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Float   Listen
verb
Float  v. t.  
1.
To cause to float; to cause to rest or move on the surface of a fluid; as, the tide floated the ship into the harbor. "Had floated that bell on the Inchcape rock."
2.
To flood; to overflow; to cover with water. "Proud Pactolus floats the fruitful lands."
3.
(Plastering) To pass over and level the surface of with a float while the plastering is kept wet.
4.
To support and sustain the credit of, as a commercial scheme or a joint-stock company, so as to enable it to go into, or continue in, operation.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Float" Quotes from Famous Books



... flying horse, There's something in a huge balloon; But through the clouds I'll never float Until I have a little Boat, Shaped ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... first thing that occurred to him. He took a letter from his pocket, tore it slowly into small pieces, and let the fragments float away on the breeze. This device appeared to be successful for a few seconds; but when the scraps of paper had disappeared or fallen to the ground the pigmies resumed their stealthy silent advance. Smith had another idea. Whistling the merry air of the "Saucy Arethusa," he ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang

... Charleston on the 30th of March, in one of the steamers which ply between that city and Savannah. These steamers are among the very best that float—quiet, commodious, clean, fresh as if just built, and furnished with civil and ready-handed waiters. We passed along the narrow and winding channels which divide the broad islands of South Carolina from the main-land—islands famed for the rice culture, and particularly for the excellent ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... lattice-work of green leaves, there came unto her thoughts that had lain asleep in the stifling air of the cottage and the weariness of guiding the plough. And by and by she took a needle from her girdle and pricked the thoughts on the leaves of the trees and sent them into the air to float hither and thither. And it came to pass that people began to pick them up, and holding them against the sun, to read what was written on them, and this was because the simple little words on the leaves were only, after all, a part of one of the King's messages, such ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... by a limb that projected from the log and swung his line in the direction the Bear had indicated. Then he waited, holding his breath almost, and watching his float, which lay silently on the water. Horatio was watching, too, with half closed eyes, and now ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine

... or one-celled animal divides into two or more, which is its way of multiplying, the daughter-units thus formed float apart and live independent lives. But there are a few Protozoa in which the daughter-units are not quite separated off from one another, but remain coherent. Thus Volvox, a beautiful green ball, found in some canals and the like, is a colony of a thousand or even ten thousand cells. It has ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... which all girls hold; a nice little belief very convenient and very simple: the sweet Jesus, the Paschal Lamb, and the Immaculate Conception. Around this trio gravitated all the rest, but graceful and light as the mists which float ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... contained a less one of the same shape, which was only forty-five feet in horizontal, and sixty-eight feet in vertical diameter. The capacity of this interior balloon was only sixty-seven thousand cubic feet: it was to float in the fluid surrounding it. A valve opened from one balloon into the other, and thus enabled the aeronaut ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached, and now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float, like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm"-(Cheever). [307] In the immediate ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... bush; a few strokes brought it alongside of the petala; and the serang, bending over, handed the folded paper to the boatman, and whispered a few words in his ear. The man pushed off, and the lascar watched the boat float silently down the stream until it was lost ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... victim out in the court, and set a foot on his throat. All the savage in him was awake, and his thoughts pursued Demedes. Hungering for that life more than this one, he forgot the monk utterly. Had he a plank—anything in the least serviceable as a float—he would go after the master. He looked the enclosure over, and the sedan caught his eye, its door ajar. The door would suffice. He took hold of the limp body of the keeper, drew it after him, set it on the seat, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... been my intention to go with him to Teslin Lake, there to build a boat and float down the river to Dawson; but I was six weeks behind my schedule, the trail was reported to be bad, and the water in the Hotalinqua very low, making boating slow and hazardous. Therefore I concluded to join the stream of ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland

... say to a little row on the river?" asked Mollie, when they had been refreshed by cakes and tea. "My boat will hold us all, and we can float down and talk of ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... is no more eager to float free into space than the earth-if it be sentient-is to shake him off; but it would appear that he and it must, like the Siamese twins, consent to endure the disadvantages of a mutually disagreeable intimacy. We submit ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... Ursula,' whispered Giles. 'Do you hear that ballad-singer in the square?' A voice clear and shrill seemed to float to us in the darkness: 'Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea,' she sang. The waves seemed to splash in harmonious accompaniment; the lights were flickering, the carriages rolling under the faint starlight. I saw Giles's face—as ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Blake replied unguardedly, for he did not see where his uncle's remark led. "Boring plant is expensive, and transport costs something. Then you have to spend a good deal beforehand if you wish to float ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... the ocean, the leaf of the wood, In the rhythm of motion proclaim life is good. The stars are all swinging to metres and rhyme, The planets are singing while suns mark the time. The moonbeams and rivers float off in a trance, The Universe ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the campfire hung low in the valley, and every sound carried plainly in the morning air. The squirrels were out in great numbers and at their morning play, while every now and then the harsh, rasping cry of a bewildered bluejay would float up the canyon. ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley

... right," said Morgan, throwing the boat-chain around a willow and letting the oars float idly beside the boat. Then, taking Amelie in his arms, he said, "You were right, my Amelie. Oh! blind weak beings! It is at the very moment that happiness knocks at our door that ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... letter to the President of France might prove a menace, and, tearing it into little pieces, dropped it over a bridge, and with regret watched that historical document from the ex-President of one republic to the President of another float down the Sambre toward the sea. By noon I decided I would not be able to make the distance. For twenty-four hours I had been without sleep or food, and I had been put through an unceasing third degree, and I was nearly out. Added to that, the chance of my losing the road was ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... Beautiful visions float before the sight, such as the waking eye never beheld; and the ear is ravished with music which no earthly skill could produce. The dreaming sense magnifies all sounds and sights which exist in nature. The thunder deepens its sonorous tone, ocean sends up a louder ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... aroused and gratified; but we also like to watch a kite flown by some one else, and similarly we like to watch a hawk, a balloon or aeroplane, a rocket. We like also to watch things that balance or float or in other ways seem to be superior to the force of gravity. Why should such things fascinate us? Perhaps because of empathy, the "feeling oneself into" the object contemplated. As "sympathy" means ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... Doreen an' me is in a boat, An' sailin' on the matrimonial sea. 'E sez as 'ow 'e 'opes we'll allus float In peace an' joy, from storm an' danger free. Then muvver gits to weepin' in 'er tea; An' Auntie Liz sobs like a winded colt; An' Cousin Lil comes 'round an' kisses me; Until I feel I'll 'AVE ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis

... rock By slow disintegration Ascending to its higher, Or the quick fluttering of the Storm-god's heart,— An instant's palpitation Through all its arteries of fire! One common blood runs down life's myriad veins, From Archangelic Hierarchs who float Broad-winged in the God-glory, to the mote That trembles with a braided dance In the warm sunset's vivid glance; And one great Heart that boundless flow sustains! In all the creatures of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various

... botanist set down what the seed of love is? Has it anywhere been set down in how many ways this seed may be sown? In what various vessels of gossamer it can float across wide spaces? Or upon what different soils it can fall, and live unknown, and ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... however, that many seeds—those of the most composite flowers, as of the thistle and dandelion—are endowed with, what have not been inappropriately called, wings. These consist of a beautiful silk-looking down, by which they are enabled to float in the air, and to be transported, sometimes, to considerable distances from the parent plant that produced them. The swelling of this downy tuft within the seed-vessel is the means by which the seed is enabled to overcome the resistance of its coats, and to force for itself ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... a little way Adown the stream of time, 80 With dreamy eyes watching the ripples play, Or hearkening their fairy chime; His slender sail Ne'er felt the gale; He did but float a little way, And, putting to the shore While yet 't was early day, Went calmly on his way, To dwell with us no more! No jarring did he feel, 90 No grating on his shallop's keel; A strip of silver sand Mingled the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... king, "I mean to do it, too; and his lifeless body shall float down the mill-stream as helpless as a ball of worsted. I have said, ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... dawned. The tide had stripped the shore; And that foul shape I fancied so remote Lay stark below, just opposite next-door! Who would have said a cod's head could not float? No more my neighbour in his garden sits; My callers now regard the view with groans; For tides may roll and rot the fleshly bits, But what shall mortify those ageless bones? How shall I bear to hear my grandsons say, "Look at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various

... bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched the strand. Just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the giant's visage, and Hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features; eyes each of them as big ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... on the subject of America. I will be much obliged to you, if you will direct me where I shall find the best information of what is to be said on both sides. It is a subject vast in its present extent and future consequences. The imperfect hints which now float in my mind, tend rather to the formation of an opinion that our government has been precipitant and severe in the resolutions taken against the Bostonians[867]. Well do you know that I have no kindness for that race. But nations, or bodies of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... gloom that one sees only in old castles or churches, or ancient buildings, and is quite different from the black of ordinary darkness. Through the open door came just one shaft of sunshine, in which the specks of dust seemed to float and flutter like living things. Overhead the great beams of the roof were lost in dim obscurity; very old and rough they were, and covered with a mass of cobwebs, among which Cicely declared she could see bats hanging head downwards, ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... and a pretty large escort. As they came opposite the regiment, the officer at the head looked back and saw that the flag was hanging limp around the staff, there not being air enough stirring to make it float out. He noted this and said to the color bearer, "Shake out those colors so they can be seen." The voice was mild and agreeable. The color-bearer did as directed and the general looked our way with a keen glance that was characteristic and took in every ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... partly to quiet conscience. They saw the ruin that was coming upon them, and they made some earnest but ineffectual struggles against it. But the resistance became weaker and weaker—by and by the struggle is ended—they float with the current, and where are they? One has been found by the temperance reformation, a mere wreck in property, character, body, and mind, and reclaimed. Another is dead: his constitution could not bear his continued dissipation. Another died ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... risen, and has pulled aside the steel-colored cloud-curtain, and let heaven's eyes—blue, though faint and watery—look through. And there comes another strong puff of autumnal wind, and lo! the sun, and the leaves float down in a sudden shower of amber in his light. I march along quickly and gravely through the long drooped grass—no longer sweet and fresh and upright, in its green summer coat—through the frost-seared pomp of the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... charm. I can almost conceive of a dozing and dreamy centenarian saying to one he loves, "Go, darling, go! Spread your wings and leave me. So shall you enter that world of memory where all is lovely. I shall not hear the sound of your footsteps any more, but you will float before me, an aerial presence. I shall not hear any word from your lips, but I shall have a deeper sense of your nearness to me than speech can give. I shall feel, in my still solitude, as the Ancient Mariner felt when the seraph ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... spreads not over all the breadth of the waste where nations have battled and argosies gone down,—it falls narrow and confined along the single course we have taken; we lean over the small raft on which we float, and see the sparkles but reflected from the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and valley, and much intersected by hollow ways and millstreams, the former not discernible till closely approached. The enemy, placed behind a long ridge and in a string of villages, with a hollow way in front, and a stream sufficient to float timber on the left, waited the near approach of the allies. He had an immense quantity of ordnance: the batteries in the open country were supported by masses of infantry in solid squares. The plan of our operations was to attack Gross Goerschen with artillery and infantry, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... down, and her arms went round his neck and drew him close. With his lips on hers he seemed to float away. That kiss closed his eyes, and he could not lift his head. He sat motionless holding her, blind and helpless, wrapped in a sweet dark glory. She kissed him—one long endless kiss—or else a thousand times. Her lips, her wet cheeks, her hair, the softness, the fragrance of her, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... that popular humor which is the medium we float in, if I can discern anything at all of its present state, it is far worse than I have ever known or could ever imagine it. The faults of the people are not popular vices; at least, they are not such ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... resembling what we might suppose to have irradiated Eden, when our first parents sat in it before their fall. The beams of the sun shone through the windows in clear shafts of amber light, exhibiting millions of those atoms which float to the naked eye within its mild radiance. The dog lay barking in his dreams at her feet, and the gray cat sat purring placidly upon his back, from which even his occasional agitation did ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... be called "Ewa," which is death; and first his mother would die and then his father; and he would grow up to be a scourge to his people and a pestilence to his nation, and crops would wither when he walked past them, and the fish in the river would float belly up in stinking death, and until Ewa M'faba himself went out, nothing but ill-fortune should come to ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace

... themselves in pure disinterestedness. Of course they "mix in," these best-loved authors, with every experience we encounter; they throw around places, hours, situations, occasions, a quite special glamour of their own, just as one's more human devotions do; but though they float, like a diffused aroma, round every circumstance of our days, and may even make tolerable the otherwise intolerable hours of our impertinent "life's work," we do not love them because they help us here or help us there; or make us wiser ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... things this old world turns over once in twenty-four hours, and swings around the sun in yearly revolution. For these, tides ebb and flow, the land brings forth, and the clouds float in the sky. To these all forces are but ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith

... found Para quite a good-sized city, but on very low ground. Along the docks of the mighty river were many kinds of boats and ships, from stately ocean-liners to the tub-like barges used to float down from Bolivia great cargoes of raw rubber. There were numerous schooners unloading vegetables and fruit, and countless dugouts paddled by natives. Cargadores, in their bare feet, were carrying goods in and out of the various large craft, supporting the heaviest of bundles on ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... study under Guerin, and in the studio of the master became the friend of Gericault. The first work which brought Delacroix fame was a picture of a scene from Dante's "Inferno," in which Dante sees some of his old acquaintances who were condemned to float upon the lake which surrounds the infernal city. This work was exhibited in 1822, and was bought for the Gallery of the Luxembourg. Baron Gros tried to be his friend; but Delacroix wished to follow his own course, and for some time had but ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement

... hominy, wash it in several waters and rub it well between the hands, and throw away the grains that float on the top, the same as you do with split peas, pour the water off the top, then strain it off, and put it in a basin with a quart of water, and cover the basin over with a cloth; put it by to soak overnight, ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... they sold her to the Italians. I remember the launch at Barrow quite well," he said. "It was a mighty fine show, with the Italian Ambassador and his wife—the Magnifico Pomposo, they called her, I think it was—and there was speechifying and hurraying and enough champagne drunk to float her. That was just three years ago: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various

... Tazewell, like that of the earlier Norman names which were forced to float for centuries on the breath of the unpolished Anglo-Saxon, has been spelt at various times in various ways by members of the same family, and in various ways in the same writing; as the name of Shakspeare, though a plain Anglo-Saxon name, was spelt in ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... There's the pinch! It clings to one like one's skin. It's one's nature,—how can one fight against nature? And yet, I take it, it's the very business of faith to conquer our evil nature. As I read somewhere, any dead dog can float with the stream; it's the living dog that swims against it. I mind the trouble I had about the wicked habit of swearing, when first I took to trying to serve God and leave off my evil courses. Bad words came ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown

... butternut, so thin that it is not at all possible that it can sustain itself for more than a hundred miles or so, or for more than a very few years at the outside. Hayford's[1] investigations are the latest that show that the continents project because, on the whole, they are lighter, they float, that is, above the level of the oceans because there is a mass of lighter rock below, like an iceberg in the sea. Here the likeness between nut and earth fails and it would be more like the earth if the outer shuck were thicker in ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... it was frozen snow, and it appeared to me that it must have been formed in the open sea, both because it is improbable, or rather impossible, that such enormous masses could float down rivers which contain too little water for a boat, and also because we perceived no produce of the earth, which we must have done if ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... had a vague idea that when he got his boat done he would dig a trench back from the bank of the creek and thus float his boat. But he had not thought it out clearly. "Or anyway," he thought, "I can in some way manage to roll it to the water." He must now actually plan to put some of these ideas into effect. He first went over the ground and found that to dig a trench from the water to the boat, so that the water ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison

... be handled and separated by specific gravity determinations, perhaps the best way to do so is to have several liquids of known specific gravity and to see what stones will float and what ones will sink in the liquids. Methylene iodide is a heavy liquid (sp. g. 3.32), on which a "quartz-topaz," for example, sp. g. 2.66, would float, but a true topaz, sp. g. 3.53, would sink in it. By diluting methylene iodide with ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... that there is visible seldom more than three hundred feet of the wall of ice, which in many glaciers must be two thousand and more feet high. From the sea walls of tide glaciers great fragments break off and float away as icebergs. Thus snows which fell in the interior of this northern land, perhaps many thousands of years ago, are carried in the form of icebergs to melt at last in the ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... popular side. The purpose and style of the book may be gathered from the passage in the preface, wherein the writer gives, as his reason for writing, the opinion that arbitrary government had "over-swelled all banks of law, that it was now at the highest float . . . that the naked truth was, that prelates, a wild and pushing cattle to the lambs and flocks of Christ, had made a hideous noise; the wheels of their chariot did run an unequal pace with the bloodthirsty mind of the daughter of Babel." The contention ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer

... sail-boat, and the lives of those who were in her. His mission, as he understood it, was to supply this needed skill. The steamer had only a single boat on deck, which was so dried up by the sun, that none of the salt-water tars believed it would float. She had only a single pair of oars, and it would be impossible to make any headway against the gale in it. The captain declared that he could only save the imperilled voyagers by running alongside their boat, and taking them out of ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... Yet, when I actually meet her in the land of the poppies, she is a dusky Cleopatra in whose arms I forget the world—even the world of the poppy. We float down the stream together, always in an Indian bark canoe, and this stream runs through orange groves. Numberless apes—millions of apes, inhabit these groves, and as we two float along, they hurl orange blossoms—orange blossoms, you understand—until the canoe is ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... of the soul. And to him who ventures upon this seemingly lowly path, so far from proving unattractive, it becomes a very Eden of thought. Unlooked-for beauties spring to light on every side; the very essence of music and poesy float around him as he advances; while above, around, and through all, sounds the magnificent diapason of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... a start at it without thinking much about it," said Roger. "The Club had a float, you know, ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... Princess' optimistic surmises as to the Prince's occupations, a rumor spread toward the end of the week of the maddest orgie which had taken place at the Fontonka house. It sounded like a phantasmagoria in which unclothed dancers, and wild beasts, and unheard-of feats seemed to float about. And the Princess sighed as she refuted the ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn

... slightest idea. It's very awkward, isn't it?' and he laughed nervously. 'Sometimes dim pictures float before my mind, and I seem to have vague recollections of things that happened ages and ages ago. But they pass away in a second. I am afraid you think my conduct unpardonable, but I can hardly help myself. You see, having no memory, I act on impulse. ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... that day that had been filled with so many varied and poignant emotions for him; through the dream in which his whole being seemed to float, Sir Adrian found a moment to think of the humble followers whom he had left so abruptly on the island, and of the pleasure the auspicious news would bring ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... am stifling, stifling at home, I should like to run away. And the fancy comes to me that if I were my own mistress, I would float down the Volga now, in a boat, to the singing of songs, or I would drive right away ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky

... mainly in the different consistency of the substances secreted by the cells to lie between them; skin cells are soft-walled masses lying close together; even blood is a tissue, although it is fluid and its cells are the corpuscles which float freely in a liquid serum. Thus an organism proves to be a complex mechanism composed of cells as structural units, just as a building is ultimately a collection of bricks and girders and bolts, related to one another ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of the drawbridge which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw the danger, and the boldest avoided setting foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... to you, inside this. Don't be alarmed when you hear the hammer above. I shall do it, and I shall have short nails in my hand as well as long, and use the short ones only. Wait till you hear the boat with all of us shove off, and then pry up the cabin hatch with your back. The vessel will float a quarter of an hour after the holes are bored in her. Slip into the sea on the port side, and keep the vessel between you and the boat. You will find plenty of loose lumber, wrenched away on purpose, drifting about to hold on by. It's a fine night ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... Tin, kid, tin. I could turn it inside out with a can opener. But I ain't long on a kit just now. I'm on the hog for fair, as a matter of fact. Well, I don't need a kit. I got some sawdust and I can make the soup as pretty as you ever seen. We'll blow the safe, kid, and then we'll float. Are ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... price or think I paid too dearly for my country's rights. Oh, Mark, my murdered husband, I may be wrong, but you were dearer to me than many, many countries, and it is hard to give you up—hard to know that the notes of peace which even now float up to us from the South will not waken you in that grave which I can never see. Oh, Mark, my darling, my darling, I loved you so much, I miss you so much, I want you so much. God help me to bear. God help me to ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... into the stream first sinks, and must then be almost immediately overspread with sediment of a certain weight, or it will rise again when distended with gases, and float perhaps to the sea before it sinks again. It may then be attacked by fish of marine species, some of which are capable of digesting bones. If, before being carried into the sea and devoured, it is enveloped with fluviatile mud and sand, ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... be emphasized that when charity organizations help the feeble-minded to float along in the social and industrial world, and to produce and rear children after their kind, a doubtful service is rendered. A little psychological research would aid the united charities of any city to direct their expenditures into ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... the brief talk they two had had there in the old sugar-house. Every word of it seemed graven on her memory. Disconnected bits of what he had told her, seemed to float before her mental vision—: "I? Oh, I'm just an out-of-work—don't ask me who I am; and I won't ask who you are. We're of different worlds, I guess—don't question me; I'd rather you wouldn't. Am I happy? ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... old woman took the bell for the stick, and departed like a light breeze over the field and the heath. He saw her vanish, and she seemed to float away before his eyes like a mist, and to go off with a slight whiz and whistle that made the shepherd's hair ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... to wait upon the proprietor of The Golden Reef, and whilst they are transacting their business their mates sing songs, the choruses of which float through the open windows over the adjacent country. The dirt-stained owners of the Hatters' Folly claim hear the members of the League asking to be "wrapped up in an old stable jacket," and those working in the Four Brothers' claim learn the truth ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... as he dived a hand into her creel. "Ugh! a doll! I say, Taffy, let's float her down ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... came up at the moment with a bottle in his hand. It was Laura who handed him the mug, and it was she who, stooping down, put the spirit to the lips of the fainting workman. Her mind seemed to float in a mist of horror, but her will asserted itself; she recovered her power of action sooner than the men around her. They stared at the young lady for a moment; but no more. The one hideous fact that possessed them robbed all ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... tosses high his beamy head, the copse Beneath his antlers bends. What doubling shifts He tries! not more the wily hare; in these Would still persist, did not the full-mouthed pack 410 With dreadful concert thunder in his rear. The woods reply, the hunter's cheering shouts Float through the glades, and the wide forest rings. How merrily they chant! their nostrils deep Inhale the grateful steam. Such is the cry, And such the harmonious din, the soldier deems The battle kindling, and the statesman grave Forgets his weighty cares; each age, each sex In the wild transport ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... obscured. Yet it was a place of kings for her—Richard and Henry and Wolsey and Queen Elizabeth. She divined great lawns with noble trees, and terraces whose steps the water washed softly, where the swans sometimes came to earth. Still she must see the stately, gorgeous barge of the Queen float down, the crimson carpet put upon the landing stairs, the gentlemen in their purple-velvet cloaks, bare-headed, standing in the sunshine grouped on either ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... tufts of horsehair had a cool gleam under the outspread boughs. To the left a group of buildings on piles with long verandahs and immense roofs towered high in the air above the heads of the crowd, and seemed to float in the glare, looking much less substantial than their heavy shadows. Lingard, pointing to one of the smallest, said in an undertone, "I lived there for a fortnight when I first came to see Belarab"; ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... it contains. Fig. 32 shows this instrument, "which is generally made of silver, or German silver, although they are also made of glass. A, represents a hollow cylinder—best made of glass, filled with must to the brim, into which place the must scale B. It is composed of the hollow float a, which keeps it suspended in the fluid; of the weight c, for holding in a perpendicular position; and of the scale e divided by small lines into from fifty to one hundred degrees. Before the gauge ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann

... branches with the fruit; and this, as we have seen, would have caused some of them to have floated much longer. The result was that 18/98 of his seeds of different kinds floated for forty-two days, and were then capable of germination. But I do not doubt that plants exposed to the waves would float for a less time than those protected from violent movement as in our experiments. Therefore, it would perhaps be safer to assume that the seeds of about 10/100 plants of a flora, after having been dried, could be floated across a ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... too hard! that club of thine will float Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 430 Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so! Who art thou then, that canst so touch my soul? Boy as I am, I ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... to poor Hans, whom we left floating down the stream—senseless, and to all appearance dead. He was not dead, however, although the blows which his brothers had inflicted were very severe ones. He was only stunned, and fortunately he did not float far enough to be drowned. His body came into a back eddy of the stream and drifted gently on to a shelving bank of white sand. The cold water soon had the effect of bringing him to his senses so far as to enable him to crawl on to the land. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... whose smile will cheer you, whose whisper will soothe you. Come to me when the morning sun blazes across my bosom like a golden baldric; come to me in the still midnight, when I hold the inverted firmament like a cup brimming with jewels, nor spill one star of all the constellations that float in my ebon goblet. Do you know the charm of melancholy? Where will you find a sympathy like mine in your hours of sadness? Does the ocean share your grief? Does the river listen to your sighs? The salt wave, that called to you from under last month's full moon, to-day is dashing on the rocks of ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... thou the Genius of my ill-tuned note, Whose beauty urged hath my rustic vein Through mighty oceans of despair to float, That I in rime thy cruelty complain: Vouchsafe to read these lines both harsh and bad Nuntiates of woe with ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... afternoon, and the whole of the night that succeeded, did the canoe float downward with the current. Occasionally, some slight obstacle to its progress would present itself; but, on the whole, its advance was steady and certain. As the river necessarily followed the formation of the land, it was tortuous and irregular in its course, though its general direction ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... lumsxanceli. Flight forkuro. Flight (birds) flugado. Fling jxeti. Flint (mineral) siliko. Flippant babila. Flirt amindumeti, koketi. Flirt koketulino. Flirtation koketeco. Flit flirti. Float (intrans.) nagxi. Float (trans.) flosi. Flock (congregation) zorgitaro. Flock aro. Flog skurgxi. Flood superakvego. Floor planko. Floor (storey) etagxo. Florid rugxega. Florin floreno. Florist floristo. Flotilla sxipareto. Flour faruno. Flourish (brandish) svingi. Flow ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... and Andy took up the largest accordion in the place. Sitting down in a spot from which the music could float out of the door, they played several of their ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer

... took her in greedily. Under the large straw hat, with its poppies and corn, her face showed exquisite, a face that might float tantalisingly across a painter's vision, and vanish after but allowing him the merest glimpse. Though she was clad in a simple dark blue serge dress, the grace of her figure seemed to him a revelation, and a ravishing sprig of cornflower peeped from her waistband. There was a repose, ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... far from the truth. The matter really was a new line, invented by M. Jupille, cast a little further than an ordinary one, and rigged up with a float like a raft, carrying a little clapper. The fish rang their own knell as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... waste pipe, escapes through the siphon, ruv, and makes its exit through the aperture, b', when the screw cap of the latter is removed. If, by accident, the level of the water should fall below a certain limit, a float, f, which follows its every movement, would close the valve, s, and stop the flow of the gas. Finally a tube, tt' soldered to the lower part of the tube, lnl', and dipping into the water of a compartment, P, serves to allow the surplus water to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various

... is important to collect the entire crop each year from a given tree, taking pains to destroy all nuts which contain weevil larvae. These may be selected in a general way by dumping the freshly gathered nuts into a tub of water. Nuts containing weevil larvae will float for the most part, and in order to make sure of the destruction of larvae in the remaining nuts they may be placed in a closed receptacle, and carbon bisulphide poured ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association

... developed the highest type of submarines, which she has used to the fullest advantage. The principle of the submarine is that of a floating bottle. An empty bottle, as every one knows, will float on the surface, but submerges as soon as it is filled with water. The submarine has, as part of its constructive features, a number of compartments which, as they are filled or emptied of water, enables the craft ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... excreta were voided through a cloaca; and the eye was protected by a third eyelid or nictitating membrane. At a still earlier period the progenitors of man must have been aquatic in their habits; for morphology plainly tells us that our lungs consist of a modified swim-bladder, which once served as a float. The clefts on the neck in the embryo of man shew where the branchiae once existed. In the lunar or weekly recurrent periods of some of our functions we apparently still retain traces of our primordial birthplace, a shore washed by the tides. At about this same early period the true kidneys ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... ascended the stream, and found several still pools of water varying from myrtle to coffee brown in colour. Each such piece of still water had a congregation of foam bubbles; and no sooner was the cast made than the float went down ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... east. It sounded like a cannon shot, but probably was only the immense inland ice "calving." When the ice during its constant but slow motion towards the coast slides out into the sea, it is lifted up by the water and is broken up into huge, heavy blocks and icebergs which float about independently. When these pieces break away the inland ice ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... inevitable, Lieutenant Procope took the best measures he could to insure a few days' supply of food for any who might escape ashore. He ordered several cases of provisions and kegs of water to be brought on deck, and saw that they were securely lashed to some empty barrels, to make them float after the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... fixed the site of his new capital, at somewhat less than two leagues' distance from its mouth, which expanded into a commodious haven for the commerce that the prophetic eye of the founder saw would one day—and no very distant one—-float on its waters. The central situation of the spot recommended it as a suitable residence for the Peruvian viceroy, whence he might hold easy communication with the different parts of the country, and keep vigilant ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... discuss all subjects, or amongst intimate acquaintances, that community of thought upon the question is discovered. But let any one inquire amongst those who have sufficient education and ability to think for themselves, and who do not idly float, slaves to the current of conventional opinion, and he will discover that numbers of men and women of purest lives, of noblest aspirations, pious, cultivated, and refined, see no wrong in teaching the ignorant that it is wrong to bring into ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... and spots of shade; Here, golden sunshine spreads in mellow rays, and there, Stretching across its hoary breast, deep shadows lurk. A stream, with many a turn, now lost to sight, And then, again revealed, winds through the vale, Shimmering in the early morning sun. A few white clouds float in the blue expanse, Their forms revealed in the clear lake beneath, Which bears upon its breast a bark canoe, Cautiously guided by a sinewy arm. High in the heavens, three eagles proudly poise, Keeping their mountain eyrie still in view, Although their flight ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis

... she is. In fact she is the first concrete symbol of the Anglo-American Alliance, and when the daughter of her creator has gone into partnership with the man who made her we'll have two flagstaff's, and the Jack and Old Glory will float ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... through the whole of that long terrible day, a day of strange unearthliness, when he seemed to float away into a weird dreamland and at times into nightmare, and yet it was not a day of unmixed suffering. The sun glared down pitilessly through the hot hours, the tormenting flies swarmed in their millions, the dead lay thick around, already blackening in the ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... by the odor of putrefaction, I turned my head in spite of myself, and I saw floating before my eyes green harvests, balmy fields and the pensive harmony of the evening. "No," I said, "science can not console me; I can not plunge into dead nature, I would die there myself and float about like a livid corpse amidst the debris of shattered hopes. I would not cure myself of my youth; I will live where there is life, or I will at least die in the sun." I began to mingle with the throngs at Sevres and ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... coasts of America in 1602 in a "small bark;" Martin Pring had done the same in 1603 in the bark Discovery, of 26 tons; Frobisher, in northern and dangerous coasts, in a vessel of 25 tons burden; and two of the vessels of Columbus were from 15 to 30 tons burden, and without decks on which to "float" the "engulfing floods" under which the Mayflower "staggered" so marvellously. All these vessels long preceded the Mayflower across the "unknown ocean;" but never inspired the lofty eloquence which Mr. Everett and a host of inferior rhapsodists have bestowed upon the Mayflower and her voyage. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... plodding about their business in the hot midday, or a quiet little abbe crossing the piazza on his way to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the light on wall and facade, and of the transparent waters of the canals and the azure skies in which float great snowy fleeces. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... inland commerce, we must look far back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The earliest routes that threaded the continent were the streams and the tracks beaten out by the heavier four-footed animals. The Indian hunter followed the migrations of the animals and the streams that would float his light canoe. Today the main lines of travel and transportation for the most part still cling to these ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... of Liberty float in the breeze That plays light o'er the regions our fathers defended; Hear the voice of the million resound o'er the leas, As the deeds of the past are proclaim'd and commended; And in splendour on high Where our flags proudly fly, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... terrible! A thousand casualties. And heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors ever allowed a boat like that... Now, you're talking straight, Mr Crimmins. You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look at that. And America they ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... of a book against the persecution of witches. Calef, of course, was in the right, but I cannot forgive him for refusing to see a lady, known to Mr. Mather, who floated about in the air. That she did so was no good reason for hanging or burning a number of parishioners; but, did she float, and, if so, how? Mr. Calef said it would be a miracle, so he declined to view the performance. His logic was thin, though of a familiar description. Of all old things, at all events, Dr. Holmes was fond. He found America scarcely ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang

... to vent or breathe, while he is enabled to elude them by getting under water again so soon as he has refreshed himself by respiration. MacGregor, however, had a trick beyond the otter; for he contrived, when very closely pursued, to disengage himself unobserved from his plaid, and suffer it to float down the stream, where in its progress it quickly attracted general attention; many of the horsemen were thus put upon a false scent, and several shots or stabs were averted from the party for whom ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... essential points in an instrument for hand cutting. For ordinary purposes it is not necessary to have the blade ground flat on one side, although many prefer it. The knife should always be thoroughly wet, in order that the cut tissue may float over its surface. Water, alcohol or salt and water may be used for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various

... clothing to take care of, it was anything but a light task. Had they been without any boat at command, they would have divested themselves of their garments and placed them and their "luggage" on it small float, while they swam behind and ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... my lady?' Cried Charles of Estienne On the shot-crumbled turret Thy lady was seen Half veiled in the smoke cloud Her hand grasped thy pennon, While her dark tresses swayed In the hot breath of cannon, Of its sturdy defenders, Thy lady alone Saw the cross-blazoned banner Float over St John. Alas for thy lady! No service from thee Is needed by her Whom the Lord hath set free: Nine days, in stern silence, Her thralldom she bore, But the tenth morning came And Death opened ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase

... store, was one who was not. He was angry, violently so. He had been in a chipper mood all morning and had enjoyed watching the long line from the windows of a bedecorated wholesale house on Baltimore street. But when his eyes alighted on the float of his own firm, the anger came. And the longer it stayed with him, the worse it grew, especially as he could not escape the prodding of the friends who had invited him ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... mining for catching the small particles of metal; the large ones are caught by their weight. But many of the particles are so small that they are almost invisible to the naked eye, and when in moving water they float. Miners frequently show visitors the fineness of their gold by putting some of the dust in a vial with water, and upon shaking, the particles of metal can be seen floating about in the clear water. Riffles, and all the ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell

... disorder, and the favouring wind, The watchful English such advantage find, Ships fraught with fire among the heap they throw, And up the so-entangled Belgians blow. The flame invades the powder-rooms, and then, Their guns shoot bullets, and their vessels men. The scorch'd Batavians on the billows float, Sent from their own, to ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham

... large side wheel steamers several hundred miles above its mouth, and afterwards bore an immense commerce. As soon as the ice broke up in the spring, the river would rise and overflow its banks clear to the bluffs on each side, making a stream of from five to six miles wide, and deep enough to float ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... south, yonder, a fellow thinks a gale of wind is a relief, provided it brings clear water with it. I would rather run a week among islands, than a single day among icebergs. One knows where to find land, for that never moves; but your mountains that float about, are here to-day, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... sea: and that, though they live on a distant plot of ground, they are no more to consider themselves therefore disfranchised from their native land, than the sailors of her fleets do, because they float on distant waves. So that literally, these colonies must be fastened fleets; and every man of them must be under authority of captains and officers, whose better command is to be over fields and streets instead of ships of the line; and England, in these her motionless navies (or, in the ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... partridge, or by the whistling wings of the "dropping snipe," pressing through the brush and the briers, or finding an easy passage over the trunk of a prostrate tree, carefully letting his hook down through some tangle into a still pool, or standing in some high, sombre avenue and watching his line float in and out amid the moss-covered boulders. In my first essayings I used to go to the edge of these hemlocks, seldom dipping into them beyond the first pool where the stream swept under the roots of two large trees. From this point I could look back into the sunlit ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... is necessary. I continued to flutter like a school-girl; and when by accident her eyes met mine, a moment later, I felt that I blushed like fire. I could read a sort of recognition in her glance, and for a moment it seemed as if she would float down the stairs, in spite of the intervening crush, and speak to me. But instead of that she sighted Brunow at my side ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray

... if they will not have it so, in this new, renovated Government of which I have spoken, the 4th of July, with all its glorious memories, will never be repealed. The old flag of 1776 will be in our hands, and shall float over this nation forever; and this capital, that some gentlemen said would be reserved for the Southern republic, shall still be the capital. It was laid out by Washington; it was consecrated by him; and the old flag ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... dogs in pursuit of them; and when I saw such a rout, I began to cry out, 'Hold, hold!' and on approaching the water, I beheld it full of Spaniards and Indians in so dense a mass that it seemed as if there was not room for a straw to float. The enemy charged on the fugitives so hotly, that in the melee they threw themselves into the water after them; and soon the enemy's canoes came up by means of the canal and took ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... "The fact is, Lansing let us in rather badly. We spent a good deal of money over this concession, and we're anxious to get it back. Since we can't float the thing on the market at present, we have formed a small private syndicate to develop the property, though we may sell out in a year or two if you can make the undertaking commercially successful. I think you could count on the ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... stayed there, idle, useless, on the shaded veranda above the street; and then, when the sun was low, they came forth like indolent butterflies to float up and down the street. They sauntered by in pairs, half-hidden beneath silk parasols, and their skirts swished softly as they passed. Rimrock eyed them sullenly, for a black mood was on him—he was ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... downstairs. Never had the house appeared so empty. Even in Dick's longest absences something of his presence had always hung about the rooms: a fine dust of memories and associations, which wanted only the evocation of her thought to float into a palpable semblance of him. But now he seemed to have taken himself quite away, to have broken every fibre by which their lives had hung together. Where the sense of him had been there was only a deeper emptiness: she felt as if a strange ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... "sit quietly with their needles" for an hour; but at last tea-time came, and evening followed, and the whole family except Baby embarked upon the first voyage in The Belle of Canada. It was delightful to float about on the moonlit water and listen to Mamma's lovely voice. She sang a Canadian boat- song, in honour of the little hostess ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton

... suddenly, with a light coming into her eyes, 'is another judge dead?' Visions of her husband on the Bench, a town-house in a more central part of London, an increase of social consideration for herself and daughters, began to float into ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... outside. But as I sat there by the window there came upon me, for the second time that day, a mounting hurry to be gone. There was nothing to account for it, but I distinctly felt an inward "Hurry! Hurry!" So propelling was it that only the knowledge that the "Tillicum" would not float until high tide kept me from finding Desire and begging her to come away at once. I did go so far as to wander restlessly down into the garden where she had gone to feed the chickens. Perhaps I would have gone farther and mentioned my misgivings but just then ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... secured by very firm ligaments to the bones of the head, and being a weighty affair, would easily be knocked off, or might drop away from the body as it floated in water in a state of decomposition. The jaw would thus be deposited immediately, while the rest of the body would float and drift away altogether, ultimately reaching the sea, and perhaps becoming destroyed. The jaw becomes covered up and preserved in the river silt, and thus it comes that we have such a curious circumstance as that of the lower jaws in the Stonesfield slates. So that, you see, faulty as these ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... the toy Ark of our happy childish memories is built, if not of gopher-wood, at least upon the lines laid down in Scripture. Has Hammy ever tried to get his to float? Mine invariably used to sink—straight to the bottom of the bath. Perhaps that continually-recurrent catastrophe had something to do with the sapping of my infant faith, or the establishment of a sinking-fund of doubt regarding the veracity ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... certain obliviousness here; a mental haze, amid which the mingled airs of "Rule Britannia" and the "Marsellaise" float indistinctly. But above all, and through all, with terrible distinctness, tones the voice of Pimblebeck; his boyish form dilated into the dimensions of a Goliath, as he pours forth the words of a Prussian revolutionary ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... fruit, the ripening of the nuts, the falling of the leaves—appeared to occur in the hours between sunset and sunrise. A thin and watery moon shed a spectral light over the meadows, which seemed to float midway between the ashen band of the road and the jagged tops of the pines on the horizon. There was no wind, and the few remaining leaves on the trees looked as if they were cut out of velvet. The promise of a hoar-frost was in the air—and a silver veil ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... sunk when it was deserted, presenting nothing but a hulk and wreck. Nevertheless, seventeen still remained upon it, and had food, which, although damaged, enabled them to support themselves for a considerable time; whilst the raft was abandoned to float at the mercy of the waves, upon the vast surface of the ocean. One hundred and fifty wretches were embarked upon it, sunk to the depth of at least three feet on its fore part, and on its poop immersed even to the middle. What victuals ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... any such chances. Master Cap has gone up to the canoe, and will cast the branch of a tree into the river to try the current, which sets from the point above in the direction of your rock. See, there it comes already; if it float fairly, you must raise your arm, when the canoe will follow. At all events, if the boat should pass you, the eddy below will bring it up, and ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... the beach by means of long climbers used as ropes. The remaining requisites are now added; two stout poles, fourteen to twenty feet in length, are laid across the gunwale, and secured there from six to ten feet apart, and the projecting ends are secured by lashing and wooden pegs to a long float of light wood on each side, pointed, and slightly turned up at the ends. A platform or stage of small sticks laid across occupies the centre of the canoe, extending on each side, several feet beyond the gunwale, and having on the outside a sort of double fence of upright sticks used ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... open-eyed receives the sword-point in his throat, And o'er his arms in waves of blood his life and soul doth float. ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... the brave, and the boat slid into the deep shadow of the old landing-stage, and Chippy was still undiscovered. No sooner did they enter the friendly dusk than Chippy released the painter, and let himself float without movement. The boat pulled on a dozen yards to the stairs, and the scout swam gently to the shelter of a great pile. Chippy now heard the rower fling down the oars and spring out of the boat, and rush up to ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... which to Manil .... The country of China is very high, and wooded with pine trees and ... partly lower, also with forests. He said that in the strait they use no wind at all, but that the currents take them in and float them through. They said that those who consider that the island of Bacallao is all one are wrong; for it consists of several small islands in a chain, reaching to Cape Gata, which is in sixty-two degrees, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... began to come in!—and when the bathing dresses were hung on the fence to dry!—and when mermaid visions appeared at the windows!—who shall describe the scene then? Over all, a blue smoke now began to curl and float, rising from the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... recount instances? Every family can furnish them. As I allow myself to float off into a reminiscent dream I find my mind possessed by a continuous series of dissolving views in which Jonathan is always coming to me saying, "It isn't there," and I am always saying, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... her skeins of finest silk and began to weave. And she wove a web of marvelous beauty, so thin and light that it would float in the air, and yet so strong that it could hold a lion in its meshes; and the threads of warp and woof were of many colors, so beautifully arranged and mingled one with another that all who saw were ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin

... soak over-night in soft water, and float off such as rise to the top. Boil them in the water till tender enough to pulp; then add the ingredients mentioned above, and simmer for 2 hours, stirring it occasionally. Pass the whole through a sieve, skim well, season, and serve with ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... the good natured, bubbling humor, which had floated down the smooth channel of his talk, vanished as bubbles do when they float out ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... storm the night has been brewing for you," continued old Kitson. "It blows great guns, and there's rain enough to float Noah's ark. Waters is here, and wants to see you. He says that his small craft won't live in a sea like this. You'll have to put off your voyage till the steamer takes her ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... sizzle, and soon became a moist and blackened heap. Todge, however, was not imaginative, and when night fell, he lay down upon his bed and slept without fear; that is, he slept until his bed began to float, then he awoke and groped his way neck deep in water until he found his ladder and managed by it to climb up into his loft, where he sat shivering, till suddenly he felt the cabin give a lurch, and ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux

... said that about one-half of all pipes now sold are made from artificial meerschaum. Meerschaum is one of the lightest of minerals and it is said that in Italy bricks have been made of it so light that they would float on the top of the water. Some pipes (doubtless owing to the quality of meerschaum) take on more color in a given time than others this is owing in a great measure however to the ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... and superstructure are supported on two vessels connected, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5, with cross girders, a sufficient width being left between each vessel to form a well large enough for a barge to float into, and for the working of the bucket ladder utilized in raising the material from the barges. The girders are braced together and carry the framing for the bucket ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various

... Germans seem to think it a good time to try to feel about for peace. They have more to offer now than they may have again. That's all. A man who seriously talks peace now in Paris or in London on any terms that the Germans will consider, would float dead that very night in the Seine or in the Thames. The Germans have for the time being "done-up" the Russians; but the French have shells enough to plough the German trenches day and night (they've been at it for a fortnight now); Joffre has been ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... separate from the zinc used in the reduction, which float about in the acid liquid for a long time and give off minute gas bubbles. If poured into the solution of sodium acetate, they would contaminate the precipitate; and when dissolved in hydrochloric acid, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... black pool, feared it too much to let it alone; and day by day he would hang upon the rim with trembling fingers, and search the black, smooth depths, with all Ophelia's pangs. And to this moment, no rushing river is half so ministrant to dread as is a still, dull hogshead, where insects float and fly. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... this scene had been performed with such rapidity that poor Grizzy was not prepared for the sudden metamorphose of Nicky's pebble brooch into a set of painted thread-papers, and some vague alarms began to float through her brain. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier



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