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Pumice   /pˈəməs/   Listen
Pumice

noun
1.
A light glass formed on the surface of some lavas; used as an abrasive.  Synonym: pumice stone.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pumice" Quotes from Famous Books



... accessible was another part which overhung the Sevre. There the wings of the castle, overgrown with ivy and white-crested viburnum, were intact. Spongy, dry as pumice stone, silvered with lichen and gilded with moss, the towers rose entire, though from their crenelated collarettes whole blocks were blown away on ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans

... convulsions more tremendous than any recorded in the modern annals of that country. About a month previous to the eruption on the main-land a submarine volcano burst forth in the sea, at a distance of thirty miles from the shore. It ejected so much pumice that the sea was covered with it for a distance of 150 miles, and ships were considerably impeded in their course. A new island was thrown up, consisting of high cliffs, which was claimed by his Danish Majesty, and ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... a skewer is run in and out along each of its four sides, and strings being made fast to these skewers, the skin is very tightly stretched; it is carefully scraped over as it lies on the stretch, by which means the water is squeezed out; then it is rubbed with rough stones, as pumice or sandstone, after which it is allowed to dry, the strings by which the skewers are secured being tightened from time to time. If this parchment be used for writing, it will be found rather greasy, but washing it will oxgall ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... it was so exceeding light a body? my Microscope could presently inform me that here was the same reason evident that there is found for the lightness of froth, an empty Honey-comb, Wool, a Spunge, a Pumice-stone, or the like; namely, a very small quantity of a solid body, extended into exceeding ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... to make such a denial," remarked coach coolly, "I'd be sure to have a piece of pumice stone, and I'd use it often to ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... hand, or in the making. Or, are matters the other way? Has she been tried and found wanting? Is she impotent, or deformed; or is Cho[u]bei making fools of us?" Answered Cho[u]bei slowly—"No; she is a little ugly. The face round and flat, shining, with black pock marks, making it look like speckled pumice, rouses suspicion of leprosy. This, however, is not the case. At all events she is a woman." All were now roaring with laughter—"A very beauty indeed! Just the one for Cho[u]bei's trade! Too honied was his speech. He would market anything. But in this market it is a matter of hard cash; ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... hot springs of water bubbling up in a number of places. The stream was quite warm for several yards, and the ground and stones were so hot that there was no standing on them for any length of time. The large pieces of quartz, pumice, and other stones apparently burnt, induce us to suppose there must have formerly been a volcano at this spot, which is a deep vale, surrounded by high hills. Arrived much fatigued at Tanjong Agung, where the head dupati received ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... order to prevent too great shrinkage. A single application of the last-named dressing, is generally sufficient for small skins; but a second or third treatment may be resorted to if required, to make the skin soft and pliable, after which it should be finished off with sand-paper and pumice stone. A skin may be thus dressed as soft as velvet, and the alum and salt will set the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... but I suspect that the floating of seaweed containing their eggs may dispense with the hypothesis of the submersion of 1,200 miles of land once intervening. I want naturalists carefully to examine floating seaweed and pumice met with at sea. Tell your correspondents to look out. There should be a microscopic examination of both these means of ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant

... wheen of Frenchmen, seemingly," said the writer, oracularly, taking to the trimming of his nails with a piece of pumice-stone he kept for the purpose, and used so constantly that they ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... but soon Rosa also arrived, and after tea I put all my books in order, redressed my dolls, got rid of the ink on my hands with pumice-stone, and in between each task, took a turn in the garden on the passing of any coach-but always with the same result! Would they ever arrive? Then came supper-time. Catalina had been up and ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte

... called Glass House Bay, in allusion to the name given by Captain Cook to three remarkable glass house-looking hills near Pumice-stone River; but as Captain Cook bestowed the name of Moreton Bay upon the strait to the south of Moreton Island, that name has a prior claim, and is now generally adopted. A penal settlement has lately been formed at Red Cliff Point, which is ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... rubbing down was done by hand. Heavy, long-bladed knives, as big as the "Sword of Bunker Hill," were used to scrape down the rough body coats of paint, and a smooth surface, on which to stamp the geometrical figures in colors, was fetched after long and laborious polishing with bricks and pumice stone. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... more than five figs for his daily repast; a third who cut his hair only on Easter Sunday, who never washed his clothes, who never changed his tunic till it fell to pieces, who starved himself till his eyes grew dim, and his skin like a pumice stone.... For six months, it is said, St. Macarius of Alexandria slept in a marsh, and exposed his naked body to the stings of venomous flies.... His disciple, St. Eusebius, carried one hundred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three years in a dried-up ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... to the island; on the contrary, they merely observed, that sharks were too vicious to ride; and asked me to accompany them to their town, an invitation which I gladly accepted. As I walked along I observed that the island was composed of white porous pumice stone, without the least symptoms of vegetation; not even a piece of moss could I discover—nothing but the bare pumice stone, with thousands of beautiful green lizards, about ten inches long, playing about in ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... perfectly separate. Then the various colours were studied, and diamond-like Sirius was viewed, as well as his ruby, topaz, sapphire, and emerald companions in the great sphere. The moon was journeyed over at every opportunity, with her silvery, pumice-like craters, and greyish-bottomed ring-plains, surrounded by their mighty walls of twelve to seventeen thousand feet in height. Tycho and Copernicus, with their long silvery rays; brilliant Aristarchus; ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... exposed to the action of an angry fire, the crater rather resembled a brimming basin, of which the contents were noiselessly escaping. Nor were there any igneous stones or red-hot cinders mingled with the smoke that crowned the summit; a circumstance that quite accorded with the absence of the pumice-stones, obsidians, and other minerals of volcanic origin with which the base of a burning mountain ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... in front of us could be nothing else than a volcano, either dormant or extinct, for there was no sign of smoke rising from its summit, although the nature of the soil around us, consisting as it did of pumice stone, scoriae, and ancient lava, left no doubt as to the ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... two eldest were brothers, and that their names were Tuahourange and Koikerange; the name of the youngest was Maragovete. As we were returning to the ship, after having taken these boys into the boat, we picked up a large piece of pumice stone floating upon the water; a sure sign that there either is, or has been a volcano ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... whether cabochon or facetted, is accomplished by the use of very finely powdered abrasives such as corundum powder, tripoli, pumice, putty powder, etc. Each gem material requires special treatment to obtain the best results. It is here that most of ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... and other of the Cyclades.[905] To-day Italy has prisons or penal stations in Ischia, the Ponza group, Procida, Nisida, Elba, Pantellaria, Lampedusa, Ustica, and especially in the Lipari Isles, where the convicts are employed in mining sulphur, alum and pumice from the volcanic cones.[906] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... rainy season from November to April, dry season from May to October; little seasonal temperature variation Terrain: five volcanic islands with rugged peaks and limited coastal plains, two coral atolls Natural resources: pumice and pumicite Land use: arable land 10%; permanent crops 5%; meadows and pastures 0%; forest and woodland 75%; other 10% Environment: typhoons common from December to March Note: Pago Pago has one of the best natural deepwater harbors in the South ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... ore, copper, chromium, antimony, mercury, gold, barite, borate, celestite (strontium), emery, feldspar, limestone, magnesite, marble, perlite, pumice, pyrites (sulfur), clay, ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... deeds to have had some little part"; and is it not a sort of poor anti-climax for a world that has gone through such noble excitement to have sunk back to this level of every day! Alas! all those lava-like moments of human exaltation—what are they now, but, so to say, the pumice-stone of history. They have passed as the summer flowers are passing, they are gone ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... with shaving-soap, Pumice stone and lye, She showered him and she scoured him And she hung him up ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson

... lives. Only the aged, the infirm, the prisoners and some faithful dogs were left behind. Today their bodies in plaster casts may be seen, mute witnesses to a frightful disaster. The town was covered with an airtight blanket of ashes, lava and fine pumice stone. There was no prolonged death struggle, no perceivable decay extended over centuries as was the cruel lot of Pompeii's mistress, Rome. There were no agonies to speak of. The great event was consummated within a few hours. The peace of death settled down to reign supreme after ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... epoch, while the mountains were still rising in their active volcanic state, I saw but little evidence of a marked sort of the growth of living creatures upon their loose piles of pumice. Gradually, however, I observed that spores of lichens, blown towards them by the wind, were beginning to sprout upon the more settled rocks, and to discolour the surface in places with grey and yellow patches. Bit by bit, as rain fell upon ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... In a life of seventy-two years, during which he wrote and erased incessantly, he, the poet, wrote just so much verse as will fill in large type a little pocket volume of 250 pages; to be accurate, forty-three lines a year. Of this scraping and pumice stone in the mind a better example than his verse is to be found in his letters. A number remain. They might seem to be written by two different men! Half a dozen are models of that language he adored—they cost him, to our knowledge, many days—the rest are slipshod notes that any ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc

... Partes. Sent to all youthfull Gentlemen, deciphering in a true English Historie, those particular vanities, that with their Frostie vapours, nip the blossomes of euery braine, from attaining to his intended perfection. As pleasant as profitable, being a right Pumice stone, apt to race out idlenesse with delight, and folly with admonition. By Robert Greene, In artibus Magister. Omne tulit punctum. London, Printed by William Stansby for Iohn Smithwicke, and are to bee sold at his Shop in Saint Dunstanes Churchyard in Fleete-streete ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... red use lemon juice, applying cold cream as soon as the juice is dry. For callous spots rub with pumice stone. ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... 2nd June, two small birds were caught; they proved to be the Java swallow (Hirundo esculenta), the nest of which is esteemed as a great delicacy, and is an article of trade between the Malays and Chinese. Large quantities of pumice-stone were also seen floating on the water; on one piece was found a sea centipede (Amphinome sp.), about four inches long, covered with fine bristly hair; it was feeding upon two barnacles (Lepas anatifera) which had attached themselves ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King



Words linked to "Pumice" :   rock, stone, pumice stone, rub



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