"Concave" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... centre, they are between four and five inches in width. Here, where the foot rests, there is a piece of birch bark fastened, over which there is a loop, and through this loop the foot passes. That part of the skee under the foot is concave, and here it is thickest, so that where it supports the weight of the person it cannot bend downward. The under part of the skee is grooved and polished, and soon becomes by use as smooth as glass. The forward end turns slightly upward, as you see ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... to five logs piled eight feet high and filled with earth and rock, was pierced with a double row of port-holes: one row for the kneeling warriors, and one for the standing warriors. The barricade was built in zigzags, along a concave curve, so that attackers would be cut down by shots from two sides as well as from in front. By reason of the zig-zags it could not be ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... on small detached reefs in their lagoons, such as occur in common atolls, and on broken portions of the linear marginal reef, such as bounds every atoll of the ordinary form. I cannot refrain from once again remarking on the singularity of these complex structures—a great sandy and generally concave disk rises abruptly from the unfathomable ocean, with its central expanse studded and its edge symmetrically bordered with oval basins of coral-rock just lipping the surface of the sea, sometimes clothed with vegetation, and each containing ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... it not above half an inch diameter, and very even; these I fix very strongly together by the help of very hard Cement, and then fit the whole Glass ABCDEF into a long Board, or Frame, in such manner, that almost half the head AB may lye buried in a concave Hemisphere cut into the Board RS; then I place it so on the Board RS, as is exprest in the first figure of the first Scheme; and fix it very firm and steady in that posture, so as that the weight of the Mercury that is afterwards to be put into it, may not ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... was a huge granite block, rotted from long exposure to the elements, seamed and scarred and cracked. The action of the eternally moving sand had worn an irregular-shaped concave into its southern wall, so that the summit overhung the side. The man on the summit was lying flat on his stomach, leaning far over, still shooting downward. The other man, who was standing at the base, was flattened ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... breadth of nasals, length of incisive foramina and length of molariform tooth-rows, which measure more; nasals relatively (48 per cent of length of nasals) as well as actually broader anteriorly; anterior border of zygomatic plate more concave; auditory bullae smaller; infraorbital foramina larger when viewed anterolaterally. S. c. relictus closely resembles S. c. paludis in ...
— A New Bog Lemming (Genus Synaptomys) From Nebraska • J. Knox Jones
... auditory bullae, in relation to the length of the skull, are of comparable size in goldmani and albigula whereas those of the lepida group are proportionately much larger. Moreover, the posterior margin of the palatal bridge is concave in goldmani and albigula instead of truncate as in the lepida group. Neotoma goldmani differs from both albigula and lepida in: ascending branches of premaxillaries broader posteriorly; supraorbital ...
— The Pigmy Woodrat, Neotoma goldmani, Its Distribution and Systematic Position • Dennis G. Rainey
... and picturesque, and reminded Joshua Rylands—whose ideas of art were purely reminiscent of boyish reading—of some picture in a novel. The heavy black columns of the pines, glancing out of the concave shadow, also seemed a fitting background to what might have been a scene in a play. So strongly was he impressed by it that but for his anxiety to reach his home, still a mile distant, and the fact that he was ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... with this man, whose feelings and desires were in such constant action and reaction, with this man whose will imposed his intellectual notions on his feelings, and his emotional tendencies on his thoughts, the thing which he enjoys is always as the concave to the convex of the thing which he produces. But although Alfieri was not a poet, and was not even a potential novel writer, he was, in a sense, essentially a dramatist; though even here we must distinguish ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... conical mountain around which revolve the sun and moon. When the sun is behind the mountain it is night. The sky is glued to the edges of the outer earth. It consists of four high walls which meet in a concave roof, so that the earth is the floor of the universe. There is an ocean on the other side of the sky, constituting the "waters that are above the firmament." The space between the celestial ocean and the ultimate roof of the universe belongs to the blest. The space between ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... WING.—It is also urged that the concave on the under side of the wing gives the quality of lift. Certain kinds of beetles, and particularly the common house fly, disprove that theory, as their ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... a mysterious device resembling two hard rubber shoe horns, joined in the centre by a concave piece of metal. ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... brought to a focus in the narrow end. It thus increases many fold the intensity of a sound which reaches the ear through it, and enables a person who has become deaf to common conversation to mix again with pleasure in society. The concave hand held behind the ear answers in some degree the ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... some yards distant from the spot of its first growth; because, without any reference whatever to the nasal sense, it was considered that it might be rather an eye-sore to their Reverences, on approaching the door. Several concave inequalities, which constant attrition had worn in the earthen floor of the kitchen, were filled up with blue clay, brought on a cart from the bank of a neighboring river, for the purpose. The dresser, chairs, tables, I pots, and pans, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... the surface of the earth, and rivers of ore in its bowels, and our thoughts flowed and circulated, and this portion of time was but the current hour. Let us wander where we will, the universe is built round about us, and we are central still. If we look into the heavens they are concave, and if we were to look into a gulf as bottomless, it would be concave also. The sky is curved downward to the earth in the horizon, because we stand on the plain. I draw down its skirts. The stars so low there seem loath to depart, but by a circuitous path to be remembering me, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... green savannahs—Earth has not a plain So boundless or so beautiful as thine; The eagle's vision cannot take it in. The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space, Sinks half way o'er it like a wearied bird;— It is the mirror of the stars, where all Their host within the concave firmament, Gay marching to the music of the spheres, Can see themselves ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... Hansen and Lehmann in their experiments consists of two large concave reflectors. These are placed at a convenient distance, one facing the other, so that two experimenters may be seated, the first having his mouth at the focal point of one reflector, the second with his ear at the focal point ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... the small room had a very faint radiance showing through my vizor pane. Narrow enclosing walls were visible. It was a triangular-shaped space, fifteen feet or so down one side, with a concave ceiling overhead. I was lying on the floor. The darkness at first had been impenetrable. The figures which had flung me down and seized my knife were gone; I had not seen them nor ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... astonished countenance. His big chest heaved. Like many another wounded giant before him, he experienced the insufficiency of interjections to solace pain. For them, however, the rocks were handy to fling, the trees to uproot; heaven's concave resounded companionably to their bellowings. Relief of so concrete a kind is not to be ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... THAT MAGNIFIES. A convex lens is not the only thing that can magnify. A concave mirror, which is one that is hollowed out toward the middle, does the same thing. When light is reflected by such a mirror, it acts exactly as if it had gone through a convex ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... Charcoal; the last of which to be reduc'd into Ashes, requires the being farther calcin'd then it can be in a close Vessel: Besides having kindled Amber, and held a clean Silver Spoon, or some other Concave and smooth Vessel over the Smoak of its Flame, I observ'd the Soot into which that Fume condens'd, to be very differing from any thing that I had observ'd to proceed from the steam of Amber purposely (for that is not usual) distilled per se in close Vessels. Thus ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... Pete, and up she went, a great concave hollow of white like the half of a pear. The Lass's head went down, and now, instead of attempting to go over the waves, she went ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... mountains in the S.E. of the island, as well as that on which we were travelling. The question was, whether either of them held on an uninterrupted course to some reservoir, or whether they fell short of the coast and exhausted themselves in marshes. Considering the concave direction of the mountains to the S.E., I even at this time hoped that the rivers falling into the interior would unite sooner or later, and contribute to the formation of an important and navigable stream. Of the fate of the Morumbidgee, the old black could give no account. ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... reserved for the captain's quarters. His rooms are spacious and well suited to his work; his windows are, some plane, some concave, some convex, so that he can see both near and distant objects. As the swan's head is high above the body of the swan, the captain occupies a very commanding position. Outside the head there is ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... not because he had bad eyes, for they were very bright and good, but because nature had formed the lenses of a more than usually rounded shape, with the consequence that their owner was short-sighted and needed a pair of concave glasses to deal with the rays of light and lengthen the focus of the natural lenses. But, metaphorically and poetically, as somebody once wrote, every boy wore glasses of the couleur-de-rose type—those ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... number of these together and put them away in a shady place to dry. After a week or more, preferably several months, he selected the best shafts and straightened them. This he accomplished by holding the concave surface near a small heap of hot embers and when warm he either pressed his great toe on the opposite side, or he bent the wood backward on the base of the thumb. Squinting down its axis he lined up the uneven contours one after ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... the ranch, with whom we had already made friends, and her pretty children. The roofing of this little ranch and its out-houses was most interesting. It was carried out entirely with trunks of palm trees. These, split in half and cleared of all sap, made very effective roofing, placed alternately in concave and convex form, so that the ridges of the two lengths of trunk placed bark upward rest in the hollow of the intervening trunk. Naturally, all rain water drains off the convex half into the concave trunk and ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... think,' he said dreamily. 'I haf a rock-crystal lens which is permeable to this light, und which I can place in mine camera. I must have a concave mirror, not of glass, which is opaque to this ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... sorcerers are enabled by means of their astrolabe to take the altitude of the sun, moon, and stars, I am satisfied merely by looking into people's faces, in order to see if their eyes are encircled with dark lines, and if the mouth describes a convex or concave arc." ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Despite the many wet and gusty days which April had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world proclaimed that spring had come. The yearly miracle had been performed. The leaves of the maple trees lining the village street unbound from their winter ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... and the head and thorax of the imago are freed from it (fig. 8 a), then the legs clasp the empty cuticle, and the abdomen is drawn out (fig. 8 b, c). After a short rest, the newly-emerged fly climbs yet higher up the water-weed, and remains for some hours with the abdomen bent concave dorsalwards (fig. 8 d), to allow space for the expansion and hardening of the wings. For some days after emergence the cuticle of the dragon-fly has a dull pale hue, as compared with the dark or brightly metallic aspect that characterises it when fully mature. The life ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... nearer to me," said the old gentleman, turning sideways on his couch and ferreting out from beneath his pillows a concave snuff-box, "pray do not be angry with me for putting you to inconvenience. Bear with me for the little time I have still to live. But if you find living under the same roof with me unendurable, all the greater reason for you to seize the opportunity ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... quartz plate, is fitted with a divided circle reading to single degrees. The circle revolving with the Nicol prism for changing the intensity of the star, has a diameter of 14 cm. and reads by means of two verniers to 6 min. A concave lens is mounted in the path of the artificial star to make the light diverging at the proper angle and a plane parallel plate is adjustably fixed in the center of the box in order to throw the light in the eye piece. An achromatic ...
— Astronomical Instruments and Accessories • Wm. Gaertner & Co.
... cabochon, that is, dome-shaped or semi-circular at the top, flat on the underside, and when the garnet is so cut it is called a carbuncle. In strongly coloured stones, while the upper surface is semi-circular like the cabochon, the under surface is more or less deeply concave, sometimes following the curve of the upper surface, the thickness of the stone being in that case almost parallel throughout. This is called the "hollow" cabochon. Other stones are cut so that the upper surface is dome-shaped like the last two, but the lower is more ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... appointment as Governor of Donald McKenzie. This old trader had taken part in the formation of the Astor Fur Company, and was in charge of one of the famous parties, which in 1811 crossed the continent, as described by Washington Irving. Ross Cox says of this beleaguered party: "Their concave cheeks, protuberant bones, and tattered garments indicated the dreadful extent of their privations." The old trader thus case-hardened faced bravely for eight years ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... the walls ascend, Tall columns heave, and sky-like arches bend; Bright o'er the golden roof the glittering spires Far in the concave meet the solar fires; Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high, Look with immortal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... and allusions military and funereal. A great eagle of course tops the whole: tripods burning spirits of wine stand round this kind of dead man's throne, and as we saw it (by peering over the heads of our neighbors in the front rank), it looked, in the midst of the black concave, and under the effect of half a thousand flashing cross-lights, properly grand and tall. The effect of the whole chapel, however (to speak the jargon of the painting-room), was spoiled by being CUT UP: there ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... I sat down. My brain was chaos. Then my perception grew clear and minute as though I saw things in a concave mirror. His manner seemed to have changed into something nervous and hasty. He pulled out his watch and grimaced at it. "Eleven-seven! And to-night I must— Seven-twenty-five. Waterloo! I must go at once." He called for the bill, and struggled ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and striped in two shades of rose colour; the unopened flowers are bell-shaped and drooping; they are borne on long naked pedicels, bent and wiry, oftentimes two on a stem; calyx five-cleft, segments concave; petals five, equal and evenly arranged. The leaves are produced on long, bent, wiry stalks, the outline is circular, but they are divided into five or seven lobes, which are sub-divided and irregular, both in size ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... beginning; for the last he spake Agreed not with the first. But not the less My fear was at his saying; sith I drew To import worse perchance, than that he held, His mutilated speech. "Doth ever any Into this rueful concave's extreme depth Descend, out of the first degree, whose pain Is deprivation merely of sweet hope?" Thus I inquiring. "Rarely," he replied, "It chances, that among us any makes This journey, which I wend. Erewhile ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... an abutment to the edifice, all on one side of it being ancient, and the other modern. It was lighted by one narrow, high, Gothic window, the panes of which were very small, lozenged, and many of them still stained. The roof was groined and concave, and still gay with tarnished gold. The mouldings and traceries sprang up from the four corners, and all terminated in the centre, in which grinned a Medusa's head, with her circling snakes, in high preservation, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... and in the cells of the lower region of the thallus of many liverworts, as in the endotrophic mycorhiza of higher plants. Colonies of Nostoc are constantly found in the Anthocerotaceae and in Blasia. In the latter they are protected by special concave scales, while in the Anthocerotaceae they occupy some of the mucilage slits between the cells of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... from which we had descended. Both led in the direction of our route, and the pond we had just left was ascertained to be the only one in the little channel. I sought a good position for a depot camp on the newly-discovered river, and found one extremely favourable, on a curve concave to the N. W., overlooking, from a high bank, a dry ford, on a smooth rocky bed; and having also access to a reach of water, where the bottom was hard and firm. We approached this position with our carts, in the midst of smoke and flame; the natives ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... The same figure is concave or convex according to the side from which you look at it. From one it swells out into rounded fullness; from the other it gapes as in empty hungriness. So the rich fool of the preceding parable and the anxious, troubled man of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... river, and the money they receive (though the fare is only ten Kowrie shells for each individual) furnishes a considerable revenue to the king in the course of a year. The canoes are of a singular construction, each of them being formed of the trunks of two large trees, rendered concave, and joined together, not side by side, but end-ways, the junction being exactly across the middle of the canoe; they are, therefore, very long and disproportionately narrow, and have neither decks nor masts. They are however, very roomy, for ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Sieb. (MASSON'S PINE.) Leaves in twos, 4 to 6 in. long, rather stiff, concave on one side and convex on the other, twisted but not curved; sharp-pointed, of a fresh, bright green color. Cones 1 to 11/2 in. long, conical, incurved, solitary but numerous, with closely overlapping scales terminating in slender ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar
... market a papier mache background also adapted to any picture frame, called the "concave dust proof case." This has the flat face glass of the old style wall case, but with the square corners and much of the weight eliminated. Any of these styles of wall cases may be placed on shelves as well as hung ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... to-day, namely, landing effectively, and his remarks on this subject would be instructive even to an air pilot of these days: 'Now the ways and means by which the speed is slackened at the end of a flight are these. The bird spreads its wings and tail so that their concave surfaces are perpendicular to the direction of motion; in this way, the spreading feathers, like a ship's sail, strike against the still air, check the speed, and so that most of the impetus may be stopped, the wings are ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... the outline as deep as possible in the wood with hatchets, and lastly flake it off as thick as they can, by driving in wedges. The sword is a large heavy piece of wood, shaped like a sabre, and capable of inflicting a mortal wound. In using it they do not strike with the convex side, but with the concave one, and strive to hook in their antagonists so as to have them under their blows. The fishing-lines are made of the bark of a shrub. The women roll shreds of this on the inside of the thigh, so as to twist it together, carefully inserting the ends of every ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... it—as it is filled, that next the sides of the cell is kept in advance of the centre. The bee does not put its tongue in the centre and pour out its load there, but carefully brushes the sides as it fills, excluding every particle of air, and keeps the surface concave instead of convex. This is just as a philosopher would say it should be. If it was filled at once and no care taken to attach it to the sides, why, the external air would never keep it there, which it does effectually when of ordinary ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... and a train of minor arches running over the flat shore on the other; usually a steep bank at the river-side next the large arch; always, of course, a flat shore on the side of the small ones; and the bend of the river assuredly concave towards this flat, cutting round, with a sweep into the steep bank; or, if there is no steep bank, still assuredly cutting into the shore at the steep end of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... his spectacle case on the outer concave surface of the gun metal material of which the case was constructed. It had passed through a double fold of his heavy suspenders before ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... The continual night assaults on us at that point and the steady advance of their lines were to gain as much distance as possible. From the base of the hill at Taylor's Creek they began digging a tunnel one hundred and seventy yards long, and at its terminus were two laterals, dug in a concave towards our works, of thirty-seven feet each. In these laterals were placed eight hundred pounds of powder, with fuse by which all could be exploded ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... any point of the earth and look up, the heavenly bodies appear as though they were situated upon the surface of a vast hollow sphere, of which your eye is the center. Of course this apparent concave vault has no existence and we cannot accurately measure the distance of the heavenly bodies from us or from each other. We can, however, measure the direction of some of these bodies and that information is of tremendous value to us in helping us ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... tolerably light, though the sun was unfortunately enveloped in clouds. His disc was invisible, but we could clearly distinguish his situation through the watery barrier. The fall of the cataract is nearly perpendicular. The bank over which it is precipitated is of concave form, owing to its upper stratum being composed of lime-stone, and its base of soft slate-stone, which has been eaten away by the constant attrition of the recoiling waters. The cavern is about one hundred and twenty feet in height, fifty in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... fleshy, convex, glabrous, grayish-red or chestnut-color. Flesh white, unchangeable. The tubes at first concave or nearly plane, white and stuffed, then convex, slightly depressed around the stem, ochraceous-yellow. Stem mostly obclavate, inversely club-shaped, and reticulate to the base. The spores oblong-fusiform, ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... be; And she had found no heart which, tuned with hers, Would beat in rhythm, growing into rime. She read phantasmagoric tales, sans salt, Sans hope, sans growth; or listlessly conversed With phantom-visitors—ladies, not friends, Mere spectral forms from fashion's concave glass. She haunted gay assemblies, ill-content— Witched woods to hide in from her better self, And danced, and sang, and ached. What had she felt, If, called up by the ordered sounds and motions, A vision had arisen—as once, of old, The minstrel's art laid ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... of the feminine gender, fixed for one brief week apiece on the theatrical "concave," moved quickly in the direction of "the road." These more or less heavenly lights were Miss Odette Tyler and Miss Eugenie Blair, who appeared at those kaleidoscopic theaters called "combination houses." Miss Tyler used to be something of a Broadway "favorite"—a ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... a mold wheel having a series of cogs interposed by a series of concave stops, blanks or abutments upon its periphery, a drive wheel having cogs and a blank surface on its perimeter so that the mold wheel may be moved, stopped and locked by said drive wheel which has a continuous movement, substantially as and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... in their natural verdure, bright or dark as deciduous or evergreen trees preponderate. The variety of form is endless; long ridges, high peaks, sharp or blunt, sudden clefts, great bare slides, flowing curves, convex or concave, serrated slopes crowned with dark spruce or jagged as the naked vertebrae of some enormous antediluvian monster, stimulate the curiosity and excite the imagination of the beholder. There is an essential difference in the character of the views obtained, whether looking from the south, or the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the whole alluvial and auriferous formation to the floor of grey granite which has supplied the huge 'cankey-stones' [Footnote: This proto-historic implement, also called a 'saddle-quern,' is here made out of a thick slab of granite slightly concave and artificially roughened. The muller, or mealing-stone, is a large, heavy, and oval rolling-pin used with the normal rocking and grinding motion. These rollers are also used for crushing ore, and correspond with the stone polissoirs ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... stretched the dale of Balder with its sighing groves. Its song of birds, a home where peace might reign supreme. High rose the copper-bolted portal, and within Two colonnades supported on strong omoplates The vaulted canopy, and beautiful it hung Above the temple, like a concave shield of gold. At farthest end stood Balder's altar. It was hewn From one huge block of northern granite: round it coiled A graven serpent, covered o'er with written runes, - Profoundest thoughts from Vala and from Ha'vama'l; But in the wall above was ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... in getting drunk with his old comrades. The entire space before the bar was occupied. War Paint and Blondie had tied up their horses outside; but the other officers had stormed in brutally, horses and all. Embroidered hats with enormous and concave brims bobbed up and down everywhere. The horses wheeled about, prancing; tossing their restive heads; their fine breed showing in their black eyes, their small ears and dilating nostrils. Over the infernal din of the drunkards, the heavy breathing ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... have, not inadequately for the purpose designed, been represented by the concave surface of a sphere in the centre of which the eye of an observer might be supposed to be placed.... In future we shall look upon those regions into which we may now penetrate by means of such large telescopes, ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale
... of the moon is generally represented, for convenience, as an ellipse about the earth, it is, in reality, a varying curve, having the sun for its real focus, and always concave toward the latter. This is a fact that can be more readily explained with ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... thermometric scales, philosophical instruments, were distributed through the chambers. The third story, save two bed-chambers,—one for the housekeeper, the other for the footman,—had been fitted up for an observatory. The lenses and achromatic glasses, tubes and specula, concave mirrors, and object-prisms, and the huge, rough old telescope, peering through the roof, were still there as their owner had left them. All appliances of housekeeping were absent, and Cavendish House was destitute of all comforts, for which ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... cabochon cut closely resembles the top of a head in shape. Cabochon cut stones usually have a flat base, but sometimes a slightly convex base is used, especially in opals and in moonstones, and some stones of very dense color are cut with a concave base to thin them and thus to reduce their color. The contour of the base may be round, or oval, or square, or cushion shape, or heart shape or of any regular form. The top is always smooth and rounding and unfacetted. The relation of the height ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... darker pink; upper part of interior crested with long white hairs. Stamens united with style into unsymmetrical declined column, bearing an anther on either side, and a dilated triangular petal-like sterile stamen above, arching over the broad concave stigma. Leaves: 2, from the base; elliptic, thick, 6 to 8 ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... lay. 135 Its broad and silent mirror gave to view The pale and waning stars, The chariot's fiery track, And the grey light of morn Tingeing those fleecy clouds 140 That cradled in their folds the infant dawn. The chariot seemed to fly Through the abyss of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged With shades of infinite colour, 145 And semicircled with ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... things were bad enough with us in Smyrna bay at that time. The pitch was boiling in the seams, the water was hissing along-side; the sky seemed an entire sun, so truly were the fiery rays rendered back from every part of the glowing concave. The sea-breeze, one's only solace under such circumstances, was continually forgetting to come. In spite of the common profession, that without the sea-breeze it would be impossible to live hereaway, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... should be studied. The whole of the exterior of the skull in all its parts has been altered; the hinder surface, instead of sloping backwards, is directed forwards, entailing many changes in other parts; the front of the head is deeply concave; the orbits have a different shape; the auditory meatus has a different direction and shape; the incisors of the upper and lower jaws do not touch each other, and they stand in both jaws above the plane of the molars; the canines ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... on conceived as a great mountain. The earth itself was conceived to be a rectangular box, longer from north to south than from east to west; the upper surface of this box, upon which man lived, being slightly concave and having, of course, the valley of the Nile as its centre. The pillars of support were situated at the points of the compass; the northern one being located beyond the Mediterranean Sea; the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... average transverse velocity curves were prepared from 714 separate curves. These average curves were all very flat, and were convex down stream—over a level or concave bed—and nearly symmetric in a symmetric section. The velocity was greatest near the center, or deepest channel, decreased very slowly at first toward both banks, more rapidly with approach to the banks or with shallowing of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... threshing machine, but in many instances it is also threshed with a clover huller. The huller does the work less quickly, but probably, on the whole, more perfectly. Threshing machines, with or even without certain adjustments in the arrangement of the teeth in the cylinder and concave, and with extra screens, are now doing the work with much despatch, and with a fair measure of satisfaction. But the opinion is held by competent judges that a machine that would more completely combine the qualities of the thresher and the huller would be still more satisfactory. It is easily ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... turned more softly gray; the great watch stars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy teardrops of flower and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and giggle? or if he apologize? or is infected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care enough for results to stimulate him to experiment, and hold him up in it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable by pleasure ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... When he entered his studio he opened the door slowly, sat down with great deliberation, and then remained motionless until the least sign of agitation produced by the exercise had ceased. Then he began to paint, using concave glasses to reduce the objects in size. This continual effort ended by injuring his sight, so that he was obliged to work with spectacles. Nevertheless, his coloring never became weakened or less vigorous, and his pictures are equally strong whether one looks at them near by or far off. They ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... further matter for discussion. For instance, why is it that in flat mirrors all images and objects reflected are shown in almost precisely their original dimensions, whereas in convex and spherical mirrors everything is seen smaller, in concave mirrors on the other hand larger than nature? Why again and under what circumstances are left and right reversed? When does one and the same mirror seem now to withdraw the image into its depths, now to extrude it forth to view? Why do concave mirrors when held at right ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... he could discern an irregular pink crescent, with the concave side downwards, somewhere in the blackness beyond the bows. He rubbed his eyes, and said nothing, believing that the unaccustomed strain of gazing into the dark had affected his sight. But the pink crescent brightened and deepened, and speedily it was joined by two ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... we less-favoured golfers dream shall some day be ours to command; the ball which starts low, rises in a concave curve, and ends its trajectory in a slight slant to the left—the low, hooked ball. It was not a phenomenally long drive; about two hundred yards, I should say, but for the apparent effort expended I have never seen a more ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... walked down the aisle, listening for awhile to the grand choral, while the clustered tapers under the dome quivered and trembled, as if shaken by the waves of music which burst continually within its lofty concave. ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately contiguous portion of the nave. It was a vast old edifice, spacious enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going London, and with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could fill with audible prayer. Oaken benches were arranged in the transept, on one of which I seated myself, and joined, as well as I knew how, in the sacred business that was going forward. But when it came to the sermon, the voice ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the convex outside curve of wings allowed the wind to escape over them, while the under side, being concave, held every breath. Thus the upward stroke did not simply counterbalance the downward and keep him stationary. Moreover, she showed him how the feathers underlapped each other so that the downward stroke pressed them closely together to hold ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... to those of M. lyra; the posterior portion of the tragus, however, is longer and more attenuated upwards, and more acutely pointed; the nose-leaf is shorter, with convex sides; but the anterior concave disc is considerably larger, and the base of the thickened process is cordate; thumbs and wings as in M. lyra; interfemoral membrane deeper; the ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... determines which aspect of them he sees and has to experience. God's way has a bright side and a dark. You may take which you like. You can lay hold of the thing by whichever handle you choose. On the one side it is convex, on the other concave. You can approach it from either side, as you please. 'The way of the Lord' must touch your 'way.' Your cannot alter that necessity. Your path must either run parallel in the same direction with His, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the ground, to dive up into a huge black cloud of peculiarly forbidding aspect. This cloud appeared to remain stationary while he swept beneath it, and, having reached its central position, he observed that its under surface was concave towards the earth, and at that moment he became swept upwards in a vortex that set his balloon spinning and swinging violently, while he himself was afflicted with violent nausea and a feeling of suffocation. The cold experienced now became intense, and the cordage ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Completely healthy; mens sana in corpore sano. A man all lucid, and in equilibrium. His intellect a clear mirror geometrically plane, brilliantly sensitive to all objects and impressions made on it and imaging all things in their correct proportions; not twisted up into convex or concave, and distorting everything so that he cannot see the truth of the matter, without endless groping and manipulation: healthy, clear, and free and discerning truly all ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... is always worn by women. It consists of a segment of bamboo, 7 or 8 centimeters long and 5 centimeters high, curved while still green and made to retain its shape by a slip of bamboo fastened into two holes on the concave side. The teeth are whittled out and the upper part and sides are cut into the characteristic shape seen in Plate 9. On the front or convex side of the comb are ornamental incisions the style and variety of which depend upon the caprice and ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the wild duck in very little except in the proportional length and curvature of the premaxillaries. These latter bones in the Call-duck are short, and a line drawn from their extremities to the summit of the skull is nearly straight, instead of being concave as in the {283} common duck; so that the skull resembles that of a small goose. In the hook-billed duck (fig. 39) these same bones as well as the lower jaw curve downwards in a most remarkable manner, as represented. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... there should be a little water in the dripping pan. For broiling, the bars of the gridiron should be perfectly clean, and greased with lard or butter, otherwise the meat will retain the impression of the bars. The bars of the gridiron should be concave, and terminate in a trough, to catch the juices, or they will drop in the fire and smoke the meat. A good fire of hot coals is necessary to have the meat broil as quick as possible without burning. The gridiron should be ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... was made in the same manner in which silver pencil-cases and thimbles are made. If you take a thin piece of silver, or of any ductile material, and lay it over a concave mould, you can readily imagine that you can make the thin, ductile material take the shape of any mould into which you put it; and you may go on forcing it into moulds of different depths, till at last the plate of silver will have been shaped into a cylindrical form; a thimble, a pencil-case, a ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... The parts referred to in the key may be defined as follows: Anal fin, the single fin on the median line of the body, between the vent and the tail; gillrakers, bony protuberances on the concave side of the bones supporting the gills; branchiostegals, small bones supporting the lower margin of the gill cover; pyloric coeca, worm-like appendages of the lower end of the stomach; vomer, a bone in the front part of the roof ...
— The Salmon Fishery of Penobscot Bay and River in 1895-96 • Hugh M. Smith
... in 1496, is historically of much interest. One sees many changes and much that is still familiar. The only mosaic on the facade of S. Mark's which still remains is that in the arch over the left door; and that also is the only arch which has been left concave. The three flagstaffs are there, but they have wooden pediments and no lions on the top, as now. The Merceria clock tower is not yet, and the south arcade comes flush with the campanile's north wall; but I doubt if that was so. The miracle ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... involuntarily sought the bag, whose concave sides flapped hungrily together; but she told her lie with cheerfulness. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... longer in the hall. He was marching along a gallery overhanging one of the great streets of the moving platforms that traversed the city. Before him and behind him tramped his guards. The whole concave of the moving ways below was a congested mass of people marching, tramping to the left, shouting, waving hands and arms, pouring along a huge vista, shouting as they came into view, shouting as they passed, shouting as ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Quite as solitary and untrodden did it look as its still more stately sister, the Hoch Gall, a mountain deservedly the especial pride of the district, its lofty pinnacle piercing the sky, whilst a vast sheet of thick, pure snow hung straight and smooth down its concave sides, a huge mountain-buttress linking the lower portion of this snow pyramid to the white, glittering expanse of the Gross Lengstein Glacier—a buttress of many thousand feet, standing prominently forth ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... relatively short. The cannons are broad from in front to behind and relatively thin from side to side. This means that the bony and tendinous structures of the legs are well developed and well placed. The hoofs are compact, tense, firm structures, and their soles are concave and frogs large. Such a horse is likely to have a good constitution and to be able to resist hard work, fatigue, and disease to a maximum degree. On the other hand, a poor constitution is indicated by a shallow, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... in length and scarcely 1/12 inch in width, yellowish-green, numerous, stiff, curved or twisted, cross-section showing two fibrovascular bundles; outline narrowly linear; apex sharp-pointed; outer surface convex, inner concave or flat. ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... Additional features not mentioned in diagnoses: Head wider than long, about as wide as body; supratympanic fold present; canthus rostralis rounded, loreal region slightly concave, nearly vertical; nostril at tip of snout; pupil horizontal; no teeth on maxillary, premaxillary, or vomer; tongue small, round, thick, not notched behind, free posteriorly for one-sixth of length; choanae large, only partly visible from directly below; males having darkened subgular ...
— Systematic Status of a South American Frog, Allophryne ruthveni Gaige • John D. Lynch
... turned towards the sharp-pointed, vigorous leaf of the Greeks. Its lobes are divided into three or five tines, each sharp at the tip; its centre lines, radiating from a central stem, bend like flames; its surfaces are concave, with deep V cutting, and it has one very marked peculiarity, that is, that as far as possible no tine is left displayed alone on the ground, but the tip of each is made to touch either the tip of a neighboring tine or the ribbon or moulding bounding the ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 04, April 1895 - Byzantine-Romanesque Windows in Southern Italy • Various
... his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She called attention ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... one side there is a slight oval-shaped depression (Fig. 41-1). Now take a soaked kernel and cut it in two pieces making the cut lengthwise from the top of the kernel through the centre of the oval depression and examine the cut surface. A more or less triangular-shaped body will be found on the concave side of the kernel (see Figs. 41-2 and 41-3). This is the one cotyledon of the corn. Besides this will be found quite a mass of starchy material packed in the coverings of the kernel and in close contact with one side of the cotyledon. This is ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... prince's court in the world; speaks the languages with that purity of phrase, and facility of accent, that it breeds astonishment; his wit, the most exuberant, and, above wonder, pleasant, of all that ever entered the concave ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... sped through uncounted leagues before it reached my extremities; the air drawn into my lungs expanded into seas of limpid ether, and the arch of my skull was broader than the vault of heaven. Within the concave that held my brain, were the fathomless deeps of blue; clouds floated there, and the winds of heaven rolled them together, and there shone the orb of the sun. It was—though I thought not of that at the time—like a revelation ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... as the most natural of artificialities; for they are a part of a horticultural whole. To walk into a Japanese garden is like wandering of a sudden into one of those strange worlds we see reflected in the polished surface of a concave mirror, where all but the observer himself is transformed into a fantastic miniature of the reality. In that quaint fairyland diminutive rivers flow gracefully under tiny trees, past mole-hill ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... of Plagiolophus are similar to those of Anchitherium, and their crowns are as thinly covered with cement; but the grinders diminish in size forwards, and the last lower molar has a large hind lobe, convex outwards and concave inwards, as in Palceotherium. The ulna is complete and much larger than in any of the Equidae, while it is more slender than in most of the true Palaeotheria; it is fixedly united, but not ankylosed, with the radius. There are three toes in the fore limb, the outer ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sag And well-bestrutted bee's sweet bag; Gladding his palate with some store Of emmets' eggs: what would he more But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh, A bloated earwig, and a fly: With the red-capp'd worm, that is shut Within the concave of a nut, Brown as his tooth; a little moth, Late fatten'd in a piece of cloth; With wither'd cherries; mandrakes' ears; Moles' eyes; to these, the slain stag's tears; The unctuous dewlaps of a snail; The ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of Raymi, or New Year's day, the sacrifice usually offered was that of the llama, a fire being kindled by means of a concave mirror of polished metal collecting the rays of the sun into a focus upon a quantity ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... admitted, "yet I have found the comfortable, convex and concave characters often really more difficult in the long run. You must have some hard and durable rock on which to found understanding and security. The soft, crumbling people may be lovable; but they are ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... can be made by cutting a hollow rubber return ball in half, using one part with the concave side up. It will fit the hole of any sink or bathtub. One ball thus makes two stoppers at a cost of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... when Tish frowned him down. "It's awfully fetching, and beauty half-revealed, you know. Do you suppose my breastbone will ever straighten out again? It's concave from stooping." ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... are built most elaborately of a single flattened band of chips, which is rolled up into a coil four layers deep. One side, forming the bottom of the cell, is concave, being beaten down and smoothed off by the bee. The other side of the partition, forming the top of the cell, is flat ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... himself, or "perish in" his "self-contempt." Then would he live and die in the blessed assurance that his name would be for over on the lips and in the hearts of that idol of fools they call posterity-divinity as vague as the old gray Fate, and less noble, inasmuch as it is but the supposed concave whence is to rebound the ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... Dragon, by Lord Chester"; "The Coming of the Shepherd from Joseph, The Standing of the Great Ensign, by Koresh." The "Religio-science" of this Chicago revelator is based, first upon some precise measurements of the earth which prove that its surface is concave; and second upon some philological discoveries very much resembling puns. Thus the "cross of Christ" is explained in a sense of the word more common among ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... mass of the five rectangles, on the floor, was a large plate of transparent substance, ground to a concave surface, through which one could see an intricate ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... all our Andes fill the bounded sight. From south to north what long blue swells arise, Built thro the clouds, and lost in ambient skies! Approaching slow they heave expanding bounds, The yielding concave bends sublimer rounds; Whose wearied stars, high curving to the west, Pause on the summits for a moment's rest; Recumbent there they renovate their force, And roll ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... vibrations shake, While on the surface of the neighbouring lake, Of shrubs and willows, wash'd from every stain, The trembling branches glitter once again; Again the peasant in its bosom sees The heaven's blue concave and the ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... in. to 4 in. wide, pale green or glaucous, with about eight ridges, the spines being placed along the angles in clusters of half a dozen or so, and about 1/2 in. apart. The flowers are 2 in. to 3 in. long; the tube spiny; the petals semi-erect and concave, rounded at the tip, and forming a shallow cup or wine-glass-like flower; the colour of the petals is deep blood-red. This beautiful Cactus is exceptional in the length of time its flowers remain expanded and fresh, lasting a week or more; ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... good view of the town from the top of the hotel[X]. Most of the houses have both flat and sloping roofs, the latter covered with concave red tiles, cemented together with white, thus giving them a strange freckled appearance; while in many cases the dust and dew have produced a little soil, upon which a spontaneous growth of shrubbery has sprung up; the flat roofs have usually a collection of little urn-shaped turrets round ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... that he had dropped into a sewer. To get out the way he had entered appeared impossible. He could not leap upward from the slimy, concave bottom the distance he had dropped. To follow the sewer upward would lead him nowhere nearer escape. There remained no hope but to follow the trickling stream downward toward the river, into which his judgment told him the entire sewer system ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... when they saw his chariot but appear, Did they not make an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks To hear the replication of their sounds Made in her concave shores?" ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... The angle of incidence is 30 in each case; also the specific gravity of each substance is given. Then he discusses the reason why refraction takes place. Promises to write on the Rainbow; but will merely say at present that it is to be explained by the reflection on the concave superficies and the refraction at the convex ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from sunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during the latter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... partly of the disposition of the articular surfaces of the vertebrae, and largely of the elastic tension of some of the fibrous bands, or ligaments, which connect these vertebrae together, the spinal column, as a whole, has an elegant S-like curvature, being convex forwards in the neck, concave in the back, convex in the loins, or lumbar region, and concave again in the sacral region; an arrangement which gives much elasticity to the whole backbone, and diminishes the jar communicated to the spine, and through it to ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... the north-west side of the island. Except for the cove formed by the coral reef, with its mysterious palm-tree growing apparently in the midst of the waves, the shape of the coast was roughly that of the concave side of a bow, the two visible extremities being about three-quarters ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... certain rugged rocks whose outlines were grotesque against the evening sky. Rowland had seen grander places in Switzerland that pleased him less, and whenever afterwards he wished to think of Alpine opportunities at their best, he recalled this grassy concave among the mountain-tops, and the August days he spent there, resting deliciously, at his length, in the lee of a sun-warmed boulder, with the light cool air stirring about his temples, the wafted odors of the pines in his nostrils, the tinkle of the cattle-bells ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... ether burns! Chaos returns! And blends, once more, the seas and skies: No space between Thy bosom green, O deep! and the blue concave, lies. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... find the African mind differing from ours as widely as a picture seen directly with the eyes differs from one reflected in a concave mirror. This is vividly illustrated by a quaint story recorded in the Folk Tales of Angola (Memoirs of Amer. Folk Lore Soc., Vol. I., 1804, 235-39), of which the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... woe, abandoned it. On this impression he did ever the same thing; he put his stick noiselessly away in a corner—feeling the place once more in the likeness of some great glass bowl, all precious concave crystal, set delicately humming by the play of a moist finger round its edge. The concave crystal held, as it were, this mystical other world, and the indescribably fine murmur of its rim was the sigh there, the scarce audible pathetic wail to his strained ear, of all the old baffled ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... presents to us a perfectly different aspect of the universe from that presented by the sciences. The two informations are like the distinct subjects represented by the lines of the same drawing, which, accordingly as they are read {269} on their concave or convex side, exhibit to us now a group of trees with branches and leaves, and now human faces." ... "While then reason and revelation are consistent in fact, they often are inconsistent in appearance; and this seeming discordance acts most ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... great beauty and rarity. A new species belonging to the tribe of Solitary Wasps, Odynerus clavicornis, is perhaps the most interesting insect in the collection; this Wasp has clavate antennae, the flagellum being broadly dilated towards the apex, convex above and concave beneath. I am not acquainted with any other insect belonging to the Vespidious group which exhibits ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... used. Nine of them were of bone and were fashioned in figures typifying fish, serpents, etc. One side of each was painted red and had dots burned in with a hot iron. The brass pieces were circular having one side convex and the other concave. The convex side was bright, the concave dark or dull. The red pieces were the winning pieces and each had an arithmetical value. Any number of players might play. A wooden bowl, curiously carved and ornamented, was used. ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... breath at the implication. Concentrated sunshine can be incredibly hot. Starting with unshielded, empty-space sunshine, practically any imaginable temperature is possible with a large enough mirror. Mike didn't have a concave mirror. He had only a cylindrical one. He couldn't reflect light to a point, but only to a line. Mike couldn't hope to do more than double or triple the temperature of a given spot. But considering what he wore ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... days before these conditions were fulfilled; and Villars had used these two precious days in throwing up a series of immensely strong works. The heights he occupied formed a concave semicircle, enfilading on all sides the little plain of Malplaquet, and this semicircle now bristled with redoubts, palisades, abattis, and stockades; while the two trouees, or openings, by which it was presumed that the allies would endeavour ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... plane, smooth; prostrate, prone; stale, insipid, vapid, tasteless, unsavory, unpalatable, mawkish; peremptory, unqualified, positive; spatulous, spatulate; sonant, vocal. Antonyms: convex, concave, warped, cambered, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... are not equal in dimensions and come under two categories. The larger, outside ones are each of them almost a third of the circumference and overlap one another slightly. Their lower end bends into a concave curve to form the bottom of the bag. Those inside, which are considerably smaller, increase the thickness of the sides and fill up the gaps left by ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... constantly direct both eyes inward to see near objects. In so acting the muscles compress the sides of the eyeballs and tend to increase their length, interfere with their nutrition, and aggravate the condition when it is once begun. (See Diagram.) Concave lenses are used to correct myopia, and they must be ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... side of a quill pen, so as to produce a sharp point. The side edge which is used for cutting is the one which is not cut away at the end; and when it gets blunt it is renewed by simply peeling off a length of fibre, thus producing a new edge, bevelled inwards towards the concave side of the implement, and making a hard and very sharp fresh cutting edge. The point can of course be sharpened at any ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... jointure-house, "to his great charges and expenses he caused box the walls of the great parlour" (in which I was now sitting), "empanel the same, and plaster the roof, finishing the apartment with ane concave chimney, and decorating the same with pictures, and a barometer and thermometer." And in particular, which his good mother used to say she prized above all the rest, he had caused his own portraiture be limned over the mantlepiece by a skilful hand. And, in good faith, there ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... country, it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagancies. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more: In short, Sir, since our women know themselves to be out of the eye of the SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a little too soon for the modesty of their head-dresses; for, as the humour of a sick person is often driven out of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... ready for printing, the prepared side is usually concave. It is straightened by slightly wetting the back and resting it on one end, ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... the physician the nurse drew this out and it separated at the sphincter ani. On examining the parts a single opening was seen, as in the preceding case, from the pubes to the coccyx. Some time afterward the end of the intestine descended several inches and hung loosely on the concave surface of the rectum. A sponge was introduced to support the rectum and prevent access of air. The destruction of the parts was so complete and the opening so large as to bring into view the whole inner surface of the pelvis, in spite of which, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... somewhere, but over his head the coast was rearing its stark bulk,—a concave and inaccessible wall. It would be impossible to get away from this spot. He had saved himself from the sea only to die stationed in front of it. His corpse would never float to an inhabited shore. The only ones that were going to know of his death were ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... potential. If now two pairs of quadrants are excited with opposite electricities, as when connected with the opposite poles of an insulated galvanic cell, the needle is repelled by one pair and attracted by the other, and therefore rotates through an arc of greater or less extent. A small concave mirror is attached above the needle and its image is reflected on a graduated screen. This makes the smallest movement visible. Sometimes the quadrants are double, forming almost a complete box, within which ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... his concave chest. "Bum lungs. I came down here to shuffle off, and I'm waiting for it to happen. What brings you ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... labour, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things.' So also Lactantius—'To search for the causes of things; to inquire whether the sun be as large as he seems; whether the moon is convex or concave; whether the stars are fixed in the sky, or float freely in the air; of what size and of what material are the heavens; whether they be at rest or in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth; on what foundations is it suspended or balanced;—to ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... the absence of wings, and constitute the commercial article. They are generally killed by immersion in boiling water, which causes them to swell to twice their natural size, and are then dried and packed for market. The insects shrivel in drying, and assume the form of irregular grains, fluted and concave. The best sorts have a silvery-grey colour, with a purplish reflection, and seem to be dusted with a white powder. This appearance is often given by means of heavy spar, carbonate of lead, Venice talc, &c. A good lens, however, will mostly expose the fraud; or it may be detected by ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... are vertical, and they generally form a ridge parallel to the southern skirts of the Grampians. The superior strata, Nos. 2 and 1, become less and less inclined on descending to the valley of Strathmore, where the strata, having a concave bend, are said by geologists to lie in a "trough" or "basin." Through the centre of this valley runs an imaginary line A, called technically a "synclinal line," where the beds, which are tilted in opposite directions, may be supposed to meet. It is most important for the observer to mark such lines, ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... instance, I find a slight pinch between the thumb and finger at the end of the tendril of the Cucurbitaceae causes prompt movement, but a pinch excites no movement in Cissus. The cause is that one side alone (the concave) is irritable in the former; whereas both sides are irritable in Cissus, so if you excite at the same time both OPPOSITE sides there is no movement, but by touching with a pencil the two branches of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... into the buoyant air I leap Confident and exulting, at a bound Swifter than whirlwinds happily to sweep On fiery wing the reeling world around: Off with my fetters!—who shall hold me back? My path lies there,—the lightning's sudden track O'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,— O that I thus could conquer space and time, Soaring above ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... measured from 6 to 10 inches in diameter. Three other rows cross the Costa in the same neighbourhood separated by a few hundred yards and as they lie at right angles to the stream which there forms a concave bend, they appear to converge upon one point. This would be what may roughly be termed an island between the Costa and a large drain where water in ancient times ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... after the resemblance of open gates. These were made wholly of silver, and polished, and that all over, excepting the bases, which were of brass. Now on each side of the gates there stood three pillars, which were inserted into the concave bases of the gates, and were suited to them; and round them was drawn a curtain of fine linen; but to the gates themselves, which were twenty cubits in extent, and five in height, the curtain was composed ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... completes the resemblance. The house, the rooms, are almost absolutely the same; there may be changes of detail, but they don't modify the general effect. There are the same precious pictures on the walls of the salon—the same great dusky fresco in the concave ceiling. The daughter is not rich, I suppose, any more than the mother. The furniture is worn and faded, and I was admitted by a solitary servant, who carried a twinkling taper before me up the great ...
— The Diary of a Man of Fifty • Henry James |
