"Viscid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1. BOLETUS BOVINUS. Pileus flat, smooth, viscid; the thin, transparent skin easily peeling. Flesh white, unchangeable in color (stem same color as pileus). Tubes whitish yellow, yellow or gray, shallow. Very variable ...
— Mushrooms of America, Edible and Poisonous • Anonymous
... the air, and that mysterious, moving, shifting light, like a pale flame, above it? The gloomy spot is a rent in the side of Vesuvius where the smouldering heat has burnt through the crust, and where a day or two before I saw a viscid stream of molten liquor, with the flames playing over it, creeping, creeping through the tunnelled ashes; and in the light above is the lip of Vesuvius itself, with its restless furnace at work, casting up a billowy swell of white oily smoke, while the glare of the fiery pit ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... forest-boughs and apple-trees, would of course be utterly lost if its berries dropped their seeds on to the ground beneath it. To avoid such a misfortune, the mistletoe berries are filled with an exceedingly viscid and sticky pulp, surrounding the hard little nut-like seeds: and this pulp makes the seeds cling to the bills and feet of various birds which feed upon the fruit, but most particularly of the missel thrush, who derives his common ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... the pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was constitutionally mild, she was not de natura pensive; she had too much of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humor called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of pensiveness really spoiled her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... German, not three yards away, screamed aloud and fell sprawling and kicking, as one such chance bullet found him. Above and behind, sounded the plop of star-shells sent up by the enemy in futile hope of penetrating the viscid fog. And everywhere was heard the shuffle and ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... You remember how, before the silkworm begins to spin, the viscid secretion is stored in the two long ducts at each side of the little creature's body. It is that material which it unites into a single thread in the spinaret, you know. Well, before the worm has a chance to spin, it is put into vinegar and this jellied silk is ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... all-embracing diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming, turbid slime—cumbered spray, foul, festering, furiously troubled, slipping, as it seemed, particle by particle, viscid gout by gout, into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... cent.), olive oil (25 per cent.), in combination. For the last I substitute glycerine, because this allows the mixture to penetrate farther into the mucous membrane than oil, the latter favoring a tendency to pass over the surface. This mixture when heated separates into two layers, the upper one viscid and forming a sort of "glycerol," the lower clear. The latter will completely sterilize a thread dipped in a pure culture of the diphtheria bacillus. Corrosive sublimate was not examined because in strong enough ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... the outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was half-past four before Dick reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the country road. To avoid the rising grade he had taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound. It was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles more; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half hour later reached the ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... imperfect, as also when it is thin and purulent. This wax not unfrequently becomes hard and obstructs the tube, causing less or more deafness. But this form of deafness may be easily cured, even though it has existed for years; for, having softened the accumulations of viscid wax by dropping animal oil into the ear, they may be removed by the injection of warm soap-suds, which is an effectual and ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... in miniature that reach a comely growth in mean temperatures. Very fertile are the desert plants in expedients to prevent evaporation, turning their foliage edge-wise toward the sun, growing silky hairs, exuding viscid gum. The wind, which has a long sweep, harries and helps them. It rolls up dunes about the stocky stems, encompassing and protective, and above the dunes, which may be, as with the mesquite, three times as high as a man, the blossoming twigs ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... a few days expectoration begins to come with the cough, at first scanty and viscid or frothy, but soon becoming copious and of purulent character. In general, after free expectoration has been established the more urgent and painful symptoms abate; and while the cough may persist for a length of time, often extending to three or four ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... a viscid fluid, which circulates under the bark: this is called cambium. When it is too abundant it is effused, part of its water evaporates, and it becomes gum. If the vital circle is not interrupted, the fluid traverses the branches, and the peduncle arrives in the ovary, and constitutes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... took the whole of it into my mouth; the poison produced a strong metallic taste, lasting for a considerable time, and at first, it was pungent to the tip of the tongue. The spermatheca was distended with a perfectly colorless, transparent, viscid liquid, without a trace ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it. As I did so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light and sinuous as a whip-lash ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enormous quantity of very large tubes of pitted tissue, some of which measure a line and half across; they form the whole inner face of each woody zone. When boiling water is poured over shavings of this wood a clear jelly, resembling tragacanth, is formed and becomes a thick viscid mass; iodine stains it brown, but not a trace of starch is indicated in it. No doubt the nutritious quality of the tree is owing to the mucilage, which is apparently of the same nature as that of the nearly allied Tragacanth tree ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... a monkey, as if in gentle and playful embrace. Suddenly tightening its folds, a crackling sound was heard; the writhing coils were then slowly unwound—and, with a shudder, he beheld the monster licking over the motionless figure, till it was covered with a viscid slime. Then the serpent began to devour his prey; and, when gorged and helpless, behold, it was immediately fallen upon by two other snakes. To his disturbed fancy, there was a dim resemblance between their heads ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... life would be modified to the extent of being unrecognizable. A living being borne in this space would remain small and squat. All objects would be stocky and be spread out in width or else be shattered. Viscid or semi-solid bodies, such as pitch, would rapidly spread out and take on a surface as plane and smooth as water under the conditions of gravity upon the earth. On still further increasing the gravity, we ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... Queensland Upas-tree, "Ahm-moo" of the blacks (PISONIA BRUNONIANA), which are produced on spreading leafless panicles, exude a remarkably viscid substance, approaching bird-lime in consistency and evil effect. Sad is the fate of any bird which, blundering in its flight, happens to strike against any of the many traps which the tree in unconscious malignity hangs out on every side. In such event the seed clings ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the Brake Fern; whilst in the south the young shoots are often sold in bundles as a salad. (Some writers give the name of Lady Fern, not to the Bracken, but to the Asplenium filix foemina, because of its delicate and graceful foliage.) The Bracken has branched riblets, and is more viscid, mucilaginous, and ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... vulgaris, which grows in wet, boggy land. It is a herb with a rosette of fleshy, oblong leaves, 1 to 3 in. long, appressed to the ground, of a pale colour and with a sticky surface. Small insects settle on the leaves and are caught in the viscid excretion. This, like the excretion of the sundew and other insectivorous plants, contains a digestive ferment (or enzyme) which renders the nitrogenous substances of the body of the insect soluble, and capable of absorption by the leaf. In this way the plant ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... not picture to herself what it would be like; how the judges would behave toward Pavel. Her thoughts muddled her brain, covered her eyes with a gray mist, and plunged her into something sticky, viscid, chilling and paining her body. The feeling grew, entered her blood, took possession of her heart, and weighed it down heavily, poisoning in it all that ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... pass the night, This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip 40 And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. A viscid choler is observable In tertians, I was nearly bold to say; And falling-sickness hath a happier cure Than our school wots of: there's a spider here Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... capable of being dissolved in water, and forming with it a viscid transparent fluid; but not in vinous spirits or oil; it burns in the fire to a black coal, without melting or catching fire; and does not dissolve in water at boiling heat. The name of gum has been inaccurately given ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... we know that the chemical compounds secreted by plants are eminently liable to be modified by changed conditions of life, we may believe it possible that various parts of a plant might be modified through the agency of its own altered secretions. Compare, for instance, the mossy and viscid calyx of a moss-rose, which suddenly appears through bud-variation on a Provence-rose, with the gall of red moss growing from the inoculated leaf of a wild rose, with each filament symmetrically branched ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... corrosion, and stimulation of pernicious teas. In proportion to the state of the fluids, in particular constitutions, they may either prove too relaxing or astringent, too condensing or attenuating, and too acrid or viscid; for India teas, that to some constitutions are very diluting, may produce in others contrary effects: therefore such should be chosen as possess a combination of quality that may render them, as nearly as possible, to a general specific. But this cannot ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... any by design, merely because they were unnecessary or exuberant; but have received those which by different writers have been differently formed, as viscid, ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... adds to its beauty. There are other species of Russula that also have red tints in the stem. Cap rosy red, with pink and orange hues, 1 to 2 inches broad, convex, becoming nearly plane or slightly depressed; at first viscid, soon dry, slightly marked with lines on the thin margin, taste mild. Gills moderately close, nearly entire, rounded behind and slightly adnexed, swollen in the middle, whitish, becoming yellow. Stem ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... small balloon, and gradually, almost imperceptibly expanding, with its viscid transparency shot through with opalescent lights, the Thing lay there in the deepening twilight and palpably shivered. As darkness descended, a sort of hellish radiance began to ooze from it. I say hellish, because there is no other word to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... around him were ape-things in their death agonies. On the ground beyond them, quivering and broken in the midst of its dying guards, was a viscid mass of loathsome gray jelly. Blake's shot had apparently struck home squarely in the center of that vulnerable blob. Even as he watched, the gelatinous mass shuddered in a last convulsion, then became quite still. At the same instant the last sign of life vanished ...
— Zehru of Xollar • Hal K. Wells
... polos-viscid is pontiffs aequalibus pianissimos, Roach inferno angsts, calycibus hurts. Ait. Kew. v. 3. ...
— The Botanical Magazine Vol. 7 - or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... Still another is the elimination through the kidneys of the bacteria of infectious diseases, or of such as, without producing a general infection, yet determine fermentation in the urine. The precipitation is favored not only by the production of ammonia, but also by the formation of viscid (colloid) products of fermentation. In this sense bacteria are most important factors in causing gritty deposits ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... brink of the bottomless caldron of viscid muck and gazed out across the deadly plain. Bill stood still beside her, watching her ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... sulphuric acid. Specimens from Utah had already been shown before the Academy. There was no mystery as to its genesis in either region, as it had been shown to be the result of inspissation of a thick and viscid variety of petroleum. The term "petroleum" includes a great variety of substances, from a limpid liquid, too light to burn, to one that is thick and tarry. These differ widely also in chemical composition: some yielding much asphalt by distillation, resembling a solution of asphalt in turpentine; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... not unaptly applied to fermentation, the property of attenuation being to divide, then dilute, and rarify thick, gross, viscid, and dense substances, in which some degree of fluidity is pre-supposed; it is, therefore, that kind of dilution or fluidity which is promoted by agitation, and very aptly applied to mark the progress of fermentation, which is itself the process of nature, for ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... the "heavy oil" comes over; towards the end a thick brown or yellow viscid product is got. The receiver is again changed, and ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... fine porous tissue, covered, during life, with viscid, semi-liquid protoplasm, and are held in shape and strengthened by a more or less rigid skeleton, consisting chiefly of lime or silica. The tissue consists of a very fine network of threads, formed ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... would put off his tour of inspection till the next day. Travelling in the buggy as he did, he must keep to the road which led to Derrick's, in very roundabout fashion, by way of Guadalajara. This rain would reduce the thick dust of the road to two feet of viscid mud. It would take him quite three hours to reach the ranch house on Los Muertos. He thought of Delaney and the buckskin and ground his teeth. And all this trouble, if you please, because of a fool feemale girl. A fine way for him to waste his time. Well, now he was done with ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris |
