices. When the dam has been made, the water behind it should never be allowed to rise to nearly the level of the full tide, and, as soon as possible, grass and willows should be grown on the bank, to ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... can equal in utility the railroad. It is a never failing source of communication, between places of business remotely situated from each other. Upon the railroad the regular progress of commercial intercourse is not interrupted by either high or low water, or freezing weather, which are the principal difficulties that render our future hopes of water communication precarious and uncertain. Yet, however desirable an object the construction of a railroad through our country may ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... yesterday to see a house at Fulham—Mrs. Cross's, by the bye, it's to let at Michaelmas, rent forty-five. All but settled that I shall take it. Risk be hanged. I'm going to make money. What an ass I was to take that fellow's first offer for 'Sanctuary'! It was low water with me, and I felt bilious. Fifty guineas! Your fault, a good deal, you know; you made me think worse of it than it deserved. You'll see; Blackstaffe'll make a small fortune out of it; of course he has all the rights—idiot that I was! Well, it's too late to talk about that.—And ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... particles, and colored with ocherous earth, the waters of these two rivers are at once brackish and nauseous to the taste, particularly near their mouths; that of Red river is so much so at Natchitoches at low water that it cannot ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... say something about it once to Edith and Frances, but they didn't understand, and after they were caught by the tide, I thought it would be better for them not to know of it. You see one can get shut in till the next low water. There's no danger because the vault is so high that the tide doesn't fill it. In fact, Max deliberately ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... maze set a fathom deep in the water with divers chambers or beds out of which the entangled fish cannot return or get out, being once in. Well may a great one by chance break the reeds and so escape, otherwise he remains a prey to the fishermen the next low water which they fish with a net at the end of ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... struck you fellows, too?" remarked Rob suddenly, as he skillfully twisted and turned the dancing Flying Fish through the devious ways of the channel at low water. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... little is known of him. He was a native of Amsterdam about 1653. His favourite subject is a quiet sea in sunny weather. His work bears some resemblance to that of Cuyp. His best pictures are in England. 'A Calm at Low Water' is in ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... said to prevail only at half tides. At low water it is as pacific as any other stream. As the tide rises, it begins to fret; at half tide it rages and roars as if bellowing for more water; but when the tide is full it relapses again into quiet, and for ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... explained that," stated Bud. "It was due to the height of the underground stream, and also the stream in the open. At low water there wasn't enough fluid to cover the bed of chemicals, and so no gas was generated. When the water rose, the gas was ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... private; neither the meals, nor the coming and going of visitors. It must be said, however, that the inhabitants of these glass houses were very seldom at home. Bathing, and croquet, or tennis, at low water, on the sands, searching for shells, fishing with nets, dances at the Casino, little family dances alternating with concerts, to which even children went till nine o'clock, would seem enough to fill up the days of these young ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... land, a league long, half a league broad, covered with trees. The soil is very sandy, and contains good pasturage. Elsewhere there are only rocky mountains, which are very barren. The tide rises about this slope, but at low water leaves it dry for a ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... period; depending upon the irregular coming in of the waves, and upon their similarly irregular force, it is blown somewhat as an idle boy would blow his penny trumpet. It ceases entirely for an hour and a half at low water, when the mouth of the cave or ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... the waters of the ocean beyond low water mark. Low water mark is the limit of jurisdiction of a state, but the jurisdiction of the United States extends three miles further into the ocean, and ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... into marshy islets, consolidated, some by art, and some by time, into ground firm enough to be built upon, or fruitful enough to be cultivated: in others, on the contrary, it has not reached the sea level; so that, at the average low water, shallow lakelets glitter among its irregularly exposed fields of seaweed. In the midst of the largest of these, increased in importance by the confluence of several large river channels towards one of the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... the beach, we found that it was low water. The boat was at high-water mark. What should we do? We did as the fishermen in that region always do in the same circumstances—took two rollers, perhaps six inches in diameter, lifted the bow of the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... bargain! H'm! If that were so, he might still be got to blow cold again. His eyes lighted on the pink note with the blue forget-me-not. It marked as it were the high water mark of what was left to him of life; and this other letter in his hand-by Jove! Low water mark! And with a deep and rumbling sigh he thought: 'No, I'm not going to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the staircase about half-way down to sea-level we found ourselves in a cave as big as the church at Dartmouth. It was fairly light, for the entrance was large, though low, and at low water (as it was then) the roof of the cave mouth stood six feet from the sea. The sea ran up into the cave in a deep triangular channel, with a landing-place (a natural ledge of rock) on each of the sides, and the sea entrance at the base. The sea made a sort ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... friends of the Parisian pattern who understand so well how to say Poete, non dolet! by producing a bottle of champagne, or alleviate the agony of suspense by carrying you off somewhere to make a night of it. Capital fellows are they, always in low water when you are in funds, always off to some watering-place when you go to look them up, always with some bad bargain in horse-flesh to sell you; it is true, that when you want to borrow of them, they have always just lost their last louis ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... expenses I have to go to. I made up my mind when I drew that hundred pounds from my dear husband's hard-earned savings that, whatever happened, I'd make that sum last me for all expenses for three years. And I have done it, Tom—I have done it. I am in low water, Tom. I want the money; I want it just as much as your poor ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... point and Ras Za'farnah, higher up, the wind seems to split: a strong southerly gale will be blowing, whilst a norther of equal pressure prevails at the Gulf-head, and vice vers. Suez, indeed, appears to be, in more ways than one, a hydrographical puzzle. When it is low water in and near the harbour, the flow is high between the Straits of Jobal and the Daedalus Light; and the ebb tide runs out about two points across the narrows, whilst the flood runs in on a line parallel with it. Finally, when we returned, hardly making ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... not have condescended to have noticed this place, had it not been that I wish you to observe a vessel which is lying along the pier-wharf, with a plank from the shore to her gunnel. It is low water, and she is aground, and the plank dips down at such an angle that it is a work of danger to go either in or out of her. You observe that there is nothing very remarkable in her. She is a cutter, and a good sea-boat, and sails well before ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... down in summer weather to Margate and Ramsgate scarcely think that ships could be cast away and broken up upon the hidden sands beneath the sparkling waters. They know not that scarce one of these sands but at low water is dotted with low, black timbers, and that there are few more dangerous pieces of navigation in the world than the passage up the mouth of the Thames on a wild night when a fierce gale is blowing and the snow and sleet driving before it, obscuring the guiding lights that mark the ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... Fort Union," he said, "Seventh Cavalry, sent through by way of Cimarron Springs. There is hell to pay west of here; the stations at Arkansas Crossing and Low Water were burned ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... of God—God as God of the sick, God as cobweb-spinner, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt concepts of God ever arrived at on earth; it represents perhaps the gauge of low water in the descending development of the God-type. God degenerated to the contradiction of life, instead of being its transfiguration and its eternal yea! In God, hostility announced to life, to ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... Things always happen, you say. One of the mills is stopped for just this very day of all others,—repairing machinery. I'm off work, for the first time in four months. There has been no low water all summer. Regular header, straight through. Don't you see I'm perfectly emaciated with the confinement? I've breathed in wool-stuffing till I feel like ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the palace, or even the bridge across the river. At last I decided that I would walk down by the river side until I was opposite to the bosquet, which adjoined the garden of the palace, and there wait till it was low water, when I knew that the river could be forded, as I had ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... were thus employed upon an island about a mile from the mainland, to which, at low water, there was a passage on foot, they were discovered by the natives, who appeared upon a hill at a distance, dancing and holding up their hands, as beckoning the English to them; which Drake observing, sent out a boat, with knives, bells, and bugles, and such things as, by their usefulness ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... point," the Forecaster declared. "The banks of the Mississippi range in height from about twenty to forty feet above extreme low water. As the river, in times of flood, rises as high as forty to fifty feet above low water, unless there were levees, the river would overflow its banks every spring or ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... project up the stream, and are likely to pierce any boat in its passage down. These snags are however more to be feared at the time of high-water than at any other period, for they have generally become fixed upon shoals as they originally descended the river, and at low water ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... not webbed, but who had under force of circumstances little by little in the course of many generations learned to swim, either from having lived near a lake, and having learnt the art owing to its fishing habits, or from wading about in shallow pools by the sea-side at low water and finding itself sometimes a little out of its depth and just managing to scramble over the intermediate yard or so between it and safety—such a bird did not probably conceive the idea of swimming on the water and set itself to learn to do so, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the Big Fork lie at a sharp elbow of the river, and cross the channel on a slant. Immediately above them the river shoals sharply; and though at ordinary seasons there is only one island visible, at times of low water huge rocks appear all along the brink. It chanced, at this particular time, that after the first run of the ice had passed there came a second run that was mixed with logs. This ice, moreover, was less rotten than that which had formed near the falls, and it came down in larger cakes. When ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that arrests one's attention is the planting of melon seeds in rows on the flat banks at low water. Later the river overflows them and when the flood subsides the plants are well on the way toward bearing. Our negroes call them "water-millions;" that name would ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the convent after the celebration of the Te Deum, and they were passing what was called the Gate of the Prison, the drawbridge gave way and fell into the river. It was fortunately low water, and no lives were lost. But the Scots Guards, separated from the young Queen by the accident, took alarm, thought the whole thing had been planned, and called out: "Treason! Treason!" Upon which the Chevalier de Rohan, who ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... Denzil laughed as they rowed past the ruined abbey, seen dimly across the low water-meadow, where cows of the same colour were all lying in the same ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... commencement of the present century and increase of population rendered it very desirable that means of communication should be established between the Lower Town and St. Roch, less rugged and inconvenient than the tunnel—Sous-le-Cap lane—and the sandy beach of the river St. Charles at low water. Towards 1816 the northern extremity of St. Peter street was finished, it was previously bounded by a red bridge, well remembered by our very old citizens. The Apostle St. Paul was honoured with a street, as was his colleague, St. Peter. Messrs. Benj. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... were rowing to shore, the captain told us that our worst difficulty was yet to come—an insuperable one, he added, to corpulent persons. There was no landing-place for boats, or indeed for anything, at low water, and we had to climb up a wharf ten feet high, formed of huge round logs placed a foot apart from each other, and slippery with sea-grass. It is really incredible that, at a place through which a considerable traffic passes, as being on the high road from Prince Edward Island to the ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... the current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of the sea—it being constantly high and low water every six hours. One morning, in the year 1645, it raged with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the coast fell to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... where, as already mentioned, the river bends from its northerly course beyond Altar do Chao. A confused pile of rocks, on which many a vessel heavily laden with farinha has been wrecked, extends at the season of low water from the foot of a high bluff far into the stream. We were driven back on the first night (October 3rd) by a squall. The light terral was carrying us pleasantly round the spit, when a small black cloud which lay near the rising moon suddenly spread over the sky to the northward; ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates |
