"Opacity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... management of what you have in hand. The one is of ivory, which letteth in confused, doubtful, and uncertain dreams; for through ivory, how small and slender soever it be, we can see nothing, the density, opacity, and close compactedness of its material parts hindering the penetration of the visual rays and the reception of the specieses of such things as are visible. The other is of horn, at which an entry is made to sure and certain ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... them like a shell within a shell, very thin, of a pearly whiteness. Professor Tyndall has shown in a very beautiful manner that ice is but an agglomeration of snow crystals: the transparency of the former being due to the expulsion of the air, entrapped in and causing the whiteness and opacity of the latter. There is a formation called the snow plant of California, which arises to some height, and has been compared to various things, a fountain convoluted and enlarged above, a crystallized small bushy shrub, etc.; but on closer inquiry, I have failed as yet to get any definite ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... expected to catch the first movement of the trade winds sweeping, together with night, from the sea, practically the whole of the batey was laid out before Lee. The sun was still apparent in a rayless diffusion above a horizon obliterated in smoke, a stationary cloud-like opacity only thinning where the buildings began: the objects in the foreground were sharp; but, as the distance increased, they were blurred as though seen through a swimming of the vision. The great bulk of the sugar mill, ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... flying particles, each one invisible, obstructs light singularly little, even when they are close together, as one can tell by the transparency of showers and snowstorms. The opacity of haze may be due not merely to dust particles, but to little eddies set up by radiation above each particle, so that the air becomes turbulent and of varying density. (See a similar suggestion by Mr. Poynting in Nature, vol. 39, ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... of colour began to flush Victor's cheeks, a smile modified the set of his mouth, the heavy-lidded eyes lost their lustreless opacity and glimmered ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... chateau a cataract plunged, veiling itself in an opacity of mist, tinted with all the spectral hues by the rays of the westering sun. I could have flung a stone down, not on the chateau, but over it, into the ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... Diagnosis.—Professor Roentgen gave to the world an exceedingly valuable discovery in the X-Ray. He discovered that a certain form of electrical energy, when applied in a certain way, would produce shadows that differentiated between a certain degrees of opacity. For example, it would, if directed upon the human hand, produce shadows that clearly indicated whether the substance through which the rays passed was bone or muscle. The chief value of the X-Rays has been found to be this property rather than ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... aside by the uncondensed gases from below them; and, growing while they are thrust aside, will collect in the spaces between the ascending currents, where there will result the greatest degree of opacity. Hence the mottled appearance—hence the "pores," or dark interspaces, separating the ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... that the translucency is largely due. This may be shown by compressing with the fingers the eye of an ox which has just been killed, when the clear transparent cornea will suddenly become clouded over with a whitish-blue opacity, and this will remain until the compression is interrupted. The interior of the eye contains three transparent media for the refraction of the rays of light on their way from the cornea to the visual nerve. Of these media ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... visible in her. After a close examination, he declared that only a miracle could have wrought it. The next day he gave the following testimony: "I the undersigned, can certify on oath, that five years ago, I examined Mary Cote's eyes, and found that the small-pox had produced opacity of the cornea of both, or the disease called leucoma. I pronounced the case incurable, and refused in consequence to prescribe medical treatment. I certify that I re-examined the same little girl on the 4th of September, 1867, and that I cannot explain the cure of ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... through the same dense atmosphere to the home of fogs and soot, London, and in the whole journey to his hotel the young American had seen nothing of the mother country but telegraph-poles scudding through opacity on the railway journey, and in London the loom of buildings and lights dimly red through ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... cumulostratus; cirrocumulus; mackerel sky, mare's tale, dirty sky; curl cloud; frost smoke; thunderhead. [Science of clouds] nephelognosy[obs3]; nephograph[obs3], nephology[obs3]. effervescence, fermentation; bubbling &c. v. nebula; cloudliness &c. (opacity) 426[obs3]; nebulosity &c. (dimness) 422. V. bubble, boil, foam, froth, mantle, sparkle, guggle[obs3], gurgle; effervesce, ferment, fizzle. Adj. bubbling &c. v.; frothy, nappy[obs3], effervescent, sparkling, mousseux[French: frothy], up. cloudy &c. n.