"Barometer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man of penetration and soon realized the state of the social barometer. His hosts, who did not look at all like quiet boys, were eating their blackfish in perfect silence, save for polite requests for bread or pepper, or the occasional courteous remark, "Chuck ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... that the measurements are independent of the actual height of the barometer, and if several readings are taken continuously, the result will not be sensibly affected by a simultaneous change of the barometer. Almost all the readings were taken at a temperature of about 20 deg. C., and in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... mists of morning had cleared away from the lofty hills to the north-east of our encampment I had commenced their ascent with a party of three men. To my great vexation, on taking out the barometer at the bottom of the hill, it was broken, and I could therefore no longer hope to be able to obtain the height of remarkable elevations. I managed to ride the pony up the hill for some time, but the broken and rocky nature of the ground obliged me at last to ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... The barometer of Adam's friendliness dropped another degree. "That affair was finally settled at five thousand," he said, and this time he ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... riffles and shallows and thus deny passage under the ice to the water of fountains and springs that never ceases flowing. So it bursts forth and flows over the ice with a continually renewing surface of the smoothest texture. Carrying a mercurial barometer that one dare not intrust to a sled on one's back over such footing is a somewhat precarious proceeding, but there was no alternative, and many miles were thus passed. Up the Toklat, then up its Clearwater Fork, then up its tributary, Myrtle Creek, to its head, and so ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... following days, the 13th, 14th, and 15th of June, the barometer slowly fell, without an attempt to rise in the slightest degree, and the weather became variable, hovering between rain and wind or storm. The breeze strengthened considerably, and changed to south-westerly. It was a head-wind for the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... she should not hesitate to say so; for we all like to take things easy at times, whether it be in hunting or in anything else, according as we feel fit or otherwise. There is no gainsaying that the human barometer is regulated to a great extent by the weather, as we may see by the big fields which greet the Master ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... prophecy should be fulfilled. He knows that continuous rain depresses me, and he is awaiting a spell of it to bring me to a confession that I was wrong after all, whereupon he will make that remark so precious to the married heart, "My dear, I told you so." He begins the day by tapping the barometer, looking at the sky, and shaking his head. If there are any clouds he remarks that they are coming up, and if there are none he says it is too fine to last. He has even gone the length once or twice of starting off to the farm on hot, sunny mornings in his mackintosh, in order to impress ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the weather might not always be as calm as it is now. The barometer is falling, and that means a storm, sooner or later," spoke Mr. Vardon. "And these lake storms can be ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... a falling barometer. The first ebullition of joy at having been spared the slaughter of his friend and the brother of the girl he loved had passed and the real future stared him in the face. He began to entertain doubts as to whether a single glance from a pair of ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... addition to the ordinary thermometers, barometers, aneroids, psychrometers, hygrometers, anemometers, etc., etc., self-registering instruments were also taken. Of special importance were a self-registering aneroid barometer (barograph) and a pair of self-registering thermometers (thermographs). For astronomical observations we had a large theodolite and two smaller ones, intended for use on sledge expeditions, together with several sextants of different sizes. We had, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... other. A squall had struck us, and we were tearing along with the lee rail under water, the rain meanwhile pouring down in torrents. The squall soon passed over, but there was every appearance of the wind increasing, though the barometer still stood high. Squall followed squall in quick succession, the wind increasing in force, and the sea rapidly rising. It soon became plain that we were in for a gale of some kind, and a very little later it became ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... and chairs of wood, painted a light yellow, with black lines that were drawn by no very steady hand, were ranged opposite, and in the intervals between the other pieces of furniture. A Fahrenheit's thermometer in a mahogany case, and with a barometer annexed, was hung against the wall, at some little distance from the stove, which Benjamin consulted, every half hour, with prodigious exactitude. Two small glass chandeliers were suspended at equal distances ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... satisfaction in fifteen or twenty minutes more to see the stranger show that of the "John Adams." The wind, which had been blowing from the W. N. W. when we got under way, gradually hauled to the northwest and settled for a while at N. N. E. The barometer having fallen the night previous to 29.80 in., and being still down, and the weather looking still unsettled, I was apprehensive of a gale. As soon, therefore, as the "John Adams" showed her number, I wore round and ran down towards Verde Island, with a view of coming to, and getting ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... achromatic microscope placed before his eyes the world of the infinitely small. The air-balloon carried him above the clouds, the diving-bell to the bottom of the sea. The thermometer gave him true measures of the variations of heat; the barometer, of the pressure of the air. The introduction of the balance imparted exactness to chemistry, it proved the indestructibility of matter. The discovery of oxygen, hydrogen, and many other gases, the isolation of aluminum, calcium, and other metals, showed that earth ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Latin verses; many had written such verses with tolerable success, and were quite able to appreciate, though by no means able to rival, the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer and the Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris was as unintelligible as ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... morn?" is, therefore, a common question amongst all sorts and conditions of men along Tweedside in the fishing seasons, and at the visit now under course of recall there was assuredly ample excuse for the formula. It soon transpired that the old-fashioned barometer in the hall had been having a hard time of it for many days. The master of the house never passed from drawing- to dining-room without an anxious tap. While the maids were doing their ante-breakfast work I myself stole down and consulted it, opened the front door, studied ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... on the storm held steadily; steadily and rapidly the barometer kept counting backward; and we took the river's width in wind and sea for half the night. We could not sleep, and sat bolstered up in our chairs. The Commodore quite likely did breathe audibly now ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... increased in violence. We got now the lift of the steamer's bow, staggering under tons of water, and the whir of the screw in mid-air. The captain glanced at the barometer, drew his body to its full height, reached for his storm-coat, slipped it on, and was about to swing back the door opening on the deck, when the chirp of a canary rang through the room. At the sound he turned quickly and walked back ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... he looked about, after the young men had departed, he saw signs of a change in the weather that in a moment drove all other thoughts out of his head. He limped into the cabin companionway to look at the barometer. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... "Yes; and the barometer indicates that we are to have a bad day of it," I replied, looking at the white caps that rolled up to windward of ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... private dwelling, I watch with eager interest the Spanish orange and red banner, which, on a certain day, waves over the Teatro Real de Cuba, in token of an evening's performance. If the weather prove unfavourable, this fluttering emblem of fine weather will fall like a barometer; the doors of the theatre will close, and a notice, postponing the entertainments for another evening, will be affixed over the entrance. Such an event is, however, not in store; and at seven o'clock precisely the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... fell, Gascoyne went forward, and, seating himself on a forecastle carronade, appeared to fall into a deep reverie. Montague paced the quarter-deck impatiently, glancing from time to time down the skylight at the barometer which hung in the cabin, and at the vane which drooped motionless from the masthead. He acted with the air of a man who was deeply dissatisfied with the existing state of things, and who felt inclined to take ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... I dammed one of the streams in the meadow and put the mill in operation. This invention was speedily followed by a lot of others,—water-wheels, curious doorlocks and latches, thermometers, hygrometers, pyrometers, clocks, a barometer, an automatic contrivance for feeding the horses at any required hour, a lamp-lighter and fire-lighter, an early-or-late-rising machine, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... frontier.... The Government, whether it is sincerely desirous of peace, or whether it is preparing a coup, is now doing all that it can to allay these anxieties.... Their optimism to order is, in fact, without an echo; the nervousness of the Bourse, a barometer which cannot be neglected, is a sure proof of this; without exception, stocks have fallen to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... pass on to the artistic Boxing-day keepers at the National Gallery. The walk will take us through the Seven Dials, and can scarcely fail to be suggestive. It is now one o'clock, the traditional hour of dinner; and in Broad Street, St. Giles's, I see, for the first time to-day, the human barometer evidently standing at "much wet." A gentleman in a grey coat and red comforter, who bears palpable signs of having been more than once on his back, has just reached that perplexing point of inebriety when he can walk quickly or run, but cannot stand still ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... tea-tray, and Captain Scottie settled into his large armchair to enjoy it. His eye glanced automatically at the barometer. ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... proposition because water boils at a lower temperature, with less heat, when the weight of the atmosphere is less than normal, as it is at great elevations, and on days when, as we now express it, there is a low barometer. Long before any cook could explain the fact it was known that the water boiling quickly was a sign of storm. It has often been found by camping-parties on mountains that in an attempt to boil potatoes in a pot the water would all ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... extraneous influences of a disturbing character, an infant population is almost entirely exempted; and on this account it is considered that an infant population constitutes, as it were, a delicate barometer, from which we may derive more early and more certain indications of the presence and comparative force of local causes of mortality and disease than can be obtained from the more general methods of ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... tubes of the long glass, had observed with quiet bitterness to Mr. Baker that, after fighting our way inch by inch to the Western Islands, there was nothing to expect now but a spell of calm. The sky was clear and the barometer high. The light breeze dropped with the sun, and an enormous stillness, forerunner of a night without wind, descended upon the heated waters of the ocean. As long as daylight lasted, the hands collected on the forecastle-head ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... revolver, a hunting knife, and some fishing tackle; one three and a quarter by four and a quarter folding pocket kodak, one panorama kodak, a sextant and artificial horizon, a barometer, a thermometer. I wore a short skirt over knickerbockers, a short sweater, and a belt to which were attached my cartridge pouch, revolver, and hunting knife. My hat was a rather narrow brimmed soft felt. I had one pair of heavy leather moccasins reaching almost to my knees, one ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... bunk, and, pulling on some clothes, I made my way into the cabin. At first I saw nothing unusual there. In the cold, grey light I made out the red-clothed table, the six rotating chairs, the walnut lockers, the swinging barometer, and there, at the end, the big striped chest. I was turning away, with the intention of going upon deck and asking the second mate if he had heard anything, when my eyes fell suddenly upon something which projected from under the ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whereas with gases it is different. Thus, 100 c.c. of an ordinary aqueous solution would, if heated from 10 C. to 20 C., expand to about 100.15 c.c. 100 c.c. of a gas similarly warmed would expand to about 103.5 c.c., and a fall of one inch in the barometer would have a very similar effect. And in measuring gases we have not only to take into account variations in volume due to changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, but also that which is observed ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... with the Foreland lights ahead and infinite possibilities all around. The captain drinks his whisky and hot water with a certain slow appreciation of the merits of that reprehensible solution, and glances at the aneroid barometer on the ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... shown himself!... The friends walked arm in arm. They spoke but little, but they were very glad of each other. A few words were enough to call up all their tender memories of the intimate past. They stopped in front of a mairie to look at the barometer, which had an ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... this volume, and thus contributing to the general stock of human knowledge. It is also his pleasing duty to state, that during the long journey of upwards of a year, Captain P. P. King, R. N., kept a register of the state of the barometer at the sea side; and, in the midst of his important avocations, determined, by a very elaborate comparison of minute details, all the heights of localities ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... were more than probably fellow countrymen and women of the speaker; but they may have been 'low' all the same in her social barometer, for they pitched and flung, hurled and threw all the missiles they could lay hands on into the carriage of their unmistakable compatriots, with hearty delight; since the gentleman, who was not gentle, sat upright as a church steeple, never moving a muscle, and ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... chilled; fear seized on all on board, and men who a short time before were full of courage and strength now became as helpless as children. The current was less rapid inside, but the noise increased and became even more bewildering; while the barometer would rise and fall quickly, and the compasses became agitated under the influence of some strong magnetic disorder. Every few minutes deep and rumbling sounds would break in the distance, roll along the cavern, and echo and reecho through the great arches overhead. And ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... converted their new-born joys seemed to be unending. They thought that this exaltation of spirit was the normal state of a Christian. They gloried in it as the days passed by. The time came, however, when this emotional glow subsided. As the barometer of their feelings fell, they began to question themselves thus: "What is the matter with me? Have I done something wrong? Am I mistaken in thinking that I was saved?" Thus, their faith fell with their emotions. After a while their emotions rose again, and their faith rose with their emotions. ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... became overcast, heavy masses of dark, thunderous cloud slowly gathering in the south-western quarter and gradually spreading athwart the sky until the whole of the visible heavens were obscured. The barometer dropped slightly, indicating, in conjunction with the aspect of the sky, a probable change of wind and a consequent interruption to ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... silver spoon—for there the features, though distorted, would be visible, here they were not. Certainly if such mirrors are the only medium of reflection the people of Reyker possess, they will not grow vain of their personal attractions. The room also contained a barometer and an accordion. In most of the houses we entered we found the latter instrument, which the people, being fond of music, amuse themselves with during the long winter evenings. Curiously enough, there is little or no native music, however. ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... way disposed to throw obstacles in your way; but they, unhappily for you, have with them the inevitable cars with the inevitable carmen, both of which are enough to make your blood freeze, though the barometer stands very high. What with their indolence, what with their number and the dust they made, I really thought they would drive me mad before I should reach Casalmaggiore on my way from Torre Malamberti. I started from the former place ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Coffee was brought. The smoking saloon was inaccessible, owing to the closing of the gangway, but the chief steward suggested that the gentlemen might smoke if the ladies were agreeable. Under such circumstances the ladies always are agreeable, and the instant result was a distinct rise in the social barometer. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the glittering of the eyes, and certain movements of the muscles of the mouth, which reveal cheerfulness. A certain degree of heat is also said to be the expression of fever, as the falling of the barometer is of rain, and even that the height of the rate of exchange expresses the discredit of the paper-money of a State, or social discontent the approach of a revolution. One can well imagine what sort of scientific results would ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... glad that in this sanitarium they take the temperature by tucking the barometer-thing under the arm. My doctor at home always puts it under the tongue, and it is a perfect nuisance. He never gets it well placed but that I think of something I want to say. Then, of course, I have to keep still for three minutes, which seem three hundred, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... enough who would appear in my defence, were it necessary; but I never supposed that any one here could be so weak as to believe there was any such thing as a witch. If I am a witch, this is my charm, and (laying a barometer upon the table) it is with this," says she, "that I have taught my neighbours to know the ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... that communication trench were two feet above our heads. We noticed that all the men were in their dug-outs; none were walking about in the open. One knew the meaning of this barometer— stormy. The German gunners were "strafing" in a very lively way ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... that the interstitial cells of the sex glands are most sensitive to all kinds of other influences, and, in particular, the other internal secretory organs. They may indeed be watched as an index scale or barometer of the general tone of the whole internal secretion system. Sex variations offer a variety of clues to variations, disturbances, predominances and abnormalities in all the components of the ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... get—whatever you may state— Much rain. The Woodpecker of which fools sing Ne'er tapped Half so persistently. Since Spring I've rapped Your fair false dial day by day, And yet The end—whatever you may say Is wet! 'Twas wet in June, and in July Wet too; In August it is wetter. Why, Trust you? Barometer, you false old chap, You bore! I'm no Woodpecker, and I'll ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... had forgotten all about them by this time, and was speaking to the Warden again. "You'll be glad to hear," he was saying, "that the Barometer's beginning ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... rate he reached the brink of the descent before any of the rest. They unconsciously kept their eyes on Fritz. He would serve as a barometer, and from his actions they could tell pretty well the conditions existing down below. If Fritz exhibited any symptoms of horror, then it would afford them a chance to steel their nerves against the sight, before ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... be reached, Gay Lussac alone made a second ascent, on the morning of September 15, 1804, from the garden of the Repository of Models, and rose, by a gradual ascent, to a great elevation. He continued to take observations at short intervals of the state of the barometer, the thermometer, and the hygrometer, of which he has given a tabular view, but he unfortunately neglected to mark the time at which they were made—a point of material importance, for the results would of course be modified by the progress ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... tragic, between two of the leading nations of the West, to another and still more terrible which swept the whole world into the maelstrom; and marked in thought by a certain dispersion and depression of mind, a falling in the barometer of temperament and imagination, but also by a grappling with realities at closer quarters. No wonder that some have seen here a 'tragedy of hope' and the ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... test of home conditions prejudicial to health that will register the fact as a thermometer tells us the temperature, or as a barometer shows moisture and air pressure? The house address alone is not enough, for many children surrounded by wealth are denied health rights, such as the right to play, to breathe pure air, to eat wholesome food, to live sanely. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... largely; that the last harvest was an excellent one; and that the banks—savings banks, Post Office banks, and ordinary banks—are richer than they have ever been, whilst the consumption of whisky—that sure barometer of Irish prosperity—is increasing beyond all former experience. In addition to this, I venture to say that, with certain local exceptions, the Irish peasant is better clothed than any other peasants in the world. The people ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... will see what can be done, and whether—but listen, the king is awake, and has opened his window. He is playing upon the flute, which is his morning custom. His morning music is always the barometer of his mood, and I can generally judge what kind of royal weather we will have, whether bright or stormy. Come with me to the window ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the arm horizontally out of the water, and you feel it burdened by a great weight; air is therefore heavy. Put air in equilibrium with other bodies, and you can measure its weight. From these observations were constructed the barometer, the siphon, the air-gun, and the air-pump. All the laws of statics and hydrostatics were discovered by experiments as simple as these. I would not have my pupil study them in a laboratory of experimental ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... day many hours of the morning were already spent. And never shall I forget the aspect of day when it came. It was like a ghost or pale shadow of the glorious days of July with which we are usually blessed. The barometer did not go down, nor was there any rain, but an unusual greyness wrapped earth and sky. I heard people say in the streets, and I am aware that the same words came to my own lips: 'If it were not full summer, ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... compliment it could be called. She was not sure that he did not exceed his license in telling her deliberately that he had meant to hover near her in a private journey which she was taking without reference to him. She did not object to the act, but to the avowal of the act; and, being as sensitive as a barometer on signs affecting her social condition, it darted upon Ethelberta for one little moment that he might possibly have heard a word or two about her being nothing more nor less than one of a tribe of thralls; hence ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... at this time, towards the end of my second week at Greenton, that I noticed what was probably not a new trait—Mr. Jaffrey's curious sensitiveness to atmospherical changes. He was as sensitive as a barometer. The approach of a storm sent his mercury down instantly. When the weather was fair he was hopeful and sunny, and Andy's prospects were brilliant. When the weather was overcast and threatening he grew restless and despondent, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the last of the dishes a brief touch of the dish-towel and then ran into the main room to watch the barometer. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the day and night had passed, and it was once more morning. The world on which I reopened my eyes swam strangely up and down; the jewels in the bag that lay beside me clinked together ceaselessly; the clock and the barometer wagged to and fro like pendulums; and overhead, seamen were singing out at their work, and coils of rope clattering and thumping on the deck. Yet it was long before I had divined that I was at sea; long before I had recalled, one after another, the tragical, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... busy—messages that certain batteries had started to move, demands from the staff captain for a final return showing the shortage of gas-shell gauntlets, and for lists of area stores that we expected to hand over, and a request from the adjutant to bring the barometer that he had overlooked—that there was ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... and went in his confusion over to the barometer on the wall; he examined it carefully and ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... stage. He had once had a tail. But that was a long story: added to which there was not time to tell it. Little Sally St. Leonard played his wife, and Robina was his mother-in-law. So much depends upon one's mood. What an ocean of boredom might be saved if science could but give us a barometer foretelling us our changes of temperament! How much more to our comfort we could plan our lives, knowing that on Monday, say, we should be feeling frivolous; on ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the very low temperatures on the earth under the equator, at a height where the barometer stands at about three times as high as on Mars, proves, that from scantiness of atmosphere alone Mars cannot possibly have a temperature as high as the freezing point of water; and this proof is supported by ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... traced to some cause in the conduct of the individual, as certainly as the loss of a man, in a game of draughts, is the consequence of a "wrong move" by the player!—And poor Matthew's accusation of Fate put me in mind of the school-boy, who, during a wet vacation, rushed vindictively at the barometer, and struck it in the face, exclaiming—"Only three holidays left, and still this plaguey glass says 'very wet;'—I can't bear it—I can't—and ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... warning Dorothy had given him returned to his mind, and with it the fear that the pastor was under a delusion—that, as a rich man is sometimes not unnaturally seized with the mania of imagined poverty, so this poor man's mental barometer had, from excess of poverty, turned its index right round ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... so far advanced as to render the old stability of the breezes a little uncertain. The zephyr had come early, and it had come fresh; but there were symptoms of a sirocco about the barometer and in the atmosphere. This rendered all in the ships eager to secure their prize before a shift of wind should come. Now that there were three fast vessels in chase, none doubted of the final result; and Cuffe paced the quarter-deck of the Proserpine, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the book was closed before he reached Rosamond's corner, and as he took his seat with easy confidence on the other side of her, young Plymdale's jaw fell like a barometer towards the cheerless side of change. Rosamond enjoyed not only Lydgate's presence but its effect: she liked to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... like a master. Now he was playing with it, hovering round it lightly, with a tantalizing approach and flight; now he had gripped it tight, there was no more wandering from the point than may be seen in the vacillations of a well-behaved barometer; the slender topic seemed to grow under his touch, to take on the proportions of his own enormous egotism; he spoke of last autumn and the next parish as if he were dealing with immensities of time and ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... strength to preserve my son's secret had failed me, and my only chance of resisting the betrayal of it lay in the childish resource of keeping out of the way. I shut myself into my room till I could bear it no longer. I watched my opportunity, and paid stolen visits over and over again to the barometer in the hall. I mounted to Morgan's rooms at the top of the tower, and looked out hopelessly through rain-mist and scud for signs of a carriage on the flooded valley-road below us. I stole down again to the servants' hall, and questioned ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... attended by a boat from the floating light, again stood towards the Bell Rock. The weather felt extremely cold this morning, the thermometer being at 34 degrees, with the wind at east, accompanied by occasional showers of snow, and the marine barometer indicated 29.80. At half-past seven the sea ran with such force upon the rock that it seemed doubtful if a landing could be effected. At half-past eight, when it was fairly above water, the writer took his place in the floating ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suns, birds singing, etc., in midwinter, with a cool, steady breeze from the sea invigorating me all the while, is no doubt just what I require; but to-day we have a north-easter, which answers to your south-west wind, with pouring rain, and yet my spirits are not going down with the barometer. All the same, the said barometer will probably soon recover himself; for I believe these heavy storms seldom last long. There is no fire in the room where I sit, which is the Bishop's room when he is here; no fire-place indeed, as it opens into Mrs. Selwyn's room. The thermometer ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jack Benson, frigidly, eyeing the detected one. "It's a barometer, and it shows which way a meddler ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... may even give everything away and so have nothing for himself. The world will furnish him with countless opportunities both of great joy and bitter grief, so the readings of the temperament-chart of the artist will be apt to resemble the variations of a barometer when changeable weather is about. Genius is thus as a rule variable to the verge ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... the library and got very little for their pains. The whole place was turned upside down, drawers burst open, and presses ransacked, with the result that an odd volume of Pope's 'Homer,' two plated candlesticks, an ivory letter-weight, a small oak barometer, and a ball of twine are all ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Teddy: I hear him tapping the new barometer. He can't have anything serious on his mind or he wouldn't do that. Perhaps Georgina hasn't said anything. [She steals back to the hearth]. Try and look as if there was nothing the matter. Give me my gloves, quick. [He hands them to her. She pulls on one hastily and begins buttoning it with ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... allowed his attention to wander from Hilma Tree, he found that he had been staring fixedly at a thermometer upon the wall opposite, and this made him think that it had long been his intention to buy a fine barometer, an instrument that could be accurately depended on. But the barometer suggested the present condition of the weather and the likelihood of rain. In such case, much was to be done in the way of getting the seed ready and overhauling ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... seemed to me that there must be clouds—as though the weather were going to change. It's very odd when one is ill, it seems as if the sky were much nearer. Oh, I'm a capital barometer now." And she went on reading the book she had ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... of the British dominions in the south of Africa is one of the finest in the world. The average height of the barometer is above thirty inches, and the average summer heat at noon is about 78 deg. It resembles the climate of Italy, but is rather warmer and dryer. It is so dry, that draining is little required for the ground: on the contrary, it is necessary to retain moisture as much as possible, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... population enjoy the advantages of tropical regularity. There are two brief rainy seasons on the Equator and in its neighbourhood, and one at each of the tropics. Outside these the cold of winter is aggravated by cloud and mist. The barometer records from 20 inches to 21 inches at the sea-level. Storms are slight, brief, and infrequent; the tides are insignificant; and sea-voyages were safe and easy even before Martial ingenuity devised vessels which are almost independent of weather. During ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... upon his horse all his scientific and culinary instruments. He had suspended at the pommel of the saddle a thermometer, a rum calabash, and a coffee-boiler, while behind the saddle hung a store of pots and cups, frying-pan, a barometer, a sextant, and a long spy-glass. The nag was grazing, when one of the instruments fell down, at which the beast commenced kicking, to show his displeasure. The more he kicked, the greater was the rattling of the cups and pans; the brute was now quite terrified; ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... had begun by this time to check off the state of the instruments. The thermometer and the barometer were all right, except one self-recorder of which the glass had got broken. An excellent aneroid barometer, taken safe and sound out of its wadded box, was carefully hung on a hook in the wall. It marked not only the pressure of the air ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... said the teacher. "I am glad to see you, and make sure that you are not on the sea. I was just going to inquire. The barometer has fallen with such rapidity during the last half hour. I have never seen anything like it. We are surely going to have a change ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... yesterday's trading may be lined up alongside the day following, fighting with instead of against. It is all in the day's business and the strenuous competition on the floor, into which the uninitiated visitor reads all manner of animosity and open anger, is a very misleading barometer to the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... aneroid barometer, to indicate extreme pressures of the atmosphere. An ordinary barometer would not have answered the purpose, as the pressure would increase during our descent to a point which the mercurial barometer [1] ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... holders carrying dispatch-cases, and all of them anxious, their resolute pace makes it evident, for work. This morning two aeroplanes were over us in the blue, in mimic combat; they were, of course, getting into trim for the raid to-night, because the barometer is beautifully high and steady. But the people on their way to the 9.30 did not look up at the flight. Life is real, life is earnest. When I doubt that humanity knows what it is doing, I get comfort from watching ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... needed was to harness a pony, and the drum would unroll and lay the wire as it revolved. The farmer could then sit in his office and telegraph his instructions without a moment's delay. He could tap the barometer, and wire to the bailiff in the field to be expeditious, for the mercury was falling. Practically, there was no more necessity for the farmer to go outside his office than for a merchant in Mincing Lane. The merchant did not sail in every ship whose cargo was consigned to him: ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... oppressive in northern countries. The sultry air penetrated the depths of the coal mine, and elevated the temperature. The air which entered through the ventilating shafts, and the great tunnel of Loch Malcolm, was charged with electricity, and the barometer, it was afterwards remarked, had fallen in a remarkable manner. There was, indeed, every indication that a storm might burst forth beneath the rocky vault which formed the roof of the enormous crypt of the very ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... the others of the party could see that the strangers were showing him the instrument, and apparently explaining it to him. Pretty soon Rollo returned and reported that the two young men were students, and that the instrument which they had was a metallic barometer, and that they were measuring the height ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... sucked up from the sea. The theory of waterspouts in the present day does in fact admit the supposition here referred to; that the air, being rarefied by particular causes, has its equilibrium restored by the elevation of the water, on the same principle that mercury rises in the barometer, or the contents of a well in a common pump. The opinions of the learned traveller on this subject are extremely loose and unscientific, and are only valuable in our times as marking a certain stage in the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... up a blush, and smile, and purr that she was SO glad, 'cause then she'd have comp'ny. And Eben would glower at Beriah and Beriah'd grin sort of superior-like, and the mutual barometer, so's to speak, would fall about a foot during the next hour. The brotherly business between the two prophets was coming to an end fast, and all ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... beach in front of the town of Frederickstadt, St. Croix, where she was thrown by the most fearful earthquake ever known here. The shock occurred at 3 o'clock, P. M., of the 18th inst. Up to that moment the weather was serene, and no indication of a change showed by the barometer, which stood at 30 degrees 15 minutes. The first indication we had of the earthquake was a violent trembling of the ship, resembling the blowing off of steam. This lasted some 30 seconds, and immediately afterward ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... the bulletin-board, inscribed with the hours at which ships are sighted and entered into dock: the Kaiser was not there: and with prone outlook he went seeking an assistant superintendent; but, sighting a fellow-operator, come, as usual, to digest the world, from barometer-reports to coffee-quotations at Rio, Charles P. Stickney cried to him: "Funny about ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... written: "Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any State to that of its husbandmen is the proportion of its sound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption." He rejoiced in the agricultural possibilities of America. Could he have had his way, he would have made the republic, in the apt phrase of Mr. Henry Adams, "an enlarged Virginia—a ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... extremely slow. One stretch of fifteen miles, which it took us six hours to cover, was as formidable as any part of the Turkoman desert along the Transcaspian railway. At an altitude of only six hundred feet above the sea, according to our aneroid barometer, and beneath the rays of a July sun against which even our felt caps were not much protection, we were half-dragging, half-pushing, our wheels through a foot of sand, and slapping at the mosquitos swarming ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... wanderings,—let us say in a restaurant of the Palais Royal. "Very hot," says the talking Fahrenheit (Thermometer) from Boston, and calls for an ice, which he plunges his bulb into and cools down. In comes an intelligent and socially disposed English Barometer. The two travellers greet each other, not exactly as old acquaintances, but each has heard very frequently about the other, and their relatives have been often associated. "We have a good deal in common," says the Barometer. "Of the same blood, as we may say; ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... which observation may rally. How many new relations a foot-rule alone will reveal, and to how many things still this has not been applied! What wonderful discoveries have been, and may still be, made, with a plumb-line, a level, a surveyor's compass, a thermometer, or a barometer! Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once. I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and not pure science, or are performing ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... by ditto. 7. An achromatic refracting telescope, of three and a half feet, and triple object glass, made by Mr Dollond. 8. A Hadley's sextant, by ditto. 9. Another, by Mr Ramsden. 10. An azimuth compass, by Mr Adams. 11. A pair of globes, by ditto. 12. A dipping needle, by Mr Nairne. I3. A marine barometer, by ditto. 14. A wind gage, invented by Dr Lind of Edinburgh, and made by Mr Nairne. 15. Two portable barometers, made by Mr Burton. 16. Six thermometers, by ditto. 17. A theodolite, with a level, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... replace the more luxuriant vegetation of the lower slopes. H., dragged from his mule by a scraggy limb, was shocked to find that the first inquiry of his companions was not about the safety of his neck, but of the barometer. At the end of an hour, the ascent becoming every moment more abrupt, we had passed the belt of trees and bushes, and reached the smooth and scoriaceous cone, which, during the rainy season, appears from the bay to be covered with a velvety ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... reached the valve-cord at last, however, and, seizing it between his teeth, gave it two or three vigorous jerks. The balloon stopped ascending. Hooking his numbed arms over the ring, he dropped safely into the car. As he did so, he noticed that the blue hand of the barometer stood perpendicular. The balloon had ceased to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... be raised above the absolute zero (-273 deg. C. or -459 deg. F.) in order that they might throw off into space as much heat in a second as they would get from the sun in a second. But Professor Langley's observations, made on Mount Whitney at an elevation of fifteen thousand feet, when the barometer stood at seventeen inches (indicating that about fifty-seven per cent. of the air was still above him), showed that rocks exposed to the perpendicular rays of the sun were not heated to any such extent as those at the base of the mountain similarly exposed; and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... spacious anteroom, where twelve chairs, a barometer, a large stove, and long, white cotton curtains, bordered with red, suggested the dreadful waiting-room of a Government office, the visitor felt oppressed, conscious at once of the isolation in which the mistress lived. Grief, like pleasure, infects the atmosphere. A first glance into ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... atmosphere as taken by an aneroid barometer confirmed his observation, but as we were ignorant of its average density it could not give us any certain indication of our height. Far beneath us an ideal world of clouds hid the surface from our view. We seemed to be floating above a range of snowy Alps, their dusky valleys ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... elegance, and ease, to provide liberally and expensively for their own recreation and refreshment. A bald utility has been the anticipated genius of our public policy. Our national Mercury was to be simply the god of the post-office, or the sprite of the barometer,—our Pan, to keep the crows from the corn-fields,—our Muses, to preside over district-schools. It begins now to appear that the people are not likely to think anything too good for themselves, or to higgle about the expense of whatever ministers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... thus shown is not confined to the hundreds of attendants, but must be shared by your great public, is shown by the unfailing barometer of journalism. Here we have a field in which the non-survival of the unfit is the rule in its most ruthless form. The journals that we see and read are merely the fortunate few of a countless number, dead and forgotten, that did not know what the public wanted to read about. The eagerness shown ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... at his fund of anecdote and wealth of wit. Among other playful jests he declared he could define the exact condition of heart in each individual who crossed over, as accurately as we note the mercury in the barometer for atmospheric probabilities, even going so far as to say that he could guess the "Yes" or "No," and consequently the engagement or non-engagement of ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... drew back from her, rushed to the table, grasped the paper-weight, and threw it on the floor by her side. I took care to aim a little to one side, and, before she disappeared (I did it so that she could see it), I grasped a candlestick, which I also hurled, and then took down the barometer, ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... bell blessed by the priest. In times of drought, which are the greatest calamities that afflict the Spanish soil, a favourite image is taken out and conducted in procession, in order to implore genial showers of rain. Thanks to the invention of the barometer, and a practical knowledge of the aspect of the weather, it almost always happens that this ceremony is followed a few days afterwards by a copious supply. But it would require an entire volume to enumerate all the errors and superstitions of this description ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... arose, shuddering; the sun had sunk below the horizon, but it was not cold. There was not a breath of wind; there were no clouds in the sky, yet not a star was visible. A hurried tramping sounded on the deck; the captain, summoned from below, joined the first officer, who stood looking at the barometer. "Good ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... shade, Elliot Chittenden came hurrying back from a short excursion out to the edge of the slope, to tell them of a wicked-looking cloud in the north. The brow of the hill had shut off the view in that direction, the faithful barometer, the Peak, having long since been lost ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... anecdotes of him was amusing. In the evening it came on a peppering storm. I had foreseen this on our route from Jeddart. The Eildons had mounted their misty cap, always a sure prognostic of rain; in fact they are the barometer of the district. I then prevailed on my two companions to forego their visit to the Abbey that night. We therefore had in old Davidson, the landlord of the Inn, and my companions submitted him to an interrogatory of three long hours' duration. One little ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington, when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle," or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the Southern Cross ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... sir, with the barometer falling. I've sailed with that glass a long time, and she's never told me a lie yet. We've ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various |
