"Parachute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frantically. In spite of the hard hitting the game was closely contested, the All-Americas finally bearing off the honors by a score of 15 to 13. Following the game Prof. Bartholomew gave his first balloon ascension and parachute drop in Australia, a performance that was new to the Australians, and that they ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... season. Let me reckon them up. There were the horse, the bull, the parachute, - and the tumbler hanging on - chiefly by his toes, I believe - below the car. Very wrong, indeed, and decidedly to be stopped. But, in connexion with these and similar dangerous exhibitions, it strikes me that that portion of the public whom they entertain, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... too badly scared for tears. Mr. Miller, you seem to be in charge of this expedition—couldn't you do something? Throw out ballast, or let the boy down in a parachute? Or I've read of a shipwreck where the survivors, in an open boat, joined in a cry, and attracted the notice of a vessel that was going to pass them. We might join ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... located in Area 3, Rogers Dry Lake. We were gazing upward toward a formation of two P-82's and an A-26 aircraft flying at 20,000 feet. They were preparing to carry out a seat-ejection experiment. We observed a round object, white aluminum color, which at first resembled a parachute canopy. Our first impression was that a premature ejection of the seat and dummy had occurred but this was not the case. The object was lower than 20,000 feet, and was falling at three times the rate observed for the test parachute, which ejected thirty seconds after we first saw the object. As the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... drunk of the wines of the dews of an immortal youth, and dieted on the ambrosial ether of gods, and sent his seedling offspring sailing ten thousand airy seas with the wind for master pilot and never a craft but the gypsy parachute of a seed with wings shaken out from the cones purpling to ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... crowd of a county fair at a parachute act. For the next puff may get him. Who knows this better than the aviator? He is, likely, an old hand at the game; or, if he is not, he has all the experience of other veterans to go by. His ruse is the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Darius Green expressed it so long ago, the trouble about flying comes when you want to alight. That holds as true to-day with the most perfect airplanes, as in boyhood days when one jumped from the barn in perfect confidence that the family umbrella would serve as a parachute. To alight with an airplane the pilot—supposing his descent to be voluntary and not compelled by accident or otherwise—surveys the country about him for a level field, big and clear enough for the machine ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Bosch birds come over disguised as clouds and spit mouthfuls of red-hot tracer-bullets at it, and then the observers hop out. One of them "hopped out" into my horse-lines last week. That is to say his parachute caught in a tree and he hung swinging, like a giant pendulum, over my horses' backs until we lifted him down. He came into "Mon Repos" to have bits of tree picked out of him. This was the sixth plunge overboard he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... (Iowa) Weekly Patriot," a disdainful handwave referred this description to Gootes; "some miserable castoff from a fourthrate quickie studio masquerading as a newscameraman; and a party of sheep—perhaps I could simplify my whole sentence by saying merely a party of bloody sheep—will be landed by parachute on top of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... failed; but the shelf was nearly all rock, against some fragments of which the stick was propped. There was no failure then. There came up a faint rasping sound as of wood over stone, as the cord tightened, and then very slowly the umbrella began, parachute-like, to rise in the air, higher and higher, as it was hauled up hand over hand till the spike touched the lower twigs of the horizontal ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... laughter, and just then Scowl grabbed the leg of the male bird, that was planted in his breast while it removed tufts of his wool with its hooked beak, and leapt boldly from the nest, which had become too hot to hold him. The eagle's outspread wings broke his fall, for they acted as a parachute; and so did Umbezi, upon whom he chanced to land. Springing from the prostrate shape of the chief, who now had a bruise in front to match that behind, Scowl, covered with pecks and scratches, ran like ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... a story and enclosed it in one of several leather cylinders he had provided for this purpose. Each one had a sort of miniature parachute connected to it, and a flag to attract attention as ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... chopped meat—offers the possibility of a new and neglected sport, in effect the inversion of baiting a school of fish. Toss a grasshopper into the air and he has only time to spread his wings for a parachute to earth, when a bat swoops past so quickly that the eyes refuse to see any single effort—but the grasshopper has vanished. As for the piece of meat, it is drawn like a magnet to the fierce little face. Once ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... into space and trusting one's parachute to do its business properly. I felt a sudden tightening inside me as I thought of that dive into the void, ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... a grenade and not a parachute? Some remnant rather of the ancient folly, Some touch of times before the Big Dispute? I have it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... very gently when the gas gives out." said the man. "It's almost like a parachute. Your children will come down like feathers. We'll get up a searching party and go after them." He knew there was great danger but he did not want to add ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope
... an occasion when he might put these wings to good use, for if he spread them in the air and then leaped over the side of the basket they would act in the same way a parachute does, and bear him gently to ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... looked, he saw a package drop over the side of the cabin. It fell straight downward, with tremendous velocity. But there came a sudden check. It was attached to a parachute. The parachute had opened. Its course was now marked by a little down-rush, then a pause, then a ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... if we're in the moving picture business we will have to learn to take chances. I read in the paper the other day how a couple leaped from the Brooklyn Bridge with a parachute—a man and woman." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... this morning bright and fair, Eddying round and round they sink Softly, slowly: one might think, 10 From the motions that are made, Every little leaf conveyed Sylph or Faery hither tending,— To this lower world descending, Each invisible and mute, 15 In his wavering parachute. ——But the Kitten, how she starts, Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts! [3] First at one, and then its fellow Just as light and just as yellow; 20 There are many now—now one— Now they stop and there are none: What intenseness of desire In her upward eye of fire! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... but rude. It was due to a steadily increasing discomfort in his tail. It was not the first time, however, that he had realized that a long, tapering tail has its disadvantages as well as its uses. As a controllable balancing-pole, there is probably nothing to equal it. As a parachute, it serves its purpose in a precipitate leap. As a decoy, it frequently disturbs the enemy's aim. But, when once it is firmly jammed, it is liable to congestion, and this ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... tree should break," he exclaimed, in a frightened whisper, "it would be the last of a fellow! No one could drop down there, and save his neck without a parachute. I guess the best thing I can do is to get over as ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... computed for various distances from X, and curves were then plotted which were checked against the theoretical predictions of what the pressures would be. A further check was afforded from the readings obtained by the measuring instruments which were dropped by parachute at each atomic attack. The peak pressure figures gave a direct clue to the equivalent T.N.T. tonnage of the atomic bombs, since the pressures developed by any given amount of T.N.T. can ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... trigger the report of a gun resounded from the bottom of the valley. A white smoke rose from between two masses of basalt, and the condor, shot in the head, gradually turned over and began to fall, supported by his great wings spread out like a parachute. He had not let go his prey, but gently sank down with it on the ground, about ten ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... infantrymen wasn't half as much fun as knocking down balloons. They went up with such a glorious bang! And it was delicious to watch the frightened observer tumble over the side of the basket in an effort to escape by parachute. That last one had somehow gotten fouled in the rigging and had been clawing frantically when the bag exploded. As for that, Yancey had been sorry; not for the man, but because he had wanted to see the parachute poof-op! ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... I can get around as well as the next one. And when I get to sailing through the air, I expect to have wings. Then, if any accident comes along, it's me to flap my feathers, and drop like a thistle-down. In other words, Larry, I've got a parachute all arranged that will let me down easy; just like the fellow at the county fair, who drops from ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... very tall, of less than a foot in diameter, and rising in a straight shaft to the height of nearly a hundred feet. On the top is a splendid head of leaves like gigantic ostrich plumes, that gracefully curve over on all sides, forming a shape like a parachute. Each leaf is full five yards in length, and of the kind called pinnate—that is divided into numerous leaflets, each of which is itself more than a foot and a half long, shaped like the blade of a rapier. Under the shadow of this graceful plumage the fruit is produced, just below the point where ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... was soon granted: and from this time there is a great deal of correspondence (mainly with Mr Baily) upon the details of the experiment and the theory of the calculation.—On July 24th I saw the descent of the parachute by which Mr Cocking was killed. I attended the coroner's inquest and gave evidence a ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... stretched between the fingers and along the sides of the body. It has teeth. It suckles its young. In all these respects it differs from birds. It differs from mammals only in its wings. But we remember that flying squirrels have a membrane stretching along the sides of the body and serving as a parachute, though not as wings. We naturally consider the wings as a sort of after-thought superinduced on the mammalian structure. We do not hesitate to call it ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... take with him, he opened a locker, exposing to view four suits which he had made in his spare time, each adapted to a particular method of escape from the Skylark. The one he selected was of heavy canvas, braced with steel netting, equipped with helmet and air-tanks, and attached to a strong, heavy parachute. He put it on, tested all its parts, and made his way unobserved to one of the doors in the lower part of the vessel. Thus, when the chance for escape came, he was ready for it. As the Skylark paused over the Isthmus, his lips parted in a sardonic smile. He ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... a fountain," said a Brown Pelican that had come sailing into Cuthbert Rookery with her wings sloped downward like a parachute. "It was the gold-seekers who filled the islands with the thunder of their guns and the smoke ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... pilot objects to attacking the observers with machine-gun fire, he is to strew their parachutes with autumn leaves and such field-flowers as the season affords. Now, listen! What difference, ethically, is there, between attacking one observation officer in a parachute, and dropping a ton of bombs on a train-load of soldiers? And to kill the observers is really more important than to destroy the balloon. If you are going to be a military pilot, for the love of Pete and ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... Softly, slowly: one might think, 10 From the motions that are made, Every little leaf convey'd Sylph or Faery hither tending, To this lower world descending, Each invisible and mute, In his wavering parachute. —But the Kitten, how she starts, Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts; First at one and then it's fellow Just as light and just as yellow; 20 There are many now—now one— Now they stop; and there are none— What intenseness of desire In ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... parachute lights fired from "Little Archibald," as we called the special gun used for these larger flares, revealed nothing, so I gave up in disgust, woke the only two men who had not been disturbed all night, tied a couple of sandbags around each ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry
... the Skimming System the fermentation from start to finish takes place in wooden vessels (termed "squares" or "rounds"), fitted with an attemperator and a parachute or other similar skimming device for removing or "skimming" the yeast at the end of the fermentation (fig. 4). The principle of (b) the Dropping System is that the beer undergoes only the main fermentation in the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... oak, hollow, and disfigured with white tumors, its roots spreading out like accipitrine claws grasping the ground. A chilly wind circled round them, upon whose currents the seeds of a neighboring lime-tree, supported parachute-wise by the wing attached, flew out of the boughs downward like fledglings from their nest. The vale was wrapped in a dim atmosphere of unnaturalness, and the east was like a livid curtain edged with pink. There was no ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... in the absence of protection for the young birds. When they grow large and feel strong they bubble, as it were, over the edge of the cup-shaped nest. Their wings, though not yet full-grown, save them from injury in descent by spreading out like a parachute, but are powerless to assist them after reaching the ground. In the grass they are the prey of rooks, crows, magpies, jackdaws, snakes, rats, and cats. They have no means of escape whatever: they cannot fly nor run—the tall grass stops running—and ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Martin, and were not due for some days, as Angelo had taken his bride to Ireland, to show her to a much loved cousin, the Duchess of Clare. Also there was the week of aviation, to which Vanno had been looking forward with interest during the voyage from Alexandria to Marseilles. A parachute which he had invented was to be used for ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... end of the rocket's travel, and to emit a bright light during its slow descent. It consists of a small cylindrical cardboard box (Fig. 16) filled with common star paste or Lamarre stars, and attached to a parachute, e, by means of a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... bag," suggested Tom. "Then we can decide what is best to be done. We are still quite high, and it will take some time to complete our fall, as, even if everything is gone, the material of the bag will act as a sort of parachute." ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... fly by the aid of this ingenious machinery. You will see that his wings are arranged so that they are moved by his legs, and also by cords attached to his arms. The umbrella over his head is not intended to ward off the rain or the sun, but is to act as a sort of parachute, to keep him from falling while he is making his strokes. The basket, which hangs down low enough to be out of the way of his feet, is filled with provisions, which he expects to need in the course of ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... courtship. I have seen the female sitting quietly on a branch, and two males displaying their charms in front of her. One would shoot up like a rocket, then suddenly expanding the snow-white tail like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to show off both back and front. The effect was heightened by the wings being invisible from a distance of a few yards, both from their great velocity of movement and from not having the metallic lustre of the rest ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... real danger area is 'No-Man's-Land,' for it is on that mighty graveyard stretching from Switzerland to the sea that the enemy's eyes are bent. The regiments used to get various kinds of flares to experiment with. We used to laugh over an incident that occurred when a new type, a species of parachute, had been served out. The Second-in-command, who fired it, miscalculated the strength of the wind, which was blowing from the enemy's trench, and the flare was carried in a stately curve backwards until it was directly over ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... interesting to let you get sick right away. Pop was poking into two of the large mound-shaped cases that were sitting loose and open on the right-hand seat, as if ready for emergency use. One had a folded something with straps on it that was probably a parachute. The second had I judged a thousand or more of the inch cubes such as I'd pried out of the Pilot's hand, all neatly stacked in a cubical box inside the soft outer bag. You could see the one-cube gap where ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... steamer for the twenty-mile trip across to Catalina Island, and on the way over they saw a whole "school" of whales and a flight of flying-fishes. Yes, really and truly, these little fish fly or sail through the air, for their fins balance them like a parachute. They skim along ten or twelve feet above the waves, and then drop in the water to rest, taking another flight whenever their enemies, the porpoises, ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... name of the Australian Dormouse Phalangers, or little Opossum- or Flying-Mice, as they are locally called. See Opossum, Opossum-mouse, and Phalanger. They are not really the "Flying"-Mice or Flying-phalanger, as they have only an incipient parachute, but they are nearly related to the Pigmy Petaurists (q.v.) or small Flying-Phalangers. (Grk. dromikos, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... over the edge of his frame, making signals of distress in all directions, and with that and his windy flights of oratory suggests twenty minutes in a balloon-car, till he comes down to earth at the finish with the Doxology for a parachute. His shepherd's crook is one long note of interrogation, with which he tries to hook down the heavens to the understanding of his hearers, and his hearers up to an understanding of himself. All his arguments are ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... linnets are minded, As blows the white-feather parachute; And ships will reel by the tempest blinded— Aye, ships and shiploads of men to boot! How deep ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... of canvas out of the tent, about three times the size of that table-cover, and plugged the hole in the centre, and I tied eight ropes round it to meet in the middle and make a parachute. The other chaps lay about and watched me as though they thought it was a new kind of delirium. Then I explained my notion to the two British soldiers and how I meant to do it, and as soon as the short dusk had darkened into night, I risked it. They ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Think of being suspended by a thread, from a height twice that of Trinity's spire, and whirled into such a depth by steam! We crawled into the little iron box, just large enough to allow us to sit up with our heads against the top, both ends of our parachute being open; the operator presses down a bar, and instantly the earth and sky disappear, and we are wrapt in utter darkness. Oh? how sickening is this sinking feeling! Down—down—down! What a gigantic dumb-waiter! Down, down, a hot gust of vapor—a stifling sensation—a concussion upon the iron ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... found him he was sleeping heavily, exhausted, in a canebrake. He hadn't even bothered to disengage his parachute harness or take off ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... not been killed in his fall because of a parachute which had been so arranged, unknown to him, to save him ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... raised by no other artificial means than the simple application of highly carbonated soda-water as manure. He explained that by scooping out the head, which would afford a new and delicious species of nourishment for the poor, a parachute, in principle something similar to that constructed by M. Garnerin, was at once obtained; the stalk of course being kept downwards. He added that he was perfectly willing to make a descent from a height of not less than three miles and a quarter; and had in fact already proposed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... round the lake A little clock-work steamer paddling plied And shook the lilies: perched about the knolls A dozen angry models jetted steam: A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves And dropt a fairy parachute and past: And there through twenty posts of telegraph They flashed a saucy message to and fro Between the mimic stations; so that sport Went hand in hand with Science; otherwhere Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamour bowled And stumped the wicket; babies rolled about Like tumbled fruit in grass; ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... balance the posterior part of the body and the filaments of the abdomen during flight. On reaching a certain height they allow themselves to descend, stretching out while doing so their long wings and tail, which then serve as a parachute. Then a rapid working of these organs suddenly changes the direction of the motion, and they begin to ascend again. Coupling takes place during these aerial dances. Soon afterward the females approach the surface of the water and lay therein their eggs, spreading them out the while with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various |
