"Propulsion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in imminent danger; we had out all the firearms we could muster; these amounted to two rifles, two shot guns, and five revolvers. I watched with great keenness the motion of their arms that gives the propulsion to their spears, and the instant I observed that, I ordered a discharge of the two rifles and one gun, as it was no use waiting to be speared first. I delayed almost a second too long, for at the instant I gave the word several spears had ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... are shallow, poles are used, which the men handled very dexterously, nicking in and out amongst the rocks and rapids in the neatest way; but in the main the propulsion was by our paddles, a delight to me, having been bred to canoeing from boyhood. We stopped for luncheon at a lovely "place of trees" overhanging a deep, dark, alluring pool, where we knew there were fish, but had no time to make a cast. So far the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... as possible, and when a stone monster had to be carried to a town situated at some distance from both those rivers the canals by which the country was intersected in every direction supplied their place. Going down stream, and especially in flood time, no means of propulsion were required; the course of the boats or rafts was directed by means of heavy oars like those still used by the boatmen who navigate the Tigris in keleks, or rafts, supported on inflated hides; in ascending the streams towing was called ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... rivers, in a dry season such as this is proving, and in many small canals at any season. There's only one thing which may bother us in the Frisian Meers, where we can't shove with a quant pole, or if we venture out to sea: we have no means of propulsion except the motor, and as we carry no mast, we cannot set so much as a yard of canvas. If anything should go wrong with the motor, brilliant "Lorelei" will instantly become a mere hulk at the mercy of wind and wave. However, as Starr ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... far from the center of things. He suddenly decided to double on his tracks and swing down to Chicago. Just why he felt as he did he could not fathom. But the feeling was there. It was an instinctive propulsion, a "hunch." These hunches were to him, working in the dark as he was compelled to, very much what whiskers are to a cat. They could not be called an infallible guide. But they at least kept him from colliding ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... for a little less than 90 hours in a period of about 18 days (out of the total of 29 days and 11 hours required to cross). There is no evidence of any intent to make the whole passage under steam alone, for the vessel was intended to be an auxiliary, with sails the chief propulsion. ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... inquisitive; he kept close to the rim of her skirt, which was as high as he could see, and he wished to be taken up and carried again. He was in a half-stupor; it was his desire to remain in that condition, and his propulsion was almost wholly subconscious, though ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster when furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... was a long slender ship of extremely low freeboard, rakish rigged as a single-master, both sails and oars being used as a means of propulsion; two small cannon were mounted forward, and a round dozen arquebuses were also carried. The total company and passengers of the three ships were ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... this juncture that Mr. Monck Mason (whose voyage from Dover to Weilburg in the balloon, "Nassau," occasioned so much excitement in 1837,) conceived the idea of employing the principle of the Archimedean screw for the purpose of propulsion through the air—rightly attributing the failure of Mr. Henson's scheme, and of Sir George Cayley's, to the interruption of surface in the independent vanes. He made the first public experiment at Willis's Rooms, but afterward removed his model to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the horrors of starvation. I positively dreaded to think of what might be the effect of this upon the women; therefore, that we might not lie there absolutely helpless, I started to scull the boat with the steering oar. But she was heavy for this style of propulsion, and I estimated that our progress did not amount to more than three-quarters of a ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... much care where it lifts or sets down, since its method of propulsion isn't trying to work against the fabric of space itself. For that reason, an interstellar vessel is normally built in space and stays there, using ion rockets for loading and unloading its passengers. It's cheaper ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the upper reaches of the river; but every now and then we came on barges, laden with hay or other country produce, or carrying bricks, lime, timber, and the like, and these were going on their way without any means of propulsion visible to me—just a man at the tiller, with often a friend or two laughing and talking with him. Dick, seeing on one occasion this day, that I was looking rather hard on one of these, said: "That is one of our force-barges; it is quite as easy to work vehicles by force ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... breast stroke is learned, floating on the back for rest and swimming on the back, using feet only for propulsion, leaving the hands free to hold a drowning person, should be learned. This can be readily acquired with a little practice, carrying the hands on the surface of the water, arms half bent, with the elbows close to the sides at the waist line. To carry a man this way the hands are placed at either ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... having with due nicety ascertained, he clenched his fist, which in weight, size, and firmness, was not much surpassed by the hard, and ponderous paw of a full-grown tiger, and with all the force of that propulsion, which a formidable set of muscles afforded, he felled his rival to the ground, and not knowing that he was fallen, discharged many other blows, which only served to disturb the tranquillity of the air. The recumbent hero, whose head was framed for enterprises of this nature, soon recovered from ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the practical advantages of this machine propulsion at bird speed over space, it confounds and swallows up the poetical aspects and picturesque sceneries that were the charm of old-fashioned travelling in the country. The most beautiful landscapes rotate around a locomotive axis confusedly. Green pastures and yellow wheat fields are in a whirl. ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... pleased and alarmed them. Such a float as they needed was at their call. There lay a half dozen logs and trees fastened together by several withes, and with enough buoyancy to bear them to the other side. Even the pole to be used in propulsion lay upon the heavy timbers that were pulled just far enough against the bank to prevent them floating ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... stone is propelled through space, shape is of no importance. If it has rough and jagged sides its speed or its distance may be limited, as compared with a perfectly rounded form. It may be made in such a shape as will offer less resistance to the air in flight, but its actual propulsion through space does not depend on how it is made, but on the power which propelled it, and such a missile is a true ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... was in good order. 'Evidently,' Scott wrote in reference to this misfortune, 'the engines are not [Page 332] fitted for working in this climate, a fact that should be certainly capable of correction. One thing is proved: the system of propulsion is altogether satisfactory. The motor party has proceeded as a man-hauling ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... occurred to me that, as I possessed neither oars nor other means of propulsion, it would be difficult to move the boat from its mooring if chance or acuteness of scent should lead the creature to my place of concealment. In short, this, with various suggestions of fancy, some of them ludicrously exaggerated, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
