"Ballast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Scandinavian cattleship ballast, catch that ball in your arms when I throw it to you, and don't let go of it!" shrieked Bost, shooting ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... each. Buck-shot and slugs are better than bullets, for the purposes of which we are speaking. Bows and arrows might render good service. The Chinese, in their junks, when they expect a piratical attack, bring up baskets filled with stones from the ballast of the ship, and put them on deck ready at hand. They throw them with great force and precision: the idea is not a bad one. Boiling water and hot sand, if circumstances happened to permit their use, are worth bearing in mind, as they ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... so that it was a common occurrence to put up a “whisp” of them, whereas now one seldom sees more than three or four in a whole season. A delicate little bird, very palatable on the table, was the waterrail, now almost extinct. The writer used to have permission to shoot along the “ballast ponds” beside the railway, and he has frequently shot them there. The woodcock is still with us. The poet painter, Dante Rosetti, kept one as a favourite pet; we of Woodhall are more prosaic, and ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... important things to think about," Mr. Skinner retorted icily. As a business man he was opposed to levity in the office. "What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?" ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... steward, purser, several able-bodied seamen, and all the passengers; while the two lifeboats had 31 of the crew. The boats drifted about all day, there being no wind, and the burning ship was still in sight. On the third day the lifeboats were not to be seen; each had a box of gold on board, by way of ballast. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... hardened clay. Why does the bird amass these objects? Is it impelled by a collector's instinct less perfect than that of the Bower-bird? There is no reason to suppose this. Nor does it appear that he wishes to make the nest heavier and prevent it by this ballast from being blown about by every breeze when the couple are out, and the young not heavy enough to ensure the stability of the edifice. The part played by these little balls is much more remarkable, if we may trust the evidence ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... are shipped to work them, and from forty to fifty Indians, called Busos, to dive for the oyster. A stock of provisions and spirits, a small sum of money to advance the people during the cruise, a limited supply of calaboose furniture, a sufficient number of hammocks to sleep in, and a quantity of ballast, constitute nearly all ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself into an elbow chair, "Stop my hawse-holes," cried he, "I can't think what's the matter, brother; ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... are his! This man knows coral islands in the sea, And dusky girls heartbroken for white men; This sailor knows of wondrous lands afar, More rich than Spain, when the Phoenicians shipped Silver for common ballast, and they saw Horses at silver mangers eating grain; This man has seen the wind blow up a mermaid's hair Which, like a golden serpent, reared and stretched To feel the air away beyond her head. He begged my pennies, which I gave with joy— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... imperious and unrestrained before, and having equal authority with them, was the means of keeping them within bounds of moderation, and highly contributed to the preservation of the State. The establishment of a Senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept it in just equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators adhering to the kings whenever they saw the people too encroaching, and on the other hand, supporting the people, when the kings ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... existence of coal where none is now to be found. In 1667 he wrote to Colbert that a coal-mine had been discovered at the foot of the Quebec rock. 'This coal,' he said, 'is good enough for the forge. If the test is satisfactory, I shall see that our vessels take loads of it to serve as ballast. It would be a great help in our naval construction; we could then do without the English coal.' Next year the intendant wrote again: 'The coal-mine opened at Quebec, which originated in the cellar of a lower-town resident and ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... worse. There was a grinding and crunching under the wheels of the carriage as though a thousand huge coffee-mills were at work. Suddenly the train parted in the middle, and while the forepart, with the engine, went ploughing through the ballast till brought up in safety a few hundred yards further on, the carriage in which were Ducie and Platzoff, together with the hinder part of the train, went toppling over a high embankment, and crashing down the side, and rolling over and over, came to a dead stand ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... Put the whole cargo aboard! This here craft needs ballast; hoist her over the side!" And he reached out his hand for the whole plug of tobacco and took it from Freddie, and gnawed off a corner ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... forbade the departure of all ships and vessels in the ports of the United States for any foreign port, except vessels under the immediate direction of the President. Foreign armed vessels were exempted as a matter of course from the operation of this act; so also were all vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods at the time when the act was passed. Coasting vessels were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to re-land their goods, wares, or merchandise in some port ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... philosopher, the enthusiast, and the man of the world is fairly unusual in literature, but in Hazlitt's case the union was not productive of any sharp contradictions. His common sense served as a ballast to his buoyant emotions; the natural strength of his feelings loosened the bonds which attached him to his favorite theories; his cynicism, by sharpening his perception of the frailty of human nature, prevented his philanthropic ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... enough to sink it, was lowered down the black-looking pit, and was drawn up again nearly full of water. This was given to the nearest grazing animals, and the bucket sent down again, to catch against some projecting block and tilt out the ballast, after which it refused to sink, but made a jerk or two to escape, and then had to ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... "There's only one thing certain: it's no use carting this old glass and ballast to Peru. No, sir, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the only one through which the Mannigfual passed, for we are told that it once, nobody knows how, penetrated into the Baltic Sea, where, the water not being deep enough to keep the vessel afloat, the captain ordered all the ballast to be thrown overboard. The material thus cast on either side of the vessel into the sea formed the two islands ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... pass by the East winds that had arisen from the same parts. But the weight was light; and such as the horses of the sun could not feel; and the yoke was deficient of its wonted weight. And as the curving ships, without proper ballast, are tossed about, and unsteady, through their too great lightness, are borne through the sea, so does the chariot give bounds[8] in the air, unimpeded by its usual burden, and is tossed on high, and is just like ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... and Witta exchanged amber out of the North against little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen pots. The pots he put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid on the bottom of the ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle which till then had been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps of sweet-smelling grey amber—a little morsel no bigger than a thumbnail purchased a cask of wine. But I speak ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... or anything else. He could just assent to remarks made to him by the captain and that was all. Ellen was in no better plight and sat on a bench near me, and I cannot say I felt cheerful, for the schooner, which was empty and had not much ballast, was rolling considerably. I carried on various conversations and strained my eyes to see if Mr. Keytel's boat was coming. It was a long wait, and when at last he did get on board he had gifts to bestow upon ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... to Knight's Magazine, I really do not think that, considering the circumstances under which it is conducted, it can be much censured. Every magazine must contain a certain quantity of mere ballast, of no value but as it occupies space. The general tone and spirit of the work will stand a comparison, in a moral point of view, with any periodical publication not professedly religious. I will venture to say that nothing has appeared ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbish! Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next To see the Dandelions on a Sunday— But what ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... said Crump carefully. "Looked as if he was going out in ballast—except his pockets; there was something in his pockets, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... with things; and these three qualities are essential to statesmanship. Poets and philosophers can afford to be thin—cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as poetry and philosophy thrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach ballasts you to earth. Such ballast the statesman must have. Thin statesmen may destroy, but construct they cannot; have achieved chaos, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... to the shore, and when the dawn came we saw that the schooner stood high and dry on the reef and that Franka and his men were trying to float her by throwing overboard the iron ballast and putting a kedge anchor out upon the lee side of the reef. And at the same time we saw three boats put off from the mainland. These boats were all painted white, and when I saw them I said to Solepa, 'Be of good heart. Thy ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... largest grain ranches are along the tule lands around Stockton. These were marshes once, but have been drained, and now are choice grain fields. Wheat was first sent out of the state to England as ballast for returning ships, but the trade gradually increased until there are now over one hundred of the finest sailing vessels engaged in it. Unfortunately, few of these vessels are American, perhaps but one fourth. It is a pity that our countrymen should not benefit more by ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballast at ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... that the ballast men might do this; that as fast as the hills are taken away they would gather together again, or that the watermen might do it. To the first, I answer, that ballast men, instead of taking away from these hills, make holes in other places of the river, which is the reason ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... Body touches these Partridges nor the Pigeons, to-Morrow is a Fast-Day appointed by the Church; prepare against that Hunger; Ballast your Ship against the impending Storm. War is a coming, furnish your Belly ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... God! We are made," and so away they went all hands to work; wherein they had this one further piece of remarkable prosperity, that whereas if they had first fallen upon that part of the Spanish wreck where the pieces of eight[4] had been stowed in bags among the ballast they had seen a more laborious and less enriching time of it; now, most happily, they first fell upon that room in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up; and they so prospered in this new fishery that in a little while they had, without the loss of any man's life, brought up thirty-two ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... importance of their search in the fascination of it. They explored almost every known type of ship—freighters, liners, cold-storage boats, and grain-boats. Once Kent's hopes ran high at sight of a fuel-ship, but it proved to be in ballast, its cargo-tanks empty and its own tanks ...
— The Sargasso of Space • Edmond Hamilton
... boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in the deal any more'n sawdust. Now, John, what do you ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... notwithstanding, our Universities, along with our whole system of education, are in poor plight. As, at the public school, the child is robbed of valuable time by filling his brain with matters that accord neither with common sense nor scientific experience; as a mass of ballast is there dumped into him that he can not utilize in life, that, rather, hampers him in his progress and development; so likewise is it done in our higher schools. In the preparatory schools for the Universities a mass of dry, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... two letters from Lovelace to Belford; in which he tells him who Mennell is, and gives an account of many new contrivances and precautions. Women's pockets ballast-bags. Mrs. Sinclair's wardrobe. Good order observed in her house. The lady's caution, he ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... losing than gaining ground. He knew that the attempt to reach the harbour under sail would be hopeless; he should be sure to lose every tack he made. Already half a gale of wind was blowing, and the boat, with the little ballast there was in her, would scarcely look up even ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... were now empty and ready for the return voyage, and as soon as Columbus was better he set to work to face the situation. After all his promises it would never do to send them home empty or in ballast; a cargo of stones from the new-found Indies would not be well received in Spain. The natives had told him that somewhere in the island existed the gold mines of Cibao, and he determined to make an attempt ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... its mire. Sound is its waters. That particular part of it which leads towards heaven is attended with great difficulties. Body is the boat by which one must cross that river. Forgiveness is the oar by which it is to be propelled. Truth is the ballast that is to steady that boat. The practice of righteousness is the string that is to be attached to the mast for dragging that boat along difficult waters. Charity of gift constitutes the wind that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting hunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady. Otherwise, he admits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have been prolonged to the point of positive disaster. Gradually the ballast shifted back again, and he regained something that approached ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... the soldiers looked at me as one returned from the grave, and from what I could gather by the looks of the boys, I was something of a hero, even before I had told my story. The colonel asked me what had become of all the baggage I had on my saddle when I went away, and I told him that I had thrown ballast over-board all over the Southern Confederacy, when I was charging the enemy, because I found my horse drew too much water for a long run. He said something about my being a Horse-Marine, and sent me back to my company, telling me that when we got ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... tackle were rigged, and all was made ready to discharge. It was now, "Come on, McCarthy, or McCarthy, come on!" I didn't care which, I had one right on my side, and I kept that always in view; namely, the right to discharge the cargo where I had first received it; but where the money to buy ballast and pay other charges was to come from ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... earth, earthy. This we say, not as anything against him intellectually or spiritually, but simply as indicating the material ballast, which in this man is grosser and heavier than in most men, pulling forever against his sails, and absolutely forbidding that freer movement of the imagination which usually belongs to minds of a power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... generally carries four passengers, two on each side. On such occasions, the driver sits on a little seat over the well, looking to the front, while the passengers' backs are turned toward each other. Having only one passenger, Andy decided to sit on the opposite side of the car to ballast her evenly. After Paul bid good-bye to the coast guard and thanked him for his hospitality, he placed his rubber suit on the forward part of the seat and sprung up behind. Andy seemed in no hurry to get under way. A multitude of knots in the harness required attention and ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... walk in the gloaming each day, and leave an edible bundle in the clump of spruces above the Devil's Elbow you'll find it mysteriously disappears. From which you may infer that I'm travelling in a circle with a small radius. And say, Julius, heave over some of your wind ballast and even up with discretion. You're to take a minor part in a play, with Goggles and ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... several minor rapids were passed without difficulty; and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools which seemed impassable. But the men unloaded the canoes and—'a desperate undertaking'—ran them down the rapids with light ballast. They then came back overland for ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... church of our Lady at the first land they might come to. Besides these general vows, several others were made by individuals. The tempest was now very violent, and the admirals ship could hardly withstand its fury for want of ballast, which was fallen very short in consequence of the provisions and water being mostly expended. To supply this want, they filled all the empty casks in the ship with sea water, which was some help and made the ship to bear more upright, and be in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... American merchantmen, plying between Brazil and New England, sometimes carried rubber as ballast on the home voyage and dumped it on the wharves at Boston. One of the shipmasters exhibited to his friends a pair of native shoes fancifully gilded. Another, with more foresight, brought home five hundred pairs, ungilded, ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... believe they do," he said. "Of course, it would have seemed strange to the mate and to Rogers if I hadn't given them some explanation, especially as we came out in ballast. So I dropped hints that we were out on a survey expedition that couldn't be talked of just now. They probably have the idea that we're looking up a suitable coaling station for the Government, or something of that kind. To carry that out, I've got some surveyor's instruments ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... islands, at very uncertain intervals. It is still a great coaling-station, though not so much used as it was formerly, before the opening of the Suez Canal. The ships come out with coal, and go away in ballast (there is nothing else to be had here), procured from a point near the town, to Rio or elsewhere, where they pick up their homeward cargo ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... sailed off homewards in their new boat. There was no other ballast in the boat but himself, his old woman, the children, and the Christmas provisions. His son Bernt sat by the main-sheet; his wife, helped by her next eldest son, held the sail-ropes; Elias himself sat at the rudder, while the two younger brothers of twelve ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... prevented from being carried to America, unless first landed in England: the consequence whereof is, that English ships, which (I shall suppose) are hired to sail from London to Lisbon with corn, and thence proceed to America, have not the liberty to carry salt in place of ballast, and therefore under a necessity to pay above L10 sterling at Lisbon for ballast (that is to say, for sand), which they carry to America, or else return to England in order to get a clearance for the salt, which would be more expense ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... father, who had too little ballast to regulate his own conduct, that he contracted the most ardent friendship for the young Alexander, who was a gay, reckless, dissipated fellow, regarding his wealth as the source from which he derived all his sensual pleasures, and not as a talent committed to his stewardship, of which ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... impediments removed, to stand and start without humiliation, and equal with the rest; to commence, or have the road clear'd to commence, the grand experiment of development, whose end, (perhaps requiring several generations,) may be the forming of a full-grown man or woman—that is something. To ballast the State is also secured, and in our times is to be secured, in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Castle on October 8th without "a single article for the ship but ballast and," so he wrote Mrs. Barry, "my reason for going to sea without these is the European ships are expected any day and should any of them be taken and I lying in the harbor, the merchants may blame me and no other, although it would not be my fault." Barry returned on ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... negro—well, cast the lot as one might, the crew of the Spray in a little while would have been hard to find. It is needless to say that I took no more such chances. The tridacna were afterward procured in a safe boat, thirty of them taking the place of three tons of cement ballast, which I threw overboard to ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... allowing him to drop through the hatches into the lower hold. Then they belayed the rope, and went down below. Parratt had already lighted a slush-lamp, by the glimmer of which they could see the mandarin swinging to and fro like a pendulum within a few feet of the ballast, and still quivering and twitching in his death-throes. They were now joined by Wo-li, who had watched the proceedings from the quay, and the four villains proceeded, without loss of time, to rifle the body as it hung. To their surprise ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... dag'—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don't believe it. Something wrong. I ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... remarkable that only one woman ever joined this community. Mrs. Lamb merely followed wheresoever her husband led,—"as ballast for his balloon," as she said, in her ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... them, and tugged at and hauled at and pummelled, and torn and vituperated, and as a wrecked vessel on stormy waters, plunging up and down with tattered sails, when the crew fling overboard freight and ballast and provision. Surely his time would have been short with that mob, but Noorna made Kadza see the use of examining him before the King, and there were in that mob sheikhs and fakirs, holy men who listened to the words of Kadza, and exerted themselves to rescue Baba Mustapha, and quieted the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the morning of the 4th the Alliance appeared again, and (p. 102) had brought to two very small coasting sloops in ballast, but without having attended properly to my orders of yesterday. The Vengeance joined me soon after, and informed me that in consequence of Captain Landais' orders to the commanders of the two prize ships, they had refused to follow him to the rendezvous. I am to this moment ignorant of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... idiotic results," he went on; "no ballast. Take what your grandfather said to me—nothing in that unexpected or to drive a man off. Yet off I go and—" he halted oddly, just as her breath was suspended at the admittance which she was certain must follow. But he fell ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... station of Malaunay. He was in love with Flore, who for a time seemed to encourage him. He was dismissed from his post on account of grave negligence caused by Flore, who distracted his attention in order that he might allow the Havre express to dash into a train loaded with ballast. The accident was only averted by a new automatic signalling apparatus. La ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... consumption had averaged 297 pounds per hour, while the fuel tanks carried sufficient for a flight of about seven hours. The airship had attained a maximum height of about 6,230 feet, to reach which 6,600 pounds of ballast had to be discarded. Moreover, it was proved that a Zeppelin, if travelling under military conditions with full armament and ammunition aboard, could carry sufficient fuel for only ten hours at the utmost, during which, if the slightest head-wind prevailed, it could not cover more than 340 miles ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... forgive when there is magnanimity, vainglory and probably folly in forgiveness, but will not overlook the most trivial affront when there is every reason for so doing. They have brain, but not ballast, and their whole life is usually a lopsided effort to "play to ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... the signal station, on every side. On the north and east it terminated abruptly in artificial cliffs of a dizzy height. The rocks had been blasted from their bases to make room for a steadily increasing commerce, and the debris was shipped away as ballast in the vessels that were chartered to bring passengers and provision to the coast, and found nothing in the line of freight ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... and no sooner said than almost done; the safety spring balance was screwed down, and a railway chair suspended from it by strong copper wire, and the steam allowed to rise until it reached ninety lb. on the inch, and the big iron skips were hoisted with their load of heavy ballast as easily as the wooden ones had been. The boiler happened to ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... of those veering lists of the ballast aboard which are so disconcerting to the author. The story got out of hand. The old woman silent, indomitable, fed and deeply satisfied for all of her hard and grinding life by her love for the husband whom she had taken from her sister, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... they who happen to be at sea when this tempest or tyffon takes place, as few escape the dreadful danger. In this year it was our evil fortune to be at sea in one of these terrible storms; and well it was for us that our ship was newly over-planked, and had no loading save victuals and ballast, with some gold and silver for Bengal, as no other merchandise is carried to Bengal from Pegu. The tyffon accordingly assailed us and lasted three days, carrying away our sails, yards, and rudder; and as the ship laboured excessively, we cut away our mast, yet she continued to labour more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... that but for our rope it would have gone out to sea. Unfortunately, it leaned so much on one side, that none of the boys would venture into it. I was in despair, when I suddenly remembered it only wanted ballast to keep it in equilibrium. I hastily threw in anything I got hold of that was heavy, and soon had my boat level, and ready for occupation. They now contended who should enter first; but I stopped them, reflecting that these restless ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... unnecessary chances. No doubt they could get fish and some game in that land toward which their imaginings already had set full sail, but ham by the stack and bacon by the yard and countless tins of fruit and vegetables made a fair ballast. Kendric spent lavishly and at the end was highly satisfied ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... improvements made upon old machinery, he was appointed chief engineer in 1813, at Killingworth, at a salary of L100 per year. Besides erecting a winding engine for drawing up coal, and a pumping-engine, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity of the Willington ballast quay, so arranged that full wagons descending to the vessels drew up the empty ones. But the construction of an efficient and economical locomotive steam engine mainly occupied his mind. He was among those who saw the Blenkinsop engine first put on ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... perhaps from bar, bare or mere, and last, load), heavy material, such as gravel, stone or metal, placed in the hold of a ship in order to immerse her sufficiently to give adequate stability. In botany "ballast-plants" are so-called because they have been introduced into countries in which they are not indigenous through their seeds being carried in such ballast. A ship "in ballast" is one which carries no paying cargo. In modern vessels ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... carrying passengers or cargo, $1.20 per net vessel ton-each 100 cubic feet-of actual earning capacity. 2. On vessels in ballast without passengers or cargo, 40 per cent less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passengers or cargo. 3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hospital ships, and supply ships, 50 cents per displacement ton. 4. Upon Army and Navy transports, colliers, hospital ships, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it, sir," Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; "an' once she gets t' sea she's got ballast enough t' stand up to a sousing breeze. With any sort o' civil weather she ought t' make ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... rushed up, a flash of lightning exhibiting his countenance pale as death. "We've sprung a fearful leak, sir," he exclaimed; "it's my belief that the oakum is washed out of the seams, for already the water is rising above the ballast." ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... for some distance, the white one going higher than the yellow one, then they began to descend. Ballast was thrown out, but they continued their downward flight. They disappeared behind Montmartre hill. They must have landed on the Saint Denis plain. They were too heavily weighted, or else the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... that the attempt had failed, but the three men in the car set to work vigorously throwing out some of the sand-bags that had been put in the car for ballast, to steady it, and the balloon soon rose again ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the north again; an Indian girl was on her knees clinging to my feet, sobbing out incoherent gratitude; a pair of arms were belabouring my shoulders; and a voice was saying with broken gurgles of joy: "Ship ahoy, there! Ease your helm! Don't heave all your ballast overboard!"—a clapping of hands on my back—"Port your helm! Ease her up! All sheets in the wind and the storms'l aflutter! Ha-ha!" with a wringing and a wringing like to wrench my hands off—"Anchor out! Haul away! Home with her ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... I was born when I was very young and have been desperately tidy about my morals ever since, but for fear of stumbling just because I'm so bored I have entrenched myself behind a maddening routine. Six months here ought to put ballast into the ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... have been blowing twice a gale and nothing happened to either of us. Probably no stiffer class of vessels sails the seas than the big coasters of our side of the North Atlantic. Give them plenty of ballast and there is no capsizing them. We surely had plenty of ballast in us now, and took cheerfully all the hard westerly had to give us, and foamed along. Foamed? We wallowed—like a couple of sailing submarines almost. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... mental attention to the organism through which thought is carried on. Numerous are the instances of men who would never have been heard of as thinkers or as reflective poets, if they had had sufficient muscular ballast to pull against their teeming brains. The consequence of the disproportion has been that the superfluous brain has exhaled, as a mere necessity.[A] If Tacitus had fared in any sort like his brother,—if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Howard past away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon, And we laid them on the ballast down below; For we brought them all aboard, And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... regardful of the sorrow about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse—as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... "Newbern," with nothing in her but ballast, rolled and lurched along, through the bright green waters of the outer bar. I stood leaning against the great mast, steadying myself as best I could, and the tears rolled down my face; for I saw the friendly green hills, and before me lay the glorious bay of San ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... that served me as ballast to so much sail. The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for one, that you cannot tear up ancient rootages and safely plant the tree of liberty in soil which is not native to it. I believe that the ancient traditions of a people are its ballast; you cannot make a tabula rasa upon which to write a political program. You cannot take a new sheet of paper and determine what your life shall be to-morrow. You must knit the new into the old. ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... by the command of Caligula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... above ten thousand, which would be robbery. Every time she's in a rough sea I'm afraid she'll jump her ballast through ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the sun, by increasing the amount of material there for the sun to attract, and to lighten the pole approaching or turning towards the sun, by removing some heavy substance from it, and putting it preferably at the opposite pole. This shifting of ballast is most easily accomplished, as you will readily perceive, by confining and removing water, which is easily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose to apply these aqueous brakes to check the wabbling ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... a solid, sensible sort of person, who acted as ballast for the volatile Vicky, and sometimes reprimanded her in a ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... little wages due to them, had deserted soon after our arrival. Only we apprentices and the sail-maker remained, and we had work enough to set our muscles up in the heavy harbour jobs. Trimming coal and shovelling ballast may not be scientific training, but it is grand work ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of any alteration in their theories. But they were facing a new situation, and that new situation became an immense factor in their unconscious growth. Their intellectual and moral problems shifted, as a boat shifts her ballast when the wind blows from a new quarter. The John Cotton preaching in a shed in the new Boston had come to "suffer a sea-change" from the John Cotton who had been rector of St. Botolph's splendid church in Lincolnshire. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... she doubtless frequently heard, as a child, between her father and his friends, must have impressed Mary more forcibly than the respectable precepts laid down in a weak way for her guidance; how all this prepared her to admire what was noble and advanced in idea, without giving her the ballast needful for acting in the fittest way when a time of temptation came, when Shelley appeared. He appeared as the devoted admirer of her father and his philosophy, and as such was admitted into the family intimacy ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... Jack, gravely, "that did not occur to me; no doubt you must go. Our boat does require a good deal of ballast; and all that you say, Peterkin, carries so much weight with it, that we won't ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Church, Niece Louise," he said firmly. "Abe always did. These small-fry craft, like the Mariner's Chapel, are all right, I don't dispute; but they are lacking in ballast. It's in my mind to attend the church that's the most like ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... the true sportsman for "no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike. The gas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, but the water-ballast central tank is rendered obligatory. These things work, if not for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane and wholesome waterborne cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by the new rules, so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... Antony, whom he was wont to say he loved, and cooeperates with Caesar, whose father he killed? And if chance so favor, he will ere long attack Caesar also. For the fellow is naturally distrustful and turbulent and has no ballast in his soul, and he is always stirring things up and twisting about, turning more ways than the sea-passage to which he fled and got the title of deserter for it, asking all of you to take that man for friend or foe whom ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... room the Cap'n went to sleep pretty soon and I set in the one chair, readin' the newspaper and wishin' I hadn't ate so many of the warm bricks that the Golconda folks hoped was biscuit. They made me feel like a schooner goin' home in ballast. I guess I was drowsin' off myself, but there comes a most unearthly yell from the bed and I jumped ha'f out of the chair. There was Jonadab settin' up ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I sent the launch, protected by a party of marines in another boat, to take in ballast, which was wanted. This work was done before breakfast; and after it, she was sent for wood and water, and with her the people employed in this service, under the protection of a serjeant's guard, which was now thought sufficient, as the natives seemed to be pretty well reconciled to us. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... part of the ballast, it ascended to the height of two hundred yards. As a multitude lay before me of a hundred and fifty thousand people, who had not seen my ascent from the ground, I had recourse to every stratagem to let them know I was in the gallery, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... raft assign'd. He deck'd her over with long planks, upborne On massy beams; He made the mast, to which He added suitable the yard;—he framed Rudder and helm to regulate her course, With wicker-work he border'd all her length For safety, and much ballast stow'd within. Meantime, Calypso brought him for a sail Fittest materials, which he also shaped, And to his sail due furniture annex'd 310 Of cordage strong, foot-ropes, and ropes aloft, Then heav'd her down with levers to the Deep. He finish'd all his work on the fourth day, And on the fifth, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... fuel material; it does not serve in the body as an energy-giver. Its value in diet is due to the fact that it is bulky and furnishes ballast for the alimentary canal. It stimulates the flow of the digestive juices as it brushes against the walls of the digestive tract, and thus aids in the digestion of foods and in the elimination ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... is the field horse-tail (Equisetum arvense), a very abundant and widely distributed species. It grows in low, moist ground, and is often found in great abundance growing in the sand or gravel used as "ballast" for railway tracks. ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... wind, just touching the water here and there. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and nothing whatever to suggest a squall. But as he looked again, a suspicious wisp of white water lifted suddenly from the surface a few yards to windward. Like a flash he remembered that the boat had no ballast in her, and was running with her sheets made fast. Instinctively he leaned forward to let go the foresail, but at the same moment the squall struck the boat like the hammer of Thor. Relieved of the fore canvas, the trap should have come to the wind in an instant. Instead, leaning over heavily ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of preserving the level of the turntable, whether unloaded, partially loaded, or loaded, is happily met by an arrangement of water ballast and pumping. I cannot pass away from the mention of Mr. Eads' work without just reminding you of the successful manner in which he has dealt with the mouth of the Mississippi, by which he has caused that river to scour and maintain a channel 30 feet deep at low water, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... not one word, either in the towns or country, on the subject of representation; much on the receipt tax, something on Mr. Fox's ambition; much greater apprehension of danger from thence than from want of representation. One would think that the ballast of the ship was shifted with us, and that our Constitution had the gunwale under water. But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance has happened which you can refer to the representative not following the opinion of his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the Indies? Dro. Oh sir, vpon her nose, all ore embellished with Rubies, Carbuncles, Saphires, declining their rich Aspect to the hot breath of Spaine, who sent whole Armadoes of Carrects to be ballast at ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 1811, a ship being about sailing in ballast for America, with Napoleon's permission, Colonel Burr, through the influence of the Duc de Bassano, received permission to leave Paris. He arrived at Amsterdam on the 3d of August; and after a month's delay, apparently from the capricious tyranny ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... sheet well out. Then, when Dan hurriedly rejoined him, Darrin passed the sheet over to his comrade as to one who would know exactly what to do with it. Dan perched himself on the weather gunwale, his weight there serving as ballast to keep the craft from capsizing. Yet, even so, everything had to be done with the utmost skill, for, with the mainsail up, the least fluke in handling the boat would send ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... man who was carrying a flour-bag turned his head and then went on again until he hove his load into a two-horse wagon, while Miss Deringham noticed that although the bag was stamped 140 lbs. the man trotted lightly across the metals and ballast with it upon his shoulders. Then he came in their direction, and she glanced at him with some curiosity as he stood a trifle breathless before them. He wore a blue shirt burst open at the neck which ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... but feel!" Her failing senses could indulge a little impatience; but it was like throwing ballast out of a balloon. She meant to be all ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... am now standing firm on my feet. I have at the present moment a hundred and fifty thousand francs a year in the Three per Cents, and a reserve of two hundred thousand francs to repair damages. Even this does not seem to me very much ballast in the pocket of a man starting left foot foremost to scale ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... as a speculative, historical, and abstract thing. Here in the concrete and saliently objective facts of crime it should have its beginning, and have more blood and body in it by getting again close to the hot battle line between vice and virtue, and then only, when balanced and sanified by a rich ballast of facts, can it with advantage slowly work its way over to the larger and higher philosophy of conduct, which, when developed from this basis, will be a radically different thing from the shadowy phantom, schematic speculations of many contemporary moralists, taught ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... back of the fish-like vessel. Each man had his own particular place aboard and definite duties to perform, so there was no need to move about much, nor was there much room left by the gasoline motor, the electric motor, storage batteries, air-compressor, and air ballast and gasoline tanks, and the Whitehead torpedoes. The captain stood up inside of the conning tower, with his eyes on a level with the little thick glass windows, and in front of him was the wheel connecting with the rudder that ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... about him before he resumed the helm and noticed that it was blowing fresher. They were also drawing out from the land and the short seas were getting bigger; but he held on to the whole sail, and an hour or so afterward a white iron bark, light in ballast, with her rusty load-line high above the water, came driving up to meet them. She made a striking picture, Evelyn thought, with the great curve of her forecourse, which was still set, stretching high above the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... the intellectual side of human nature began, not with the search after a theoretical psychology—for that, Aristotle still sufficed—but with the endeavor to observe and to describe. The indispensable ballast of theory was limited to the popular doctrine of the four temperaments, in its then habitual union with the belief in the influence of the planets. Such conceptions may remain ineradicable in the minds of individuals, without hindering the general progress of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... cried, "when I'm tired you'll have to take a turn; but don't she go along splendidly with all this water ballast in her?" ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it. There is nothing from which slaves in the mid-passage suffer so much as want of water. It is sometimes usual to take out casks filled with sea-water as ballast, and when the slaves are received on board, to start the casks, and re-fill them with fresh. On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of their casks, and on the mid-passage found to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... was increasing, and that many of these slaves "can scarcely fail to find their way into the United States." Moreover, the consul acknowledged that ships frequently cleared for the United States in ballast, taking on a cargo at some secret point.[61] When with these facts we consider the law facilitating "recovery" of slaves from Texas,[62] the repeated refusals to regulate the Texan trade, and the shelving of a proposed congressional ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... away two young Saluages, which were the chiefe Casiques sonnes of that Countrey and part of Dominica, but they shortly after ran away from them at Santa Cruz Iland, where the Viceadmirall landed to take in ballast. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... the future to chance. Destitute of any canon of hereditary succession, of any settled rules concerning adoption, and of any law regulating election, Caesarism was like an enormous load on the deck of a vessel without ballast. The most terrible shocks were inevitable. Three times in a century, under Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, the greatest power that was ever united in one person fell into the hands of most extravagant and execrable men. Horrors were enacted ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... heavy piece of iron under the middle board of the cabin," said Betty. "Uncle Amos said it was there for ballast in case we wanted to use a sail, but I don't see ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... Carlyle, and in our immediate community, the writings of Channing,—he left it to others to say of Emerson,—all had their part in this intellectual, or if we may call it so, spiritual revival. He describes with that exquisite sense of the ridiculous which was a part of his mental ballast, the first attempt at organizing an association of cultivated, thoughtful people. They came together, the cultivated, thoughtful people, at Dr. John Collins Warren's,—Dr. Channing, the great Dr. Channing, among the rest, full of the great thoughts he ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the blimp's water ballast streaming earthward in the sun, and it was put into a long, steady spiral in pursuit of the parachute, whose speed—or so it seemed to my agonized gaze—was now noticeably on the increase. The altitude seemed appallingly great; the blimp's ceiling, I knew, was only ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... next day should be pleasant, our thoughts turned with the prow of the China to Japan. We were bound for Nagasaki, to get a full supply of coal to drive us across the Pacific, having but twelve hundred tons aboard, and half of that wanted for ballast. It was at the mouth of the harbor of Nagasaki that there was a settlement of Dutch Christians for some hundreds of years. An indiscreet letter captured on the way to Holland by a Portuguese adventurer ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... knowledge of music; be capable of examining himself with the laryngoscope (auto-laryngoscopy) as well as others (laryngoscopy); possess an acute ear for the pitch and quality of tones; be himself able to use his voice at least fairly well in singing and speaking; be provided with the all-important ballast of common sense, and an impartial mind longing above all ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... discharging cargo the day before, could be loaded, ready for sea, within twenty-four hours. Indeed, she was in excellent trim. She was not too light to put to sea. No doubt, I said to myself, she has taken in ballast to equal the weight of oranges sent ashore. But I knew just enough of ships to know that there was some mystery in the business. The schooner could not be the plain fruit-trader for which men took her. As I looked over her rail, noting this, I said to myself that "here is ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... shipped in the Montauk several hundred rude leaden busts of Napoleon, with a view to save the distinction in duties between the metal manufactured and the metal unmanufactured. Four or five of these busts had been struck into the launch as ballast. They were now snugly stowed, together with the water, and all the heavier articles, in the bottom of the boat. The jigger had been made and bent, and a suitable mast was stepped by means of the roof. In short, every provision for comfort or safety that Paul could think of had been ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... high dashed over decks. Progress was made by hauling the boats alongshore with ropes braced round trees. By the first of August a dense fog swept in from the sea. The Discovery crashed on a sunken rock, heeling over till her sails were within three inches of water. Ballast was thrown overboard, and the next tide-rush lifted her. By August 19 Vancouver had proved—if any doubt remained—that no Northeast Passage was to be found by way of the Straits of Fuca.[1] Then, veering out to sea at midnight ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... his bows he looked critically at the streaming black bodies and spat meditatively into the water. His own father could have had them between decks as cargo. Now for the petroleum and lumber he brings from Massachusetts to Sierra Leone he returns in ballast. ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... guarantee for democracy and friendship will come into its own again, and shape our destinies in common towards freedom and humanity. The English-speaking democracies, in firm union, can and ought to be the unshifting ballast of a better world. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Brazil was the only country manufacturing rubber articles, and her best market soon proved to be North America. Probably the first rubber this country saw was brought to New England in clipper ships as ballast in the form of crude lumps and balls. Rubber shoes, water-bottles, powder-flasks, and tobacco-pouches found buyers in the American ports, but rubber ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... faith is active, zealous and infectious, has nothing in common with the visionaries or illuminati. He is a man of about fifty, vigorous, alert and enthusiastic, but at the same time well-balanced; accesible to every idea and even to every dream, yet practical and methodical, with a ballast of the most invincible common-sense. He inspires from the outset that fine confidence, frank and unrestrained, which instantly disperses the instinctive doubt, the strange uneasiness and the veiled suspicion that generally ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was a distinct tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell wrote Bancroft that the war ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... approve of his entertaining this opinion. You have always had a roof over your head; he has always been an outcast. You have your son to comfort and assist you; he has nobody at all. The advantages must not be all one side. You are in the same boat, and we must divide the ballast a little more equally.' ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... your scheme, I am afraid, is all top-hamper, and no ballast; wont the enemy give chase? I am sure that Don—Don—what's his name, that young officer, more than suspects your good standing in the young lady's affections: wont he alarm the coast, and put the old folks up to rowing guard ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... you are, lady,' the Guard was saying. 'You're good ballast. You can keep the train down. That's something. Steady thinking's ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... glorious news— Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's; [8] One envoy's letters, six composer's airs, And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs: Meiners' four volumes upon Womankind, [9] Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, [10] and, to back it, Of Heyne, [11] such as should ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... up at Claverings, 'e can't get sweet peas like that, try 'ow 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sand ballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the other day, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why a station-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e says, 'but you do. And in your orf time, too, so's to speak,' 'e says. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... at all the places to be brought into notice by care, and foresight, at moderate rates, and at the rates taken in the subsequent calculations. Merchant vessels, bound to all quarters, so soon as they perceived that they were sure of a market, would take a proportion of coals as ballast; and others would be glad to take a portion even beyond that, to aid them in completing their cargoes, instead of remaining, as vessels both at Liverpool, Glasgow, &c. frequently do, some time, till they can obtain a sufficient quantity of goods to enable ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... heart of Africa, emerges upon the sea, no less grand than her, no less terrible, even there they sighted the land quite close, almost in darkness. Shard ordered every man to the hinder part of the ship and all the ballast too; and soon the Desperate Lark, her prow a little high out of the water, doing her eighteen knots before the wind, struck a sandy beach and shuddered, she heeled over a little, then righted herself, and slowly headed into ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... very much to be of his mind about everything, but, if he is a Republican, I have done with him. If he will in his Republican system throw in a little royal authority as ballast, we shall soon come to an agreement. I wish him to come neuf to all those great and important questions, and examine them sans l'esprit de systeme, without prejudice and strong inclination to be of either side, but ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... drove before him the three remaining men, terror-struck at his sudden and inexplicable appearance, his superhuman size and strength. One by one he swept them overboard; then grasping a huge stone, which formed part of the ballast, he dashed it with the full force of his gigantic strength through the planks of the boat, which at once began to fill. All this was the work of a few moments. He then leaped into the skiff, which sank as he swiftly transferred to his ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... was a quantity of ballast, and a provision of straw to feed the fire. The balloon mounted at first with a majestic steady motion, gazed at in breathless wonder by thousands of spectators, who assembled not only in the neighbourhood of the Chateau, but clustered on every ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... the port. The vessel, rather a large one for those days, seems but poorly manned, and rocks so greatly among the short white waves, that it is plainly to be seen that she is short of ballast and lading. She is a Venetian trading vessel, bound first to the Isle of Candia, where she will complete her cargo and add to the number of her crew. This Candia or Crete (the very Crete by which St. Paul passed on his voyage to Italy) was at that time under the hard rule of Venice, and its poor ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... so much of the world that she was unusually lively for an English girl; while her various accomplishments made her a most agreeable companion. Much good sense gave her ballast; and the late experiences of danger and happiness added a sweet gravity at times, which contrasted well with her natural gaiety. Mrs Jo was quite satisfied with Emil's choice, and felt sure this true and tender pilot would bring him safe to port through fair or stormy weather. She had feared ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... replied Foster, "touching scruples and modesty, you sailed hence in ballast. But who is this gallant, honest Mike?—is he a Corinthian—a cutter ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... like a Roman and settled colonies." We may ask ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works exist at all but in the imagination of the student. For the bulk of the best of books is apt to be made up with ballast; and those in which energy of thought is combined with any stateliness of utterance may be almost counted on the fingers. Looking round in English for a book that should answer Thoreau's two demands of a style like poetry and sense that shall ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rash promises, demands no foolish vows, is strongest in absence, and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life, and gives steadily to every venture. Through our friends we are made brothers to all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard |
