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More "Ballast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Reminds me of a skipper I once sailed with, bound from Rotterdam to Hull in ballast. There was a Scotch mist best part of the trip, an' the old man loaded with schnapps to keep out the damp. First time he got a squint of the sun he went as yaller as a Swede turnip. 'It's all up with us, boys,' he said. 'My missus is forty fathoms below. We've just sailed ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... ventured but a single stooping, peeping Sicilian, glancing this way and that, with his finger on trigger, eager to kill, gliding from cover to cover, and presently gone again from view, leaving no human life visible nearer than the swarming mob that Richling, by mounting a pile of ship's ballast, could see still on the steam-boat landing, pillaging in the drenching rain, and the long fleet casting anchor before the town in line ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the stairs and has seemed a listless creature. But when a November wind is up it is a cousin of the balloon, with an equal zest to explore the wider precincts of the earth and to alight upon the moon. Only persons of heavier ballast—such as have been fed on sweets—plump pancake persons—can hold now an umbrella to the ground. A long stowage of muffins and ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... under canvas, or to speak more accurately, when her sails of brightly dyed wool were spread. She was given high bulwarks, and must have had more than the usual four-foot draught of water, for she carried plenty of heavy stone ballast to stiffen her under sail. With the "Crane" as his flagship, Olaf sailed northward to attack the Viking Raud, pirate and magician, who held out for the old gods and the old wild ways. Raud had another exceptionally large ship, the longest in Norway, and till ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... to the shore, and when the dawn came we saw that the schooner stood high and dry on the reef and that Franka and his men were trying to float her by throwing overboard the iron ballast and putting a kedge anchor out upon the lee side of the reef. And at the same time we saw three boats put off from the mainland. These boats were all painted white, and when I saw them I said to Solepa, 'Be of good heart. Thy husband is not ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... and perhaps a well-shaped soul sits in each of these stones. But heaven protect me just the same from the inhabitants of these towns! Rolling stones cannot bark, neither do they attract thieves; they are mere ballast. Quiet behavior: that is what I hold against them, that they make no fiery gestures; it would become them to roll a little, but there they lie, with even their sex unknown. But you saw the eagle ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... said Nick lightly. "He wants more ballast, to my mind. Whatever Max may be, at least he's solid. He ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... have had it flee from your grasp—flee as a shadow before it is sullied by selfishness or misunderstanding—is the highest good. The memory of such a love can not die from out the heart. It affords a ballast 'gainst all the sordid impulses of life, and though it gives an unutterable sadness, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... the Baltic in ballast to some small port—just a sawmill, at the head of a fjord—where I shall have a cargo of timber waiting for you to bring back to London. When can you ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Bristol, Gloucester: not one word, either in the towns or country, on the subject of representation; much on the receipt tax, something on Mr. Fox's ambition; much greater apprehension of danger from thence than from want of representation. One would think that the ballast of the ship was shifted with us, and that our Constitution had the gunwale under water. But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance has happened which you can refer to the representative not ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it came to birth, would remain intransmissible and incommunicable, and would perish in a solitary cry. By language alone are we enabled to submit it to a positive test: the letter is the ballast of the mind, the body which allows it to act, and in acting to scatter ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... sort of blackguard fellow eneugh—naebody cares to trouble him—smuggler, when his guns are in ballast—privateer, or pirate faith, when he gets them mounted. He has done more mischief to the revenue folk than ony rogue that ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... dollars for ballast, had fifteen bath pools of Sienna marble in his flaunting, gaudy "chateau," and was immediately aped by the rest of the rattle-brained, moved the Cavendishes not at all. Because the same bounder gave a bathing-suit party (with the ocean one hundred and fifty miles away), ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... 1,000,000 cubic feet of gas and has a capacity of ten tons useful load. Of this load, about four tons can be composed of bombs or other munitions, the remainder being needed for fuel, machinery, and the crew, as well as ballast and provisions. The gross weight of a fully equipped and loaded super-Zeppelin is thirty tons, or roughly, 60,000 pounds. The envelope, which heretofore has been painted gray with liquid aluminum paint, now is impregnated ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... a poet, musician and teacher. The mother was a housekeeper, adviser and critic, and supplied the necessary ballast of commonsense, without which the domestic dory would surely ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... being so high that they could not reach it, the watch forgot one night to fasten it down in the usual manner by a chain, the more especially as some seamen slept on the top of the grating. That night the prisoners gathered the stone ballast in the hold into a heap under the grating, and standing on the stones forced open the grating, tumbling our people off, and several of the principal Indians leaped out and cast themselves into the sea. Our seamen took ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... individual conscience will still not be at ease with them. We must look to our two countries to guarantee its strength and activity, and if we English-speaking races quarrel and become disunited, civilisation will split up again and go its way to ruin. We are the ballast of the ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... that you cannot tear up ancient rootages and safely plant the tree of liberty in soil which is not native to it. I believe that the ancient traditions of a people are its ballast; you cannot make a tabula rasa upon which to write a political program. You cannot take a new sheet of paper and determine what your life shall be to-morrow. You must knit the new into the old. You cannot put a new patch on an old garment ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... reached made it more exhausting, Guynemer seemed to prolong his flights to the point where overwork and nervous depression compelled him to go away and take a little rest—which made him suffer still more. And suddenly, before he had taken the necessary repose, he threw it off like ballast, and returning to camp, reappeared in the air, like the falcon in the legend of Saint Julien the Hospitaller: "The bold bird rose straight in the air like an arrow, and there could be seen two spots of unequal size which ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... "With ballast on board, but none in his brain, Away went our gallant Gantheaume, On a voyage from Brest to Bertheaume, And then from Bertheaume—to Brest ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... opposed to a constitutional monarchy, so long as it works well for the majority. But when England had with such terrible convulsions shaken off all those shackles and trappings of royalty, and when the ship, so lightened, had sailed so steadily with no ballast but common sense, does it not seem almost a pity to undo what has been done—to begin again the long procession of good kings and bad kings, foolish or wise—for the sake of such a man as yonder saunterer?" with a glance towards the ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... believe they do," he said. "Of course, it would have seemed strange to the mate and to Rogers if I hadn't given them some explanation, especially as we came out in ballast. So I dropped hints that we were out on a survey expedition that couldn't be talked of just now. They probably have the idea that we're looking up a suitable coaling station for the Government, or something of that ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... of the other two seemed to have any; so the whole party left the shop somewhat regretfully. At the corner of Duke Street Higgins and Nosey Flynn bevelled off to the left while the other three turned back towards the city. Rain was drizzling down on the cold streets and, when they reached the Ballast Office, Farrington suggested the Scotch House. The bar was full of men and loud with the noise of tongues and glasses. The three men pushed past the whining match-sellers at the door and formed a little ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... age Stephenson married Fanny Henderson, a respectable country girl living at Ballast Hill. He brought the bride home behind him on a pillion, a wedding journey of fifteen miles. Robert Stephenson, who became his father's partner, and one of the first of England's civil engineers, was born in 1803. In ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... a Christian man in an agreeable way that he should not appropriate more than his share of the rations without the consent of the mess, so we set to and ate heartily of his good stores, and in their place put, for ballast, a river-jack that weighed about two pounds. He carried the stone for two days before he ate down to it, and, when he did, was mad enough to eat it. We then told him what we had done and why, but thought ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... well, for we've got to take her out again— Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free. And it's time to clear and quit When the hawser grips the bitt, So we'll pay you with the foresheet and a promise from ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... schooner, the Pure Gem of Padstow, had warped out from the quay overnight after discharging her ballast with the usual disregard of the Harbour Commissioners' bye-laws; and a number of ponderable stones, now barely covered by the tide, encumbered the foot of the landing. On one of these the boat caught her heel, with ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... it, Gentlemen. I have purposely, skimming a wide subject, discarded much ballast; but you may read and scan and read again, and always you must come back to this, that the first poets sang their words to the harp or to some such instrument: and just there lies the secret why poetry differs from ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to go barefooted, and in their shirts, to some church of our Lady at the first land they might come to. Besides these general vows, several others were made by individuals. The tempest was now very violent, and the admirals ship could hardly withstand its fury for want of ballast, which was fallen very short in consequence of the provisions and water being mostly expended. To supply this want, they filled all the empty casks in the ship with sea water, which was some help and made the ship to bear more upright, and be in less ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... method of construction was required, the writer designed a shield for use in the North River Tunnels. The shield was about 18 ft. long, over all, and was provided with a rigid but removable hood extending beyond the normal line of the cutting edge, for use in sand, gravel, and ballast, to be removed when the shield reached the silt. The shields were thrust forward by twenty-four rams capable of exerting a pressure of 3,400 tons at a hydraulic pressure of 5,000 lb. per sq. in. Taking into account 30 lb. air pressure, this pressure ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles M. Jacobs
... jewels, and ready cash. Our ship carried twenty-four guns and two hundred Sclavonian soldiers. We sailed from Malamacca to the shores of Istria during the night, and we came to anchor in the harbour of Orsera to take ballast. I landed with several others to take a stroll through the wretched place where I had spent three days nine months before, a recollection which caused me a pleasant sensation when I compared my present position to what ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... our country very great sums, and no way hurt the landed interest. It would lower the price of iron, and consequently of all our manufactures, which would increase the consumpt and sale; it would serve for ballast to our ships from North America, and when tobacco is scarce, fill up part of the tonnage; would increase our exports, and no way interfere with our neighbours in the South."[68] That language might be held indifferently by the mercantilist and ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with their ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... which is the "lid" by which an entrance is effected. In the fore part of the platform projects a periscope, or lookout, formed by port-holes or lenses through which an electric searchlight can throw its gleam for some distance under water in front of and on each side of the tug. Now relieved of its ballast of water the boat has risen to the surface. Its lid will open and fresh air will penetrate it to every part. In all probability, if it remained submerged during the day it rose at night and towed ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... carrying passengers or cargo, $1.20 per net vessel ton-each 100 cubic feet-of actual earning capacity. 2. On vessels in ballast without passengers or cargo, 40 per cent less than the rate of tolls for vessels with passengers or cargo. 3. Upon naval vessels, other than transports, colliers, hospital ships, and supply ships, 50 cents per displacement ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... him, viz., large boulders (and some polished) of mica-schist, quartz, sandstone, etc., some embedded, and some 40 and 50 feet above the level of the sea, so that he had inferred that they had not been brought as ballast. Is ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... baleful, ballast, banality, baneful, beatitude, bellicose, belligerent, benefaction, beneficent, benison, betide, bibulous, bigotry, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... was constructed in a few hours. Big canal boats which were lying idle in the neighborhood were requisitioned and anchored side by side, touching each other. Their decks were made flush, each with the other, by the shifting of ballast, and when this had been accomplished a roadway was laid across them. This bridge was so satisfactory that it has not yet been replaced by a permanent structure. Road building was largely carried on among the French ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... and fro between Sofia and Nisch. Most of these animals are too heavily laden to think of objecting to the appearance of anything on the road, but some of the outfits are returning from Sofia in "ballast" only; and one of these, doubtless overjoyed beyond measure at their unaccustomed lissomeness, breaks through all restraint at my approach, and goes stampeding over the rolling hills, the wild-looking teamsters in full tear after them. Whatever of this ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... side-lockers round the stern-sheets, and a locker forward big enough to hold a man. The fellow don't guess their meanin', an' I don't let him guess. He thinks they're for air-compartments, to keep her buoyant; says she'll need more ballast than I've allowed her, and wants to know what sense there is in buildin' a boat so floatey. We'll ballast her, Brooks; all in good time. We'll ship her aboard the Kingston packet, bein' of a size that she'll carry comfortable as deck-cargo; and soon as ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and, on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... admitted Jim. "But the rice is the sluggish article, anyway; it's little more account than ballast; it's the tea and silks that I look to: all we have to find is the proportion, and one look at the manifest will settle that. I've rung up Lloyd's on purpose; the captain is to meet me there in an hour, and then I'll be as posted on that brig as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had put me on a thrain—put me, palanquin an' all, an' six black assassins av his own coolies that was in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-thruck, and we were rowlin' an' bowlin' along to Benares. Glory be that I did not wake up thin an' introjuce mysilf to the coolies. As I was sayin', I slept for the betther part av a day an' a night. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... of French-Canadians were, at Mr. Brassey's suggestion, brought up in organized gangs, each having an Englishman or an American as their leader. We are told, however, that they proved useless except for very light work. "They could ballast, but they could not excavate. They could not even ballast as the English navvy does, continuously working at filling for the whole day. The only way in which they could be useful was by allowing them to fill the waggons, and then ride out with the ballast train ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Howard past away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow, Men of Bideford in Devon, And we laid them on the ballast down below; For we brought them all aboard, And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... my hopes rose—shall I say like a balloon out of which a great weight of ballast has been thrown?—and so high did they go that failure seemed like a little feather swimming in the gulf below. "She deserved some happiness," and intends to make me her happiness. Her words could bear no other interpretation; ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... are nervous?" asked the man of Abraham Lincoln when the orator was about to appear before an audience. "Young man," was the reply, "young man, I have spoken well." To have done well and then live up to your record is a serious matter. Responsibility is ballast. A town that has taken on a Carnegie Library is one big committee intent on making the thing a success. There is furniture needed, pictures to secure, statuary to select, books to buy. A Carnegie Library is usually an ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... under the necessity of forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy of the British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh mail ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... as exciting as a regatta, and you pulled well, Evan; but you had too much ballast aboard, and Miss Wilder ran up false colors just in time to save her ship. What was the wager?" asked the lively Joseph, complacently surveying his marine millinery, which would have scandalized a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the home of the dag'—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don't believe it. Something wrong. I ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... to follow the whim of the moment, whither it would lead him. He was romantic; it was one of his agreeablest traits, because spontaneous; and he indulged it the more, as being confident that he had too much solid ballast in the hold to be in danger of upsetting. To-night, at this point of his mental ramble, he found that his cigar had gone out. Had he been thinking aloud? He believed not, and yet there was no telling; he ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... the whole cargo aboard! This here craft needs ballast; hoist her over the side!" And he reached out his hand for the whole plug of tobacco and took it from Freddie, and gnawed off a corner ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there like ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... consequence is, they never are finished, and are continually wearing out,—not lasting, on an average, more than half as long as they should, if once thoroughly constructed. Wooden bridges are allowed to rot down for want of protection. Rails are left to be battered to pieces for want of drainage and ballast. One road spends thirty-four thousand dollars a year for "watching cuts," and fifty-five thousand more for removing slides that should never have taken place. Everything is done for the moment, and nothing thoroughly. Who can wonder that this system tells upon the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... I am a poor man. I have only my little craft and a handful of seamen picked up at odd prices. But there's gold and silver enough I know of, owned by no man, to make cargo and ballast for the Nell Gwynn, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... confronts us is a very broad one. Does humanity, on the whole, gain or lose by a given degree of conservatism? An increase of knowledge is by no means the only thing that makes for civilization. Men may be highly enlightened, and yet rotten to the very core. How much of the ballast of conservatism and of loyalty to tradition is it well to throw overboard in the interest of accelerated motion? Those who, in our judgment, throw overboard much too much we have taken ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... delayed, so that it took us seventy-two days to reach the Ladrones. There we filled our water-butts, and I took on board a large anchor that I found there that had belonged formerly to the flagship lost there by Ffelipe de Sauzedo; in the other ship we placed four small boat-loads of ballast. All this detained us only a day and a half. On nearing the cape of Spiritu Santo in Tandaya, one of the Philipinas, our progress was impeded by the vendaval, and our pilots also gave us considerable trouble, so that I arrived at Manilla on the twenty-fifth of August of the year seventy-five. ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... moon in the sky, and the silvery light streamed down on towering hillside and battalions of flitting pines. The great train swept on, clattering and clanking, and dust and fragments of ballast whirled about the lonely man. Still, the rush of the cool night wind was exhilarating, and his mind was busy, though his thoughts were not altogether pleasant. The few weeks he had spent in Ida Stirling's ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... were then thrown overboard. After the division of the money the pirates secreted themselves in the woods behind Cape Lopez. Perez and four others procured a boat, and started for Fernando Po; they put their money in the bottom of the boat for ballast, but was thrown overboard, near a rock and afterwards recovered by divers; this was done to prevent detection. The captain, mate, and carpenter had a conversation respecting the attempt of the latter, to blow her up, who could not account for the circumstance, that ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... to find admission into Paradise. How little could man do against the iron force of fate! That could not be forefended by hard work; there was nothing for it but to take up a right attitude, and to confront and meet it with dignity. The bark of Orion's existence lacked ballast; in fine weather it drifted wherever the breeze carried it, He himself had taken care to equip it well; and if only the chances of life should freight it heavily—very heavily, and fling it on the rocks, then Orion might show who and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... through me, an awful premonitory chill. I knew what to do, but there was little I could do. We carried no ballast, for this was a captive balloon. What could I throw out? The extra rifle! Out it went, and fell not far from the tiger; but he did not move; with his green eyes fixed upon the car, he watched it slowly descend. The rifle had relieved it of a ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose. ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... applaud the courage of the aerostats: the losing sight of this earth, and the being in or above the clouds, must also be delightful: but the moment will come when the travellers descend, and then begins the danger; then they differ about throwing out the ballast, the balloon is rent in the quarrel, it sinks with frightful rapidity, and they run the hazard, like the poor Marquis D'Arlande, of being spitted upon the spire of the Invalides, or of being entangled among woods and briers—at last, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... weather-worn already, and with steady eyes that look through the blast, you see him understanding commandments from the jerk of his father’s white eyebrow, now belaying and now letting go, now scrunching himself down into mere ballast, or baling out death with a pipkin. Stale enough is the sight, and yet when I see it I always stare anew, and with a kind of Titanic exultation, because that a poor boat with the brain of a man and the hands of a boy on board can match herself so bravely ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... promises, demands no foolish vows, is strongest in absence, and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life, and gives steadily to every venture. Through our friends we are made brothers to all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... pawn. Panics and so on hadn't cleaned out her share of the Stidler estate—not so you'd notice it! She'd been on the spot, Aunt Emma had, watchin' the market. Long before the jinx hit Wall Street she'd cashed in her mill stock for gold ballast, and when property prices started tumblin' she dug up a lard pail from under the syringa bush and begun investin' in bargain counter real estate. Now she owns business blocks, villa plots, and shore frontage in big chunks, and spends her time collectin' rents, makin' new deals, and ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... each end of the pontoons had been partitioned off, so as to form four tanks in which water and gasolene could be stored. Caps screwed over vent-holes provided opportunity to insert a small pump when it was necessary to draw on the emergency supplies or water ballast ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a long yarn short, the Kill-Smudge done the bus'ness. Kenelm stuck to smokin' till he couldn't read a cigar sign without his ballast shiftin', and then he give it up. And—as you might expect from that kind of a man—he was more down on tobacco than the Come-Outer parson himself. He even got up in revival meetin' and laid into it hammer and tongs. He was the best 'horrible example' they had, ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the Indies? Dro. Oh sir, vpon her nose, all ore embellished with Rubies, Carbuncles, Saphires, declining their rich Aspect to the hot breath of Spaine, who sent whole Armadoes of Carrects to be ballast at ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... unfavorable, the sky being charged with clouds. As it was the purpose of this project to examine much higher regions of the atmosphere than those which it had been customary for aeronautic exhibitors to rise to, the arrangements of ballast and inflation which were adopted, were such as to cause the ascent to be infinitely more rapid than in the case of public exhibitions; in short, the balloon darted upward with the speed of an arrow, and in two minutes from the moment it was liberated, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... short time after, he saw the vessel stop, drift into the trough of the sea, careen to port, both bulwarks going under water, then suddenly capsize and sink. What was the cause of this sad catastrophe?—A want of ballast. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... I said, Frank," cried Sir Robert, clapping his son upon the shoulder. "He is a bright, showy lad; but you carry more ballast than he. Brag's a good dog, you know, but Holdfast's a better. Now, then, I think you ought to be going back. Good-bye, my boy. I look to you to be your mother's protector more and more. Perhaps in the future I may be absent. But you ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... She seemed to shrink from meeting her former friends; and at last, acting upon Griswold's advice, I placed her in the Asylum, going myself hither and thither like a feather tossed about by the gale. Griswold was my ballast, my polar star, and when he said to me, buy a house and have a home, I answered that I would; and when he told me of Grassy Spring, bidding me purchase it, I did so, although I dreaded coming to this neighborhood of all others. I had carefully kept everything ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... executions, cursive and impertinent executions. Through all these the Beaux Arts student, if he is intelligent enough to perceive the falseness and worthlessness of his primary education, slowly works his way. He is like a vessel without ballast; he is like a blindfolded man who has missed his pavement; he is blown from wave to wave; he is confused with contradictory cries. Last year he was robust, this year he is lymphatic; he affects learning which he does not possess, and then he assumes airs of ignorance, equally unreal—a mild, sophisticated ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... very vividly by the progress of aerial navigation. Balloons are objects too familiar even to our children to cause them any surprise, and every one knows how instantly a balloon, when in the air, rises up higher if a few pounds of ballast are thrown out, or sinks if a little of the gas is allowed to escape. We know of no balancing more delicate than this, of a body floating ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... 'Ay, heave the ballast overboard, And stow the eatables in the aft locker.' 'Would not this keg be best a little lowered?' 75 'No, now all's right.' 'Those bottles of warm tea— (Give me some straw)—must be stowed tenderly; Such as we used, in summer after six, To cram in greatcoat ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... was not the only one through which the Mannigfual passed, for we are told that it once, nobody knows how, penetrated into the Baltic Sea, where, the water not being deep enough to keep the vessel afloat, the captain ordered all the ballast to be thrown overboard. The material thus cast on either side of the vessel into the sea formed the two ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... use, which formed a kind of store-room for extra supplies. It was reached by removing the cabin steps. The tempted man entered this contracted and low apartment with the lamp in his hand. He found a narrow aperture, which led to the space under the cabin floor, where the ballast was deposited, and over which a board had been nailed to prevent the odor of bilge water from penetrating the apartment of the passengers. He removed this board, and reaching down into the hold, placed the bags in a position where they were not likely to be discovered, even by a person searching ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... South end of Ulietea, and to windward of some Harbours that lay on the West side of this Island. Into one of them I intended to go with the Ship, in order to stop a Leak in the Powder room, which could not be easily done at Sea, and to take in more Ballast, as I found her too light to carry sail upon a wind. At Noon plying off one of the Harbour's mouth, the wind ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... substantiated, I regard the Liberal cause as lost—and lost for many a year to come. Any Government almost is better than a Government which cannot govern; and the sentiment is so universal that I have no doubt the shifting ballast, which decides all elections, would go with a rush to the Tory side, and would enthrone in the place of power a strong Tory majority and an almost omnipotent Tory Government. The Tories know this, and calculate upon ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... and some more ballast being required, Captain Cook put into a harbour in Ulietea, at the opposite side of the island to that he had before visited. While the ship's company were taking in ballast and water, Mr Banks and Dr Solander went on shore, and were everywhere ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... overwhelmed when her mother came home and upbraided her, in her despair, with being a burden. Was she not a burden? Must she not be one henceforth? No, she would take in needlework, labour in the fields, heave ballast among the coarse pauper-girls on the quay-pool, anything rather: but how to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... whose duty it was to stay forward and mind the jib came aft as soon as he smelt a story, and took a nautical position, which was duly studied by Mr. Nugent, on a bag of ballast in ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... of Leghorn was enforced with the utmost rigor and great effectiveness. For a long time no vessels were allowed to go either out or in. Afterwards the rule was gradually relaxed, so far as to permit neutrals to leave the port in ballast; but none entered. The trade of the place was destroyed. Nelson hoped, and for a time expected, that the populace, accustomed to a thriving commerce, and drawing their livelihood from its employments, would rise against ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... a credit of two years. This vessel was built at Dieppe and fitted out for a privateer; was taken by the English, and has been plying between Dover and Calais as a packet-boat. She has excellent accommodations and sails fast. I shall copper her, put her in ballast, trim with L1000 or L1500 sterling in cargo, and proceed to the Isle of France and Bourbon, where I expect to sell her, as well as the cargo, at a very handsome profit, and have no doubt of being well paid for my twelve months' work, calculating to be with ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... gardener up at Claverings, 'e can't get sweet peas like that, try 'ow 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sand ballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the other day, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why a station-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e says, 'but you ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Brazil was the only country manufacturing rubber articles, and her best market soon proved to be North America. Probably the first rubber this country saw was brought to New England in clipper ships as ballast in the form of crude lumps and balls. Rubber shoes, water-bottles, powder-flasks, and tobacco-pouches found buyers in the American ports, but rubber shoes were ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... load-line is pierced in places to admit water for the condensers and ballast tanks. Lister had found some inlets open, but ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... consisting of the Confiance, French ship privateer, pierced for 26 twelves and nines, none of which, however, were on board; the Belier, French privateer brig, pierced for 20 eighteen-pounder carronades; and a Spanish merchant brig in ballast. I then hoisted a flag of truce, and sent to inform the inhabitants of the town, that if they would deliver up such stores of the ship as were on shore, there would be no further molestation. The proposal was thankfully agreed to. I did not, however, think it advisable to allow the people to remain ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... forty tales of Kotzebue's; One envoy's letters, six composers' airs, And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs: Meiner's four volumes upon womankind, Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, and, to back it, Of Heyne, such as should not ...
— English Satires • Various
... Sultan Abdullah's are the most amusing children I ever saw. They are nine and twelve years old, with monkey-like, irrepressible faces. They have no ballast. They talk ceaselessly, and are very playful and witty, but though a large sum is being paid for their education at Malacca, they speak atrocious "pidjun," and never use Malayan, in my hearing at least. They are never ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... ministries and mainly turn its energies to ministering to the physical, social and intellectual man. Chiefly, the church, through its spiritual ministries, is to inspire its members and others to good works of love in their daily walk and conversation. As the anchor of the buoy or the ballast of the ship holds it upright, so the good works of Christians hold the spiritual salvation aloft to be seen of men, and commend it to a ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... this material side of the body; that, so far from sharing in the lightness and subtlety of the principle with which it is animated, the body is no more in our eyes than a heavy and cumbersome vesture, a kind of irksome ballast which holds down to earth a soul eager to rise aloft. Then the body will become to the soul what, as we have just seen, the garment was to the body itself—inert matter dumped down upon living energy. The impression of the comic ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... his brows and looked about him. Lying on a shelf above his instrument was one of the new ballast coils that Henderson had used with the long waves from lightning flashes, and he leaned over and connected the heavy spiral of closely wound wire, throwing it into his circuit. Instantly the telephones ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... over. We had a dull, rainy night, a heavy, broadside swell, and as the steamer had not enough ballast, she rolled frightfully. In this nasty sea we were afraid she might turn turtle, as another steamer had done some months ago. The storm became such that we had to lie at anchor for five days, sheltered by the coast of Gaua. It was with ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... practicing medicine in rural England. "It is the best book I have written," Stacpoole declared more than forty years later. He could also say, in retrospect, that the book's weak sales were a disguised blessing, "for I hadn't ballast on board in those days to stand up to the gale of success, which means incidentally money." He would be spared the gale of success for nine more years, during which he published seven books, including a collection of children's stories ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... balloon with which ter cross thet thar chasm. It's ther only way ter git over. In crossin' ther balloon will be loaded with a ballast of sand; but when we come back, ther ballast ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... they sailed off homewards in their new boat. There was no other ballast in the boat but himself, his old woman, the children, and the Christmas provisions. His son Bernt sat by the main-sheet; his wife, helped by her next eldest son, held the sail-ropes; Elias himself sat at the rudder, while the two younger brothers of twelve ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... passing between Soller in North Mallorca and Marseille, they aren't to be depended on. By a singular irony of fate, I did come across an old white—painted barque which had just come out of Palma in ballast; but her skipper only told what I knew full well in my own heart, that I might very likely wait three years before I found a craft going ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... the reply. "I have a swat of work. There is ballast for you, though, over there by the shed." Bob Haines was the ballast indicated. He was putting the final touches on an aeroplane propellor to which he had administered a ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... countries, including the Canaries. This, of course, greatly lessened the demand for staves, and there were consequently very few taken from England to France, although French vessels are in the habit of taking them for ballast at a merely nominal rate, owing to the difficulty they experience in procuring return freights from England. The short crops in Canada and the great scarcity of money, forced an unusual number of laborers in that ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... Connected with this enterprise will be the multiplication of her steam colliers, ultimately scattering the crop of breadstuffs to the South Atlantic and Gulf States (if not the Eastern), and coming home with ballast of the varied iron ores those States abound in. When Delaware Bay begins to be whitened with the sails of returning coal-vessels, or lashed with the wheels of steam carriers, bringing in the oxides and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... commodore, who thereupon gave orders that some pigs of ballast should be put within the boat, and that it should be afterwards boarded over with ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... had abandoned Norfolk, and it was necessary to get the ship away before the Union troops arrived and hemmed her in. Her pilots declared that if the ship was lightened they could take her up the James River; and accordingly all hands threw overboard ballast and trappings, until she was lightened three feet. Then the pilots claimed that with the prevalent wind they could not handle her. It was now useless to try to run her through the Union fleet, for the lightening process had exposed three feet of her unarmed hull to the fire of the enemy. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Husband might be relieved by the Sprightliness and good Humour of the Wife. When these are rightly tempered, Care and Chearfulness go Hand in Hand; and the Family, like a Ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither Sail nor Ballast. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... United States approved the 3d day of March, 1845, entitled "An act regulating commercial intercourse within the islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre," it is provided that all French vessels coming directly from those islands, either in ballast or laden with articles the growth or manufacture of either of said islands, and which are permitted to be exported therefrom in American vessels, may be admitted into the ports of the United States on payment of no higher duties of tonnage or on their cargoes aforesaid ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... encourages the communities to provide for themselves railways, canals, pawnbroking, theatres, forestry, cinchona farms, irrigation, leper villages, casinos, bathing establishments, and immigration, and to deal in ballast, guano, quinine, opium, salt, and what not. Every one of these functions, with those of the army, navy, police, and courts of justice, were at one time left to private enterprise, and were a source of legitimate ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... the cargo of the little brig was discharged and the ballast was brought alongside. The side ports were knocked out, and the crew commenced to throw the ballast into the hold, as it frequently happened that only one side was available. A couple of hands were placed in the hold to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... of stores they got together canvas to make a tent, a chest of carpenter's tools, guns, pistols, powder, shot, and bullets, rods and fishing tackle, an iron pot, a case of portable soup, and another of biscuit. These useful articles, of course, took the place of the ballast I had hastily ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... bewildered! As you know, I am rather proud of my descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to nobility,—and as to my "rise in the world"—if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, it was my cue to agree: so I ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... was no town—nothing but green hills and a deep-set, unbelievable valley floor marked off with fences, and a little yellow station with a red roof, and a toy engine panting importantly in front of its one tiny baggage-and-passenger coach, with a freight car for ballast. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... anointed kings. Think not that I am opposed to a constitutional monarchy, so long as it works well for the majority. But when England had with such terrible convulsions shaken off all those shackles and trappings of royalty, and when the ship, so lightened, had sailed so steadily with no ballast but common sense, does it not seem almost a pity to undo what has been done—to begin again the long procession of good kings and bad kings, foolish or wise—for the sake of such a man as yonder saunterer?" with a glance towards the British ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... southern shore, before he attempted to lay his course. When he was ready to tack, an operation of some time with a vessel of her great length, the Swash was barely visible in the obscurity, gliding off upon a slack bowline, at a rate which nothing but the damp night air, the ballast-trim of the vessel, united to her excellent sailing qualities, could have produced with ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... from bar, bare or mere, and last, load), heavy material, such as gravel, stone or metal, placed in the hold of a ship in order to immerse her sufficiently to give adequate stability. In botany "ballast-plants" are so-called because they have been introduced into countries in which they are not indigenous through their seeds being carried in such ballast. A ship "in ballast" is one which carries no paying cargo. In modern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... preserving the level of the turntable, whether unloaded, partially loaded, or loaded, is happily met by an arrangement of water ballast and pumping. I cannot pass away from the mention of Mr. Eads' work without just reminding you of the successful manner in which he has dealt with the mouth of the Mississippi, by which he has caused that river to scour and maintain a channel 30 feet deep at low water, instead of that 8 feet deep ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... supposing it came to birth, would remain intransmissible and incommunicable, and would perish in a solitary cry. By language alone are we enabled to submit it to a positive test: the letter is the ballast of the mind, the body which allows it to act, and in acting to scatter the ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... their theories. But they were facing a new situation, and that new situation became an immense factor in their unconscious growth. Their intellectual and moral problems shifted, as a boat shifts her ballast when the wind blows from a new quarter. The John Cotton preaching in a shed in the new Boston had come to "suffer a sea-change" from the John Cotton who had been rector of St. Botolph's splendid church in Lincolnshire. The "church without ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... Mr Rowe, known by a hurt he had received on it; the other to Thomas Hill, as before-mentioned; and the head of the captain's servant. These, with more of the remains, were tied in a hammock, and thrown over-board, with ballast and shot sufficient to sink it. None of their arms nor cloaths were found, except part of a pair of trowsers, a frock, and six shoes, no ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... the movies free of hindering ballast and harmful influences, will have to return to the ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... Liverpool Sam, I don't malign or inexculpate him to you any more than I would to his face. But in my opinion, when an Englishman gets as low as he can he's got to dodge so that the dregs of other nations don't drop ballast on him out of their balloons. And if he's a Liverpool Englishman, why, fire-damp is what he's got to look out for. Being a natural American, that's my personal view. But Liverpool and me had much in common. We were without decorous clothes or ways and means of ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... their release, and—here was the Wolf again! What would their fate be now? The Wolf did not leave them long in doubt. She came up to her prize about 5 p.m. She was a four-masted barque in full sail, in ballast from the Cape to South America, and made a beautiful picture as she lay bathed in floods of golden light from the setting sun. Before dark, however, preparations had begun to remove her officers and crew and provisions, ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... about this time that William Fairbairn made the acquaintance of George Stephenson, while the latter was employed in working the ballast-engine at Willington Quay. He greatly admired George as a workman, and was accustomed in the summer evenings to go over to the Quay occasionally and take charge of George's engine, to enable him to earn a few shillings extra by heaving ballast out of the collier vessels. Stephenson's zeal ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... that our attention is drawn to this material side of the body; that, so far from sharing in the lightness and subtlety of the principle with which it is animated, the body is no more in our eyes than a heavy and cumbersome vesture, a kind of irksome ballast which holds down to earth a soul eager to rise aloft. Then the body will become to the soul what, as we have just seen, the garment was to the body itself—inert matter dumped down upon living energy. The impression of the comic will be ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... it, as, upon the least carelessness on the part of the helmsman, it would immediately have filled. As it was, we shipped some heavy seas, but the blankets at the bottom being saturated, gave us the extra ballast which we required. Before we were clear of the islands, we were joined by a whole fleet of Indian canoes, with their dirty blankets spread to the storm, running, as we were, for Mackinaw, being on ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... friends, must have impressed Mary more forcibly than the respectable precepts laid down in a weak way for her guidance; how all this prepared her to admire what was noble and advanced in idea, without giving her the ballast needful for acting in the fittest way when a time of temptation came, when Shelley appeared. He appeared as the devoted admirer of her father and his philosophy, and as such was admitted into the family ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... and then descend. Every few minutes Lieutenant Mallet, suspended in his cobweb of netting, says to Captain Jovis: "We are descending; throw down half a handful." And the captain, who is talking and laughing with us, with a bag of ballast between his legs, takes a handful of sand out of the bag and throws ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... ballast tomorrow, sir. She'll go light, and aboard her I should get to Fulta as quickly as ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... such weak and cowardly warriors. When the enemies of the Church can show us unprincipled Churchmen, who have no firm faith in the doctrines which they profess, who have drifted away from their moorings, and, like ships without ballast, are blown about by every wind, it is not surprising if these enemies still remain outside the Church. Can we marvel that some should sneer at Holy Baptism, when they can name those who have tried to wash out the sign of the Cross with every kind of sin? ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... said Davis. "There's only one thing certain: it's no use carting this old glass and ballast to Peru. No, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that the defect could be remedied by placing ballast on the more buoyant side of the canoe to bring it down to the level of the other; or, perhaps, if some more wood were cut away on the heavier side, that it would cause it to rise. He offered to do the work himself, but Felix, in his gloomy mood, would not answer him. Oliver returned to the pool, ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... whole system of education, are in poor plight. As, at the public school, the child is robbed of valuable time by filling his brain with matters that accord neither with common sense nor scientific experience; as a mass of ballast is there dumped into him that he can not utilize in life, that, rather, hampers him in his progress and development; so likewise is it done in our higher schools. In the preparatory schools for the Universities a mass of dry, useless matter is pounded into the pupils. These matters, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... tho'!" cried Smallbones. "I'll not trust him—Jemmy, my boy, get up a pig of ballast. I'll sink him fifty fathoms deep, and then if so be he cum up again, why then I give it up for ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... you had labored in some other business two years, with the intelligence and ballast you have shown around here, you would now have had a desk somewhere and a phone ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... have we not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbish! Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next To see the Dandelions on a Sunday— But what is ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... what's head gardener up at Claverings, 'e can't get sweet peas like that, try 'ow 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sand ballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the other day, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why a station-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e says, 'but ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... in extreme cases we have, with due rite and ceremonial, given a victim to an airship, without ballast or rudder, and abundantly provisioned. Then with solemn ritual we have set him adrift—an offering to the great spirits of space—so that he may come to know. This," the prince paused in emotion, "this is the worst that could ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... demands no foolish vows, is strongest in absence, and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life, and gives steadily to every venture. Through our friends we are made brothers to all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... store-room for extra supplies. It was reached by removing the cabin steps. The tempted man entered this contracted and low apartment with the lamp in his hand. He found a narrow aperture, which led to the space under the cabin floor, where the ballast was deposited, and over which a board had been nailed to prevent the odor of bilge water from penetrating the apartment of the passengers. He removed this board, and reaching down into the hold, placed the bags in a position where they were not likely ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... possessed to his oars, still, as he looked at the shore, he was rather losing than gaining ground. He knew that the attempt to reach the harbour under sail would be hopeless; he should be sure to lose every tack he made. Already half a gale of wind was blowing, and the boat, with the little ballast there was in her, would scarcely look up even to the ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... essential to statesmanship. Poets and philosophers can afford to be thin—cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as poetry and philosophy thrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach ballasts you to earth. Such ballast the statesman must have. Thin statesmen may destroy, but construct they cannot; have ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the reins of reason, The force of nature, like too strong a gale, For want of ballast oversets ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Knight, "you think I am afraid of the trepan? Why now, what if I should say that Dalgarno has more wit than honesty,—the duke more sail than ballast,—the Prince more pride than prudence,—and that the king—" The Lady Mansel held up her finger in a warning manner—"that the king is my very good master, who has given me, for forty years and more, dog's wages, videlicit, bones and beating.—Why now, all this is said, and Archie Armstrong ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... till the governor very kindly sent an officer to clear the watering-place for my men, and to stay there till my water-casks were all full, whom I satisfied for his pains. Here I also got aboard 9 or 10 ton of ballast, and made my boatswain fit the rigging that was amiss: and I enquired also of my particular officers, whose business it was, whether they wanted any stores, especially pitch and tar; for that here I would supply myself before I proceeded ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... seized by them, and tugged at and hauled at and pummelled, and torn and vituperated, and as a wrecked vessel on stormy waters, plunging up and down with tattered sails, when the crew fling overboard freight and ballast and provision. Surely his time would have been short with that mob, but Noorna made Kadza see the use of examining him before the King, and there were in that mob sheikhs and fakirs, holy men who listened ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pronounced in his kind, that, after vain attempts to get along together, they parted for good, heedless of each other henceforth, pursuing their sundered destinies. Henry was by nature a political enthusiast, of insufficient ballast, careless of the main chance, of hot and ready tongue; the Chartist movement gave him opportunities of action which he used to the utmost, and he became a member of the so-called National Convention, established in Birmingham in 1839. Already he had achieved prominence by being imprisoned as the ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... great scarcity in the South. Coming over from Liverpool in ante bellum times as ballast, made it so cheap that little attention was given to the salt industry, and most of our best salt mines were in the hands of the enemy. But the Southern people were equal to any emergency. Men were put ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... empire and the great change it had wrought in the world; to think about what they had done and the qualities that enabled them to do it. From Panaetius they were to learn a philosophical creed which might direct and save them in the future, which might serve as ballast in public and private life, just when the ship was beginning to drift in moral helplessness. He was the founder of a school of practical wisdom, singularly well adapted to the Roman character and intellect, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... knew how long they would be gone, and Jim Kendric meant to take no unnecessary chances. No doubt they could get fish and some game in that land toward which their imaginings already had set full sail, but ham by the stack and bacon by the yard and countless tins of fruit and vegetables made a fair ballast. Kendric spent lavishly and at the end was highly satisfied ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... world. If, she naively told herself, he should come back of that same opinion, she would never "let on" that she had learned things. She would toss overboard her acquirements as ruthlessly as useless ballast from an over-encumbered boat. But, if Samson came demanding these attainments, he must find her possessed of them. So far, her idea of "l'arnin'" embraced the three R's only. And, yet, the "fotched-on" teachers at the "college" thought her the ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the ship was so close that all could make out the details of her rigging. It was a large three masted square-rigged vessel evidently in ballast for the hull was high ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... day. Not above ten thousand, which would be robbery. Every time she's in a rough sea I'm afraid she'll jump her ballast ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... brought home to us during the past hundred years very vividly by the progress of aerial navigation. Balloons are objects too familiar even to our children to cause them any surprise, and every one knows how instantly a balloon, when in the air, rises up higher if a few pounds of ballast are thrown out, or sinks if a little of the gas is allowed to escape. We know of no balancing more delicate than this, of a body floating in ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... a short time after, he saw the vessel stop, drift into the trough of the sea, careen to port, both bulwarks going under water, then suddenly capsize and sink. What was the cause of this sad catastrophe?—A want of ballast. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... it occurred to her to try working the dugout into the stream by loading the stern with ballast and then rocking the bow back and forth along the bank until the craft eventually worked ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 1591, Lord Thomas Howard, with six English line-of-battle ships, six victuallers, and two or three pinnaces, were lying at anchor under the Island of Florez. Light in ballast and short of water, with half their men disabled by sickness, they were unable to pursue the aggressive purpose on which they had been sent out. Several of the ships' crews were on shore: the ships themselves "all pestered and rommaging," with ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Jack gravely; "that did not occur to me. No doubt you must go. Our boat does require a good deal of ballast; and all that you say, Peterkin, carries so much weight with it that we won't need stones if ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the egg, and place the shell to one side until the interior is perfectly dry. Having cut a slender stick of pine for the mast, put some little chips of bees-wax into the egg-shell; then put in about as much shot as you think your boat will require for ballast—probably the third of a tea-spoonful will be sufficient. This done, hold the shell in boiling water (end down) till the wax is melted; then put in your mast through the small hole in the top of the shell; remove the shell from the hot water, and hold it upright ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... relenting smile, "'xcept that time when you skimmed all the cream off the milk and capsized the dish and said the cat done it, although you was slobbered with it from your nose to your toes—but you was a very small fellow at that time, you was, and hadn't got much ballast aboard nor begun to ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... not unusual for those old-time brigs, when bound to the North in ballast, to be blown off the land by strong westerly gales, and these occasions were dreaded by the coasting commander whose geographical knowledge was so limited that when he found himself drifting into the German Ocean beyond the sight of land, his resources became too heavily taxed, and perplexity ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... is no good; masculine ballast is the only kind that's safe if you want to make life's journey in a love balloon. [SHE turns to RUTH CHESTER.] Ruth—the trouble with you is, you're too sad lately, and show such a lack of interest. I should think you might be in love, only I haven't been able ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... they were half-way there the water was almost up to the thwarts, but they drove her on. Panting and exhausted (for mind you, if you haven't been in a fool boat like that for years, rowing takes it out of you), the rowers stuck to their task. They threw the ballast over and chucked into the water the heavy cork jackets and lifebelts that encumbered their movements. There was no thought of turning back. They were nearer to ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... hall came a woman's frightened cry, followed by the sound of breaking furniture. The next instant the door was flung open, and Mrs. Smelts, with her baby in her arms, rushed forth. Close behind her rolled Mr. Smelts, his shifted ballast of Christmas cheer threatening each ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of Manchester House, illuminating its dark rooms with her own sure, radiant presence: her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy, reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered home. She controlled the maid, and suggested the meals—meals which James ate without knowing what he ate. She brought in flowers and books, and, very rarely, a visitor. Visitors were out of place in the dark sombreness of ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... fleet consisting of six line of battle ships, six victuallers, and two or three pinnaces, under the command of Lord Thomas Howard. In the month of August in that year, they lay at anchor off the island of Flores, where they had put in for a fresh supply of water, and to take in ballast, as well as to refresh the crew, for many of ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... them, whereas now one seldom sees more than three or four in a whole season. A delicate little bird, very palatable on the table, was the waterrail, now almost extinct. The writer used to have permission to shoot along the “ballast ponds” beside the railway, and he has frequently shot them there. The woodcock is still with us. The poet painter, Dante Rosetti, kept one as a favourite pet; we of Woodhall are more prosaic, and like to see the bird rise out of the bracken before us, and fall to our shot, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... the admiral brought his ship again to anchor, and as the wind blew fresh, he caused all the empty casks to be filled with sea water to ballast the vessel. The wind continued to increase, and as there was no safe anchorage, he thought it safer to be out at sea, and therefore made sail for the island of St Michael. During the whole night it blew a heavy gale; and not being able to make the island of St ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... more dangerous than the storm which will not let one sail, so those storms of the soul are more formidable which do not allow a man to take in sail, or to calm his reason when it is disturbed, but without a pilot and without ballast, in perplexity and uncertainty through contrary and confusing courses, he rushes headlong and falls into woeful shipwreck, and shatters his life. So that from these points of view it is worse to be diseased in mind than body, for the latter only suffer, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... evening I began to think of food. I thought of it not from its gastronomic aspect, but rather in the capacity of ballast. I did not so much desire the taste of it as the feel of it. So I summoned Lubly—he, at least, did not smile at me in that patronizing, significant way—and ordered a dinner that included nearly ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... understand it,' answered Gladys. 'He said, "Don't let them take you for a walk on the Ballast Bank." What ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... away two young Saluages, which were the chiefe Casiques sonnes of that Countrey and part of Dominica, but they shortly after ran away from them at Santa Cruz Iland, where the Viceadmirall landed to take in ballast. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... something lacking in him, and that something was ballast. No one, perhaps, ever had a greater theoretical desire to be all that was right and good, but that ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... was to have no padding, so that most of the members of her circle were types. Still, as she had a perfect passion for entertaining, there remained, of course, a residue; distant elderly connections with well-sounding names (as ballast), and a few vague hangers-on; several rather dull celebrities, some merely pretty and well-dressed women, and a steadily increasing number of good-looking young men. Hyacinth was fond ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... ghosts, at home neither in heaven nor on earth, neither presuming to be spirit nor condescending to be body, but hovering intermediate. But the more strongly the antithesis is felt, the nearer the thought to end this remaining tenderness for the gross and unspiritual,—to drop this ballast of earth, and rise into the region of heavenly realities. Upon a window of Canterbury Cathedral, beneath a representation of the miracle of Cana, is the legend,—"Lympha dat historiam, vinum notat ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... to inspect the line. Three days later important personages were coming from St. Petersburg and would pass over the line. They were conducting an inquiry, so that previous to their journey it was necessary to put everything in order. Ballast was laid down, the bed was levelled, the sleepers carefully examined, spikes driven in a bit, nuts screwed up, posts painted, and orders given for yellow sand to be sprinkled at the level crossings. ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... and said, in a tone of assumed gayety: "Nonsense! Wilkie is young—he will mend his ways! We were all ridiculous when we were twenty. We have all caused our mothers many anxious nights. Time will set everything to rights, and put some ballast in this young madcap's brains. Besides, your friend Patterson doesn't seem to me quite free from blame. In knowledge of books, he may have been unequalled; but as a guardian for youth, he must have been the worst ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... supporting the heaviest traffic was constructed in a few hours. Big canal boats which were lying idle in the neighborhood were requisitioned and anchored side by side, touching each other. Their decks were made flush, each with the other, by the shifting of ballast, and when this had been accomplished a roadway was laid across them. This bridge was so satisfactory that it has not yet been replaced by a permanent structure. Road building was largely carried on among the French by infantry, and it was my ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... course of the present year in the New York market for bonded grain, and grain for the home consumption. I fully expect, however, to see the price of Canadian grain, bonded at New York, rise, now that it can be exported to Liverpool in the New York liners, which will carry it for ballast. Nevertheless, I think that Sir Robert Peel's dictum with respect to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, on the day on which he retired last from office, when he observed that thenceforward, even when the poor suffered from the high price of bread, they would ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... all but inspired; and being possessed of real powers as miraculous in her own eyes as those which were imputed to her were in theirs (for what are real spiritual experiences but daily miracles?) she was just in that temper of mind in which she required, as ballast, all her real goodness, lest the moral balance should topple headlong after the intellectual, and the downward course of vanity, excitement, deception, blasphemous assumptions be entered on. Happy for her that she was in Protestant ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Sam, in a voice that shook as his hand did while he handed me back the letter. "It is a great chance for him, and if you can help you'll have to go to it, Betty. Pete only needs ballast, and you ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... I guess I'd rather over-ballast your craft," said Job Judson, turning round his rotund figure, such as was not often seen in the bush. Philip thanked him, and agreed that no more persons were required ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... Boyle. "Reminds me of a skipper I once sailed with, bound from Rotterdam to Hull in ballast. There was a Scotch mist best part of the trip, an' the old man loaded with schnapps to keep out the damp. First time he got a squint of the sun he went as yaller as a Swede turnip. 'It's all up with us, boys,' ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... This wood was not used for making furniture till near the end of the seventeenth century. A London physician had a brother, the captain of a West India ship, who, on his return to England, having on board several logs of mahogany for the purpose of ballast, made him a present of the wood, he being engaged in a building project; his carpenter, however, threw it aside, observing that it was too hard to be wrought. Some time after, the lady of the physician being in want of a box to hold candles, the cabinet-maker was directed to make it of this ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... lies but little more than a cable's length from the shore, so that you can almost look down upon her decks. You perceive that she is a handsome craft of some six or seven hundred tons burthen, standing high out of water, in ballast trim, with a black hull, bright waist, and wales painted white. Her bows flare very much, and are sharp and symmetrical; the cut-water stretches, with a graceful curve, far out beyond them toward the long sweeping martingal, and is surmounted ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... crab; but as my senses became clearer, I reasoned upon the improbability of there being one in such a place. And yet, why not? A crab might very well find lodgment in the hold of a ship: it might have been brought aboard in some strange way— among the ballast—or possibly carried aboard by some of the sailors, out of curiosity; it may have been abandoned to its fate, and left to hide itself among the numerous corners and crevices which are found among the timbers of a vessel's hold? It might procure sustenance in the bilge-water, or ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... other, and more important things to think about," Mr. Skinner retorted icily. As a business man he was opposed to levity in the office. "What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?" ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... My mates got their oars and once more brought our boat alongside. Grapple they could not, because the irons were lost. Therefore, in obedience to the order which I shouted to them from the high prow of the enemy's ship, they began to hurl their ballast stones into her, and thus stove out her bottom, so that in the end she ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... in the main those small farmers and semi-peasants who under the old regime were released from the burden of taxation and at the same time excluded from the benefits of education. Among these people the illusions of the higher classes were reflected without the ballast of mentality. Ready to fight on any provocation, yet circumscribed by their own natures, not understanding life, unable to picture to themselves different types and conditions, these people were as prone as children to confuse the world of their own desire with the world of fact. When ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... cubits long, which they caulked with the husks of palmetoes, making ropes of the manes and tails of their horses, and sails of their shirts; but were hardly able to find enough of stones to serve for ballast ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... o'clock quite a large number of country folks had reached the field. Teams were hitched all along the fences. Now the Professor announced that as he wished to make a long trip that day, he should carry plenty of ballast and so could allow only two persons with him. It had been agreed that we should draw cuts, and this ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... as a regatta, and you pulled well, Evan; but you had too much ballast aboard, and Miss Wilder ran up false colors just in time to save her ship. What was the wager?" asked the lively Joseph, complacently surveying his marine millinery, which would have scandalized ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... party, possibly better informed than myself, speedily changed their places to the opposite side of the boat, while I remained holding off fast by the gunwale, till the sea rushing over, what was now becoming the lee-side, carried me head over heels into the shingle ballast in the waist. Lord, how they did laugh! Agnes, too, who never before could get beyond a very faint smile, grew almost hysterical at my performance. As for me, I only wanted this to complete my long threatened ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... lads learned, was one of the largest freighters afloat. It carried a crew of more than 200 men. It was loaded in ballast for the trip across, but, returning, it would carry a valuable cargo of ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... round the stern-sheets, and a locker forward big enough to hold a man. The fellow don't guess their meanin', an' I don't let him guess. He thinks they're for air-compartments, to keep her buoyant; says she'll need more ballast than I've allowed her, and wants to know what sense there is in buildin' a boat so floatey. We'll ballast her, Brooks; all in good time. We'll ship her aboard the Kingston packet, bein' of a size that she'll carry ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Mantua has no Leads in the Sleeves, and I hope we are not lighter than the French Ladies, so as to want that kind of Ballast; the Petticoat has no Whale-bone; but fits with an Air altogether galant and degage: the Coiffeure is inexpressibly pretty, and in short, the whole Dress has a thousand Beauties in it, which I would not have as ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on there like ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... reputed mastery of the French tongue. A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's councils, and endured by the Cabinet as necessary ballast. He did not conceal his dislike for certain of his colleagues, notably Mr. Vennard ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... progressed, though very slowly; she had become much more leaky, the cargo was completely rotten, and the stench drove them all on deck; nor could they heave a particle of it overboard, for then the vessel would have capsized, as she had no ballast in. The sails were perfectly rotten—so bad that the vessel was often a whole day without a stitch of canvas set when the wind fell light, that they might be repaired with monkey skins, of which there was a ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... the same thing, with all the readers of Notes and Queries, we propose, on Saturday next, treating them to a Christmas Number, rich in articles on Folk Lore, Popular Literature, &c., and to use as ballast for our barque, which will at such occasion be of unwonted lightness, a number of Replies which we have by us imploring ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... those of which nature has provided an inexhaustible supply, greater quantities found their way into the commerce of the world; until, in 1820, it was a drug in all markets, and was frequently brought as ballast merely. About this time it began to be subjected to experiments with a view to rendering it available in the arts. It was found useful as an ingredient of blacking and varnish. Its elasticity was turned to account in France in the manufacture of ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... to be imported to Scotland duty free." "It would," he says, "save our country very great sums, and no way hurt the landed interest. It would lower the price of iron, and consequently of all our manufactures, which would increase the consumpt and sale; it would serve for ballast to our ships from North America, and when tobacco is scarce, fill up part of the tonnage; would increase our exports, and no way interfere with our neighbours in the South."[68] That language might be held indifferently by the mercantilist ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... we shall," cried the mate. "That's what I like in Mr Drew's collecting, he presses and dries his bits of weeds and things, and then shuts them up in books. Mr Panton's work, too, is pleasant enough only lumpy. I shall have to get rid of the brig's ballast and make up with his specimens of minerals to ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... principally to move her, had built a short deck forward to prevent the seas from breaking aboard her, as well as to give him a place in which he might stow away various articles, under cover from the rain. Her ballast was breakers, filled with fresh water, of which there still remained several in the ship. All these, as well as her masts, sails, oars, &c., were in her when she was launched; and that important event having taken place early in the morning, Mark could not restrain his impatience for a cruise, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... now disguised, with the man John and eight of the most turbulent among the crew of the nameless ship aboard her. We had come without hindrance through the crowded waters of the Channel; and, styling ourselves a Norwegian whaler in ballast, had gained the difficult harbour without arousing suspicion. At the first, Black had thought to leave me on the steamer; but I, who had an insatiable longing to set foot ashore again, gave him solemn word that I would not seek to quit him, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... are Australian coal, and general merchandise from Europe, but most sailing ships arrive in ballast. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... I found his favorite fishing ground, and came every day to watch him from a thicket on the shore. It was of little use to go in a canoe. At my approach he would sink deeper and deeper in the water, as if taking in ballast. How he does this is a mystery; for his body is much lighter than its bulk of water. Dead or alive, it floats like a cork; yet without any perceptible motion, by an effort of will apparently, he sinks it out of sight. You ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so hard that they were both bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... mentally timed them down the river, allowing for the pause to take in ballast, and on the Wednesday pictured the sail down the open sea. That night he thought of the little craft under the bows of the huge steam-vessels, powerless to make itself seen or heard, and Avice, now growing inexpressibly dear, sleeping in her ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... floating bottom downwards, and lid upwards,—just as it might have been placed opposite Ben's own bunk in the forecastle of a frigate,—and it appeared to be kept steadily balanced in this position by the weight of some iron cleeting along the bottom, which acted as ballast. Otherwise the chest sat so high upon the water, as to show that it must either be quite empty or nearly so; for the sennit handles at each end, which were several inches below the level of the lid, hung quite ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... no custom-house nor quarantine To ask him awkward questions on the way About the time and place where he had been: He left his ship to be hove down next day, With orders to the people to careen; So that all hands were busy beyond measure, In getting out goods, ballast, guns, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... packets of beads in earthen pots. The pots he put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid on the bottom of the ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle which till then had been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps of sweet-smelling grey amber—a little morsel no bigger than a thumbnail purchased a cask of wine. But I speak ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... durability, is made by using foundry sand or smith's ashes instead of ordinary sand. There are many other substitutes for the ordinary sand. As an example, fine stone grit may be used with advantage. Thoroughly burnt clay or ballast, old bricks, clinkers and cinders, ground to a uniform size and screened from dust, also make ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... interested in the result, I said nothing more, but proceeded to lighten the ship as speedily as possible, by making several additional trips to the shore with as much of the cargo as enabled us to get at the ballast; and on each occasion we received the same prompt and energetic assistance from our turbaned allies, each boat-load being carried to the corner of the field where the others were deposited. It required two days to get the ship sufficiently ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... from the Victory, 'I won't say that your brother's intended ha'n't got some ballast, which is very lucky for'n, as he might have picked up with a girl without a single copper nail. To be sure there was a time we had when we got into port! It was open house for us all!' And after mentally regarding the scene for ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... I'll just take another look at the water tank valves," said Tom to himself as he prepared to enter the big compartments which received the water ballast. "I want to be sure they work properly and quickly. We've got to depend on them to make us sink when we want to, and, what's more important, to rise to the surface in a hurry. I've got time enough to look them over before dad and Mr. Sharp ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... I'm holding down the wheel—perhaps. The screw is always edging a ship off, and the lighter the ballast the wider the yaw. So you have to keep hitching her over a point to starboard. You trust to me to keep that point, and I trust to God that the north ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... America, the Indies? Dro. Oh sir, vpon her nose, all ore embellished with Rubies, Carbuncles, Saphires, declining their rich Aspect to the hot breath of Spaine, who sent whole Armadoes of Carrects to be ballast at her nose ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... girl would marry her son within a certain time, he could have the wad. Seems the son was something of a high-roller, and the old lady knew he'd blow it in, if it was turned over to him without any ballast, like; and the girl was supposed to be the ballast, to hold him steady. So the old lady, or else it was the girl, writes to this fellow, and he agrees to hook up with the lady and take the money and behave himself. Near as I could make it out, the time was ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... way and that, with his finger on trigger, eager to kill, gliding from cover to cover, and presently gone again from view, leaving no human life visible nearer than the swarming mob that Richling, by mounting a pile of ship's ballast, could see still on the steam-boat landing, pillaging in the drenching rain, and the long fleet casting anchor before the town in ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... patache five pieces of artillery as ballast. They are medium-sized cannon, in very good condition; and, with their ammunition cases and fittings may be utilized by the ships which your Excellency may be pleased to despatch. They will not be missed here, for we lack powder ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... would have to start from her home port comparatively "light"—as, having no cargo to speak of, save the provisions for her own crew for twelve months and the stores she carried for the use of the sealing schooners amongst the islands, she was forced to take in a great deal of ballast to ensure her stability, and this had to be so apportioned in her hold as to ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Scandinavian cattleship ballast, catch that ball in your arms when I throw it to you, and don't let go of it!" shrieked Bost, shooting ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... each. Buck-shot and slugs are better than bullets, for the purposes of which we are speaking. Bows and arrows might render good service. The Chinese, in their junks, when they expect a piratical attack, bring up baskets filled with stones from the ballast of the ship, and put them on deck ready at hand. They throw them with great force and precision: the idea is not a bad one. Boiling water and hot sand, if circumstances happened to permit their use, are worth bearing in mind, as they ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... so that it was a common occurrence to put up a “whisp” of them, whereas now one seldom sees more than three or four in a whole season. A delicate little bird, very palatable on the table, was the waterrail, now almost extinct. The writer used to have permission to shoot along the “ballast ponds” beside the railway, and he has frequently shot them there. The woodcock is still with us. The poet painter, Dante Rosetti, kept one as a favourite pet; we of Woodhall are more prosaic, and ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... important things to think about," Mr. Skinner retorted icily. As a business man he was opposed to levity in the office. "What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?" ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... steward, purser, several able-bodied seamen, and all the passengers; while the two lifeboats had 31 of the crew. The boats drifted about all day, there being no wind, and the burning ship was still in sight. On the third day the lifeboats were not to be seen; each had a box of gold on board, by way of ballast. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... hardened clay. Why does the bird amass these objects? Is it impelled by a collector's instinct less perfect than that of the Bower-bird? There is no reason to suppose this. Nor does it appear that he wishes to make the nest heavier and prevent it by this ballast from being blown about by every breeze when the couple are out, and the young not heavy enough to ensure the stability of the edifice. The part played by these little balls is much more remarkable, if we may trust the evidence ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... are shipped to work them, and from forty to fifty Indians, called Busos, to dive for the oyster. A stock of provisions and spirits, a small sum of money to advance the people during the cruise, a limited supply of calaboose furniture, a sufficient number of hammocks to sleep in, and a quantity of ballast, constitute nearly all ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room, for there was such a heaving and pitching, that he believed he should shift his ballast. The fellow understood no part of this address but the word brandy, at mention of which he disappeared. Then Crowe, throwing himself into an elbow chair, "Stop my hawse-holes," cried he, "I can't think what's the matter, brother; ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... are his! This man knows coral islands in the sea, And dusky girls heartbroken for white men; This sailor knows of wondrous lands afar, More rich than Spain, when the Phoenicians shipped Silver for common ballast, and they saw Horses at silver mangers eating grain; This man has seen the wind blow up a mermaid's hair Which, like a golden serpent, reared and stretched To feel the air away beyond her head. He begged my pennies, which I gave with joy— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... imperious and unrestrained before, and having equal authority with them, was the means of keeping them within bounds of moderation, and highly contributed to the preservation of the State. The establishment of a Senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept it in just equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators adhering to the kings whenever they saw the people too encroaching, and on the other hand, supporting the people, when the kings ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... existence of coal where none is now to be found. In 1667 he wrote to Colbert that a coal-mine had been discovered at the foot of the Quebec rock. 'This coal,' he said, 'is good enough for the forge. If the test is satisfactory, I shall see that our vessels take loads of it to serve as ballast. It would be a great help in our naval construction; we could then do without the English coal.' Next year the intendant wrote again: 'The coal-mine opened at Quebec, which originated in the cellar of a lower-town resident and ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... worse. There was a grinding and crunching under the wheels of the carriage as though a thousand huge coffee-mills were at work. Suddenly the train parted in the middle, and while the forepart, with the engine, went ploughing through the ballast till brought up in safety a few hundred yards further on, the carriage in which were Ducie and Platzoff, together with the hinder part of the train, went toppling over a high embankment, and crashing down the side, and rolling over and over, came to a dead stand ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... Put the whole cargo aboard! This here craft needs ballast; hoist her over the side!" And he reached out his hand for the whole plug of tobacco and took it from Freddie, and gnawed off a corner ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... forbade the departure of all ships and vessels in the ports of the United States for any foreign port, except vessels under the immediate direction of the President. Foreign armed vessels were exempted as a matter of course from the operation of this act; so also were all vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods at the time when the act was passed. Coasting vessels were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to re-land their goods, wares, or merchandise in some port ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... philosopher, the enthusiast, and the man of the world is fairly unusual in literature, but in Hazlitt's case the union was not productive of any sharp contradictions. His common sense served as a ballast to his buoyant emotions; the natural strength of his feelings loosened the bonds which attached him to his favorite theories; his cynicism, by sharpening his perception of the frailty of human nature, prevented his philanthropic ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... enough to sink it, was lowered down the black-looking pit, and was drawn up again nearly full of water. This was given to the nearest grazing animals, and the bucket sent down again, to catch against some projecting block and tilt out the ballast, after which it refused to sink, but made a jerk or two to escape, and then had to ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... "There's only one thing certain: it's no use carting this old glass and ballast to Peru. No, sir, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the only one through which the Mannigfual passed, for we are told that it once, nobody knows how, penetrated into the Baltic Sea, where, the water not being deep enough to keep the vessel afloat, the captain ordered all the ballast to be thrown overboard. The material thus cast on either side of the vessel into the sea formed the two islands ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... pass by the East winds that had arisen from the same parts. But the weight was light; and such as the horses of the sun could not feel; and the yoke was deficient of its wonted weight. And as the curving ships, without proper ballast, are tossed about, and unsteady, through their too great lightness, are borne through the sea, so does the chariot give bounds[8] in the air, unimpeded by its usual burden, and is tossed on high, and is just like ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... and Witta exchanged amber out of the North against little wedges of iron and packets of beads in earthen pots. The pots he put under the decks, and the wedges of iron he laid on the bottom of the ship after he had cast out the stones and shingle which till then had been our ballast. Wine, too, he bought for lumps of sweet-smelling grey amber—a little morsel no bigger than a thumbnail purchased a cask of wine. But I speak ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... or anything else. He could just assent to remarks made to him by the captain and that was all. Ellen was in no better plight and sat on a bench near me, and I cannot say I felt cheerful, for the schooner, which was empty and had not much ballast, was rolling considerably. I carried on various conversations and strained my eyes to see if Mr. Keytel's boat was coming. It was a long wait, and when at last he did get on board he had gifts to bestow upon ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... to Knight's Magazine, I really do not think that, considering the circumstances under which it is conducted, it can be much censured. Every magazine must contain a certain quantity of mere ballast, of no value but as it occupies space. The general tone and spirit of the work will stand a comparison, in a moral point of view, with any periodical publication not professedly religious. I will venture to say that nothing has appeared ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbish! Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next To see the Dandelions on a Sunday— But what ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... said Crump carefully. "Looked as if he was going out in ballast—except his pockets; there was something in his pockets, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... with things; and these three qualities are essential to statesmanship. Poets and philosophers can afford to be thin—cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as poetry and philosophy thrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach ballasts you to earth. Such ballast the statesman must have. Thin statesmen may destroy, but construct they cannot; have achieved chaos, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... largest grain ranches are along the tule lands around Stockton. These were marshes once, but have been drained, and now are choice grain fields. Wheat was first sent out of the state to England as ballast for returning ships, but the trade gradually increased until there are now over one hundred of the finest sailing vessels engaged in it. Unfortunately, few of these vessels are American, perhaps but one fourth. It is a pity that our countrymen should not benefit more by ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of carracks to be ballast at ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... that the ballast men might do this; that as fast as the hills are taken away they would gather together again, or that the watermen might do it. To the first, I answer, that ballast men, instead of taking away from these hills, make holes in other places of the river, which is the reason ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... Body touches these Partridges nor the Pigeons, to-Morrow is a Fast-Day appointed by the Church; prepare against that Hunger; Ballast your Ship against the impending Storm. War is a coming, furnish your Belly ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... God! We are made," and so away they went all hands to work; wherein they had this one further piece of remarkable prosperity, that whereas if they had first fallen upon that part of the Spanish wreck where the pieces of eight[4] had been stowed in bags among the ballast they had seen a more laborious and less enriching time of it; now, most happily, they first fell upon that room in the wreck where the bullion had been stored up; and they so prospered in this new fishery that in a little while they had, without the loss of any man's life, brought up thirty-two ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... importance of their search in the fascination of it. They explored almost every known type of ship—freighters, liners, cold-storage boats, and grain-boats. Once Kent's hopes ran high at sight of a fuel-ship, but it proved to be in ballast, its cargo-tanks empty and its own tanks ...
— The Sargasso of Space • Edmond Hamilton
... boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in the deal any more'n sawdust. Now, John, what do you ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... notwithstanding, our Universities, along with our whole system of education, are in poor plight. As, at the public school, the child is robbed of valuable time by filling his brain with matters that accord neither with common sense nor scientific experience; as a mass of ballast is there dumped into him that he can not utilize in life, that, rather, hampers him in his progress and development; so likewise is it done in our higher schools. In the preparatory schools for the Universities a mass of dry, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... two letters from Lovelace to Belford; in which he tells him who Mennell is, and gives an account of many new contrivances and precautions. Women's pockets ballast-bags. Mrs. Sinclair's wardrobe. Good order observed in her house. The lady's caution, he ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... losing than gaining ground. He knew that the attempt to reach the harbour under sail would be hopeless; he should be sure to lose every tack he made. Already half a gale of wind was blowing, and the boat, with the little ballast there was in her, would scarcely look up even ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... were now empty and ready for the return voyage, and as soon as Columbus was better he set to work to face the situation. After all his promises it would never do to send them home empty or in ballast; a cargo of stones from the new-found Indies would not be well received in Spain. The natives had told him that somewhere in the island existed the gold mines of Cibao, and he determined to make an attempt ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... its mire. Sound is its waters. That particular part of it which leads towards heaven is attended with great difficulties. Body is the boat by which one must cross that river. Forgiveness is the oar by which it is to be propelled. Truth is the ballast that is to steady that boat. The practice of righteousness is the string that is to be attached to the mast for dragging that boat along difficult waters. Charity of gift constitutes the wind that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... necessary to follow the badly blazed trees, and a biting hunger that gnawed, helped to keep his mind steady. Otherwise, he admits, the temporary aberration he had suffered might have been prolonged to the point of positive disaster. Gradually the ballast shifted back again, and he regained something that approached ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... the soldiers looked at me as one returned from the grave, and from what I could gather by the looks of the boys, I was something of a hero, even before I had told my story. The colonel asked me what had become of all the baggage I had on my saddle when I went away, and I told him that I had thrown ballast over-board all over the Southern Confederacy, when I was charging the enemy, because I found my horse drew too much water for a long run. He said something about my being a Horse-Marine, and sent me back to my company, telling me that when we got ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... tackle were rigged, and all was made ready to discharge. It was now, "Come on, McCarthy, or McCarthy, come on!" I didn't care which, I had one right on my side, and I kept that always in view; namely, the right to discharge the cargo where I had first received it; but where the money to buy ballast and pay other charges was to come from ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... earth, earthy. This we say, not as anything against him intellectually or spiritually, but simply as indicating the material ballast, which in this man is grosser and heavier than in most men, pulling forever against his sails, and absolutely forbidding that freer movement of the imagination which usually belongs to minds of a power ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... generally carries four passengers, two on each side. On such occasions, the driver sits on a little seat over the well, looking to the front, while the passengers' backs are turned toward each other. Having only one passenger, Andy decided to sit on the opposite side of the car to ballast her evenly. After Paul bid good-bye to the coast guard and thanked him for his hospitality, he placed his rubber suit on the forward part of the seat and sprung up behind. Andy seemed in no hurry to get under way. A multitude of knots in the harness required attention and ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... walk in the gloaming each day, and leave an edible bundle in the clump of spruces above the Devil's Elbow you'll find it mysteriously disappears. From which you may infer that I'm travelling in a circle with a small radius. And say, Julius, heave over some of your wind ballast and even up with discretion. You're to take a minor part in a play, with Goggles and ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... several minor rapids were passed without difficulty; and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools which seemed impassable. But the men unloaded the canoes and—'a desperate undertaking'—ran them down the rapids with light ballast. They then came back overland for ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... church of our Lady at the first land they might come to. Besides these general vows, several others were made by individuals. The tempest was now very violent, and the admirals ship could hardly withstand its fury for want of ballast, which was fallen very short in consequence of the provisions and water being mostly expended. To supply this want, they filled all the empty casks in the ship with sea water, which was some help and made the ship to bear more upright, and be in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... American merchantmen, plying between Brazil and New England, sometimes carried rubber as ballast on the home voyage and dumped it on the wharves at Boston. One of the shipmasters exhibited to his friends a pair of native shoes fancifully gilded. Another, with more foresight, brought home five hundred pairs, ungilded, ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... islands, at very uncertain intervals. It is still a great coaling-station, though not so much used as it was formerly, before the opening of the Suez Canal. The ships come out with coal, and go away in ballast (there is nothing else to be had here), procured from a point near the town, to Rio or elsewhere, where they pick up their homeward cargo ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... sailed off homewards in their new boat. There was no other ballast in the boat but himself, his old woman, the children, and the Christmas provisions. His son Bernt sat by the main-sheet; his wife, helped by her next eldest son, held the sail-ropes; Elias himself sat at the rudder, while the two younger brothers of twelve ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... prevented from being carried to America, unless first landed in England: the consequence whereof is, that English ships, which (I shall suppose) are hired to sail from London to Lisbon with corn, and thence proceed to America, have not the liberty to carry salt in place of ballast, and therefore under a necessity to pay above L10 sterling at Lisbon for ballast (that is to say, for sand), which they carry to America, or else return to England in order to get a clearance for the salt, which would be more expense ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... father, who had too little ballast to regulate his own conduct, that he contracted the most ardent friendship for the young Alexander, who was a gay, reckless, dissipated fellow, regarding his wealth as the source from which he derived all his sensual pleasures, and not as a talent committed to his stewardship, of which ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... impediments removed, to stand and start without humiliation, and equal with the rest; to commence, or have the road clear'd to commence, the grand experiment of development, whose end, (perhaps requiring several generations,) may be the forming of a full-grown man or woman—that is something. To ballast the State is also secured, and in our times is to be secured, in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Castle on October 8th without "a single article for the ship but ballast and," so he wrote Mrs. Barry, "my reason for going to sea without these is the European ships are expected any day and should any of them be taken and I lying in the harbor, the merchants may blame me and no other, although it would not be my fault." Barry returned on ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... negro—well, cast the lot as one might, the crew of the Spray in a little while would have been hard to find. It is needless to say that I took no more such chances. The tridacna were afterward procured in a safe boat, thirty of them taking the place of three tons of cement ballast, which I threw overboard to ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... allowing him to drop through the hatches into the lower hold. Then they belayed the rope, and went down below. Parratt had already lighted a slush-lamp, by the glimmer of which they could see the mandarin swinging to and fro like a pendulum within a few feet of the ballast, and still quivering and twitching in his death-throes. They were now joined by Wo-li, who had watched the proceedings from the quay, and the four villains proceeded, without loss of time, to rifle the body as it hung. To their surprise ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... dag'—short for dago of course. My spirits are constantly improving. Funny Christmas, second day out. Wonder if we'll dock New Year's Day. My God what a list to starboard. They say a waiter broke his arm when it happened, ballast shifted. Don't believe it. Something wrong. I ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... remarkable that only one woman ever joined this community. Mrs. Lamb merely followed wheresoever her husband led,—"as ballast for his balloon," as she said, in her ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... them, and tugged at and hauled at and pummelled, and torn and vituperated, and as a wrecked vessel on stormy waters, plunging up and down with tattered sails, when the crew fling overboard freight and ballast and provision. Surely his time would have been short with that mob, but Noorna made Kadza see the use of examining him before the King, and there were in that mob sheikhs and fakirs, holy men who listened to the words of Kadza, and exerted themselves to rescue Baba Mustapha, and quieted the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the morning of the 4th the Alliance appeared again, and (p. 102) had brought to two very small coasting sloops in ballast, but without having attended properly to my orders of yesterday. The Vengeance joined me soon after, and informed me that in consequence of Captain Landais' orders to the commanders of the two prize ships, they had refused to follow him to the rendezvous. I am to this moment ignorant of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... idiotic results," he went on; "no ballast. Take what your grandfather said to me—nothing in that unexpected or to drive a man off. Yet off I go and—" he halted oddly, just as her breath was suspended at the admittance which she was certain must follow. But he fell ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... station of Malaunay. He was in love with Flore, who for a time seemed to encourage him. He was dismissed from his post on account of grave negligence caused by Flore, who distracted his attention in order that he might allow the Havre express to dash into a train loaded with ballast. The accident was only averted by a new automatic signalling apparatus. La ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... consumption had averaged 297 pounds per hour, while the fuel tanks carried sufficient for a flight of about seven hours. The airship had attained a maximum height of about 6,230 feet, to reach which 6,600 pounds of ballast had to be discarded. Moreover, it was proved that a Zeppelin, if travelling under military conditions with full armament and ammunition aboard, could carry sufficient fuel for only ten hours at the utmost, during which, if the slightest head-wind prevailed, it could not cover more than 340 miles ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... forgive when there is magnanimity, vainglory and probably folly in forgiveness, but will not overlook the most trivial affront when there is every reason for so doing. They have brain, but not ballast, and their whole life is usually a lopsided effort to "play to ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... the signal station, on every side. On the north and east it terminated abruptly in artificial cliffs of a dizzy height. The rocks had been blasted from their bases to make room for a steadily increasing commerce, and the debris was shipped away as ballast in the vessels that were chartered to bring passengers and provision to the coast, and found nothing in the line of freight ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... and no sooner said than almost done; the safety spring balance was screwed down, and a railway chair suspended from it by strong copper wire, and the steam allowed to rise until it reached ninety lb. on the inch, and the big iron skips were hoisted with their load of heavy ballast as easily as the wooden ones had been. The boiler happened to ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... of those veering lists of the ballast aboard which are so disconcerting to the author. The story got out of hand. The old woman silent, indomitable, fed and deeply satisfied for all of her hard and grinding life by her love for the husband whom she had taken from her sister, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... they who happen to be at sea when this tempest or tyffon takes place, as few escape the dreadful danger. In this year it was our evil fortune to be at sea in one of these terrible storms; and well it was for us that our ship was newly over-planked, and had no loading save victuals and ballast, with some gold and silver for Bengal, as no other merchandise is carried to Bengal from Pegu. The tyffon accordingly assailed us and lasted three days, carrying away our sails, yards, and rudder; and as the ship laboured excessively, we cut away our mast, yet she continued to labour more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... that but for our rope it would have gone out to sea. Unfortunately, it leaned so much on one side, that none of the boys would venture into it. I was in despair, when I suddenly remembered it only wanted ballast to keep it in equilibrium. I hastily threw in anything I got hold of that was heavy, and soon had my boat level, and ready for occupation. They now contended who should enter first; but I stopped them, reflecting that these restless ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... unnecessary chances. No doubt they could get fish and some game in that land toward which their imaginings already had set full sail, but ham by the stack and bacon by the yard and countless tins of fruit and vegetables made a fair ballast. Kendric spent lavishly and at the end was highly satisfied ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... improvements made upon old machinery, he was appointed chief engineer in 1813, at Killingworth, at a salary of L100 per year. Besides erecting a winding engine for drawing up coal, and a pumping-engine, he projected and laid down a self-acting incline along the declivity of the Willington ballast quay, so arranged that full wagons descending to the vessels drew up the empty ones. But the construction of an efficient and economical locomotive steam engine mainly occupied his mind. He was among those who saw the Blenkinsop engine first put on ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... perhaps from bar, bare or mere, and last, load), heavy material, such as gravel, stone or metal, placed in the hold of a ship in order to immerse her sufficiently to give adequate stability. In botany "ballast-plants" are so-called because they have been introduced into countries in which they are not indigenous through their seeds being carried in such ballast. A ship "in ballast" is one which carries no paying cargo. In modern vessels ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... it, sir," Skipper Bill said to Sir Archibald, running his eyes over the tall, trim spars of the new craft; "an' once she gets t' sea she's got ballast enough t' stand up to a sousing breeze. With any sort o' civil weather she ought t' make ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... rushed up, a flash of lightning exhibiting his countenance pale as death. "We've sprung a fearful leak, sir," he exclaimed; "it's my belief that the oakum is washed out of the seams, for already the water is rising above the ballast." ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... for some distance, the white one going higher than the yellow one, then they began to descend. Ballast was thrown out, but they continued their downward flight. They disappeared behind Montmartre hill. They must have landed on the Saint Denis plain. They were too heavily weighted, or else the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... that the attempt had failed, but the three men in the car set to work vigorously throwing out some of the sand-bags that had been put in the car for ballast, to steady it, and the balloon soon rose again ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 40, August 12, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the north again; an Indian girl was on her knees clinging to my feet, sobbing out incoherent gratitude; a pair of arms were belabouring my shoulders; and a voice was saying with broken gurgles of joy: "Ship ahoy, there! Ease your helm! Don't heave all your ballast overboard!"—a clapping of hands on my back—"Port your helm! Ease her up! All sheets in the wind and the storms'l aflutter! Ha-ha!" with a wringing and a wringing like to wrench my hands off—"Anchor out! Haul away! Home with her ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... I was born when I was very young and have been desperately tidy about my morals ever since, but for fear of stumbling just because I'm so bored I have entrenched myself behind a maddening routine. Six months here ought to put ballast into the ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... have been blowing twice a gale and nothing happened to either of us. Probably no stiffer class of vessels sails the seas than the big coasters of our side of the North Atlantic. Give them plenty of ballast and there is no capsizing them. We surely had plenty of ballast in us now, and took cheerfully all the hard westerly had to give us, and foamed along. Foamed? We wallowed—like a couple of sailing submarines almost. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... mental attention to the organism through which thought is carried on. Numerous are the instances of men who would never have been heard of as thinkers or as reflective poets, if they had had sufficient muscular ballast to pull against their teeming brains. The consequence of the disproportion has been that the superfluous brain has exhaled, as a mere necessity.[A] If Tacitus had fared in any sort like his brother,—if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... regardful of the sorrow about her, that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse—as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... "Newbern," with nothing in her but ballast, rolled and lurched along, through the bright green waters of the outer bar. I stood leaning against the great mast, steadying myself as best I could, and the tears rolled down my face; for I saw the friendly green hills, and before me lay the glorious bay of San ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... that served me as ballast to so much sail. The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for one, that you cannot tear up ancient rootages and safely plant the tree of liberty in soil which is not native to it. I believe that the ancient traditions of a people are its ballast; you cannot make a tabula rasa upon which to write a political program. You cannot take a new sheet of paper and determine what your life shall be to-morrow. You must knit the new into the old. ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... by the command of Caligula, brought the obelisk from Egypt, which stands in the Vatican Circus, and four blocks of the same sort of stone to support it. Nothing certainly ever appeared on the sea more astonishing than this vessel; 120,000 bushels of lentiles served for its ballast; the length of it nearly equalled all the left side of the port of Ostia; for it was sent there by the emperor Claudius. The thickness of the tree was as much as four men could embrace with ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the sun, by increasing the amount of material there for the sun to attract, and to lighten the pole approaching or turning towards the sun, by removing some heavy substance from it, and putting it preferably at the opposite pole. This shifting of ballast is most easily accomplished, as you will readily perceive, by confining and removing water, which is easily moved and has a considerable weight. How we purpose to apply these aqueous brakes to check the wabbling ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... a solid, sensible sort of person, who acted as ballast for the volatile Vicky, and sometimes reprimanded her in a ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... little wages due to them, had deserted soon after our arrival. Only we apprentices and the sail-maker remained, and we had work enough to set our muscles up in the heavy harbour jobs. Trimming coal and shovelling ballast may not be scientific training, but it is grand work ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... of any alteration in their theories. But they were facing a new situation, and that new situation became an immense factor in their unconscious growth. Their intellectual and moral problems shifted, as a boat shifts her ballast when the wind blows from a new quarter. The John Cotton preaching in a shed in the new Boston had come to "suffer a sea-change" from the John Cotton who had been rector of St. Botolph's splendid church in Lincolnshire. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... she doubtless frequently heard, as a child, between her father and his friends, must have impressed Mary more forcibly than the respectable precepts laid down in a weak way for her guidance; how all this prepared her to admire what was noble and advanced in idea, without giving her the ballast needful for acting in the fittest way when a time of temptation came, when Shelley appeared. He appeared as the devoted admirer of her father and his philosophy, and as such was admitted into the family intimacy ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... Jack, gravely, "that did not occur to me; no doubt you must go. Our boat does require a good deal of ballast; and all that you say, Peterkin, carries so much weight with it, that we won't ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Church, Niece Louise," he said firmly. "Abe always did. These small-fry craft, like the Mariner's Chapel, are all right, I don't dispute; but they are lacking in ballast. It's in my mind to attend the church that's the most like ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... the true sportsman for "no daylight under mid-keel in smooth water" is in a fair way to be conceded. The new rule severely restricts plane area and lift alike. The gas compartments are permitted both fore and aft, as in the old type, but the water-ballast central tank is rendered obligatory. These things work, if not for perfection, at least for the evolution of a sane and wholesome waterborne cruiser. The type of rudder is unaffected by the new rules, so we may expect to see the Long-Davidson ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... Antony, whom he was wont to say he loved, and cooeperates with Caesar, whose father he killed? And if chance so favor, he will ere long attack Caesar also. For the fellow is naturally distrustful and turbulent and has no ballast in his soul, and he is always stirring things up and twisting about, turning more ways than the sea-passage to which he fled and got the title of deserter for it, asking all of you to take that man for friend or foe whom ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... room the Cap'n went to sleep pretty soon and I set in the one chair, readin' the newspaper and wishin' I hadn't ate so many of the warm bricks that the Golconda folks hoped was biscuit. They made me feel like a schooner goin' home in ballast. I guess I was drowsin' off myself, but there comes a most unearthly yell from the bed and I jumped ha'f out of the chair. There was Jonadab settin' up ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I sent the launch, protected by a party of marines in another boat, to take in ballast, which was wanted. This work was done before breakfast; and after it, she was sent for wood and water, and with her the people employed in this service, under the protection of a serjeant's guard, which was now thought sufficient, as the natives seemed to be pretty well reconciled to us. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... part of the ballast, it ascended to the height of two hundred yards. As a multitude lay before me of a hundred and fifty thousand people, who had not seen my ascent from the ground, I had recourse to every stratagem to let them know I was in the gallery, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... raft assign'd. He deck'd her over with long planks, upborne On massy beams; He made the mast, to which He added suitable the yard;—he framed Rudder and helm to regulate her course, With wicker-work he border'd all her length For safety, and much ballast stow'd within. Meantime, Calypso brought him for a sail Fittest materials, which he also shaped, And to his sail due furniture annex'd 310 Of cordage strong, foot-ropes, and ropes aloft, Then heav'd her down with levers to the Deep. He finish'd all his work on the fourth day, And on the fifth, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... fuel material; it does not serve in the body as an energy-giver. Its value in diet is due to the fact that it is bulky and furnishes ballast for the alimentary canal. It stimulates the flow of the digestive juices as it brushes against the walls of the digestive tract, and thus aids in the digestion of foods and in the elimination ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... is the field horse-tail (Equisetum arvense), a very abundant and widely distributed species. It grows in low, moist ground, and is often found in great abundance growing in the sand or gravel used as "ballast" for railway tracks. ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... wind, just touching the water here and there. There was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and nothing whatever to suggest a squall. But as he looked again, a suspicious wisp of white water lifted suddenly from the surface a few yards to windward. Like a flash he remembered that the boat had no ballast in her, and was running with her sheets made fast. Instinctively he leaned forward to let go the foresail, but at the same moment the squall struck the boat like the hammer of Thor. Relieved of the fore canvas, the trap should have come to the wind in an instant. Instead, leaning over heavily ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... of preserving the level of the turntable, whether unloaded, partially loaded, or loaded, is happily met by an arrangement of water ballast and pumping. I cannot pass away from the mention of Mr. Eads' work without just reminding you of the successful manner in which he has dealt with the mouth of the Mississippi, by which he has caused that river to scour and maintain a channel 30 feet deep at low water, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... not one word, either in the towns or country, on the subject of representation; much on the receipt tax, something on Mr. Fox's ambition; much greater apprehension of danger from thence than from want of representation. One would think that the ballast of the ship was shifted with us, and that our Constitution had the gunwale under water. But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance has happened which you can refer to the representative not following the opinion of his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 1811, a ship being about sailing in ballast for America, with Napoleon's permission, Colonel Burr, through the influence of the Duc de Bassano, received permission to leave Paris. He arrived at Amsterdam on the 3d of August; and after a month's delay, apparently from the capricious tyranny ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... sheet well out. Then, when Dan hurriedly rejoined him, Darrin passed the sheet over to his comrade as to one who would know exactly what to do with it. Dan perched himself on the weather gunwale, his weight there serving as ballast to keep the craft from capsizing. Yet, even so, everything had to be done with the utmost skill, for, with the mainsail up, the least fluke in handling the boat would send ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... man who was carrying a flour-bag turned his head and then went on again until he hove his load into a two-horse wagon, while Miss Deringham noticed that although the bag was stamped 140 lbs. the man trotted lightly across the metals and ballast with it upon his shoulders. Then he came in their direction, and she glanced at him with some curiosity as he stood a trifle breathless before them. He wore a blue shirt burst open at the neck which ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... but feel!" Her failing senses could indulge a little impatience; but it was like throwing ballast out of a balloon. She meant to be all ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... am now standing firm on my feet. I have at the present moment a hundred and fifty thousand francs a year in the Three per Cents, and a reserve of two hundred thousand francs to repair damages. Even this does not seem to me very much ballast in the pocket of a man starting left foot foremost to scale ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... as a speculative, historical, and abstract thing. Here in the concrete and saliently objective facts of crime it should have its beginning, and have more blood and body in it by getting again close to the hot battle line between vice and virtue, and then only, when balanced and sanified by a rich ballast of facts, can it with advantage slowly work its way over to the larger and higher philosophy of conduct, which, when developed from this basis, will be a radically different thing from the shadowy phantom, schematic speculations of many contemporary moralists, taught ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... back of the fish-like vessel. Each man had his own particular place aboard and definite duties to perform, so there was no need to move about much, nor was there much room left by the gasoline motor, the electric motor, storage batteries, air-compressor, and air ballast and gasoline tanks, and the Whitehead torpedoes. The captain stood up inside of the conning tower, with his eyes on a level with the little thick glass windows, and in front of him was the wheel connecting with the rudder that ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... about him before he resumed the helm and noticed that it was blowing fresher. They were also drawing out from the land and the short seas were getting bigger; but he held on to the whole sail, and an hour or so afterward a white iron bark, light in ballast, with her rusty load-line high above the water, came driving up to meet them. She made a striking picture, Evelyn thought, with the great curve of her forecourse, which was still set, stretching high above the ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... the intellectual side of human nature began, not with the search after a theoretical psychology—for that, Aristotle still sufficed—but with the endeavor to observe and to describe. The indispensable ballast of theory was limited to the popular doctrine of the four temperaments, in its then habitual union with the belief in the influence of the planets. Such conceptions may remain ineradicable in the minds of individuals, without hindering the general progress of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... cried, "when I'm tired you'll have to take a turn; but don't she go along splendidly with all this water ballast in her?" ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it. There is nothing from which slaves in the mid-passage suffer so much as want of water. It is sometimes usual to take out casks filled with sea-water as ballast, and when the slaves are received on board, to start the casks, and re-fill them with fresh. On one occasion, a ship from Bahia neglected to change the contents of their casks, and on the mid-passage found to their horror, that they were filled with nothing but salt water. All the slaves on board ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... was increasing, and that many of these slaves "can scarcely fail to find their way into the United States." Moreover, the consul acknowledged that ships frequently cleared for the United States in ballast, taking on a cargo at some secret point.[61] When with these facts we consider the law facilitating "recovery" of slaves from Texas,[62] the repeated refusals to regulate the Texan trade, and the shelving of a proposed congressional ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the future to chance. Destitute of any canon of hereditary succession, of any settled rules concerning adoption, and of any law regulating election, Caesarism was like an enormous load on the deck of a vessel without ballast. The most terrible shocks were inevitable. Three times in a century, under Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, the greatest power that was ever united in one person fell into the hands of most extravagant and execrable men. Horrors were enacted ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... particle by catching hold of anything with his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say—to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's hair, and hold on ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... heavy piece of iron under the middle board of the cabin," said Betty. "Uncle Amos said it was there for ballast in case we wanted to use a sail, but I don't see ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... Carlyle, and in our immediate community, the writings of Channing,—he left it to others to say of Emerson,—all had their part in this intellectual, or if we may call it so, spiritual revival. He describes with that exquisite sense of the ridiculous which was a part of his mental ballast, the first attempt at organizing an association of cultivated, thoughtful people. They came together, the cultivated, thoughtful people, at Dr. John Collins Warren's,—Dr. Channing, the great Dr. Channing, among the rest, full of the great thoughts he ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the blimp's water ballast streaming earthward in the sun, and it was put into a long, steady spiral in pursuit of the parachute, whose speed—or so it seemed to my agonized gaze—was now noticeably on the increase. The altitude seemed appallingly great; the blimp's ceiling, I knew, was only ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... next day should be pleasant, our thoughts turned with the prow of the China to Japan. We were bound for Nagasaki, to get a full supply of coal to drive us across the Pacific, having but twelve hundred tons aboard, and half of that wanted for ballast. It was at the mouth of the harbor of Nagasaki that there was a settlement of Dutch Christians for some hundreds of years. An indiscreet letter captured on the way to Holland by a Portuguese adventurer ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... knowledge of music; be capable of examining himself with the laryngoscope (auto-laryngoscopy) as well as others (laryngoscopy); possess an acute ear for the pitch and quality of tones; be himself able to use his voice at least fairly well in singing and speaking; be provided with the all-important ballast of common sense, and an impartial mind longing above all ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... discharging cargo the day before, could be loaded, ready for sea, within twenty-four hours. Indeed, she was in excellent trim. She was not too light to put to sea. No doubt, I said to myself, she has taken in ballast to equal the weight of oranges sent ashore. But I knew just enough of ships to know that there was some mystery in the business. The schooner could not be the plain fruit-trader for which men took her. As I looked over her rail, noting this, I said to myself that "here is ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... shipped in the Montauk several hundred rude leaden busts of Napoleon, with a view to save the distinction in duties between the metal manufactured and the metal unmanufactured. Four or five of these busts had been struck into the launch as ballast. They were now snugly stowed, together with the water, and all the heavier articles, in the bottom of the boat. The jigger had been made and bent, and a suitable mast was stepped by means of the roof. In short, every provision for comfort or safety that Paul could think of had been ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... high dashed over decks. Progress was made by hauling the boats alongshore with ropes braced round trees. By the first of August a dense fog swept in from the sea. The Discovery crashed on a sunken rock, heeling over till her sails were within three inches of water. Ballast was thrown overboard, and the next tide-rush lifted her. By August 19 Vancouver had proved—if any doubt remained—that no Northeast Passage was to be found by way of the Straits of Fuca.[1] Then, veering out to sea at midnight ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... his bows he looked critically at the streaming black bodies and spat meditatively into the water. His own father could have had them between decks as cargo. Now for the petroleum and lumber he brings from Massachusetts to Sierra Leone he returns in ballast. ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... guarantee for democracy and friendship will come into its own again, and shape our destinies in common towards freedom and humanity. The English-speaking democracies, in firm union, can and ought to be the unshifting ballast of a better world. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... faith is active, zealous and infectious, has nothing in common with the visionaries or illuminati. He is a man of about fifty, vigorous, alert and enthusiastic, but at the same time well-balanced; accesible to every idea and even to every dream, yet practical and methodical, with a ballast of the most invincible common-sense. He inspires from the outset that fine confidence, frank and unrestrained, which instantly disperses the instinctive doubt, the strange uneasiness and the veiled suspicion that generally ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... evil is beyond all doubt. During the first two years it was a distinct tonic to the intellect and conscience of the people. The sense of national peril quickened the dull and lethargic, steadied the weak drifters, furnished ballast to all the people, made the strong stronger, made the brave more heroic. The first sign of national decay is the note of frivolity. The sure sign of greatness in a generation is the note of seriousness. In the middle of 1863 James Russell Lowell wrote Bancroft that the war ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... approve of his entertaining this opinion. You have always had a roof over your head; he has always been an outcast. You have your son to comfort and assist you; he has nobody at all. The advantages must not be all one side. You are in the same boat, and we must divide the ballast a little more equally.' ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... your scheme, I am afraid, is all top-hamper, and no ballast; wont the enemy give chase? I am sure that Don—Don—what's his name, that young officer, more than suspects your good standing in the young lady's affections: wont he alarm the coast, and put the old folks up to rowing guard ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... you are, lady,' the Guard was saying. 'You're good ballast. You can keep the train down. That's something. Steady thinking's ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... glorious news— Ten plays, and forty tales of Kotzebue's; [8] One envoy's letters, six composer's airs, And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs: Meiners' four volumes upon Womankind, [9] Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, [10] and, to back it, Of Heyne, [11] such as should ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... up at Claverings, 'e can't get sweet peas like that, try 'ow 'e will. Tried everything 'e 'as. Sand ballast, 'e's tried. Seeds same as me. 'E came along 'ere only the other day, 'e did, and 'e says to me, 'e says, 'darned 'f I can see why a station-master should beat a professional gardener at 'is own game,' 'e says, 'but you do. And in your orf time, too, so's to speak,' 'e says. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... at all the places to be brought into notice by care, and foresight, at moderate rates, and at the rates taken in the subsequent calculations. Merchant vessels, bound to all quarters, so soon as they perceived that they were sure of a market, would take a proportion of coals as ballast; and others would be glad to take a portion even beyond that, to aid them in completing their cargoes, instead of remaining, as vessels both at Liverpool, Glasgow, &c. frequently do, some time, till they can obtain a sufficient quantity of goods to enable ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... heart of Africa, emerges upon the sea, no less grand than her, no less terrible, even there they sighted the land quite close, almost in darkness. Shard ordered every man to the hinder part of the ship and all the ballast too; and soon the Desperate Lark, her prow a little high out of the water, doing her eighteen knots before the wind, struck a sandy beach and shuddered, she heeled over a little, then righted herself, and slowly headed into ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... very much to be of his mind about everything, but, if he is a Republican, I have done with him. If he will in his Republican system throw in a little royal authority as ballast, we shall soon come to an agreement. I wish him to come neuf to all those great and important questions, and examine them sans l'esprit de systeme, without prejudice and strong inclination to be of either side, but ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... drove before him the three remaining men, terror-struck at his sudden and inexplicable appearance, his superhuman size and strength. One by one he swept them overboard; then grasping a huge stone, which formed part of the ballast, he dashed it with the full force of his gigantic strength through the planks of the boat, which at once began to fill. All this was the work of a few moments. He then leaped into the skiff, which sank as he swiftly transferred to his ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... was a quantity of ballast, and a provision of straw to feed the fire. The balloon mounted at first with a majestic steady motion, gazed at in breathless wonder by thousands of spectators, who assembled not only in the neighbourhood of the Chateau, but clustered on every ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... the port. The vessel, rather a large one for those days, seems but poorly manned, and rocks so greatly among the short white waves, that it is plainly to be seen that she is short of ballast and lading. She is a Venetian trading vessel, bound first to the Isle of Candia, where she will complete her cargo and add to the number of her crew. This Candia or Crete (the very Crete by which St. Paul passed on his voyage to Italy) was at that time under the hard rule of Venice, and its poor ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... so much of the world that she was unusually lively for an English girl; while her various accomplishments made her a most agreeable companion. Much good sense gave her ballast; and the late experiences of danger and happiness added a sweet gravity at times, which contrasted well with her natural gaiety. Mrs Jo was quite satisfied with Emil's choice, and felt sure this true and tender pilot would bring him safe to port through fair or stormy weather. She had feared ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... replied Foster, "touching scruples and modesty, you sailed hence in ballast. But who is this gallant, honest Mike?—is he a Corinthian—a cutter ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... like a Roman and settled colonies." We may ask ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works exist at all but in the imagination of the student. For the bulk of the best of books is apt to be made up with ballast; and those in which energy of thought is combined with any stateliness of utterance may be almost counted on the fingers. Looking round in English for a book that should answer Thoreau's two demands of a style like poetry and sense that shall ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rash promises, demands no foolish vows, is strongest in absence, and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life, and gives steadily to every venture. Through our friends we are made brothers to all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... great love can never die from out the heart. It affords a ballast 'gainst all the storms that blow. And although it lends an unutterable sadness, it ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... the mate and the boy from the rail, which standing out alone against the sky-line was occasionally visible. Doubtless they must have been washed overboard when the vessel turned turtle. There was some heavy ballast in the schooner besides the barrels of flour and other supplies in her hold. Her deck also was loaded with freight, and alas, the ship's boat was lashed down to the deck with strong gripes beneath a lot of it. Moreover, ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... blocks (see ANCHOR) or mushroom anchors according to the nature of the ground. London Trinity House buoys are [v.04 p.0808] built of steel, with bulkheads to lessen the risk of their sinking by collision, and, with the exception of bell buoys, do not contain water ballast. In 1878 gas buoys, with fixed and occulting lights of 10-candle power, were introduced. In 1896 Mr T. Matthews, engineer-in-chief in the London Trinity Corporation, developed the present design (fig. 12). It is of steel, the lower plates being 5/8 in. and the upper 7/16 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to Colbert that a coal-mine had been discovered at the foot of the Quebec rock. 'This coal,' he said, 'is good enough for the forge. If the test is satisfactory, I shall see that our vessels take loads of it to serve as ballast. It would be a great help in our naval construction; we could then do without the English coal.' Next year the intendant wrote again: 'The coal-mine opened at Quebec, which originated in the cellar of a lower-town resident and is continued through the cape under the Chateau Saint-Louis, could ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... week I was beating the ballast up Broadway when Pete, the Piker, declared himself in and began to chatter about cinches ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... served me as ballast to so much sail. The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands, and the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about twice as much for that carried in foreign bottoms. When the cargo was of Spanish production, the duty was three per cent. if carried in national vessels, eight per cent. if in foreign ships. The latter were only allowed, as a rule, to enter the port in ballast. [15] ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... with bushy whiskers and a reputed mastery of the French tongue. A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's councils, and endured by the Cabinet as necessary ballast. He did not conceal his dislike for certain of his colleagues, notably Mr. ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... for him, and anxious to deliver up the vessel to the owner, who resided at Overton, he returned in ballast, and communicated the intelligence of Thompson's death; which, in so small a town, was long the theme of conversation, and the food ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... start without humiliation, and equal with the rest; to commence, or have the road clear'd to commence, the grand experiment of development, whose end, (perhaps requiring several generations,) may be the forming of a full-grown man or woman—that is something. To ballast the State is also secured, and in our times is to be secured, in no ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... in after-years, he was glad he made the resolve, and stood by it manfully. It gave ballast to his character, shaped him to a definite purpose. A narrow life, to be sure; nay, more, a distasteful one: but he did his best, and waited, and that was all that could be asked ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... tallow. All these we began discharging from both gangways at once into the two boats, the second mate having charge of the launch, and the third mate of the pinnace. For several days we were employed in this way, until all the hides were taken out, when the crew began taking in ballast, and we returned ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... flour and pine boards to Rio and back with coffee and hides for Salem," he continued; "then out to Gibraltar and Brazil with wine and on in ballast for Calcutta. Tahiti and Morea, the Sandwich Islands and the Feejees. Sandalwood and tortoise shell and beche de mer; sea horses' teeth, and saltpeter for the Chinese Government. I don't want to hear about your bills of exchange and kegs of ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... done, he carried the boat compass and all the rifles and ammunition down to the cutter, which he proceeded to ballast with cases of tobacco. It was while engaged in this that a hideous, skinless thing came out of the house and ran screaming down the beach till it fell in the sand and mowed and gibbered under the scorching sun. Mauki looked toward it and hesitated. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... height you occupy, and toward which you would fain lead me, there dwells eternal peace. But it seems so cold and lonely up there. I am oppressed with a sense of fear, just as if I were in a balloon ascending into a rarer atmosphere, while more and more ballast was ever being thrown out. I don't know how to make my meaning clear to you. I don't understand how to keep up affectionate relations with those about me, and yet regard them from a distance, as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Pucacancha, stopping far enough back to allow the passenger to pull up and back on the side track. The siding had only one switch, chiefly used for ballast for the road bed. I looked anxiously for the passenger. Seconds dragged like hours. Would she never come? There was a curve not far from the station, and the passenger could not be seen until it almost reached it. I listened. I could hear the low tremulous noise of the rails, ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... carry all these provisions, so most of it I shipped on the Hudson's Bay Company scows, taking with us, in the canoe, food for not more than a week, which with camp outfit was just enough for ballast. ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... but before the tide came in again we had stripped her of her sails and masts, righted her, and filled her about a quarter full of rock ballast. If she didn't stick too fast in the mud I was sure that she would float this time right ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... study but with trembling heart, uncertain foot, and fluttering breath, as of one stepping within the gates of an enchanted paradise, whose joy is too much for the material weight of humanity to ballast even to the steadying of the bodily step, and the outward calm of the bodily carriage. How far things had gone between them we shall be able to judge by and by; it will be enough at present to add that it was this relation and the inward strife arising from it that had not only ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... half-way. Early the next morning they were led by Daaka and some Caffres who accompanied him to the sea-shore, and when they had arrived at the beach, it being then low water, Daaka pointed to a reef, upon which were to be seen the guns, ballast, and a portion of the keelson of a ship—all that remained ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... anti-submarine net, and was dragged, nose first, to the bottom. After half an hour's effort, during which bombs were exploding in her vicinity, the submarine was brought to the surface by her own crew by the discharge of a great deal of water from her forward ballast tanks. It was found, however, that the net was still foul of her, and that a Zeppelin was overhead, evidently attracted by the disturbance in the water due to the discharge of air and water from the submarine. She went to the bottom again, and after half an ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... they fall into every life, yet mine will pass away I feel assured. 'Pain, suffering, failure are as needful as ballast to a ship, without which it does not draw enough water, becomes a plaything for the winds and waves, travels no certain road, and easily overturns.' If the gloomiest pessimist of this century can ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... to bar the passage ahead. This was Bar Rock. Beyond it several minor rapids were passed without difficulty; and then they came upon a series of great whirlpools which seemed impassable. But the men unloaded the canoes and—'a desperate undertaking'—ran them down the rapids with light ballast. They then came ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... their way till they saw the Mercury standing towards them, and then began to suspect us; on which, about noon, they clapt their helm hard a-weather, and crowded all sail before the wind; and, being in ballast, this was her best sailing, yet proved also the greatest advantage they could have given us; for, had she held her wind, our flat-bottomed vessel could never have got up with theirs. About ten o'clock at night, with the assistance of hard rowing, we ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... cay called Porto Grande. He hed three ships, an' maybe a hundred an' fifty men 'bout the time I got away. The last I saw o' him wus at sea. He'd overhauled an English ship, an' sunk her; an' then the next mornin' we took a Dutch bark in ballast. She wus such a trig sailor Sanchez decided to keep her afloat, an' sent a prize crew aboard ter sail her inter Porto Grande. I wus one o' the fellers picked fer thet job, an' we wus told off under a nigger mate, named LaGrasse—he wus a French nigger from Martinique, and a ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... small fleet consisting of six line of battle ships, six victuallers, and two or three pinnaces, under the command of Lord Thomas Howard. In the month of August in that year, they lay at anchor off the island of Flores, where they had put in for a fresh supply of water, and to take in ballast, as well as to refresh the crew, for ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... time at an elevation of about 2000 ft., it descended in about two hours at Nesle, a small town about 27 m. from Paris, when Robert left the car, and Charles made a, second ascent by himself. He had intended to have replaced the weight of his companion by a nearly equivalent quantity of ballast; but not having any suitable means of obtaining such at the place of descent, and it being just upon sunset, he gave the word to let go, and the balloon being thus so greatly lightened, ascended very rapidly to a height of about 2 m. After staying ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... factor replyed, that they had a strange beast aboard which he made no doubt would rid them of those vermine: which being told the king he rose from his place and imbracing the factor told him if he could shew him such a creature he would ballast his vessel with silver and lade her with gold and pearl. Who apprehending the occasion made very coy of the business, telling him it was a creature of great value and not common. Besides they could not spare her from ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... British ship, was by carrying goods destined for the enemy's territory, illegally engaged in trade with the enemy in contravention of Her Majesty's proclamation of December 27, 1899."[24] The vessel sailed for Calcutta in ballast on ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... but terrible. We threw everything we could overboard, including the ballast stones at the bottom of the canoe and the heavy hide of the gorilla. This, as it proved, was fortunate, since the thing sank but slowly and the foremost Pongo boats halted a minute to recover so precious a relic, checking the others behind them, a circumstance that helped ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... you cannot tear up ancient rootages and safely plant the tree of liberty in soil which is not native to it. I believe that the ancient traditions of a people are its ballast; you cannot make a tabula rasa upon which to write a political program. You cannot take a new sheet of paper and determine what your life shall be to-morrow. You must knit the new into the old. You cannot put a new patch on an old garment without ruining it; it must be not a patch, but something ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... that knows the burthen of his calling, and hath studied to make his shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not been hasty to launch forth of his port, the university, but expected the ballast of learning, and the wind of opportunity. Divinity is not the beginning but the end of his studies; to which he takes the ordinary stair, and makes the arts his way. He counts it not prophaneness to be ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... did not long remain ignorant; nor was he backward in making the best arrangements possible to meet the danger. By shifting the ballast in each of the vessels entirely to one side, he caused them to lean in such a manner as that their artillery could be elevated to a surprising degree, and the shot rise even to the summit of the hill. The guns were then stuffed, rather than loaded, with grape and musket-balls; and ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... doubtless unaware of any alteration in their theories. But they were facing a new situation, and that new situation became an immense factor in their unconscious growth. Their intellectual and moral problems shifted, as a boat shifts her ballast when the wind blows from a new quarter. The John Cotton preaching in a shed in the new Boston had come to "suffer a sea-change" from the John Cotton who had been rector of St. Botolph's splendid church in Lincolnshire. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... go up the Baltic in ballast to some small port—just a sawmill, at the head of a fjord—where I shall have a cargo of timber waiting for you to bring back to London. When can ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... displayed little of that spirit of improvement which has converted Chicago, in thirty years, from a quagmire into a beautiful city, and made it accessible to all the people of the prairies. There was too much ballast, as it were, for so little sail. People were intent on their own affairs, and were satisfied if their own business prospered. Such a thing even as a popular lecture was rare, and a well-sustained course of lectures was felt to be out of the question. Books of the higher kind were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... its logical development, but the individual conscience will still not be at ease with them. We must look to our two countries to guarantee its strength and activity, and if we English-speaking races quarrel and become disunited, civilisation will split up again and go its way to ruin. We are the ballast of ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... to his impressions from his general reading; there is nothing so treacherous; he may have general reading enough to sink a ship, but unless he has a cargo taken newly on board he will find himself tossing without ballast on those billowy slopes of the Palatine, where he will vainly try ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... the young ranchman's voice, "but I will have to lodge a protest against you, Mr. Annixter, in the matter of keeping your line fence in repair. The sheep were all over the track last night, this side the Long Trestle, and I am afraid they have seriously disturbed our ballast along there. We—the railroad—can't fence along our right of way. The farmers have the prescriptive right of that, so we have to look to you to keep your fence in repair. I am sorry, but I shall have to protest——" Annixter returned to the hammock ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... rising and standing in the attitude of Webster, "I rises to appoint to order. We took ballast in de prior cases, and why make flesh of one man an' a fowl ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... Father,—As to Knight's Magazine, I really do not think that, considering the circumstances under which it is conducted, it can be much censured. Every magazine must contain a certain quantity of mere ballast, of no value but as it occupies space. The general tone and spirit of the work will stand a comparison, in a moral point of view, with any periodical publication not professedly religious. I will venture to say that nothing has appeared in it, at least since the first ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... see nothing, but we busied ourselves driving the chill from our bodies with hot coffee. Also we had to devote ourselves to the miserable task of bailing, for in some incomprehensible way the Reindeer had sprung a generous leak. Half the night had been spent in overhauling the ballast and exploring the seams, but the labor had been without avail. The water still poured in, and perforce we doubled up in the cockpit and tossed it ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... sailing! and he found the people waited on and on, in hopes of more passengers, though never avowing their purpose, His patience was now nearly exhausted, and he went and made such vifs remonstrances that he almost startled the managers. They pretended the ballast was all they stayed for : he offered to aid that himself; and actually went to work, and never rested till the vessel was absolutely ready: orders, enfin, were given for sailing next morning, though he fears, with all his skill, and all his eloquence, and all his aiding, they ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... measurers of upper leather, fifteen measurers of wood and bark, twenty measurers of grain, three weighers of beef, thirty-eight weighers of coal, five weighers of boilers and heavy machinery, four weighers of ballast and lighters, ninety-two undertakers, 150 constables, 968 election officers and their deputies. A few of these officials serve without pay, some are paid by salaries fixed by the council, some by fees. Besides these there is a clerk of the ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... serious labour of ballasting, and it being wished to expedite her preparations for Norfolk Island, her ship's company were assisted with twelve convicts from the settlement, and the occasional use of such boats as could be spared to convey the ballast to the ship. The governor was anxious to learn the state of that dependency, not having heard from it since the return of the Queen transport early ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... of Appearance made him doubt their ability to pay so much Artists never do anything like other people As much of his story as he meant to tell without prompting At heart every man is a smuggler Bad wars, or what are comically called good wars Ballast of her instinctive despondency Be good, sweet man, and let who will be clever Beautiful with the radiance of loving and being loved Bewildering labyrinth of error Biggest place is always the kindest as well as the cruelest Brag of his wife, as a good husband always does Brown-stone ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... slaughter a little closer, maybe, than you have. Now, you can hand in your resignation the first of next week if you are so minded. But if you do,' says Sam, 'I'll order a corporal's guard to take you over by that limestone bluff on the creek and shoot enough lead into you to ballast a submarine air-ship. I'm captain of this company, and I've swore allegiance to the Amalgamated States regardless of sectional, secessional, and Congressional differences. Have you got any smoking-tobacco?' ...
— Options • O. Henry
... elder of the bunch, a man designated by the name Siwash, how he was lately graduated from the Kansas Agricultural College at Manhattan, and how he had taken the road with a grip full of hardware to get enough ballast in his jeans to keep the winter wind from ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... which our charts cover. This vessel has in its conning tower a powerful searchlight which will reveal at least the upper portions of any buildings that may be there. For work in greater depths we will have to depend on the 'Atlantis' with its special equipment of ballast tanks and ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... elimination of morbid matter through stomach and intestines by forcing these organs to take up the work of digestion and assimilation. diverts the vital forces from their combat against the disease conditions and draws upon them to remove the worse than useless food ballast from the organism. ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... up for some distance, the white one going higher than the yellow one, then they began to descend. Ballast was thrown out, but they continued their downward flight. They disappeared behind Montmartre hill. They must have landed on the Saint Denis plain. They were too heavily weighted, or else the ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... coal, for the Cornish and Irish markets. Of bituminous, in 1812, 43,529 chalders, and in 1819, 46,457 chalders were shipped coastwise, besides a foreign trade of about 5,000 chalders every year. Most of this goes to France, the French vessels coming here in ballast for this purpose; but all coal shipped for abroad must be riddled through a screen composed of iron bars, placed three-eighths of an inch apart, as it is literally almost dust. Great hopes are now entertained here that government will abolish the oppressive duty on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and, on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy. As for the determinate ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... peremptory words, and agreed to stand by night and day, with fires banked, until I, and all whom I could prevail upon to return with me, got back to his vessel. There was no danger of his running short of coal. A ship that was practically an ocean liner in coal ballast would be a considerable time in burning out her own cargo. But he insisted on a large money payment in advance. I had foolishly mentioned that I had a little over L5000 in gold. This he claimed on the plea that "in duty to himself"—a favourite phrase of his—he could not accept less. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... make you pay for the weaknesses of my character? Because that's what it 'ud amount to. I've bullied you for having played skittles with my life, my career. So you have! Damn it, so you have! But you've done it out of blind thoughtlessness; and if I'd been a fairly strong man, with some ballast in me, you couldn't have landed me where I am— not you nor fifty Pandora girls! [Sitting erect.] And that— that's the moral of the tale; and— and— [abruptly, to FARNCOMBE] There's nothing ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the flat part of the keel begins. One is usually employed for managing the boat, and both of them when it is stormy. With the second they keep the boat from getting unsteady, which would follow from its lightness, that rudder giving the boat more stiffness and serving as ballast. That is a precaution rendered necessary by its very lightness, the vessels that are lightest being those that require most care by being unsteady. In the middle they have a scaffold, four or six brazas long, which they call burulan or baileo. This consists of a floor raised above the rowers, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Howard, with six English line-of-battle ships, six victuallers, and two or three pinnaces, were lying at anchor under the Island of Florez. Light in ballast and short of water, with half their men disabled by sickness, they were unable to pursue the aggressive purpose on which they had been sent out. Several of the ships' crews were on shore: the ships themselves "all pestered and rommaging," with everything out of order. In ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... properties has enabled incandescent-lamp signals to be connected direct to lines without relays, but compensated against too great a current by causing the resistance in series with the lamp to be increased inversely as the resistance of the filament. Employment of a "ballast" resistance in this way is referred to in Chapter XI. In Fig. 27 is shown its relation to a signal lamp directly in the line. 1 is the carbon-filament lamp; 2 is the ballast. The latter's conductor is fine iron wire ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... "that did not occur to me; no doubt you must go. Our boat does require a good deal of ballast; and all that you say, Peterkin, carries so much weight with it, that we won't need ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... moderate rates, and at the rates taken in the subsequent calculations. Merchant vessels, bound to all quarters, so soon as they perceived that they were sure of a market, would take a proportion of coals as ballast; and others would be glad to take a portion even beyond that, to aid them in completing their cargoes, instead of remaining, as vessels both at Liverpool, Glasgow, &c. frequently do, some time, till they can obtain a sufficient quantity of goods to enable them to do so: while such vessels could at ...
— A General Plan for a Mail Communication by Steam, Between Great Britain and the Eastern and Western Parts of the World • James MacQueen
... robbery from its inception down to the present time. Referring to the statement made by persons interested in the road, that it had been accepted by commissioners and reported upon as having been built in first-class style, he asserted that miles of the road had no other ballast than ice and snow, which, melting in spring, left the rails held in suspension eight inches above the ground. In support of his assertion, he produced photographs of various sections of the road and commented ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... are let down, and the boundless plain of the universe lies open before them. They dart forward and cleave the opposing clouds, and outrun the morning breezes which started from the same eastern goal. The steeds soon perceived that the load they drew was lighter than usual; and as a ship without ballast is tossed hither and thither on the sea, so the chariot, without its accustomed weight, was dashed about as if empty. They rush headlong and leave the travelled road. He is alarmed, and knows not how to guide them; nor, if he knew, has he the power. Then, for the first time, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... to the mound," said he, speaking very rapidly, "and when we got to the top and lifted off that stone lid—upon my soul, ladies, I believe there is gold enough in that thing to ballast a ship. It isn't filled quite up to the top, and, of course, I could not find out how deep the gold goes down; but I worked a hole in it as far down as my arm would reach, and found nothing but gold bars like this." Then, glancing around to see that none of the Africans ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... Sharp's crew mutinied on New Year's Day in 1681 on the Most Holy Trinity, they clapped their captain in irons and put him down below on the ballast, and elected an old pirate and a "stout seaman," John Watling, in his place. One of the reasons for the revolt was said to be the ungodliness of ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... had been delayed in discharging freight by a series of storms which prevailed at the bay, and was now down at Haparanda Fjord taking in ballast. The probability was that she would not leave for several days. Meantime I was extremely anxious to see a little more of domestic life in Iceland, and made several foot-expeditions to the farm-houses ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... thus have the wind with them when they returned home heavily laden, and with these little navigators the difference is an important one. With a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a great hindrance, but fresh and empty-handed they can face it with more ease. Virgil says bees bear gravel stones as ballast, but their only ballast is their honey bag. Hence, when I go bee-hunting, I prefer to get to windward of the woods in which the swarm is supposed to ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... McCarthy, or McCarthy, come on!" I didn't care which, I had one right on my side, and I kept that always in view; namely, the right to discharge the cargo where I had first received it; but where the money to buy ballast and pay other charges was to come from I ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... of the settlement at Port Essington. This depot might be economically made, from the cheapness and abundance of coals in New South Wales; and the number of ships that are constantly passing Port Essington in ballast would be glad of the freight so far. The cost of steam vessels of the size mentioned would be about 20,000 pounds, if built of wood, and 16,000 pounds, if of iron; and the annual expense of running one would be between ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... gown had come up to his brother) and crossed the river in a small boat: sinking the great seal of England by the way. Horses having been provided, he rode, accompanied by SIR EDWARD HALES, to Feversham, where he embarked in a Custom House Hoy. The master of this Hoy, wanting more ballast, ran into the Isle of Sheppy to get it, where the fishermen and smugglers crowded about the boat, and informed the King of their suspicions that he was a 'hatchet-faced Jesuit.' As they took his money and would not let him go, he told them who he was, and that the Prince of ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... affected the railway embankment, particularly near the mouth of the tunnel; a succession of heavy storms in the early part of December had so greatly weakened the ballast that the chief engineers of the Company had been hastily summoned to the scene of the mischief. The experts decided that very important repairs were required close to the Souillac end of the tunnel. It was necessary to put in a complete system of drainage, with underground ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the State. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress; the other the ballast, without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the accession of the House of Hanover, these distinctive peculiarities seemed to be effaced. The Whig ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and grain for the home consumption. I fully expect, however, to see the price of Canadian grain, bonded at New York, rise, now that it can be exported to Liverpool in the New York liners, which will carry it for ballast. Nevertheless, I think that Sir Robert Peel's dictum with respect to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, on the day on which he retired last from office, when he observed that thenceforward, even when the poor suffered ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... that I held her in a sort of veneration. The work she did that day! There were many things to be brought up from the beach and stored in the outhouse—as oars, nets, sails, cordage, spars, lobster-pots, bags of ballast, and the like; and though there was abundance of assistance rendered, there being not a pair of working hands on all that shore but would have laboured hard for Mr. Peggotty, and been well paid in being asked to do it, yet she persisted, all day long, in toiling under weights ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... island was merely the home of farmers and fishermen, a shipowner in need of easily handled ballast found that the subsoil contained just the thing he wanted. By turning up the thin surface he came upon a stratum of small, square slabs of rock rather like cakes of soap. These were easily lifted and easily carted to ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... brass I will bring gold; and for iron, silver.' The brass and the iron may be worth something, but if we barter them away and get instead gold and silver, we are gainers by the transaction. Fling out the ballast if you wish the balloon to rise. Let the hundred talents go if you wish to get 'the more than this.' And listen to the New Testament variation of this man of God's promise, 'If thou wilt have treasure in heaven, go and sell all that thou ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... literally asked, in short, an intelligent, well nigh a sympathising, question. "Gratitude to the Prince for not having put a spoke in her wheel—that, you mean, should, taking it in the right way, be precisely the ballast of her boat?" ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... row again for hours, and when night came had not reached the village. We were so fortunate, however, as to find a deep sheltered cove where the water was quite smooth, and we constructed a temporary anchor by filling a sack with stones from our ballast, which being well secured by a network of rattans held us safely during the night. The next morning my men went on shore to cut wood suitable for making fresh anchors, and about noon, the current turning in our favour, we proceeded to the village, where we ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... heavily; and by those repeated shocks she was thrown for a short time broad-side to the sea: had she kept in that position, she would soon have gone to pieces; but from her being very light forward, the iron ballast having dropt out of her bottom, she was lifted fairly round, and was thrown more than her own length nearer to the shore, and was, by this change in her position, almost out of the reach of the break of the sea; that ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... wanted," he said, "for I've no notion that jolly-boat will do to go out as far as we shall find it necessary to sound. So I am about to ballast the launch, and get her sails ready; there's no use in mincing matters in such ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... 19th century were cheaply and hastily built. They were characterized by inferior roadbeds, steep grades, sharp curves, and rough track. In spring, poor drainage and lack of ballast might cause the track to sink into the soggy roadbed and produced an unstable path. In winter this same roadbed could freeze into a hard and unyielding pavement on which the rolling ...
— Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck - Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24 • John H. White
... who had smuggled Paula into a church in her helpless infancy, and had her christened without her parents' knowledge. Having been left in narrow circumstances by her husband, she was at present living with Miss Power as chaperon and adviser on practical matters—in a word, as ballast to the management. Beyond her Somerset discerned his new acquaintance Mr. Woodwell, who on sight of Somerset was for hastening up to him and performing a laboured shaking of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Monday, the 7th of November, 1836, intending to proceed to some point on the continent of Europe not very distant from Paris. They were provided with provisions for a fortnight; these, with sand-bags for ballast, cordage, and all needful apparatus for such a journey were placed in the bottom of the car, while all around hung cloaks, carpet bags, barrels of wood and copper, barometers, telescopes, lamps, spirit-flasks, coffee-warmers, &c, for you know it would be impossible ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... rations. Here was our chance to teach a Christian man in an agreeable way that he should not appropriate more than his share of the rations without the consent of the mess, so we set to and ate heartily of his good stores, and in their place put, for ballast, a river-jack that weighed about two pounds. He carried the stone for two days before he ate down to it, and, when he did, was mad enough to eat it. We then told him what we had done and why, but thought he had hidden enough under ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... burden spreads, Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assigned. He decked her over with long planks, upborne On massy beams; he made the mast, to which He added suitable the yard; he framed Rudder and helm to regulate her course; With wicker-work he bordered all her length For safety, and much ballast stowed within. Meantime Calypso brought him for a sail Fittest materials, which he also shaped, And to his sail due furniture annexed Of cordage strong, foot-ropes and ropes aloft, Then heaved her down with levers to the deep. ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... epoch. The ships were different, but the courage of the English seamen was the same. Nor must we forget that those rough, rude men who ran backwards and forwards across the English Channel in cutters, yawls, luggers, and sometimes open boats, stiffened with a rich ballast of tea, tobacco, and brandy, were some of the finest seamen in the world, and certainly the most skilful fore-and-aft sailors and efficient pilots to be found anywhere on the seas which wash the coasts ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... current. Scent is its mire. Sound is its waters. That particular part of it which leads towards heaven is attended with great difficulties. Body is the boat by which one must cross that river. Forgiveness is the oar by which it is to be propelled. Truth is the ballast that is to steady that boat. The practice of righteousness is the string that is to be attached to the mast for dragging that boat along difficult waters. Charity of gift constitutes the wind that urges the sails of that boat. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... steamer, plying between Mobile and New York, stopping at Havana for passengers and mail. She had made thirty-six such voyages, almost always having a cargo for the American port, and never being permitted to bring freight into Havana. The custom of her agent was to clear her 'in ballast' the day before her arrival. The practice, while contrary to the regulations of Cuban ports, had always been winked at by the authorities. It was well understood that the Black Warrior generally had a cargo ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... Jones, giving it as his, for procuring salt-petre, which was to send a squadron (it did not require a large one) to take possession of the Island of St. Helen's, to keep the English flag flying at the port, that the English East India ships coming from the East Indies, and that ballast with salt-petre, might be induced to enter as usual; And that it would be a considerable time before the English Government could know of what had happened at St. Helen's. See here what Bourdon de l'Oise has ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... ye? Gotham's three wise men we be. Whither in your bowl so free? To rake the moon from out the sea. The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine. And our ballast is old wine.— And ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... and, about eight in the evening, a mountainous overgrown sea took us upon our starboard quarter, and gave us so prodigious a shock that several of our shrouds broke with the jerk, by which our masts were greatly endangered. Our ballast and stores, too, were so strangely shifted that the ship heeled afterwards two streaks to port. Indeed, it was a most tremendous blow, and we were thrown into the utmost consternation from the apprehension of instantly ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... Kotzebue's; [8] One envoy's letters, six composer's airs, And loads from Frankfort and from Leipsic fairs: Meiners' four volumes upon Womankind, [9] Like Lapland witches to ensure a wind; Brunck's heaviest tome for ballast, [10] and, to back it, Of Heyne, [11] such as should not ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... gale to the south gave them a fair wind down Lake Bennett, before which they ran under a huge sail made by Liverpool. The heavy weight of outfit gave such ballast that he cracked on as a daring sailor should when moments counted. A shift of four points into the south-west, coming just at the right time as they entered upon Caribou Crossing, drove them down ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... speaker he was quiet, deliberate, decisive, sure; and he carried enough reserve caloric so that he made his presence felt in any assemblage before he said a word. In oratory it is personality that gives ballast. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... again—after you are married and settled. If you had the substantial interests to give you the steadiness and ballast, I think you'd be the very man for your scheme. Yes, something—some such thing as you suggest—must be done to stop the poisoning of public opinion against the country's best and strongest men. The political department of the business interests ought to be as ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Tanks filled too full of coal are dangerous and a great waste of coal, as the jar when running will cause a part of it to fall off; water overflowing from tanks results in washing away the ballast and in cold weather freezes over ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... with Manchester bales and Birmingham cases; and it was not long before the tackle at the main-yard arm was set a-clicking, as the baskets of sand ballast were hove up to be poured into the empty hold. No such luxuries were there as steam-winches; not any of those modern appliances for lightening labour. Instead, five or six hands plied the ponderous work at the winch handles, ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... man of Abraham Lincoln when the orator was about to appear before an audience. "Young man," was the reply, "young man, I have spoken well." To have done well and then live up to your record is a serious matter. Responsibility is ballast. A town that has taken on a Carnegie Library is one big committee intent on making the thing a success. There is furniture needed, pictures to secure, statuary to select, books to buy. A Carnegie Library is usually an annex to the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... "letter of marque." This implies that she fights her way without convoy, capturing any of the enemy's vessels she may happen to fall in with, who are not strong enough to resist her. We had cleared out for Genoa with a cargo of lead, which lay at the bottom of the hold, and which merely served for ballast. ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... land forces had abandoned Norfolk, and it was necessary to get the ship away before the Union troops arrived and hemmed her in. Her pilots declared that if the ship was lightened they could take her up the James River; and accordingly all hands threw overboard ballast and trappings, until she was lightened three feet. Then the pilots claimed that with the prevalent wind they could not handle her. It was now useless to try to run her through the Union fleet, for the lightening process had exposed three feet of her unarmed hull to the fire of the enemy. It was ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... ideas concerning the general policy of the British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh mail which should arrive ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... sustain'd his sword.) Then back the disappointed Trojan drew, And cursed the lance that unavailing flew: But 'scaped not Ajax; his tempestuous hand A ponderous stone upheaving from the sand, (Where heaps laid loose beneath the warrior's feet, Or served to ballast, or to prop the fleet,) Toss'd round and round, the missive marble flings; On the razed shield the fallen ruin rings, Full on his breast and throat with force descends; Nor deaden'd there its giddy fury spends, But whirling on, with many ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the front wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so hard that they were both bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to be only ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... on a thrain—put me, palanquin an' all, an' six black assassins av his own coolies that was in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-thruck, and we were rowlin' an' bowlin' along to Benares. Glory be that I did not wake up thin an' introjuce mysilf to the coolies. As I was sayin', I slept for the betther part av a day an' a night. But remimber you, that that man Dearsley had packed me off on wan ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... the arch, and am clear of all obstructions, I lay the sculls aside, and reclining let the boat drift past a ballast punt moored over the shallowest place, and with a rising load of gravel. One man holds the pole steadying the scoop, while his mate turns a windlass the chain from which drags it along the bottom, filling the bag with pebbles, and finally hauls it to the surface, when the contents ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... intolerant would hesitate to violate, but for an easygoing, trouble-dodging brain like my own there is no such thing as tenacity of purpose, unless it be in the direction of an obfuscated tendency to maintain its own pitiful equilibrium. I try to keep an even ballast in my dome of thought and to steer straight through the sea of circumstance, a very ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... often," he says "toiled the greatest part of the night, in rubbing my feet and legs to keep them from freezing. * * * In consequence of these chills I have been obliged to wear a laced stocking upon my left leg for nearly thirty years past. My bunk was directly against the ballast-port; and the port not being caulked, when there came a snow-storm the snow would blow through the seams in my bed, but in those cases there was one advantage to me, when I could not otherwise procure water to quench my thirst. ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... even, and in good order in the soul. When Job perceived that his friends did not deal with him in an even spirit and orderly manner, he said that they forsook "the fear of the Almighty" (Job 6:14). For this fear keeps a man even in his words and judgment of things. It may be compared to the ballast of the ship, and to the poise of the balance of the scales; it keeps all even, and also makes us steer our course right with respect to the things that pertain to God ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... you well, for we've got to take her out again— Take her out in ballast, riding light and cargo-free. And it's time to clear and quit When the hawser grips the bitt, So we'll pay you with the foresheet and ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... bridge. So when Erik saw that King Olaf was gaining the upper hand of him he got his berserks to take down the oars and to fling them over the Serpent's nearer gunwale, together with all logs of wood, spars, ballast stones, and other weighty things that could be found. And as the weight increased so did the Serpent lean over, until at last her bulwarks were almost on a level with ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... Telegraph requires from me, being distracted and irritated by the constant necessity for standing on the defensive. Smith will be Smith I know, and, therefore, as he is the appointed thorn to keep a proper ballast of humility in S.F.B.M. with his load of honors, why, be it so, if I can only have the proper strength and disposition to use the trial aright.... Write me some encouraging news if you can. How will the present calm in political affairs affect ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of the ladies were a good deal frightened; but she always came up again, all right, no matter how far over she dipped, and so in time they got used to it. I proved to Mrs. Chipperton that it would be impossible for the vessel to upset, as the great weight of ballast, freight, machinery, etc., in the lower part of her would always bring her deck up again, even if she rolled entirely over on her side, which, sometimes, she seemed as if she was going to do, but she always changed her mind just as we thought the ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... for that bull," said Carver; and I could see the grin on his scornful face; "a bullet for ballast to his brain, the first ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of which the gas could be let out as desired; a cord net covered the whole fabric, and from the loop which it formed below the neck of the balloon a car was suspended; and in the car there was a quantity of ballast which could be ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... my friend; there's nothing like plenty of work to help keep a person out of mischief; but, after all, he must have steadiness and good principles. They alone are to be depended on, and I hope your son has got those as ballast." ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... what, or else you didn't say. Only, if this girl would marry her son within a certain time, he could have the wad. Seems the son was something of a high-roller, and the old lady knew he'd blow it in, if it was turned over to him without any ballast, like; and the girl was supposed to be the ballast, to hold him steady. So the old lady, or else it was the girl, writes to this fellow, and he agrees to hook up with the lady and take the money and behave himself. Near as I could make it out, the time was just ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... lay on the west side of this island. Into one of these harbours, though we had before been ashore on the other side of the island, I intended to put, in order to stop a leak which we had sprung in the powder-room, and to take in more ballast, as I found the ship too light to carry sail upon a wind. As the wind was right against us, we plied off one of the harbours, and about three o'clock in the afternoon on the 1st of August, we came to an anchor in the entrance of the channel leading into it in fourteen fathom water, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... this time that William Fairbairn made the acquaintance of George Stephenson, while the latter was employed in working the ballast-engine at Willington Quay. He greatly admired George as a workman, and was accustomed in the summer evenings to go over to the Quay occasionally and take charge of George's engine, to enable him to earn a few shillings extra by heaving ballast ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... the Isle of Wight. At this time Champlain was taken suddenly ill, and was obliged to return by boat to Havre de Grace to undergo medical treatment. A month after he rejoined his former vessel, which in the meantime had returned to Honfleur to take in ballast. Champlain had now somewhat recovered, although he was still weak ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... railway from Hughenden to Winton were constructed by the late Mr. G. C. Willcocks, and in a record time. He had to carry ballast and water along the whole construction of 132 miles from the Flinders River at Hughenden. His system was to plough and scoop the bed for the permanent way. This being done, a temporary line was laid ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... of a few hours, and home again by nightfall. In these rapids, going or returning, we may safely count, at this season, on a plenty of trout; and, on the borders of the lake beyond, I know of several favorite haunts of the deer, one of which I propose to take into the canoe as ballast to steady it for running the rapids, on our ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the Colonel, "I see you have got a line on your ancestors, and that's more than many of us can say. I've never bothered about mine. Descendants are bad enough. My forebears came over to America years ago as ballast—didn't have any names, just numbers, mostly thirteen and twenty-three! That old lady you were telling us about certainly got it in the neck, and I hope that she will even matters up in the other world. If she hasn't, ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... as we earnestly desire to close the year in peace with all the world, or, which is much the same thing, with all the readers of Notes and Queries, we propose, on Saturday next, treating them to a Christmas Number, rich in articles on Folk Lore, Popular Literature, &c., and to use as ballast for our barque, which will at such occasion be of unwonted lightness, a number of Replies which we have by us imploring for admittance into ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... them with bitter words, and one of them, made mad by his scoffing, cast a heavy ballast-stone at him. It fell upon his ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... gentleman? No, no, I will never marry her to one who would take her as so much ballast to her gold, and scorn her as the ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... qualities are essential to statesmanship. Poets and philosophers can afford to be thin—cannot, indeed, afford to be otherwise; inasmuch as poetry and philosophy thrive but in the clouds aloft, and a stomach ballasts you to earth. Such ballast the statesman must have. Thin statesmen may destroy, but construct they cannot; have ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... theories with fact, to aid his progress, but he recognizes that theories, without fact as a safety ballast, is a useless expenditure. ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... a copy of which is also enclosed, confirms everything, extolling the grandeur of the view of the port, the water, wood, and ballast with which it abounds, and although the climate is rather cold, it is healthy and free from ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... later we exported this plague to the camps. Therefore our city, like a great merchantman full of a crowd of every race borne without a pilot these many years through rough water, rolls and shoots hither and thither because it is without ballast. Do not, then, allow her to be longer exposed to the tempest; for you see that she is waterlogged. And do not let her split upon a reef[5]; for her timbers are rotten and will not be able to hold out much longer. But since the gods ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... 'most as exciting as a regatta, and you pulled well, Evan; but you had too much ballast aboard, and Miss Wilder ran up false colors just in time to save her ship. What was the wager?" asked the lively Joseph, complacently surveying his marine millinery, which would have scandalized ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Port of Salem, do declare on oath, that ever since I have been in the office, it hath been customary for said Cockle to receive of the masters of vessels entering from Lisbon, casks of wine, boxes of fruit, etc., which was a gratuity for suffering their vessels to be entered with salt or ballast only, and passing over unnoticed such cargoes of wine, fruit, etc., which are prohibited to be imported into His Majesty's Plantations. Part of which wine, fruit, etc., the said James Cockle used to share with Governor Bernard. And ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... quaint town the screw tender, now disguised, with the man John and eight of the most turbulent among the crew of the nameless ship aboard her. We had come without hindrance through the crowded waters of the Channel; and, styling ourselves a Norwegian whaler in ballast, had gained the difficult harbour without arousing suspicion. At the first, Black had thought to leave me on the steamer; but I, who had an insatiable longing to set foot ashore again, gave him solemn word that I would not seek to quit him, that I would not in any ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Grace, which nearly swallowed up the debt. Poor Grace was overwhelmed when her mother came home and upbraided her, in her despair, with being a burden. Was she not a burden? Must she not be one henceforth? No, she would take in needlework, labour in the fields, heave ballast among the coarse pauper-girls on the quay-pool, anything rather: but how to meet the ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... speculative, historical, and abstract thing. Here in the concrete and saliently objective facts of crime it should have its beginning, and have more blood and body in it by getting again close to the hot battle line between vice and virtue, and then only, when balanced and sanified by a rich ballast of facts, can it with advantage slowly work its way over to the larger and higher philosophy of conduct, which, when developed from this basis, will be a radically different thing from the shadowy phantom, schematic speculations of many contemporary moralists, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... times, too, were over. We had a dull, rainy night, a heavy, broadside swell, and as the steamer had not enough ballast, she rolled frightfully. In this nasty sea we were afraid she might turn turtle, as another steamer had done some months ago. The storm became such that we had to lie at anchor for five days, sheltered by the coast of ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... weather of it. Yet, even as hope told the flattering tale of her certain safety, there came racing up astern a sea, gigantic even in that giant sea, raced her, caught her, and, as it passed ahead, so tilted her bows that the ballast slid aft, and down she sank by the stern, so near to safety that betwixt ship and shore wife might ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... wind; Sometimes, alas, the wild tornado's roar. As full of freaks as curs are full of fleas, Like gnats they swarm, like flies they buzz and breed. Thought works in silence: Wisdom stops to think. No ass so obstinate as ignorance. Oft as they seize the ship of state, behold— Overboard goes all ballast and they crowd To blast or breeze or hurricane full sail, Each dunce a pilot and a captain too. How often cross-eyed Justice hits amiss! Doomed by Athenian mobs to banishment, See Aristides leave the land he saved: Wisdom his fault and justice his offense. See Caesar crowned a god and Tully slain; ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... public, it had only been as the author of shorter or longer contributions to the philosophical discussion of the relations between Science and Faith; when these had been accepted by a daily paper it had been as its heaviest ballast. I had never yet written anything that the ordinary reader could follow with pleasure, and I had likewise been obliged to make use of a large number of ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... from the height of her tops, with the voice of her scientists and artists: "Onward, advance! Follow me!" She carries a huge crew, which delights in adorning her with fresh streamers. Boys and urchins laughing in the rigging; ballast of heavy bourgeoisie; working-men and sailor-men touched with tar; in her cabins the lucky passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke their cigars leaning over the bulwarks; then, on the deck, her soldiers, innovators ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
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