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Obsidian   /əbsˈɪdiən/   Listen
Obsidian

noun
1.
Acid or granitic glass formed by the rapid cooling of lava without crystallization; usually dark, but transparent in thin pieces.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Obsidian" Quotes from Famous Books



... where Ab, developing now into an exceedingly stalwart youth, found the long evenings about the fire far from monotonous. There was Mok, the mentor, who had grown so fond of him, and there was most interesting work to do in making from the dark flint nodules or obsidian fragments—always eagerly seized upon when discovered by the cave people in their wanderings—the spearheads and rude knives and skin scrapers so essential to their needs. The flint nodule was but a small mass of the stone, often somewhat pear-shaped. ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... notices and drawings of Obsidian knives and weapons (at page 95, &c., and in the Appendix) are more ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... Only black obsidian covered the floor about us. Cautiously we skirted the overflowing pool of white fire, and followed down the stream of it that flowed toward the inner cavern. We had gone but a few hundred yards when suddenly Ray stopped me with ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... the panorama in all its nightmarish splendour, as it drifted past him. He saw the bluffs of feathery pumice, the lava precipices—frozen cataracts of white, black, blood red, pale grey and sombre brown, smeared over with a vitreous enamel of obsidian or pierced by oily, writhing dykes that blazed with metallic scintillations. Anon came some yawning cleft or an assemblage of dizzy rock-needles, fused into whimsical tints and attitudes, spiky, distorted, over-toppling; then a bold tufa rampart, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... the thermometer well down towards zero, scooping and gouging across a hundred miles of newly fallen snow. The air is full of stinging shot, and at ten yards the trees are invisible. The foot slides on a reef, polished and black as obsidian, where the wind has skinned an exposed corner of road down to the dirt ice of early winter. The next step ends hip-deep and over, for here an unseen wall is banking back the rush of the singing drifts. A scarped slope rises sheer across the road. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... largest Beaver pond in the Park was at Obsidian Cliff. I should say the dam there was over four hundred yards long. But now it is broken and the pond is drained. And the reason as before—the Beavers used all the food and moved on. Of course the dam is soon broken when the hardworking ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... in Greece, including obsidian of very clear texture, probably of inner Asiatic, not Aegean production. Bone needles and ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various

... east of our camp obsidian was found in situ. It was not in the natural flow, but in round, water-worn pebbles deposited in the conglomerate. Many of these had been washed out and had rolled down the hill, where a bushel of them might be collected in a few hours. The outcrop does not ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... lightly, joyously. Julia, at the head, moved with the frank, free, swinging gait of an Amazon. Peachy seemed to flit along the ground; there was in her progress something of the dipping, curving grace of her flight. Clara glided; her effect of motionless movement was almost obsidian. Chiquita kept the slow, languid gait, both swaying and pulsating, of a Spanish woman. Lulu trotted with the brisk, pleasing ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... distance to my left was a huge obsidian cliff, the glassy walls of which rose in a precipice to a considerable height. On account of its peculiar formation, this crag of natural glass had several times attracted my attention, and on any other occasion I would have been curious enough to give it closer inspection. Once, as I turned my ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... find are the quartz gems: rose quartz, amethyst, rock crystal, agate, jasper, bloodstone. Or opaque gems such as jade, moonstone, lapis-lazuli, obsidian, ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company

... to his eyes. It was as if he had been shot into the core of the sun—the obsidian darkness flashed into light—a light beyond all enduring. Chick staggered, and cried in pain. And yet, reason told him just what it was, just what had happened. It was the carbon; he was in the heart of the diamond; the Senestro had led ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... organism, is the lack of continuity of its moods. The soul, so called, is as sensitive to physical conditions as a barometer: affected by lack of sleep, by smells and sounds, by food, by the weather—whether a day be sapphire or obsidian. And the resolutions arising from one mood are thwarted by the actions of the next. Janet had observed this phenomenon, and sometimes, when it troubled her, she thought herself the most inconsistent and vacillating ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... thick slime mixed with petrified branches, but it changed little by little near four o'clock in the afternoon; it grew rockier and seemed to be strewn with pudding stones and a basaltic gravel called "tuff," together with bits of lava and sulfurous obsidian. I expected these long plains to change into mountain regions, and in fact, as the Nautilus was executing certain turns, I noticed that the southerly horizon was blocked by a high wall that seemed to close off every exit. Its ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... spot where the force should be applied, and braced against the breast of the operator, while he held the stone between his feet. This latter operation is described as used by the Mexicans to get flakes of obsidian.[206] By carrying further the process of chipping or pressing the stone could be shaped more perfectly, and by rubbing it on another stone it could be given a cutting edge. The rubbing process could ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... again as a site for building, like those we have seen in Mexico and Maya. Many enclosures contain more than fifty acres of land; and one embankment is fifty miles long. Among the relics associated with those works are articles of pottery, knives, and copper ornaments, hammered silver, mica, obsidian, pearls, beautifully sculptured pipes, shells, and stone implements. The mounds found in some of the Gulf States seem to confirm a theory that the mound-builders were the ancestors of the Choctaw Indians and their allies, ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... stopped to breakfast and to water the horses. Half-past eight found us in the saddle again, and we commenced to traverse a dreary plain of yellowish white pumice-stone, interspersed with huge blocks of obsidian, thrown from the mouth of the volcano. At first the monotony of the scene was relieved by large bushes of yellow broom in full flower, and still larger bushes of the beautiful Retama blanca, quite covered with lovely white bloom, scenting the air with its delicious fragrance, and resembling ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... that, she went down from the terrace into her own dwelling, and made prayers to her own gods of her Apache people. With a blade of obsidian she made scars until the blood dripped from her braceletted arms. To the divinely created Woman Without Parents, she chanted a song of prayer, and to the Twin Gods who slew enemies, she let her blood drop by drop fall on the sacred meal of the medicine bowl:—all this ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... the diplomats of Europe. They were, however, weak before the superior knowledge of the white men. In all their long centuries in America they had learned nothing of the use of iron. Their sharpest tool had been made of chipped obsidian or of hammered copper. Their most potent weapons had been the stone hatchet or age and the bow and arrow. It thus happened that, when steel and gunpowder reached America, the natives soon came to despise their primitive implements. More ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... us were seized by sudden panic and ran, thinking him dead. But I did not run, though I should have been glad enough to do so. At my side hung one of the Indian weapons that serve them instead of swords, a club of wood set on both sides with spikes of obsidian, like the teeth in the bill of a swordfish. Snatching it from its loop I gave the puma battle, striking a blow upon his head that rolled him over and caused the blood to pour. In a moment he was up and at me roaring with rage. Whirling the wooden sword with ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... colors characteristic of the vein,—its bar of olive green on the one side, of intense black on the other, and of blue, like that of imperfectly fused bottle-glass, in the centre. This curious rock,—so nearly akin in composition and appearance to obsidian,—a mineral which, in its dense form, closely resembles the coarse dark-colored glass of which common bottles are made, and which, in its lighter form, exists as pumice,—constitutes one of the links that connect the trap with the unequivocally volcanic rocks. The one mineral may be seen beside ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... material of which this mountain is composed is jet-black glass, produced by volcanic fires. The very road on which we drove between this and the lake also consists of glass too hard to break beneath the wheels. The first explorers found this obsidian cliff almost impassable; but when they ascertained of what it was composed, they piled up timber at its base, and set it on fire. When the glass was hot, they dashed upon the heated mass cold water, ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard

... awaiting us. I paused before entering it to examine the polished surface of runway and great road. It was obsidian—volcanic glass of pale emerald, unflawed, translucent, with no sign of block or juncture. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... rumbling tone, and with a strong accent. "I would not have missed such a chance. Where is this dagger? I have just returned from the Izamal temples of Yucatan. I have brought some fine specimens to Europe. Obsidian knives. Sacrificial. Beautiful." ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... of life. Their dress consisted of a mantle about four feet square, formed of strips of rabbit skins sewed together; this they hung over their shoulders, in the ordinary Indian mode of wearing the blanket. Their weapons were bows and arrows; the latter tipped with obsidian, which abounds in the neighborhood. Their huts were shaped like haystacks, and constructed of branches of willow covered with long grass, so as to be warm and comfortable. Occasionally, they were surrounded ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... with frequent sloughs; and after crossing the Pannack, the road continued along the uplands, rendered very slippery by the soil of wet clay, and entirely covered with artemisia bushes, among which occur frequent fragments of obsidian. At noon we encamped in a grove of willows, at the upper end of a group of islands about half a mile above the American falls of Snake river. Among the willows here, were some bushes of Lewis and Clarke's ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont



Words linked to "Obsidian" :   volcanic glass



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