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Drought   Listen
noun
Drought  n.  
1.
Dryness; want of rain or of water; especially, such dryness of the weather as affects the earth, and prevents the growth of plants; aridity. "The drought of March hath pierced to the root." "In a drought the thirsty creatures cry."
2.
Thirst; want of drink.
3.
Scarcity; lack. "A drought of Christian writers caused a dearth of all history."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Drought" Quotes from Famous Books



... I told myself, this was not possible. There was some mistake. Lucagnolo had drought some wench whom he believed ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... drought has parched the year, and scared The land with dread of famine. Autumn, yet, Shall make men glad with unexpected fruits. The dog-star shall shine harmless: genial days Shall softly glide away into the keen And wholesome ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... type gist sooth'say er cab ri o let' fifth ju've nile min i a ture' drought lic'o rice leg er de main' nook a pos'tle char i ot eer' poor ar'gen tine an i mad vert' roil Ar min'ian av oir du pois' sauce de co'rous Cy clo pe'an rhythm cyc'la men Eu ro pe'an schism so'journ er spo li a'tion root cov'et ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... word great kindness there I found, For which both to my cousin, and his men, I'll still be thankful in word, deed, and pen. Till Thursday morning there I made my stay, And then I went plain Dunstable highway. My very heart with drought methought did shrink, I went twelve miles, and no one bade me drink. Which made me call to mind, that instant time, That drunkenness was a most sinful crime. When Puddle-hill I footed down, and past A mile from thence, I found a hedge at last. There ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... fields that had been devoted to the cultivation of cotton and corn. The ground was of a low character, typical of northeastern Mississippi, and abounded in small creeks that went almost totally dry even in short periods of drought, but became flooded with muddy water under the outpouring of rain peculiar to a semi-tropical climate. In such a region there were many chances of our being surprised, especially by an enemy who knew the country ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... she took hold of her father's hand. But Reuben and Jane saw only the desolate rocks, and treeless, shrubless, almost—it seemed to them—grassless fields, and an unutterable sense of gloom came over them. It was a hot and stifling day; a long drought had parched and shriveled every living thing; and the white August ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... had dragged by. It was a Friday; a hot, nauseating smell of fried fish filled the refectory; a strong drought blew cold about feet encased in wet boots; the walls dripped with moisture, and outside the barred windows a fine rain was falling from a grey sky. The boys, seated at marble-topped tables, were making a hideous rattle with their forks and tin cups, while one of their ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... rocks; radiating from its centres—powdering in the fingers, if one breaks it off, like dry tea. Is it a black species?—or a black-parched state of other species, perishing for the sake of Velasquez effects, instead of accumulation of earth? and, if so, does it die of drought, accidentally, or, in a sere old age, naturally? and how is it related to the rich green bosses that grow in deep velvet? And there again is another matter not clear to me. One calls them 'velvet' because they are all brought to an even surface at the top. Our own velvet is reduced ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... originally one of sympathetic magic—that as the stone overflowed, so the sky would pour down rain. In my Roman Festivals I have pointed out a remarkable parallel to this in the collections of the Golden Bough; in a Samoan village a stone represented the god of rain, and in a drought his priests carried it in procession and dipped ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... well: he commenced a small-beer brewery, and the thunder turned it all into vinegar; he tried vinegar, and nothing on earth could make it sour; he opened a milk-walk, and the parish pump failed; he invented a waterproof composition—there was fourteen weeks of drought; he sold his patent for two-and-sixpence, and had the satisfaction of walking home for the next three months wet through, from his gossamer to his ci-devant Wellingtons, now literally, from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... Ganymedes exclaimed, "You gabble away about things that don't concern heaven or earth: and none of you cares how the price of grain pinches. I couldn't even get a mouthful of bread today, by Hercules, I couldn't. How the drought does hang on! We've had famine for a year. If the damned AEdiles would only get what's coming to them. They graft with the bakers, scratch-my-arse-and-I'll-scratch-yours! That's the way it always ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... not:—Nor Amphitrite had Clasp'd round the land her wide-encircling arms. Unfirm the earth, with water mix'd and air; Opaque the air; unfluid were the waves. Together clash'd the elements confus'd: Cold strove with heat, and moisture drought oppos'd; Light, heavy, hard, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... at these elevations. The clouds were rare, and always light and high, except a little fleecy spot of vapour condensed close to the summit of Paras-nath. Though the nights were clear and starlight, no dew was deposited, owing to the great dryness of the air. On one occasion, this drought was so great during the passage of a hot wind, that at night I observed the wet-bulb thermometer to stand 20.5 degrees below the temperature of the air, which was 66 degrees; this indicated a dew-point of 11.5 degrees, or 54.5 degrees ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... enough, or at least open on two ends, so that a horse can be used in plowing and harrowing. And if by any means you can have it within reach of an adequate supply of water, that will be a tremendous help in seasons of protracted drought. Then again, if you have ground enough, lay off two plots so that you can take advantage of the practice of rotation, alternating grass, potatoes or corn with the vegetable garden. Of course it is ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell

... in Nijni town, but worse in Nijni fair, for if in the former all is hard, sharp, uneven flint, in the latter, what is not wood is mud, and what is not mud is dust, for heavy showers alternate with stifling heat; and, after a three hours' drought one would say that these good people, who live half in and half out of a swamp, and who drink anything rather than water, can never spare a poor drop to slake the pulverized clay of their much ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... the Pueblo to consider water as the prime source of life, or as accompanied by it, for without the presence of living water very few things grow in his desert land. During many a drought chronicled in his oral annals, plants, animals, and men have died as of a contagious scourge. Naturally, therefore, he has come to regard water as the milk of adults, to speak of it as such, and as the all-sufficient nourishment which the earth (in his conception of it as the mother of men) ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing

... dare and thrive Is profit and heart's peace? But in his heart the fool now saith: 'The thoughts of Heaven were past all finding out, Indeed, if it should rain Intolerable woes upon our Land again, After so long a drought!' 'Will a kind Providence our vessel whelm, With such a pious Pilot at the helm?' 'Or let the throats be cut of pretty sheep That care for nought but pasture rich and deep?' 'Were 't Evangelical of ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... pitched his head quarters on the hill to the eastward of Tulifinny, two miles in advance towards Charleston. (1st May.) After reconnoitring the fords of Coosawhatchie, and Tulifinny above the bridges, the general found so little water in the swamps, from the excessive drought which then prevailed,* that he determined not to risk an action at this post. He was about to send one of his aids to bring off his rear guard, when Col. John Laurens offered himself as a volunteer for that service; he was readily accepted, and captain, afterwards ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... this, to a lady who loves to be complimented! Instead of the refreshing April-like showers, which beautify the sun-shine, she shall stand a deluge of complaisance, be wet to the skin with it; and what then? Why be in a Lybian desert ever after!—experience a constant parching drought and all her attributed excellencies will be swallowed up in the quicksands of matrimony. It may be otherwise with you; and it must be so; because there is such an infinite variety in your excellence. But does Mr. B. think it must ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... eighteen inches, the total for this year was only thirteen inches. General Miles, who had chased hostile Indians across the plains for more than twenty years, and who had seen the new villages push in, mile by mile, saw the terrible results of drought. First suffering, then mortgage, then foreclosure and eviction, he prophesied. "And should this impending evil continue for a series of years," he wrote, "no one can anticipate what may follow." The glowing promises of the early eighties were falsified, whole towns and counties were deserted, and ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... soften at a mortal's grief! Now neither Hamadryads, no, nor songs Delight me more: ye woods, away with you! No pangs of ours can change him; not though we In the mid-frost should drink of Hebrus' stream, And in wet winters face Sithonian snows, Or, when the bark of the tall elm-tree bole Of drought is dying, should, under Cancer's Sign, In Aethiopian deserts drive our flocks. Love conquers all things; yield ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil

... the day was a quarter of a pint of coconut milk and the meat, which did not exceed two ounces to each person: it was received very contentedly but we suffered great drought. I durst not venture to land as we had no arms and were less capable of defending ourselves than we were ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh

... dessert. If those cans taste as they smell, you'd better keep the basket to fall back on. Where'd you get THAT?" Mr. Dick looked at me over the bottle and winked. "In the next room," he said, "iced to the proper temperature, paid for by somebody else, and coming after a two-weeks' drought! Minnie, there isn't a ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and-by he gets out something about like this: Probably northeast to southwest winds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward, and points between, high and low barometer swapping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning. Then he jots down his postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents. "But it is possible that the programme may be wholly changed in the mean time." Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... north-east of Melbourne, are supposed to be the highest in the world, and are above 440 feet in height. In several places are seen groups of tree ferns some 20 feet high, which form a pleasant oasis. Gipp's Land did not look its best at the time of my visit. There had been a drought, more or less, for three years, and everything was dried up. The cattle appeared parched, with hard dry skins. Since then, however, there has been a good deal of rain. Sale itself is an uninteresting town of 3,000 inhabitants, with streets at right ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton

... the triads, is still deserving of attention. As usual, the legend is localized in the country, and the Deluge counts among three terrible catastrophes of the island of Prydian, or Britain, the other two consisting of devastation by fire and by drought. ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... Bengal-Nagpur railway passes through the district, and there is a line from Howrah to Bankura. The climate of Bankura is generally healthy, the cold season being bracing, the air wholesome and dry, and fogs of rare occurrence. The district is exposed to drought and also to destructive floods. It suffered in the famines of 1866, 1874-1875 and 1896-1897. The temperature in the hot season is very oppressive and relaxing. The Bishnupur raj was one of the largest estates in Bengal in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... dry season." Kho rippled his tentacles and moved lissomely to the doorway, assuming a grotesquely furtive posture as he peered out. "The people are maddened by the drought. The will be aroused to sacrifice you to the Canal Gods, ...
— Flamedown • Horace Brown Fyfe

... swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist brink. To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new, soft, and moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened under summer sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside a green—green beside a yellow. From the recesses of this knot of foliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding through the ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy

... rapid stream, with banks high and well-timbered, now rolled between the hostile armies. Pope, by his timely retreat, had gained a position where he could be readily reinforced, and although the river, in consequence of the long drought, had much dwindled from its usual volume, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... "What kind of season is best for bees, wet or dry?" This point I have watched very closely, and have found that a medium between the two extremes produces most honey. When farmers begin to express fears of a drought, then is the time (if in the season of flowers) that most honey is obtained; but if dry weather passes these limits, the quantity is greatly diminished. Of the two extremes, perhaps very ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... hospitality, for they are our guests. Now return to Simba the King, and say to Simba that if he lifts a spear against us the threefold curse of the Child shall fall upon him and upon you his people: The curse of Heaven by storm or by drought. The curse of famine. The curse of war. I the ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... sweetheart—dead; and—and all the rest of them. Far away, far away—and near away: up in Queensland and out on the wastes of the Never-Never. Riding and camping, hardship and comfort, monotony and adventure, drought, flood, blacks, and fire; sprees and—the rest of it. Long dry stretches on Dead Man's Track. Cutting across the country in No Man's Land where there were no tracks into the Unknown. Chancing it and ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson

... waterways were made for the purpose of guaranteeing an uninterrupted flow of water from the Poles to the Equatorial regions. The result of this was that on many occasions the foresight of the Martian engineers who had the water supply of the planet in charge, saved immense areas from drought. ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon

... Here (patting the back of the big easy chair) is my steamboat, my mule, and my camel. No weather can delay me, no storm prevent my setting out. Though it snow a blizzard, still can I cross the very summits of the Andes: be there a year-old drought, still may I journey from ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... January, but seldom interrupt agriculture; vegetation starts in February, rapidly progressing in March and fostered by alternate warm showers and sunshine in April and May—while intense heat and drought are often experienced during June, July, and August. As already remarked, the island has an area ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... warehouse,' said the senior partner, 'and see whether your man has Drought Raper ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... patience most plainly stamped upon their sun-darkened faces. Their hands were hard with the grip of the bridle and plough-stilt in place of the rifle, and the struggle they waged was a slow and grim one against frost and drought and ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... trees to mere long clubs, or poles, with no small twigs, is to be discouraged. The tree in such case is obliged to force out adventitious buds from the old wood, and it may not have vigor enough to do this; and the process may be so long delayed as to allow the tree to be overtaken by drought before it ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... and enforced with justice, there will the people be generally found happy and contented, and disposed to perform their duties to each other and to the state; except when they have the misfortune to suffer from drought, blight, and other calamities ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... dug to receive the water that drained through the cliffs; but, from the advanced state of the dry season, it did not flow in half the quantity that it did last year. The vegetation appeared to have suffered much from drought and the grass, which at our last visit was long and luxuriant, was now either parched up by the sun or destroyed by the natives' fires, which at this time were burning on the low land in front ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... upon the ground—until death, it is in danger from insects and animals. It cannot move to avoid danger. It cannot run away to escape enemies. Fixed in one spot, almost helpless, it must endure flood and drought, fire and storm, insects and ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... The Canadian must thoughtfully and rationally prepare for his winter, or he would freeze and starve. We have no frigid climate to prepare against, but we have possible drought, and our first and greatest consideration should be the conservation of water ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... a system as this, the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb by the fact that Oriental rulers recognise that they cannot get money from a man who possesses none. If, from drought or other causes, the cultivator raises no crop, he is not required to pay any land-tax. The idea of expropriation for the non-payment of taxes is purely Western and modern. Under Roman law, it was the rule in contracts for rent that a tenant was not bound to pay ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... occasion at least I served Mr. Denslow to excellent purpose. This was two years ago, when, as perhaps you remember, my sun-spot theory was widely discussed by the newspaper press. I then told Mr. Denslow that the recurrence of the sun spots would surely induce a drought upon this planet, thereby causing a shortage in the crops; whereupon Mr. Denslow "cornered the wheat market" (as the saying is) and realized a handsome sum ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... this year very remarkable all over the Western country, and the drought equally uncommon, the thermometer standing from 100 degrees to 106 degrees, in the shade, every where from St Peters to New Orleans. It is very dangerous to drink iced water, and many have died from yielding to the temptation. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... derivatives length from long, strength from strong, darling from dear, breadth from broad, from dry, drought, and from high, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writes highth; Quid te exempta juvat spinis de pluribus una [Horace, Epistles, II. ii. 212]; to change all would be too much, and to change one ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson

... to the banks of the Rhine, which he prepared to pass. To all the other calamities of the Dutch was added the extreme drought of the season, by which the greatest rivers were much diminished, and in some places rendered fordable. The French cavalry, animated by the presence of their prince, full of impetuous courage, but ranged in exact order, flung themselves ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... Her ruddy pathway to the gates of snow. The power of death thou bendest like a bow 'Twixt Vodice and bleak Hermada's height; And Victory, guided by thy hand of might, Thro' wild Isonzo forth doth fording go. Reborn from lands of drought, a youth art thou, Upheaved by rugged Carso suddenly With all the lads of thine advancing throng. This bloody year which thou fulfillest now, O may it, onward pressing, shine with thee And keep thee for the fearful ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... Colonel. This Sicilian was a little woman named Rosina, very dark, but with all the fire of the Southern sun in her black almond-shaped eyes. At this moment she was deplorably thin; her face was covered with dust, like fruit exposed to the drought of a highroad. Scarcely clothed in rags, exhausted by marches, her hair in disorder, and clinging together under a piece of a shawl tied close over her head, still she had the graces of a woman; her movements were engaging, her small rose mouth ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac

... hard time for six thousand years, and, as the new year of 1884 approached, there were indications that our planet was getting restless. There were earthquakes, great storms, great drought. It may last until some of my descendants shall head their letters with January 1, 15,000, A.D.; ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage

... pitched his tent in many lands, but always had the same tent wherever he went. So we shall have the one abode, though its place in the desert may vary—and we shall not need to care whether the encampment be beneath the palm-trees and beside the wells of Elim, or amidst the drought of Marah, so long as the same covering protects us, and the same pillar of fire burns ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... gloom. The few trees dotted about here and there looked starved and gaunt on the barren hill-side, with great skeleton-like arms that waved mournfully in the breeze; the ground uneven and parched—after the summer's drought—rose and sank in fantastic mounds and shapes like tiny fortresses of ghosts or ghouls; the street itself soon became merged in the general surroundings, only a tiny footway, scarcely discernible in the gathering ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... necks. But no sooner did the first ray illuminate the woods with a silvery hue, than Zbyszko arose and awoke the others, and at dawn they continued their march. The tracks of the hoofs of Arnold's immense stallion were easily recovered, because the usual muddy ground had dried up from drought. Sanderus went on ahead and soon disappeared. Nevertheless, they found him about half way between sunrise and noon, at the waiting place. He told them that he had not seen any living soul, only one large aurochs, but was not scared and did not run away, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... needful." Thanks to Jesus, the dullest existence, that most absorbed by sad or humiliating duties, has had its glimpse of heaven. In our busy civilizations the remembrance of the free life of Galilee has been like perfume from another world, like the "dew of Hermon,"[2] which has prevented drought and barrenness from entirely invading the ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... need cause no drought—Adolphe will be paymaster!" declared Tricotrin gaily, shouldering his manuscript. "Come, let us adjourn and give the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... Disappointment, in thought and act, often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, and Doubt gradually settled into Denial! If I have had a second-crop, and now see the perennial greensward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy all Drought (and Doubt); herein too, be the Heavens praised, I am not without examples, and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... arguments among these credulous people, who saw not the wily traitor behind the rich, eloquent voice, quivering with indignation, was similar to that which would follow were you to fling a flaming torch upon the prairie in midsummer after a month of drought. Then the cunning deceiver went secretly to several of the leading half-breeds in Red River, and whispered certain ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... engrossing our whole time, rendered us incapable of application to any other study, and the cause of our inattention not being known, we were kept closer than before. The fatal moment approached when water must fail, and we were already afflicted with the idea that our tree must perish with drought. At length necessity, the parent of industry, suggested an invention, by which we might save our tree from death, and ourselves from despair; it was to make a furrow underground, which would privately conduct a part of the water from the walnut tree to ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... moss-grown crags leaps with a tumble adown; 60 Brook which awhile headlong o'er steep and valley descending, Crosses anon wide ways populous, hastes to the street; (60) Cheerer in heats o' the sun to the wanderer heavily fuming, Under a drought, when fields ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... establish My covenant." The good promises of God are never revoked. They are like springs which know no shrinking in times of drought. Nay, in time of drought they reveal a richer fulness. The promises are confirmed in the hour of my need, and the greater my need the greater is my bounty. And so it was that the Apostle Paul came ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... Welborne. He's the only man I make love to, but I don't get a cent off for my smiles; he growls and grumbles every time I see him about hard times and the like. But I'll pay out one of these days. As you pass it in the morning I want you to just take a look at my stand of cotton; if the drought will let it alone I'll make five bales. Now I must go. I know you'll keep your promise, so I ain't going ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... bath with me, I did really! One lady actually tried to get me turned out of her drawing-room on account of Tresor, but I made such an uproar! The windows I broke! Well, one day ... it was in summer ... and I must tell you there was a drought at the time such as nobody remembered. The air was full of smoke or haze. There was a smell of burning, the sun was like a molten bullet, and as for the dust there was no getting it out of one's nose and throat. People walked with their mouths wide open like crows. I got weary of sitting ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... are subdivided into paddocks smaller than 20,000 acres apiece. If in each of these there is but one waterhole or dam that can be relied upon to hold out in drought, sheep and cattle will destroy as much grass in tramping from the far corners of the grazing to the drinking spot as they will eat. Four paddocks of 5,000 acres each, well supplied with water, ought to carry almost double ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... its sons by its dry bracing air, toughens them by its harsh conditions of life, organizes them into a mobilized army, always moving with its pastoral commissariat. Then when population presses too hard upon the meager sources of subsistence, when a summer drought burns the pastures and dries up the water-holes, it sends them forth on a mission of conquest, to seek abundance in the better watered lands of their agricultural neighbors. Again and again the productive valleys of the Hoangho, Indus, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... account of the great lakes. Yet even in the time of Cortes these lakes had no great depth of water, and still further back, in the time of the Indian Emperors, navigation had been so frequently interrupted in seasons of drought, that an aqueduct had been constructed in order to supply the canals ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... cabin he gave the Indian a cup of wine and a biscuit dipped in honey. He gave him a silken cap with a tassel and himself put round his throat one of our best strings of beads, and into his hand not one but three of the much-coveted hawk bells. He was kinder than rain after drought. First and last, he could well lend himself to the policy of kindness, for it was not lending. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... provided with fleshy stems which hold a supply of moisture to be drawn upon during the long dry season. Men and animals are sometimes saved from death by chewing the pulp of the prickly-pear or other cactuses. After a period of exceptional drought, the stems of the prickly-pear lose their bright green color ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... Hartigan rode home from the Fort after the evening's fun was over leaving it entirely to his horse to select the road, after the manner of the wise horseman. In mid-August there had been one of the typical Black Hill storms. After a month of drought, it had rained inches in a few hours. The little Rapid Fork of the Cheyenne was a broad flood which carried off most of its bridges, including that on the trail to the Fort. The rain had ceased the day before, but the flood had subsided very little by Saturday night as Hartigan mounted ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... Jimmy," said another. "We are with you, horse, foot and artillery. When you want us, give us the high-sign and we will come. Otherwise we will leave you to your beloved books. It is too bad, though, as the bar-boy was just explaining how the great drought might be circumvented by means of carrots, potato peelings, ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... relief, and in spite of the warning appeals of provincial officers, the government was slow to take alarm, and continued rigorously to enforce the land-tax. But in September the rains suddenly ceased. Throughout the autumn there ruled a parching drought; and the rice-fields, according to the description of a native superintendent of Bishenpore, "became like fields of dried straw." Nevertheless, the government at Calcutta made—with one lamentable exception, hereafter to be noticed—no legislative ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... the driver only keeping them from going the wrong way, for they had a wide, level pampa to run over the whole thirty miles to the Pueblo. This plain is almost treeless, with no grass, at least none now in the drought of mid-summer, and is filled with squirrel-holes, and alive with squirrels. As we changed horses twice, we did not slacken our speed until we turned into the streets ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... in each room. On a big street opposite to us is the wall of the legation quarter, which has trees in it and big roofs which represent all that China ought to have and has not. The weather is like our hot July, except that it is drier than the August drought on Long Island. The streets of Peking are the widest in the world, I guess, and ours leads by the red walls of the Chinese city with the wonderful gates of which you see pictures. It is macadamized in the middle, but on each side of it run wider roads, which are used for ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey

... means these six things, unfavourable to crops—excessive rain, drought, rats, locusts, birds, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... our inevitable part with imperfection, in ourselves, in others, in things,—to take our part, I say, in this discipline of imperfection, without surprise or impatience or discouragement, as a part of the fixed order of things, and no more to be wondered at or quarrelled with than drought or frost or flood,—this is a wisdom beyond the most of us, farther off from us, I believe, than any other. Ahem! when you told me of those rocks in the foundation of the house, you did not expect this "sermon in stones.". ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... is, Uncle Tucker," she said one day toward the end of June, when the deadly drought which had kept back the transplanting of the tobacco had ended in three days of heavy rain—"I don't know how it is, but the thing I miss most—and I miss her every minute—is the lying I had to do. It gave me something to think about, somehow. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... fair-meeting was held at Dr. Blackwell's. The new plan was brought forward; and, although it was as yet nothing but a plan, it acted like a warm, soft rain upon a field after a long drought. The knitting and sewing (for which I have a private horror under all conditions) were laid aside, to my great relief; and the project was talked of with so much enthusiasm, that I already saw myself in imagination making my evening visits ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska

... N. dryness &c adj.; siccity^, aridity, drought, ebb tide, low water. exsiccation^, desiccation; arefaction^, dephlegmation^, drainage; drier. [chemical subs. which renders dry] desiccative, dessicator. [device to render dry] dessicator; hair drier, clothes drier, gas drier, electric drier; vacuum oven, drying oven, kiln; lyophilizer. clothesline. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... Grenada, as is indeed the case with most of the Windward Islands, is well watered by rivers running from the mountains. Some of the streams are of considerable size, and are never dry in seasons of the greatest drought. The water, conducted by canals from these rivers, constituted the chief motive power for the machinery on the sugar estates, although in a few cases windmills were used for that purpose. The estates comprised each an area of some two to five hundred acres, a considerable ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... millions. It was a fixed principle of the Emperor to make each generation pay its own expenses. The only source of supply he could find was an increase of the indirect taxes and the institution of a state monopoly in tobacco. His remedy would have been adequate but for two causes—the drought of the ensuing summer and Russia's hostile attitude in regard to French silks and wines. The year 1811 closed with a deficit of forty-eight millions. This fact had a bearing on the political situation because in general ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... no doubt, too, because he felt the exceeding value of that which was purchased by loyal love. A like story is told of Rodolf of Hapsburgh, the founder of the greatness of Austria, and one of the most open-hearted of men. A flagon of water was brought to him when his army was suffering from severe drought. 'I cannot,' he said, 'drink alone, nor can all share so small a quantity. I do not thirst for myself, but ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... time we have been on the station the Shanghai district was once suffering from extreme drought. The rain-god was appealed to—still no rain came. Well, what was to be done? This. The god was admonished, that if rain came not within a certain period something terrible would happen to him. Still no rain. The exasperated priests and people then took measures ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... sun, so that it will not succeed in certain soils either in England or the United States.[732] The Filbert Pine Strawberry "requires more water than any other variety; and if the plants once suffer from drought, they will do little or no good afterwards."[733] Cuthill's Black Prince Strawberry evinces a singular tendency to mildew: no less than six cases have been recorded of this variety suffering severely, whilst other varieties growing close by, and treated in exactly the same ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... annually, and there is no regular rainy season. In fact it rains in moderation all the year round. Three days seldom pass without refreshing showers, and if there are ten rainless days together, a rare phenomenon, people begin to talk of "the drought." Practically the year is divided into two parts by the "monsoons."* The monsoon is not a storm, as many people suppose, from a vague association of the word "typhoon," but a steady wind blowing, in the case of the Malay Peninsula, for six months from the north-east, bringing down the Chinamen ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau, Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux) that after an excessive drought, the vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At any season, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of many settlements in the space now ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... confidence has been restored, and the nation is to be congratulated because of its present abounding prosperity. Such prosperity can never be created by law alone, although it is easy enough to destroy it by mischievous laws. If the hand of the Lord is heavy upon any country, if flood or drought comes, human wisdom is powerless to avert the calamity. Moreover, no law can guard us against the consequences of our own folly. The men who are idle or credulous, the men who seek gains not by genuine work with head ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... palaces and churches in all directions, diverting the money that formerly went to the Cathedrals, the only evidence of wealth in the country. But let us return to our progress. Worse even for agriculture than the drought is the ignorance and routine of the labourers, every new invention or scientific appliance repels them, thinking it evil. 'The old times were the good ones, our ancestors cultivated in this way and so ought we'; and so ignorance is turned into a sort of national glory, and we cannot hope ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... people and say that if they dare to hurt so much as a hair of the heads of the white men, or of you and the others, those white men's servants, I will visit them in my wrath and pour out upon them pestilence and famine, drought and fire, until not one remains alive. For the white man with black hair is a great medicine-man, capable of working wonders; he has come into this land to do good to my people, and it is my will that no harm shall come to him ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... seed I sowed in fragrant spring The summer's sun to vivify With his warm kisses, ripening To golden harvest by and by, Got caught by drought, like all the rest— There are no ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... impossible, it is impossible!" he said so loudly, that his little dog awoke and climbed on his knee uneasily and in alarm. "What could the people do? What could the village do, or the land or the fisher folk? Are we to have drought added to hunger? Can they respect nothing? The river belongs to the valley: to seize it, to appraise it, to appropriate it, to make it away with it, would be as monstrous as to steal his mother's milk from ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... who regarded Milly as inconceivably foolish and silly. Who was she to be so scrupulous about her precious heart? Even the younger, unmarried sort had a knowing and disapproving look on their faces when she met them. As for the stream of invitations, there was a sudden drought, as of a parched desert, and the muteness of the telephone after its months of ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... country by smaller areas would obtain under it more than it would, under the conditions by which it was then held, that is, in very large areas. The then short experience of residents of the western country were conditions of drought, and I must admit that I thought his ideas were visionary. I have, however, lived to see the success of the grazing farm system and the great improvements effected by underground water supplies. In 1881, these were practically undreamt of. It is likely that McIlwraith could see ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield

... breezes. But if no meteorological phenomena indicates the coming earthquake, either on the morning of the shock or a few days previously, the influence of certain periods of the year, (the vernal and autumnal equinoxes,) the commencement of the rainy season in the tropics, after long drought, cannot be overlooked, even though the genetic connection of meteorological processes, with those going on in the interior of our globe, is still ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... from a great plateau on the northeast. Its sources are everywhere in pine-clad mountains and plateaus, but all of the affluents quickly descend into the desert valley below, through which the Gila winds its way westward to the Colorado. In times of continued drought the bed of the Gila is dry, but the region is subject to great and violent storms, and floods roll down from the heights with marvelous precipitation, carrying devastation on their way. Where the Colorado River forms ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... earth was contained in the body of an immense frog, where nobody could reach it. The spirits held an investigation, and ascertained that if the frog could be made to laugh the water would run out of his mouth when he opened it, and the drought then prevailing would be broken. All the animals of the world gathered together and danced and capered before the frog in order to make him laugh, but all to no purpose. Then they called up the fishes to see if they could ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... year, after the Epiphany, there was a most bitter frost, which lasted throughout Lent and longer, and the great drought was hurtful to the pasture lands whereon the beasts ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis

... stomach there is no compromise—that beyond a certain degree of abstinence it is impossible to go—that strict necessity can be curtailed but little without injury to the health; and, as for increasing the product,—there comes a storm, a drought, an epizootic, and all the hopes of the farmer are dashed. In short, the rent will not be paid, the interest will accumulate, the farm will be seized, and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... is. However, I can see no reason why this secret should not be entrusted to you. We are seeking a means of ending the great drought which has ravaged the United States for ...
— The Great Drought • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... coupling up the news of the day with their products. A thousand and one different events may be given a twist to connect the reader's interest with the house products and supply a reason for "buying now." The fluctuation in prices of raw materials, drought, late seasons, railway rates, fires, bumper crops, political discussions, new inventions, scientific achievements—there is hardly a happening that the clever correspondent, hard pressed for new talking points, cannot work into a sales letter ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous

... rivulet owes its existence to their influence. It rains often in the woodlands when it rains no where else; and it is thus that trees and woods modify the hygrometric character of a country; and I doubt not but, by a judicious disposal of trees of particular kinds, many lands now parched up with drought—as, for example, in some of the Leeward Islands—might be reclaimed from that sterility to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various

... thy music like a river rolls Among the mountains, and thy song is fed By living springs far up the watershed; No whirling flood nor parching drought controls The crystal current: even on the shoals It murmurs clear and sweet; and when its bed Deepens below mysterious cliffs of dread, Thy voice of peace grows ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... begins to bear, and attains perfection by the eighth, continuing to produce two crops of fruit per annum, yielding at each crop from 10 lbs. to 20 lbs., according to the nature of the soil. It will continue bearing for twenty years; but, as it is a delicate plant, it suffers from drought, and is liable to blight. In these respects, however, it does not differ from many other plants, which are even more subject to disease, though not half so valuable. Besides, a proper system of irrigation, such as could be had recourse to in many parts of Jamaica, would ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... trees, custard-apples, and oranges; lemons, and cocoanuts. Clothing is obtained alone from passing ships, in barter for refreshments. There are no springs on the island, but as it rains generally once a month they have plenty of water, although at times in former years they have suffered from drought. No alcoholic liquors, except for medicinal purposes, are used, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... only when prescribed by the cacique. The Pueblo Indians now have two religions, that of Montezuma, and the Roman Catholic. The Sun, Moon, and Stars were Gods, of which the greatest and most potent was the Sun; but greater than he was Montezuma. In time of drought, or actual or threatened calamity, the Pueblo Indians prayed to Montezuma, and also to the Sun, Moon, and Stars. The old religion (that of Montezuma) is believed in all the New Mexican pueblos. They practice the Catholic religion ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... fine season, with the rest of the creek. Thus, while alligators and turtles in this great inundated forest region retire to the larger pools during the dry season, the electric eels make for themselves little ponds in which to pass the season of drought. ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... hearts of all who spoke to him. He seemed to surpass the great Arsenius in the gift of perpetual tears. Cyril relates many miracles which he wrought, usually by the sign of the cross. In the time of a great drought, he exhorted the people to penance, to avert this scourge of heaven. Great numbers came in procession to his cell, carrying crosses, singing Kyrie eleison, and begging him to offer up his prayers to God for ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... agricultural laborer working with as much intelligence and energy for himself as he had done under the direction of a master were doomed to disappointment. Want of skill, the fitfulness of the small holder, aggravated perhaps by national calamities, drought, flood, and pestilence, being felt more severely by laborers than by capitalists, led to a gradual shrinkage in the area of cultivated land, and at last to the suffering of the classes who were to specially benefit from the scheme of Wanganchi. The failure of his scheme, which, to ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... she said, dejectedly, and the vivid flower that was Auriol, in a mood of dejection, suggested nothing more in the world than a drought-withered hybiscus—her colour had faded, the sweeping fulness of her drooped, her twenties caught the threatening facial lines of her forties—what can I say more? The wilting of a tropical bloom—that was her attitude—the sap ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... a cantata of which only the tenor solo, "Khamsin," is done. This is by far the best work Bartlett has written, and displays unexpected dramatic powers. The variation of the episodes of the various phases of the awful drought to the climax in "The Plague," make up a piece of most impressive strength. The orchestration is remarkably fine with effect, color, and variety. If the cantata is finished on this scale, its production ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... county in the State is better watered for all purposes, except manufacturing in times of drought. Many of the farms might be divided into fields of ten acres each and, in ordinary seasons, would have water ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... a word on the Marquesan tongue vividly picturing the terrors of famine. It means, "one who is burned to drive away a drought." In these islands cut off from the world the very life of the people depends on the grace of rain. Though the skies had been kind for several years, not a day passing without a gentle downpour, there had been in the past dry periods when even the hardiest vegetation all but perished. So ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... once a great drought in the land. For weeks and months not a drop of rain fell; and the sun beat down, and dried up the whole country, so that there was no water to be found. Now there was a certain pond in that country; and as day after day the sun blazed, the water sank lower and lower, until it was hardly an inch ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke

... the surface water rapidly to escape. The only dry season they have is for a month or two about September or October, and there is then an excessive scarcity of water, so that sometimes hundreds of birds and other animals die of drought. The natives then remove to houses near the sources of the small streams, where, in the shady depths of the forest, a small quantity of water still remains. Even then many of them have to go miles for their water, which they ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... settlers, with nerves toughened by hardship, unsusceptible of atmospheric changes, were oppressed by the long, desolating drought. ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... more immediate and practical end in view. A primeval forest is a great sponge which absorbs and distills the rain water. And when it is destroyed the result is apt to be an alternation of flood and drought. Forest fires ultimately make the land a desert, and are a detriment to all that portion of the State tributary to the streams through the woods where they occur. Every effort should be made to minimize their destructive ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... malaria mosquito is everywhere except on the higher plateaus; everywhere the belts are infested with the deadly tsetse fly, which makes an end of all animal transport; and almost everywhere the ground is rich black or red cotton soil, which any transport converts into mud in the rain or dust in the drought. Everywhere the fierce heat of equatorial Africa, accompanied by a wild luxuriance of parasitic life, breed tropical diseases in the unacclimatized whites. These conditions make life for the white man in that country sufficiently trying. If in addition he has to perform ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... we climbed to the highest point of the island, seven hundred feet high. There seems to be no lack of food, chiefly grown inland. From the long drought, the island presented in many places a parched look, and lacked that luxuriance of vegetation to which we had been so ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers

... pinnacles of rock piercing the sky, betokening, far more than any thing I have seen elsewhere, a breaking up of the crust of the globe in some early period of its existence. I am told that in May and June the country is much more beautiful than at present, and that owing to a drought it ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... seed did not grow, which I easily imagined was by the drought, I sought for a moister piece of ground to make another trial in; and I dug up a piece of ground near my new bower, and sowed the rest of my seed in February, a little before the vernal equinox; and this, having ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe

... sweeter than to gain All other hearts I knew. 'T is true the drought is destitute, But then I had ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... of southern-wood; and from the curving fillet of meadow, where the grass seems to grow while the eye watches it, rises the shrill little song of the stream hurrying over its yellow bed, which may be dry again to-morrow. This Alzou is no more to be depended upon than a coquette. After a period of drought, a storm that has passed away hours ago will cause it suddenly to come hissing down over the dry stones; but the next day no trace of the flow may be found save a few pools. Or it may grow to a torrent, even a river, that in its wild ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... as, for instance, the Dragon Myth, or the myth of the culture hero. Nor, perhaps, is it necessary that we should concern ourselves greatly regarding the origin of the idea of the dragon, which in one country symbolized fiery drought and in another overwhelming ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... empire can avert the scourge of drought and plague, but experienced administrators have done all that skill and devotion are capable of doing, to mitigate those dire calamities of Nature. For a longer period than was ever known in your land before, you have escaped the dire calamities of War within ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)

... kracxeti. Driver (car, etc.) veturisto. Droll ridinda, sxerca. Drollery sxerco—ado. Dromedary unugxiba kamelo. Drone burdo. Droop (pine) malfortigxi. Drop guto. Dropsy akvosxvelo. Dross metala sxauxmo. Drought senpluveco. Drove (cattle) bestaro, brutaro. Drown droni. Drown (trans.) dronigi. Drowsy dorma. Drub (beat) bati. Drudge laboregi. Drug drogo. Druggist drogisto. Drum tamburo. Drum, of ear oreltamburo. Drunkard drinkulo. Drunkenness ebrieco. Dry seka. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... ice, and wherein the snow is hid: What time they wax warm they vanish: when it is hot they are consumed out of their place." Again: "If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean." Again: "Drought and heat consume the snow waters." It was a rocky country, with forests and verdure rooted in the rocks. "His branch shooteth forth in his garden; his roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the place of stones." Again: "Thou ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... a yarn along the Darling about a cute Yankee who was invited up to Bourke to report on a proposed scheme for locking the river. He arrived towards the end of a long and severe drought, and was met at the railway station by a deputation of representative bushmen, who invited him, in the first place, to accompany them to the principal pub—which he did. He had been observed to study the scenery a good deal while coming up in the train, but kept his conclusions ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... countries for daubing over the wheels, and the woodwork generally, of wagons. During extreme heat, when the wood is ready to crack, all the paint should be scraped off it, and the tar applied plentifully. It will soak in deeply, and preserve the wood in excellent condition, both during the drought and the ensuing wet season. (See "Tar, to make.") It is not necessary to take off the wheels in order to grease the axles. It is sufficient to bore an auger-hole right through the substance of the nave, between the feet of two of the spokes, and to keep a plug ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... a bad one, and Mr. Cox had been even more troublesome than usual owing to tightness in the money market and the avowed preference of local publicans for cash transactions to assets in chalk and slate. In Mr. Cox's memory there never had been such a drought, and his crop ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... contains only one straggling street, nearly a mile in length, a small rivulet rising at each end. The stream at the north-western end often fails, but the other, known as the "Well-Head," is a fine spring, seldom influenced by drought. Wolmer Forest, near by, is famed for its timber. In the centre of the village, on a piece of ground commonly known as "The Plestor," there stood, until the fearful storm of 1703, a colossal oak tree, with a short body and enormous horizontally spreading arms. The stone steps, with seats ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... fully competent to reduce wings without its aid. In considering the rudimentary wings of the apteryx, or of the moa, emu, ostrich, &c., we must not forget the frequent or occasional occurrence of hard seasons, and times of drought and famine, when Nature eliminates redundant, wasteful, and ill-adapted organisms in so severe and wholesale a fashion. Where enemies are absent there would be unrestrained multiplication, and this would greatly increase the severity of ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... time, scouted the idea and raised all sorts of objections. The summer it was completed there was a five-months drought, with less than 2-1/2 inches of rain. This, however, did not affect the drive wells, and at the request of the town authorities, they increased the speed of their pumping engines, and supplied all demands, even beyond ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various

... For millions of years it was threatened by climatic changes, by the lack of food, by the ferocity of fellow-creatures. Heat, cold, flood, drought, earthquake, and volcanic eruption were forever against it. Struggling from stage to stage upward from the slime a new danger was always to it a new incentive to finding a ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... cannot be placed in exact chronological order. There was a time when a weary restlessness came upon me, perhaps from too-long-continued labour. It was like a drought—a moral drought—as if I had been absent for many years from the sources of life and hope. The inner nature was faint, all was dry and tasteless; I was weary for the pure, fresh springs of thought. Some ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... general drought appears, and cruel wars, or contagious maladies come, we humble ourselves before the power that sent them, and mortify ourselves by abstinence. Misfortune ceases. We become satisfied that the reason was that we fasted, and we continue to ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... a drought in Texas, everything was parched and burning up, and great concern was felt by all. Charlien said to me one day: "Mamma why ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... Was it not fair to outwit the rogues with their own weapon? He had faded from human memory—let it be so. Was he to be cut off from this sudden joy of friendship with one of his blood and race, he whose soul was perishing with drought, though, until this moment, he had been too proud ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the Boers and their British colleagues wrested riches from the bare veldt. The Mormons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... for raw materials and agricultural products are fueling the economy, particularly in mining states. Australia's emphasis on reforms, low inflation, a housing market boom, and growing ties with China have been key factors behind the economy's 16 solid years of expansion. Drought, robust import demand, and a strong currency have pushed the trade deficit up in recent years, while infrastructure bottlenecks and a tight labor market are constraining growth in export volumes and stoking inflation. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... known to legend by two things: a steeple and a field. The steeple was built in a season of great drought. Water had failed everywhere; there was only the thinnest trickle from the springs and fountains with which the people might allay their thirst. Yet, strangely, the vineyards had yielded a wonderful harvest of luscious grapes, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... must ultimately place the Province in a safe position, or at least in as safe a position as it can be placed. He has seen, and it has been amply proved by our experience in the Madras Presidency during the famine of 1876-77, that the only irrigation work that can withstand a serious drought is a deep well, and he has brought out a most admirable measure for encouraging the making of them by the ryots. The principal features of this are that money, to be repaid gradually over a long series of years, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... of punch and one of milk—and drank to our next merry meeting. Then Sandy began to laugh, and I joined in. The sense of hopeless folly again descended on me. The best plans we could make were like a few buckets of water to ease the drought of the Sahara or the old lady who would have stopped the Atlantic with a broom. I thought with ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... lines at short intervals marked the course of artificial canals, that were fed by a series of pipes from brooks back in the mountains. There was an inexhaustible supply of sparkling water, and it was evident that the fortunate owner of this ranch was forever secure against drought—that ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... raided the settlers. His father was a cattle man, but for young Jack, the ranch was anything but glamorous. "My days were filled," he remembers, "with monotonous rounds of what seemed an endless, heart-breaking war with drought and frost and dust-storms, poison-weeds and hail, for the sake of survival on the Llano Estacado." The discovery of AMAZING STORIES was the escape he sought and his goal was to be a science fiction writer. He labored to this end and the first he knew that a story of his had ...
— The Cosmic Express • John Stewart Williamson

... the incidents most deserving attention which have occurred since your last session, I regret to have to state that several of our principal cities have suffered by sickness, that an unusual drought has prevailed in the Middle and Western States, and that a derangement has been felt in some of our moneyed institutions which has proportionably affected their credit. I am happy, however, to have it in my power to assure you that the health ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... by interpretation 'Night,' were born AEon and Protogonus, mortal men so named; of whom one, viz. AEon, discovered that life might be sustained by the fruits of trees. Their immediate descendants were called Genos and Genea, who lived in Phoenicia, and in time of drought stretched forth their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him they regarded as the sole Lord of Heaven, and called him Baal-samin, which means 'Lord of Heaven' in the Phoenician tongue, and is equivalent to Zeus ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... is worshipped, and temples are ornamented with figures of this animal, because the Nile rises when the sun is in the constellation of the Lion. Horus, the offspring of Osiris, the Nile, and Isis, the Earth, was born in the marshes of Buto, because the vapour of damp land destroys drought. Nephthys, or Teleute, represents the extreme limits of the country and the sea-shore, that is, barren land. Osiris (i.e., the Nile) overflowed this barren land, and Anubis[FN339] was ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge

... fickle," she said, "is showers after drought, seas after sand; to cry, unechoed; to be thirsty, the pitcher broken. And—ask now this pitiless darkness of the eyes!—to be remembered though Lethe flows between. Nay, you shall watch even hope away ere another comes like me to mope and sigh, and ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... each person will carry for his nourishment his little nitrogenous tablet, his pat of fatty matter, his package of starch or sugar, his vial of aromatic spices suited to his personal taste; all manufactured economically and in unlimited quantities; all independent of irregular seasons, drought and rain, of the heat that withers the plant and of the frost that blights the fruit; all free from pathogenic microbes, the origin of epidemics and the enemies of human life. On that day chemistry will have accomplished a world-wide ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... an influential position is held by the "rain-maker," and the villagers lavish upon him, in days of drought, gifts of oxen, fruits and trinkets, as an inducement to evoke from the clouds their treasures of genial rain. Greatness, however, has always to pay a penalty; and if after the rain-maker has performed his rites, the drought continues, it is not unusual for the disappointed ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. Two canine animals, in a time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get food and live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture. A plant which annually produces a thousand seeds, of which only one on an average comes to maturity, may be more truly said to struggle with the plants ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various



Words linked to "Drought" :   dryness, waterlessness, period of time, time period, period



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