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... moths are the only insects that fly by means of opaque wings; but in their case the opacity is apparent rather than real, for it is caused by the presence of a very beautiful layer of coloured scales spread evenly over the outer surface of the membranes. When these scales are brushed off, membraneous wings of the ordinary transparent ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... beautiful example of this structure, in a specimen of obsidian from Mexico, which is shaded and zoned, like the finest agate, with numerous, straight, parallel layers, more or less opaque and white, or almost perfectly glassy; the degree of opacity and glassiness depending on the number of microscopically minute, flattened air-cells; in this case, it is scarcely possible to doubt but that the mass, to which the fragment belonged, must have been subjected to some, probably ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... figure towered like a giant's. His abundant red hair, waving thickly from his bulging forehead, redeemed by its single note of colour the rigidity of his features. His eyes—small, keen, deeply set beneath heavy brows—flashed from a dull opacity to an alert animation. But in the first and last view of his face it was the mouth that marked the man; the straight, thin lips would close or unclose at their own will, not at another's—the line of the mouth, like the line of the hard, square jaw, was the physical expression of his character. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... and somewhat lingering look at the dust and dirt of the lower chamber, as one who knew not what might happen before he saw it again. The stain as of red rust in the lavatory basin, the gritty deposit in the bath, the verdigris on all the taps, the foul opacity of the windows, are among the trivialities that somehow stamped themselves upon my mind. One of the windows was open at the top, had been so long open that the aperture was curtained with cobwebs at each extremity, but in between I got quite ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... CATARACT.—This is an opacity of the crystalline lens or its capsule. The lens is not clear and bright and keeps the light from going through it. Then it is ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... resemblance to the texture of human limbs or drapery: it gives the form, but not the stuff. It is the exact reverse with marble. Granulated like a living fibre, yet susceptible of a delicate polish, it can imitate the actual substance of human flesh, with its alternations of opacity and luminousness; it can reproduce, beneath the varied strokes of the chisel, the grain, running now one way, now another, which is given to the porous skin by the close-packed bone and muscle below. ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... fact. It quite puts Sally in spirits—the rapid crescendo of the hissing steam, the gleaming boiler-dome that might be the fruitful mother of all the helmets that hang about her skirts, the sudden leaping of the whole from the turgid opacity behind and equally sudden disappearance into the void beyond, the vanishing "Fire!" cry from which all consonants have gone, leaving only a sound of terror, all confirm her view of the fog as a lark. For, you see, Sally believed ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the common kinds are carved locally, at a very cheap rate, into vases, clock-cases and various ornamental objects, in which a large trade is carried on, especially in Florence, Pisa and Leghorn. In order to diminish the translucency of the alabaster and to produce an opacity suggestive of true marble, the statues are immersed in a bath of water and gradually heated nearly to the boiling-point—an operation requiring great care, for if the temperature be not carefully regulated, the stone acquires a dead-white chalky appearance. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Henry More, of Cambridge, Johnson did not much affect; he was a Platonist, and, in Johnson's opinion, a visionary. He would frequently cite from him, and laugh at, a passage to this effect:—"At the consummation of all things, it shall come to pass that eternity shall shake hands with opacity"' Hawkins's Johnson, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... many places, pure, colourless, and transparent, breaking with a sparry cubical structure. But the greatest part is tinged by the admixture of the marl, and that in various degrees, from the slightest tinge of red, to the most perfect opacity. Thus, the rock appears as if it had been a mass of fluid salt, in which had been floating a quantity of marly substance, not uniformly mixed, but every where separating and subsiding from the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... dug from the bowels of the earth, being sometimes found pure, but mostly combined with other matter. They are distinguished by their weight, tenacity, hardness, opacity, color, and peculiar lustre, known as the metallic lustre; they are fusible by heat, and good conductors of heat and electricity; many of them are malleable, and some extremely ductile. Those which were first known are gold, silver, iron, copper, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... of color as large as a grain of wheat ungradated: and you will find in practice, that brilliancy of hue, and vigor of light, and even the aspect of transparency in shade, are essentially dependent on this character alone; hardness, coldness, and opacity resulting far more from equality of color than from nature of color. Give me some mud off a city crossing, some ocher out of a gravel pit, a little whitening, and some coal-dust, and I will paint you a luminous picture, if you give me time to gradate my mud, and ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... Scalpellum and Pollicipes, and in a rudimentary condition in Lithotrya, and, perhaps, in the fossil genus Loricula. The valves are formed sometimes of chitine (as in Ibla and Alepas), but usually of shell, which varies from transparency to entire opacity. The shell is generally white, occasionally reddish or purple; exteriorly, the valves are covered by more or less persistent, generally yellow, strong membrane. The scuta and terga are always considerably larger than the other valves: in the different genera the valves differ ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... spite of all Billy's efforts the evening went wrong after that. Caroline was wrapped in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate for a moment. After they had dined they took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an hour on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels. Billy's dancing being of that light, sure, rhythmic quality that should have installed him irrevocably in ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... or smalt, gives blue; uranium oxide, green; a mixture of Au and Sn of uncertain composition, called the "purple of Cassius," gives purple. MnO2 is used to correct the green tint caused by FeO, which it is supposed to oxidize. Opacity, or enamel, as in lamp-shades, is produced by adding As2O3, Sb2O3, SnO2, cryolite, etc. The glass- worker dips his blowpipe—a hollow iron rod five or six feet long—into the fused mass of glass, removes a small portion, rolls it on a smooth ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... we are, this man and I, jostling without knowing each other, revealed and then hidden from each other in sudden jerks by the flashes of the guns, oppressed by the opacity, the center of a huge circle of fires that appear and disappear in ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... drop of milk be examined with a microscope, it will be seen as a clear liquid, holding in suspension a large number of minute globules, which give the milk its opacity or white color. These microscopic globules are composed of fatty matter, each surrounded by an envelope of casein, the principal nitrogenous element found in milk. They are lighter than the surrounding liquid, and when the milk remains at rest, they gradually rise ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... top, he looked in vain for any sign of the child. The crowd stood breathless on the brink. No one had seen her, though all eyes were staring into the tumult. He dived, swam about beneath, groping in the frightful opacity, but still in vain. Then down through the water came a shout, and he shot to the surface—to see only something white vanish. But the recoil of the torrent from below caught her, and just as he was diving again, brought her up almost within ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... has extended the result to opaque bodies, and has shown that if light be passed through magnetized iron its plane is rotated. The film of iron must be exceedingly thin, because of its opacity, and hence, though the intrinsic rotating power of iron is undoubtedly very great, the observed rotation is exceedingly small and difficult to observe; and it is only by a very remarkable patience and care and ingenuity ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... silence that followed the applause, as Enriquez walked pantingly away, I heard her saying, half to herself, "Certainly a most extraordinary creature!" In my indignation I could not help turning suddenly upon her and looking straight into her eyes. They were brown, with that peculiar velvet opacity common to the pupils of nearsighted persons, and seemed to defy internal scrutiny. She only repeated carelessly, "Isn't he?" and added: "Please see if you can find Jocasta. I suppose we ought to be going now; and I dare say he won't be doing it again. Ah! ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... plant, instead of rising to the surface of the water as hitherto, hung limp from the fissure where it was placed, and trailed upon the sand. Coincidently, (was it consequently?) a greenish tinge pervaded the water, speedily increasing in depth and opacity. In five days, no object could be discerned six inches from the glass, and my beautiful Aquarium was transformed to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... regular features, heavily handsome. One of those fair Englishmen who grow darker after adolescence; hair, moustache and skin acquiring a dull sombreness in fairness. But Brodrick's face gained in its effect from the dusky opacity that intensified the peculiar blueness of his eyes. They were eyes which lacked, curiously, the superficial social gaze, which fixed themselves, undeviating and intent, on the one object of his interest. As he entered they were fixed ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... individuals pass me by, fine buildings tower on either hand; it does not occur to me that I may look too closely. To find the people assuming the concrete and individual, is not, as I fondly imagine, the last triumph of realisation, but the swimming moment of opacity before the film gives way. To come to individual emotional cases, is to ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... keratonyxis was performed on the right eye, upon which a severe iritis ensued, terminating in atrophy of the eyeball. Within the next four years two similar operations were performed on the left eye without success. The color of the opacity became, however, of a clearer white, and the patient acquired a certain sensation of light, which he did not seem to have had before ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... light to the eye of him who perceived him. Now, as the angels possess knowledge and power far beyond anything we can imagine, we need not be astonished if they can form aerial bodies, which are rendered visible by the opacity they impart to them. In respect to the organs necessary to these aerial bodies, to form sounds and make themselves heard, without having any recourse to the disposition of matter, we must attribute them entirely ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... among which these pebbles are dispersed is taken up by the rivers, fed into continual strength by the Alpine snow, so that, however pure their waters may be when they issue from the lakes at the foot of the great chain, they become of the color and opacity of clay before they reach the Adriatic; the sediment which they bear is at once thrown down as they enter the sea, forming a vast belt of low land along the eastern coast of Italy. The powerful stream of the Po of course builds forward the fastest; on each side of it, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... common tadpoles, and an intolerant pollywog offers worthy research for the naturalist. Straining their medium of its opacity, I drew off the clayey liquid and replaced it with the clearer brown, wallaba-stained water of the Mazaruni; and thereafter all their doings, all their intimacies, were at my mercy. I felt as must ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... his words had summoned it, a liquid opacity, like a piece of clouded glass, thrust itself between their eyes and the landscape. So suddenly it came that Stuart actually did not realize that this was falling rain, until, looking at the ground, he saw the earth dissolve into mud before his eyes and saw the garden turn into what seemed ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... us a cup of coffee about five o'clock, and we then started for home. The last mile of our walk was performed in the dark. The forest in this part is obscure even in broad daylight, but I was scarcely prepared for the intense opacity of darkness which reigned here on this night, and which prevented us from seeing each other while walking side by side. Nothing occurred of a nature to alarm us, except that now and then a sudden rush was heard among the trees, and once ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Convolutions that are seldom in action shrink in size, and the adjacent bone grows in upon them. Thus the skull becomes thinner at the site of every active organ, and thicker over every convolution that is inactive. The translucency or opacity of the different parts of the skull, when a light is placed in its interior, generally indicates the active and inactive organs. Hence, many skulls of fine exterior reveal, upon interior examination, a degenerate character. Criminal heads generally ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... to lie in the temperament and in the transmuting and modifying medium. More or less of filtration does it all. Nature makes the poet, not by adding to, but by taking from; she takes all blur and opacity out of him; condenses, intensifies; lifts his nerves nearer the surface, sharpens his senses, and brings his whole organization to an edge. Sufficient filtration would convert charcoal into diamonds; and we shall everywhere find that the purest, most precious substances are the result ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... was the greatest calamity that had ever befallen mankind; and that their only hope now was to rake the rubbish together, and rebuild it without any of those loopholes by which the light had originally crept in. To qualify himself for a coadjutor in this laudable task, he plunged into the central opacity of Kantian metaphysics, and lay perdu several years in transcendental darkness, till the common daylight of common sense became intolerable to his eyes. He called the sun an ignis fatuus; and exhorted ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... would grow warm from touching your letters. Now you are not writing any more letters. You are wearing a black dress." Madame Zanidov leaned forward as if striving with her closed eyes to pierce a sudden opacity. "This is very odd," she declared. "I can see no more pictures. For there is a darkness which grows larger and larger, which obscures everything. So now I must discover what this darkness means. Please be ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman |
