"Steeper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the edge, he pulled first Desiree, then myself, up after him. The whole performance had occupied a scant two seconds, and, waiting only to pick up the three spears he had thrown up the sloping surface of the rock to another yet higher and steeper. ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... only approach was by the irregular, but for some distance nearly parallel, gorges cut out from the soft clay of the bluffs by Sandy Creek and one of its many arms. The course of these streams being toward the Confederate works, the hollows grew deeper and the banks steeper at every step. At most the creeks were but two hundred yards apart, and the ridge that separated them gave barely standing room. Within a few feet of the breastworks the smaller stream and its ravine turned sharply toward the north and served as a formidable ditch ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... monotony. The successive rise and fall of the land, always with its limited outlook, became tedious, and the labyrinthine hillocks with their intricate windings seemed to enclose them inextricably. But on reaching the summit of a longer steeper incline that had perceptibly slowed the galloping horses, he saw spread out before him a level tract of country stretching far into the distance, with a faint blue smudge beyond of the chain of hills that Said told him marked the boundary of the territory that Mukair Ibn Zarrarah ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... forest trails, and the use of the spur was a thing not to be borne. Wilbur felt as if he were fairly flying through the pine woods. Still he remembered to keep the mare well in hand going down the steeper slopes, and within a couple of hours he found himself at the fire. Then Wilbur found how true it was that a blaze could easily be put out if caught early. There was little wind, and the line of fire was not more than a mile long. By clearing ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... to the crown of the bent, and before them were the oak-trees sparser and smaller as they went down the further side, which seemed by their sudden shortening to be steeper than the hither side; and betwixt them showed the topmost of thorn and whitebeam and logwood, intertwined with eglantine and honeysuckle and the new shoots of the traveller's joy. There the wood-wife put forth her hand to bid Birdalone stay, who came up to her ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... years ago rendered them capable of climbing grades which, in the early days of railroad engineering, were deemed out of the question. The improvements proved a serious stumbling block in the way of the inventors, who found that an ordinary locomotive was able to climb a much steeper grade than was commonly supposed. The first railroads were laid almost level, but it was soon discovered that a grade of a few feet to the mile was no impediment to progress, and gradually ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... at the residency after walking up the hill. The exercise made him puff. In the old days he used to run up steeper gradients, now it sometimes distressed him ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... his ankle got sprained with all the rest. You see, my chum and me went bobbing, and Pa said he supposed he used to be the greatest bobber, when he was a boy, that ever was. He said he used to slide down a hill that was steeper than a church steeple. We asked him to go with us, and we went to that street that goes down by the depot, and we had two sleds hitched together, and there were mor'n a hundred boys, and Pa wanted to steer, and he got on the front sled, and when we ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... far away; he fell into an uneasy slumber and saw himself, aged and gray, trying to keep pace with a fair youth, who mounted with free and graceful step a mountain whose summit was crowned with the light of everlasting day. Steeper and steeper grew the path, yet he strove with failing strength. The youth reached out a strong hand to him and said, "Lean on me;" but he put it back, crying fiercely: "No! no! climb thou alone farther I cannot go. On! On to the summit, where breaks the great ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... not stop at the street level; they continued on down another ramp, around a bend, descending an even steeper incline toward the bowels of Jupiter. Their descent ended at last before a huge metal barrier which, at a signal from the leader, drew smoothly up into the ceiling to disclose a gigantic, red-lit chamber underlying the foundations of ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... was an eternity of struggling up the now-steeper canyon under loads that seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds; forcing their protesting legs to carry them fifty steps at a time, at the end of which they would stop to rest while their lungs labored to suck in the thin air in quick, ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... advisable. With regard to the air-cure, visitors are reminded that at Pougues they find the four kinds of walking exercise recommended by a German specialist, namely, that on quite level ground; secondly, a very gradual climb; thirdly, a somewhat steeper bit of up-hill; and, fourthly, the really arduous ascent of Mont Givre. In order to entice health-seekers, all kinds of gratifications await them on the summit, restaurant, dairy, reading room, tennis court, and ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... must be properly adjusted to the porosity of the soil; that is, in open, porous, and gravelly soils a grade must be steeper than in loamy and dense soils. The reason is manifest. In a gravel soil, the sewage is at first rapidly absorbed, so that as the sewage goes down the pipe line the first joints take up the water and deliver it to the soil, where it disappears, and probably no flow reaches ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... unique in its grades. It has no descents. Almost everywhere it is a gentle climb. {p.062} Below Longmire Springs the maximum grade is 2.5 per cent., and the average, 1.6 per cent. Beyond, the grade is steeper, but nowhere more than 4 ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... The ridges were steeper now, and came in more swift succession, as the horsemen plodded wearily along the southern slope of the Rand. Piggie was breathing heavily; and Weldon, clinging to his saddle with the purely mechanical grip of the exhausted rider, halted again and again ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... Macaulry, to wait on his honour, the Lieutenant Governor, Colonel Lumley, who continued in his Commandant's quarters at the barracks, situated on a hill, which at first rises gradually from the town, but becomes much steeper as you ascend. We then accompanied Captain Perry and Mr. Green to the regimental mess, where we lunched. It is worthy of remark, perhaps, that three out of four of these gentlemen, namely, the Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Macauley, and Mr. Green, whom I was in company with at the barracks this morning, ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... the bed of the canon had become much rougher and steeper. The pony, for all his goat-like agility and sure-footedness, found difficulty in scrambling up ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... surmount it in the middle. Finally he literally pawed and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... some other selenographers place in a distinct class certain of the smaller ring-plains which usually have a steeper outer slope, and are supposed to present clearer indications of a volcanic origin than the ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... were in the best of the halls of men. On the morrow betimes they arose soberly and went their ways with few words, and, as they deemed, the path still led them onward. And now the great ridge on the north rose steeper and steeper, and their crossing it seemed not to be thought of; but their half-blind track failed them not. They rested at even, and ate and drank what little they had left, save a mouthful or two of wine, and then went on again by the ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... down on the other side,' urged Mary. 'It is a little steeper on the Cumberland side, but ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... are known to be in league with the Kafir banditti, giving notice to the latter of the approach of travellers rather than rendering effective aid against them. Fortunately the ascent was easy and gradual. The descent is steeper, and in parts very trying. We had to cross and recross the frozen stream several times, owing to the sides of the hill rising almost perpendicularly from its base. To add to our difficulties, we had to pick our ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... Holyrood, which lay grim and black under the sun-bathed steeps of Arthur's Seat. On by the Grange and all round the south-eastern portion of the city this odd couple took their way. It was a long round, but safety made it necessary. At last, between Corstorphine's wooded slopes and the steeper rise of the Pentlands, they struck into the Glasgow road. In the same order as before they pursued their journey, Baubie leading as of old, now and again vouchsafing a word over her shoulder to her obedient follower, until the dim haze of the horizon received ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... birds had begun to stir in their nests and call their morning greetings across from one tree top to another. As far as Mollie could see stretched the unbroken forest. A narrow path ran down the hill between the trees. A steeper incline rose back of them and this was broken with deep ravines. Mollie could neither see nor hear anyone. Yet it seemed to her that she was not alone. She had a sense of ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... wood, and began to climb among loose stones, finally finding solid rock beneath our feet, the path skirting the edge of what seemed to be a deep gash in the earth, and winding about wherever it could find passage. The way grew steeper and steeper, and more difficult to traverse, although, as we thus rose above the tree limit, the shadows became less dense, and we were able dimly to perceive objects a yard or two in advance. I strained my eyes over Barbeau's shoulder, but could gain no glimpse of De Artigny. Then ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Argonauts, long before this, must have sunk into that sleep from which there is no earthly waking. Few, if any of us, managed to find the Golden Fleece. Those who, like myself, are still seeking it, are treading that downhill path which grows steeper at every pace, and which leads to that valley, filled with grey shadow, out of which none return. To them I hold out a hand of greeting in the spirit. Perhaps, when the Great Cycle has been traversed, we may meet again. Perhaps in another Argo we may voyage from Sirius to Mazaroth, through seas ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... Earlsfield behind them, and were now climbing the long, winding ascent that led to Staplegrove. As the road grew steeper, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... end of another quarter of an hour they were approaching a steeper place than usual, but their pursuers were very near now, and the gentlemen owned to themselves that though they might shoot down a few of their enemies, the Malays would certainly conquer; when Ned, who ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... glare and dust. The wall winds with the highway and cannot be escaped. It goes up the slight elevations and down the slopes; it has become settled down and bound with time. But presently there is a steeper dip, and at the bottom, in a narrow valley, a streamlet flows out from the wheat into the park. A spring rises at the foot of the down a mile away, and the channel it has formed winds across the plain. It is narrow and shallow; ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... again, we commenced ascending over the debris of stony avalanches, the path becoming steeper and steeper, until the far-off summit almost hung over our heads. It was now a zigzag ladder, roughly thrown together, but very firm. The red mare which my friend rode climbed it like a cat, never hesitating, ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... is melting, the reverberation of the stones intolerable, my feet ache and burn. At the top of the street I enter a still poorer neighbourhood, a still steeper street, but so narrow that the shadow has already begun to draw out on the pavements. At the top of the street is a stairway, and above the stairway a grassy knoll, and above the knoll a windmill lifts its black and motionless arms. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... Jack won't let us stay and enjoy it. I never saw a man so much in love with marching. The steeper the hills and mountains, the colder the day, the fiercer the sleet and snow, the better he ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... child, and her frolic did not last long. As the ascent became steeper, her breath grew shorter, and she toiled on in a resolute uncomplaining manner after his long, vigorous steps, till he looked round, and seeing her panting far behind, turned to help her, lead her, and carry her, till ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mountains, its descent is so gentle that one is not at all tired in going down it; but if you should happen to miss the way between the two rocks and continue on the heights, you are in great danger of falling from the rock, which every moment becomes steeper and steeper. ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... in the coat, stepped out on the ice. The fog was gone and a blue, sailless sea stretched out to the horizon. Behind him was ice—a mountain of it. He climbed the elevation and looked at another stretch of vacant view from a precipice a hundred feet high. To his left the ice sloped to a steeper beach than the one behind him, and to the right, a pile of hummocks and taller peaks, interspersed with numerous canyons and caves, and glistening with waterfalls, shut out the horizon in this direction. Nowhere ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... yon angel crossing our flight Where the thunder vapours loom, From his upcast pinions flashing the light Of some outbreaking doom! Up, brothers! away! a storm is nigh! Smite we the wing up a steeper sky! What matters the hail or the clashing winds, The thunder that buffets, the lightning that blinds! We know by the tempest we do not lie Dead in ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... blade of grass was there, nor a plant. Carley conceived a desire to go to the bottom of this pit. She tried the cinders of the edge of the slope. They had the same consistency as those of the ascent she had overcome. But here there was a steeper incline. A tingling rush of daring seemed to drive her over the rounded rim, and, once started down, it was as if she wore seven-league boots. Fear left her. Only an exhilarating emotion consumed her. If there were danger, it ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... omitted, and the barrows wheeled over the ground. Even a hard packed earth path in dry weather is inferior to a plank runway and when the ground is soft or muddy the loss in efficiency of the men is serious. Where the runway must rise to the mixing board, give it a slope or grade seldom steeper than 1 in 8, and if possible flatter. Make a runway on a trestle at least 18 ins. wide, so that men will be in no danger of falling. See to it, also, that the planks are so well supported that they do not spring down when walked over, for a springy plank ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... glinting reflections of the cold sunlight. Down the hillside a stream ran to join the lake, and it was on the more sheltered slope by this stream, where grey-limbed maple trees grew, that the cabin stood. Above and around, the steeper slopes bore only fir trees, whose cone-shaped or spiky forms, sometimes burnt and charred, sometimes dead and grey, but for the most part green and glossy, from shore and slope and ridge pointed always to ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... the cross aloft, chanting solemnly; his Indians, to whom he had given a swift signal, following and lifting up their voices likewise. The mountain on this side was bare, as if from fire, the incline shorter and steeper. The priest noted all things, although he ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... find religion as a man accidentally finds a lost pocket-book? Ah, no! No man ever became a Christian by accident, or by the relaxing of sin. The embarrassments are all the time increasing. The hosts of darkness are recruiting, and the longer you postpone this matter the steeper the path will become. I ask those men who are before me this morning, whether, in the ten or fifteen years they have passed in the postponement of these matters, they have come any ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... that rises gently from the rich, level pastures of the Vale of Pickering, the town has a picturesque and pleasant site. At the top of the market-place where the ground becomes much steeper stands the church, its grey bulk dominating every view. From all over the Vale one can see the tall spire, and from due east or west it has a surprising way of peeping over the hill tops. It has even been suggested that the tower and spire have been a landmark for a very ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Pena Blanca hill gets steeper and steeper, until about fifty yards from the rock it is too precipitous and rugged to ride with safety, so that the rest of the ascent must be made on foot. Tying my mule to a sapling, I scrambled up the path, and soon ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... failed to maintain their exact direction, the actual point of disembarkation was rather more than a mile north of that which I had selected, and was more closely overhung by steeper cliffs. Although this accident increased the initial difficulty of driving the enemy off the heights inland, it has since proved itself to have been a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as the actual base of the force of occupation had been much better defiladed ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... had drawn on his boot, and set off at a trot, which took him down to the bottom of the slope, and half up the other side of the coombe, at whose bottom he had had to leap a tiny stream. Then, walking slowly, he climbed the steeper slope; and there was a double astonishment for a moment, the boy staring hard at a noble-looking stag, the avant-guard of a little herd of red deer, which was ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... water, I had lay down to take a rest and a little sleep. The mountains here on both sides of the river were not very steep, but ran gradually for a mile or so. While I was sleeping the boat came around a small angle in the stream, and all at once there seemed to be a higher, steeper range of mountains right across the valley. The boys thought the river was coming to a rather sudden end and hastily awoke me, and for the life of me I could not say they were not right, for there was no way in sight for it to go to. I remembered while looking over a map the military ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... the other side of the valley. It was a steep climb, and Lucia was tired when she reached the top. She sat down for a while to rest before going on the remainder of the way. The next path that she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill to a tiny plateau above. From it one could look down on Cellino across the valley. When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade of a big rock and looked ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... The way grew steeper, always he traveled up the ascent. Flooded with the hot energy that swept through his arteries, each passing hour seemed to add to the fires that fed ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... hollows in the wavy line of skids, which vanished at the edge of a steeper dip and reappeared below, to plunge out of sight again. Its end was banked up with wet gravel near the track. Festing could not see the track, but the opposite side of the river was visible, with the island, near which two wire-ropes skimmed the surface of the flood. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable height. The wood suddenly broke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... is the absence of any fixed frame. In all machines, bicycles and tricycles, with the usual fixed frame, a position is found for the saddle which is, on the whole, most suitable. For some particular gradient it will be perfect; on a steeper gradient the treadles will be further in advance, but with a steeper gradient the rider should be more over the front of the treadles. To get his weight further to the front, he has to double up in the middle, and assume ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow. I now decended the mountain about 3/4 of a mile which I found much steeper than on the opposite side, to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river. after a short halt of a few minutes we continued our march along the Indian road which lead us over steep hills and deep hollows ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... reduction of speed. We lost such time as I had made, and more also. Still, we were going downhill, and, as if impatient of the check, the car sprang forward.... We rose from the bottom with the smooth rush of a non-stop elevator. As we breasted the rise, I saw another and steeper dale before us. The road was becoming ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... Smith had come in from their usual walk, and were toiling slowly up from the hall to the nursery. The stairs got steeper at the last flight, and Nurse went more slowly still, and panted a good deal, for she was stouter than she need have been, though Ruth would never have dreamed of saying so. Ruth was in front, and she had nearly reached the top when something came hurrying towards ...
— The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales • Amy Walton
... adventurous spirits, however, chose a short cut up the precipice along a natural fissure in the rocks, which, having been transformed with loose stones into a kind of ladder, was formerly, before these peaceful times, the only means of access to the summit. A steeper scramble would be hard to find. I must confess, however, that before taking either of these routes, we halted to enjoy a lunch for which the drive had given us the keenest appetite, and which we ate al fresco in the shadow ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... and its significantly steeper slope took us to greater depths. It must have been nearly three o'clock when we reached a narrow valley gouged between high, vertical walls and located 150 meters down. Thanks to the perfection of our equipment, we had thus gone ninety meters below the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... still continued, turned, winded, left the more open heaths, and got into steeper ravines, which promised soon to lead us to the banks of some brook or river, and ultimately made good their presage. We found ourselves at length on the bank of a stream, which rather resembled one of my native English rivers than those I had hitherto seen in Scotland. It was ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a pretty feature of the landscape by day; but it afforded a toilsome path for runners. Zmai already realized that he had blundered in not forcing the wall; he was running uphill, with a group of sheds, another wall, and a still steeper and rougher field beyond. His bulk told against him; and behind him he heard the quick thump of Oscar's feet on the turf. The starlight grew dimmer through tracts of white scud; the surface of the pasture was ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... child. A beautiful dream must have hovered over him, for he was smiling in his sleep. A flood of maternal love welled up in her agitated heart, and, as she saw the companions of her childhood also gazing tenderly at the little steeper, she remembered the days of her own youth, and the quiet happiness which she had enjoyed in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... every stone and boulder, and although exposed to a terrific fire, gradually pushing on until they reached a stone wall which ran round the face of the hill. Beyond this the ground was much rougher and very much steeper—so steep, indeed, that it was almost impossible to climb it. The fire of the enemy was now terrific. The troops were some three hundred yards from the crest, and it was certain death to show a head above the wall. An officer placed his helmet on the end of his sword, ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... short one, if impelled by the same force; but the subject appears in a different light upon more mature reflection, for it is then seen, that the weight which performs the longer journey starts down the steeper declivity, and therefore acquires a greater velocity. A ball does not run down a steep hill and a more gently inclined one at the same pace; neither, therefore, will the suspended weight move down the steeper curve, and the less raised one, at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 457 - Volume 18, New Series, October 2, 1852 • Various
... Gate Park, they turned into San Francisco, and took the long sweep of the descending hills at a rate that caused pedestrians to turn and watch them anxiously. Through the city streets the bright sweaters flew, turning and twisting to escape climbing the steeper hills, and, when the steep hills were unavoidable, doing stunts to see which would ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... your steps, yet be bold and confident, that you may leap the stream or scale the rock. If you stop to reflect, the stream will grow wider, and the rock steeper and smoother. A stick helps many in climbing, but I believe the skilled pedestrian climbs unaided. Do not jump, girls. Creep, slide, crawl; but never shock your system with a jump of few or ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... strong handle, to which he fastened a leather strap, and slung the whole thing over his shoulders like a knapsack. Then, casting another look round to make sure that there was no one about, he started to walk towards a steeper descent of the hill in a totally different direction from that which led to the "Plaza" hotel. He went swiftly, at a steady swinging pace,—and though his way took him among confused masses of rock, and fallen boulders, he ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... next minute or more the three parties all went on, Mr. Evans and Bernard going up slowly towards the level place; the carriage coming rapidly down the road, being drawn by horses used to steeper hills than that; and nurse behind at the top of her speed ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... gradually descended to a more open country. From the place at which we were temporarily delayed, and which is not inappropriately called the Devil's Pass, the road winds about between ranges, differing in every respect from any we had as yet noticed. The sides of the hills were steeper, and their summits sharper, than any we had crossed. They were thickly covered with eucalypti and brush, and, though based upon sandstone, were themselves of ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... he leapt to his feet, and went down to the stream and drank of its waters, and washed the night off him in a pool thereof, and then set forth on his way again. When he had gone some three hours, the road, which had been going up all the way, but somewhat gently, grew steeper, and the bent on either side lowered, and lowered, till it sank at last altogether, and then was he on a rough mountain-neck with little grass, and no water; save that now and again was a soft place with a flow amidst of it, and such places he must needs fetch a compass about, lest he be mired. ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... Proceeding eastward from the Agua del Zorro, and afterwards leaving on the north side of the road a rancho attached to some old goldmines, you pass through a gully with low but steep rocks on each hand: the road then bends, and the ascent becomes steeper. A few hundred yards farther on, a stone's throw on the south side of the road, the white calcareous stumps may be seen. The spot is about half a mile east of the Agua del Zorro.) They projected between two and five feet above the ground, and stood at exactly right ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... experience, how dangerous it was. We passed without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,—the Battle of the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more tortuous and more incumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate, James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no side-wheel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Acone's parish; nor had haply From Valdigrieve past the Buondelmonte. The city's malady hath ever source In the confusion of its persons, as The body's, in variety of food: And the blind bull falls with a steeper plunge, Than the blind lamb; and oftentimes one sword Doth more and better execution, Than five. Mark Luni, Urbisaglia mark, How they are gone, and after them how go Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and 't will seem No longer new or strange to thee to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... savage mountains. Down this we made our way, taking presently the bed of a small brook: woodroad or footpath never can be there. For a while there was room to walk on dry land: soon the cliffs closed in upon us, on the right rising sheer, on the left sloping, but steeper than I would want to climb. At first the stream was very shallow and narrow, and the fish small and scarce; but think of the creatures that must come there to drink at night! It was the only watercourse for miles, Jim said. He pointed out the tracks of a bear or two, and ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... weather faster than their waste is carried away, the waste comes at last to cover all rocky ledges. On the steeper slopes it is coarser and in more rapid movement than on slopes more gentle, but mountain sides and hills and plains alike come to be mantled with sheets of waste which everywhere is creeping toward the streams. Such unbroken slopes, worn or built to the least inclination at which the ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... aspect the sand spit is the steeper. There the folds of the sea fall in velvety thuds ever so gentle, ever so regular. On the southern slope, where the gradient is easy, the wavelets glide up with heedless hiss and slide back with shuffling whisper, scarce moving the garlands of brown seaweed which a few hours before had been torn ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... The lower end is now so displaced and overgrown for a fourth of a mile that it can no longer be traced; the remainder of it is practically intact. The slope is not uniform, being somewhat determined by the natural surface, so that it is steeper in some parts than in others. Near the upper end some short stretches are quite steep, presenting from below the appearance of terraces. In places, flat stones are laid pavement fashion from side to side, or rows of stones which seem to be the ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... hills towards Naphill. But as night blackened and frost brightened and hardened it I found the way increasingly difficult; especially as the way was an incessant ascent. Whenever we topped a road like a staircase it was only to turn into a yet steeper road ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... afternoon fight on the hills near the town, but this was only the work of a handful of men, probably intended to stave us off for a while while they finished their packing in Pretoria and got away. Lord Roberts got a battery up to the crest of a great big ridge, and we got a pompon up a still steeper one, and a vigorous cannonade was kept up and a good deal of rifle-fire indulged in till nearly dark. But this is often very deceptive. No doubt if it was the first battle you had been at, you would have put down the casualties, judging from the noise made, at several hundred. ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... village, a mere hamlet, has slipped my memory. I only know that we moved at daybreak up the valley behind Levanto and presently turned to our right past a small mill of some kind; olives, then chestnuts, accompanied the path which grew steeper every moment, and was soon ankle-deep in slush from the melted snow. This was his daily walk, he explained. An hour and a half down, in the chill twilight of dawn; two hours' trudge home, always up hill, dead tired, through mud and mire, in pitch darkness, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... came to a gentle rise in the ground. It grew steeper. The horse slacked in its galloping. The incline grew steeper still. The horse slowed to a walk, which it pursued with a rhythmically tossing head. It was only less uncomfortable than a gallop. The dim outline of trees ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... "nosing"—and six inches high; that is, six inches "rise" and twelve inches "run." Some climbers think this too flat, and perhaps it is in certain situations; but for homes, for easy, leisurely ascent by children and old folks. I think it better than a steeper pitch. All large dwelling-houses, and some small ones, ought to be supplied with "passenger elevators," at least from the first to the second story. Those who take the rooms still higher are usually able to make the ascent in the common way. Such an elevator can undoubtedly be ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... of his mules keeping time with the melodious joy of his heart, until he had descended from the tierra caliente to the wilder region on the hither side of Jalapa. As the narrow road turned sharply, at the foot of a steeper descent than common, into a dreary valley, made yet more gloomy by the shadow of the hill behind intercepting the sun, though the afternoon was not far advanced, the impresario was made unpleasantly aware of the transitory nature of man's hopes and the vanity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... load rhythmically with his long stick. By this the experienced traveller would have known that the men were very tired, tired to the point of exhaustion; for the more wearied the Central African native, or the steeper the hill he, laden, must surmount, the louder he sings ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... of the third day Peggy and Robert cantered ahead of the party for a short dash, but the road becoming hilly and steep they were obliged to slow their horses down to a walk. The road ascended the North Mountain here rising by three ridges, each steeper than the former. Below them lay the valley, enclosed on the left by the Valley Mountain with all its garland of woods; and by the Welsh mountains on the right. Hills and rocks, waving with the forests of oak and chestnut, bordered the ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... escap'd sufficeth not. If well thou note me, profit by my words." I straightway rose, and show'd myself less spent Than I in truth did feel me. "On," I cried, "For I am stout and fearless." Up the rock Our way we held, more rugged than before, Narrower and steeper far to climb. From talk I ceas'd not, as we journey'd, so to seem Least faint; whereat a voice from the other foss Did issue forth, for utt'rance suited ill. Though on the arch that crosses there I stood, What were the words I knew not, but who spake Seem'd mov'd in ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... animals in descending to drink. To this point I had sent the sheep, and the men were leading the horses also towards it when the foremost, which unfortunately was the best, made a rush to the water at a steeper place, and fell into the river. He swam however to the other side but, in returning, sank in the middle of the stream, never to rise again. He had winkers on and I think it probable that he had put his foot into a short rein which was attached to the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... these villages or past the isolated farms, the people stood at their doors and shouted; it was evidently the event of the day. The mules were changed every hour, or rather more, according to the road, and as the ascent became steeper more were added to their number; sometimes six or eight starting from Bayonne where twelve or fourteen were needed for the top of the Pass. At least half the journey was always made at night, and if there were a moon the scenery became magically beautiful; but, in any case, the ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... "Hsio mo lan chao!"—"Bridge bad, building for a thousand years!"—to which comes the proverbial answer, "Chien mien wan lao!"—"Must last for ten thousand." When there is a steep bit, one calls out, "Deo shan deo!"—"Steeper and steeper!" and the others retort, "Kuan shan kuan!"—literally, "Official upon official," but the meaning is plain, "As steep as the ladder of promotion." In the villages one hears constantly, "Yu ti kou yao!"—"There is a dog on the road,"—with ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... steeper and more rugged every moment; and the high hill air, instead of refreshing him, seemed to throw his blood into a fever. The noise of the hill cataracts sounded like mockery in his ears; they were all distant, and his thirst increased every moment. Another hour passed, and ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... of the saddle was a gully, much like the one by which they had ascended, but steeper and dipping to the north. Before they reached it, before she could detect it even, Arthur Miles pointed to where it lay; and they had scarcely turned aside to follow it before a chimney—a genuine red-brick chimney—rose into ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Pease Burn at a height of nearly one hundred and thirty feet. A still older road crosses the stream close to its mouth, less than a mile below the bridge. The descent here is very steep on both sides, but it seems to have been even steeper in former times than it is now. This point in the old road is "the strait Pass at Copperspath," where Oliver Cromwell before the battle of Dunbar found the way to Berwick blocked by the troops of General Leslie, and of which he said ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... the road being steeper still, the transport ("A" Echelon), went ahead of the Brigade. The Squadron started at 14.30 (units still moving at half-hour intervals), and proceeded along the main Jerusalem road through the new town, past the Damascus Gate (at 17.30), ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... a blemish it is upon the farm. I have wondered if we could not make it useful in some way, and at the same time improve the looks of things. I think we might build an embankment upon the open side, make the slope steeper all round, bring the water into it from the creek, and so have a fishing-pond. We should have to make a race-way from the creek to the pond, and cut a channel through the meadow, in which the water could flow back to the creek again below the fall. I think it could be done," said Mr. Davy, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... rises slowly higher and higher, for the tide is flowing. The gangway grows steeper. From time to time two sailors shift it slightly, retying the ropes which fasten it to the ship's rail. The men on the quay ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... took the trail to the uplands, deciding to visit the farthest camp first, and then, if she had time, to call at one or two other camps on her way back to the rancho. As the trail grew steeper, she curbed the impatient Challenge to a steadier pace and rode leisurely to the level of the timber. On the park-like level, clean-swept between the boles of the great pines, she again put Challenge to a lope until ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... at Blue Earth, in Montana, among the high mountains, there came to Jimmy Grayson an appeal, compounded of pathos and despair, that he could not resist. It was from the citizens of Crow's Wing, forty miles deeper into the yet higher and steeper mountains, and they recounted, in mournful words, how no candidate ever came to see them; all passed them by as either too few or too difficult, and they had never yet listened to the spell of oratory; of course, they did not expect the nominee of a great party for the Presidency ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the camera set halfway up a gentle slope commanding a steeper hill beyond, down which the boys would send the cattle in a slow, uneasy march before the storm, Luck focused his telephoto lens upon bleakness enough to satisfy even his voracious appetite for realism. Bill Holmes, his tan pumps wrapped in gunny sacks for ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... project into the sea. Towards the summit the brow came out somewhat, and even the rude steps in the turf were not much assistance in climbing this almost perpendicular wall of sward. Above the brow the ascent became easy; these brows raised steeper than the general slope are often found on the higher hills. A circular entrenchment encloses the summit, but the rampart has much sunk, and is in places levelled. Here it was pleasant to look back upon the beech woods at the foot ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... at all among the mountains; if not, let him merely draw for himself, carefully, the outlines of any low hills accessible to him, where they are tolerably steep, or of the woods which grow on them. The steeper shore of the Thames at Maidenhead, or any of the downs at Brighton or Dover, or, even nearer, about Croydon (as Addington Hills), are easily accessible to a Londoner; and he will soon find not only how constant, but how ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... hills and it has the beauty and distinction of possessing steeper roads than any other city in Europe. He was on his way to the Grand Hotel, and this necessitated his passing through Podol, crossing the Hill of the Cliff, and descending into the ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... where it ran in a dark gulf thousands of feet below. The shape of this extraordinary turn I will describe in a moment. Let me say, meanwhile, that there was no precipice or rock between me and the river, only a down, down, down through other trees and pastures, not too steep for a man to walk, but steeper than our steep downs and fells in England, where a man hesitates and picks his way. It was so much of a descent, and so long, that one looked above the tree-tops. It was a place where no ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... after the sunshiny fields on a warm June morning. But this was not the fishing ground. The brook must be followed up to the woods whence it came. And soon the banks became higher and broken, the ascent steeper, the trees closer; no longer a mere fringe or veil to the fostering waters. Fields were forgotten; the brook grew wild and lively, and following its course became a matter of some difficulty. Sometimes there was no edge of footing ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... dense thickets and belts of woods before the hill and on each side of it. The position was a powerful, though not an impregnable one; for batteries might readily be pushed up the slope, and our infantry had often ascended steeper eminences. But an opposing army scattered about the meadow lands below, would find its several components exposed to shot and shell, thrown from points three or four ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Rood's sake! starker, steeper Hath no other Cross been set, For His Tomb's sake! darker, deeper There hath been ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... which we could walk freely. We ascended steadily up a moderate slope for several miles, having a deep ravine on our left. We then had a level plateau or shoulder to cross, after which the ascent was steeper and the forest denser until we came out upon the "Padang-batu," or stone field, a place of which we had heard much, but could never get anyone to describe intelligibly. We found it to be a steep slope of even rock, extending along the mountain side farther than we could see. Parts of it ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... went off, one on each side of the oxen, with long sticks, sharpened at the end, to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving labor in California,— two Indians to two oxen. Now, the hides were to be got down; and for this purpose we brought the boat round to a place where the hill was steeper, and threw them off, letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we had to let ourselves down and set them a-going again, and in this way became covered with dust, and our clothes torn. After we had the hides all down, we were obliged to take them ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... hold; and when at length he reached the top, he was so panting and dizzy, that Somerville at first held him to hinder his slipping backward into the sea. No one could get at King or Queen Daisiana, so it was left in its glory; while the young people struggled back over rocks that seemed much steeper, and pools far deeper, than in their advance; Lance still trying to be helpful, but with a mazed sense of the same sort of desperate effort with which he had run back with Bill's verses; for not only had his small strength been overtaxed, but the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... steeper descent, which he had noted on his former visit to the back end of the farm, he found a certain clearing in the wood. Here the pines surrounded the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... and Howat proceeded more slowly now, but still they went directly, without hesitation, in the direction they chose. They crossed a log felled over a shallow, hurrying creek; the course grew steeper, more densely wooded. "Ruscomb Manor," Fanny pronounced over her shoulder. "Since a long way back," he agreed. Finally a sharper, stationary clamour announced that the object of the hunt had been achieved, and a raccoon treed. They made their way to the dim ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... advanced, they thought it was the higher and steeper, which made them think several times of giving up the enterprise. When one was weary, the other stopped, and both rested together. Sometimes they were both so tired, that they wanted strength to go further; then, despairing of being able ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... way, so that, when at the top, it is equally easy to descend down either of them. We found very soon that Dent-dale is much more beautiful than that by which we had ascended. The sides of the hills are steeper, and perhaps higher: the bottom is richer. The road is also better. The river is a continued succession of very pretty falls, almost all of which have scooped out the lower strata of the rock, so that the water shoots clear over. For several miles (perhaps 10) it runs ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... that the question of side thrust should be considered also as a factor. The thrust against the side of a tunnel in dry sand having a flat angle of repose will necessarily be greater than in very moist sand or clay, which stands at a much steeper angle, and, for the same reason, the arch thrust is greater in dryer sand and therefore the load on a tunnel structure should not be as great, the material being compact and excluding cohesion as a factor. This can be illustrated by referring to ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... which climbed Fillmore Street, San Francisco, which is alleged to have a gradient of 34 per cent., with twenty-three persons on board. As 25 per cent. is regarded as the maximum safe gradient for an Abt rack railway, since the cog-wheel is liable to climb out of the rack on any steeper grade, it will be seen that the strain upon the credulity of the hearer of this story is almost as great as that upon the car ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... were extremely glad of it, for although it is not to be compared to Mount Ararat, it is still rather difficult. Trusting to my Ararat experience, I thought of descending in the snow, and started. I was much astonished at finding the slope far steeper than I expected, and consequently went down like a shot, and reached the bottom one hour and a half before the others. A Russian doctor tried it after me, and in trying to change his direction was turned round, and went to the bottom sometimes head foremost. ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... a lookout point, where a lichen-covered summerhouse stood, protected on the steeper side by a low stone wall. Below them lay the moat, green-scummed and starred with water-lilies; throbbing in the midday haze, the emerald sward of the parkland seemed to float. Against the wall she halted. "What makes you ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our persons shielded from perdition by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clung with both hands—not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently the descent became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, and sprays from the American Fall began to rain down on us in fast-increasing sheets that soon became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in the nature of groping. Now a furious wind began ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... immoderately flattened, opening their jaws, extending their arms, and holding forks, chains or javelins in their hands; while the blue of the sea stretched away behind the streets which were rendered still steeper by the perspective. ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... coast continues for nearly twenty miles. In latitude 28 degrees 25 minutes is a remarkable white sand-patch 274 feet above the sea, between two and three miles south of which is a deep ravine where there is probably a stream of fresh water. Here the shore becomes steeper, and rises abruptly from the sea, forming downs about 300 feet high. Native fires were seen in this neighbourhood, and the country had a more fertile appearance than in the vicinity of Champion Bay. This part of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... the lane farther down, so that Grey for a minute lost sight of his comrade. He looked carefully ahead as he rounded it, to see if the end of the descent were near. The hill only grew steeper, but the end was a good ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... the depth of the hardiest timber, and stood naked against the sky. Some way up, a long grey village lay like a seam or a rag of vapour on a wooded hillside; and when the wind was favourable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at the same time widened out on either hand; and from an eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city to city on its voyage towards the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were much steeper than the roof of a house—as perpendicular as can be imagined—but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority. But the cruelty of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... draw a little piece and thought I had given them the slip, but the yelling told me that they were still after me. I thought I could go down this draw a ways and then circle out and get back to my ranch. But I kept going down the canyon and the walls kept getting steeper and steeper, and narrower and narrower until finally they got so close together that me and ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... young combatants hastened to meet them. These were not the joyous bands, who had joined triumphantly in Miriam's song of praise, no, they tottered toward the mountain slowly, with drooping heads. They were obliged to scale the pass from the steeper side, and how the bearers sighed; how piteously the women and children wailed, how fiercely the drivers swore as they urged the beasts of burden up the narrow, rugged path; how hoarsely sounded the voices of the half ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... valley had been left behind them, and the road from being hilly grew steeper and more steep until it became a mere rutted trail over the mountains. More or less dilapidated farm-houses, each with its patch of cleared ground, appeared now and then, and before the gate of one of these a huge, canvas-covered wagon ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... leaving oaks and poplars to their own devices, the stage moves swiftly on, while the moon keeps even pace with it, gliding over ditch and brake, upon the plowed land and the smooth, along the steep hillside and steeper wall, as if it were a ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... three hours at a foot-pace, and by the time we left our horses and began the ascent on foot we were wrapped in thick, cold mist. There is no difficulty about climbing Fuji, except the fatigue. You simply walk for hours up a steep and ever-steeper heap of ashes. It was perhaps as well that we did not see what lay before us, or we might have been discouraged. We saw nothing but the white-grey mist and the purple-grey soil. Except that, looming out of the cloud just in front of us, there kept appearing ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... the ocean should be suddenly drained away, we should see the atolls rising from the sea-bed like vast truncated cones, and resembling so many volcanic craters, except that their sides would be steeper than those of an ordinary volcano. In the case of the encircling reefs, the cone, with the enclosed island, would look like Vesuvius with Monte Nuovo within the old crater of Somma;[121] while, finally, the island with a fringing reef would ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... way up Jake Creek was wild and rough, and along the faint trail, that twisted and wound like a slim serpent through the lonely wilderness, Brownie could make but slow time. As they followed the little path, the walls of the narrow valley grew steeper, more rocky, and barren; and the road became more and more rough and difficult, until at last the valley narrowed to a mere rocky gorge, through which the creek ran, tumbling and foaming ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... imagined, for as with one accord they paused to glance at the ship in response to an exceptionally strident outburst of sound, they beheld the line of lights suddenly incline from the horizontal, saw the slope grow steadily steeper, and then, as the great mass of the vessel's stern hove up, an indistinct blur of deeper blackness on the darkness of the night, the line of lights slid forward and vanished one after another until all had disappeared, while at the same moment a heartrending wail from hundreds of throats pealed ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... there is one at Caerphilly about seventeen; but these are nothing to the castles in the air we have seen built by the touch of a female magician; nor is it an unusual thing with artists of the fair sex to order their plumed chivalry to gallop down precipices considerably steeper than a house, on animals apparently produced between the tiger and the bonassus. When they have succeeded in getting something like the appearance of water between what may be conjectured banks, they are not very particular about its running occasionally up-hill; and it is interesting ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... they walked easily on the sloping ice. Then, as it grew steeper, he fastened the rope to the dog's harness and advanced a little at a time, dragging Brave up after him. Soon he was forced to snub the rope with his ice-staff and chop steps with his hatchet. Toward noon—at least he thought it was noon—it began snowing again, and the valley below was ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... constructed as to rest on a horizontal base, the oblique sides bearing the relation to each other of two to one. Stevinus found that his chain of balls just balanced when four balls were on the longer side and two on the shorter and steeper side. The balancing of force thus brought about constituted a stable equilibrium, Stevinus being the first to discriminate between such a condition and the unbalanced condition called unstable equilibrium. By this simple experiment was laid the foundation of the science of statics. Stevinus ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... from restraint, what he or she would have been glad to do before, but for the restraint. Many who go to the colonies, and there to the dogs, only show themselves such as they dared not appear at home: they step on a steeper slope, and arrive, not at the pit, for they were in that already, but at the bottom of it, so much the faster. There were, however, in Mrs. Wylder, lovely rudimentary remnants of a good breed. She inherited feelings which gave her a certain intermittent and fugitive dignity, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... trees, and there was a hard coating of icy snow upon its rocky surface. From the cabins to the summit the slope was gradual, and with some help over the steeper places, the dogs hauled the komatik to the ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... On the steeper ground my horse slackened a bit, but I urged him forward till we were deep in the wood, with a choice of four or five paths, any of which led, heaven knows where. Here I let him stand and get his wind, while I turned over in my mind what ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... the steeper ridge of the tor a patch of land had been cleared for tillage: and here a yoke of oxen was moving leisurely before a plough ('twas their tinkling bells I had heard, just now); while behind followed the wildest shape—by ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... share in the upward tendency of the trunk itself. But yet there is not a single group of boughs in any one tree which does not show exceptions to the rule, and present boughs lower in insertion, and yet steeper in inclination, than their neighbors. Nor is this defect or deformity, but the result of the constant habit of nature to carry variety into her very principles, and make the symmetry and beauty of her laws the more felt by the grace and accidentalism with which ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... all of the stupidity of Missourians in not getting at this part of their State, as well as the section about Joplin, in the search for ore. I noticed that as we got into the rough-going of the ridge roads, and the hills got steeper and the woods denser and the rocks thicker, the opinion seemed to grow upon us that Missourians might understand their country better than we did. We had a driver who knew the roads well, when he could find them. We had a geological ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... one side the azure sea lapped across the horizon into the azure sky; on the other side the sea lifted itself into great breakers of emerald that fell in a snowy smother upon a white coral beach. Beyond the beach, green plantations of sugar-cane undulated gently upward to steeper slopes, which, in turn, became jagged volcanic crests, drenched with tropic showers and capped by stupendous masses of trade-wind clouds. At any rate, it was a most beautiful dream. The Snark turned ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... laid on our Lord proved too heavy in the steeper ascents for His exhausted strength, and His slow advance so delayed the procession that the guard became impatient. Here comes a foreigner! A Jew of Cyrene! Harmless and inoffensive, gladly would he make way for the crowd. Why should he not bear this burden under which ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer |
