"Breakwater" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... impossible to concentrate the entire fleet at one harbor. Each of these establishments is protected by having two strong battlements or breakwaters built out, nearly closing the respective harbor entrances. At the end of each breakwater is a tower with parapets for archers, and capstans for dragging a huge chain across the harbor mouth, thus effectively sealing the entrance to any foe.[*] The Zea haven has really the greatest warship capacity, but the Cantharus is a good type for ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... an immense account of it in the Penny Magazine ever so long ago; but whether it is famous for a breakwater, or a harbour, or a cliff, or some dock-yard machinery, I can't recollect; perhaps it's all of them together; we shall find out soon; for travelling, as Mrs M. says, enlarges the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... in Buffalo Creek, which can be navigated for about one mile, we sailed to the breakwater, a solid wall several feet high, having a length of 4,000 feet, which was erected at the expense of some millions of dollars for the protection of the city from being flooded by the unruly waters ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... floating breakwater was to meet the full force of the seas and break them just before they reached the canoe. In spite of this some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the sharp bow cut its way through, and ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... mighty, almost invincible Germany.... The Pan-Germans are right, the Czechs are an arrow in the side of Germany, and such they wish to and must and will remain. Their firm and unchangeable hope is that they will succeed in making of themselves an impenetrable breakwater. They hope for no foreign help; they neither wish for it nor ask for it. They have only one desire, namely, that non-German Europe may also at last show that it understands the ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... down to the harbour and saw the craft on which he had undertaken to embark he was seized with a sudden faintness. Even the toughest seafarer would have thought twice before venturing beyond the breakwater in such an unsavoury derelict; and Reginald, be it remembered, had only once in his life made a sea voyage, and that in the peaceful security of an ironclad. His heart quailed beneath ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... to; the others were too much exhausted to utter a word. McIntosh, the pilot from Burghead, expired from sheer cold and exhaustion. None who saw him perish soon forgot the fearful agony of his daughter as she bade her father farewell from the parapet of the breakwater. After renewed efforts a boat was got over the breakwater, and at great risk succeeded in saving the other men, who were ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... portion of the valley has been encroached upon, and two great portions of the wall of chalk having been removed, one to the east and one to the west, the Isle of Wight stands isolated and acts as a kind of breakwater to the extensive bays, channels, and harbours which have been scooped out of the softer strata by the action of the sea. Sheltered by the Isle of Wight are the Solent and Southampton Water; westward are the bays and harbours of Christchurch, Bournemouth, Poole, Studland, ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... off at two o'clock in the day on our return to Montpelier, not a little envying the horses and mules their cool quarters in the immense remise. Within a mile of Cette lies the breakwater of rough stones, which forms a prominent object in the foreground of Vernet's picture, and serves to ascertain the spot from whence he took his design. At Villeneuve, where we stopped to bait the horses, we were diverted by a scene characteristic of the country. A bag had ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... to the breakwater!' exclaimed Father Boyle, as the boat pitched finally outside the harbour fence, where a soft calm swell received them with the greeting of civilised sea-nymphs. 'The captain'll have a quieter passage across. You may spy him on the pier. We'll be meeting ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... well-remembered Emily in his prayers, at about eight in the morning he presented himself among his luggage at the Europe in gentlemanly trim, and soon got all on board the pilot boat, to meet the Indiaman just outside the breakwater. We may safely leave him there, happy, hopeful Charles! Sanguine for the future, exulting in the present, and thankful for the past: already has he poured out all his joys before that Friend who loves her too, and invoked His blessing on a scheme ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... best, we would take our walk along the breakwater. My father, in a frock coat, high hat and kid gloves, would offer his arm to my mother, decked out and beribboned like a ship on a holiday. My sisters, who were always ready first, would await the signal for leaving; but at the last minute some ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... falls back upon the actual physical environment to get started, as this recent introduction: "To-day I am sitting on the end of a breakwater, listening to the peaceful noise the Lake makes as it slaps up against the heavy old rocks. The sun is pouring down hot rays upon my arms, bare feet and legs, turning them ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... army has perished in the effort to force its way across. The only possible safety lay in keeping to mid-stream and sweeping along with the current until something should turn up—a boat—a log—possibly a backwater, or even the breakwater of a bridge. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... gale and rising sea cause any of the trio to blanch. It was not a long run to Big Wreck Cove. Properly manned, the Seamew should make it prettily in three or four hours. In addition, there was little but an open roadstead before the port of Hollis. The breakwater was scarcely strong enough to fend off the waves in a real gale. And they knew that ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to be our landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted with farms and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone fort with its white-washed barrack ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... shore. The grey hoofs [Transcriber's note: roofs?] of the Cove crowded down to the edge of the land, seeming to lean a little forward, as though listening to what the sea had to say; the sun, breaking mistily through the clouds, was a round ball of dull gold—a line of breakwater, far in the distance, seemed ever about to advance down the stretch of sea to the shore, as though it would hurl itself on the cluster of brown sails in the little bay, huddling there for protection. Head of the ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... friend Isaac Williams he says: 'Everything I hear makes me fear that latitudinarian opinions are spreading furiously in the Church of England. I grieve deeply at it. The Anglican Church has been a most useful breakwater against Scepticism. The time might come when you, as well as I, might expect that it would be said above, "Why cumbereth it the ground?" but at present it upholds far more truth in England than any other form of religion would, and than the Catholic Roman Church could. But what I fear is that ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... night the lights of the fleet were all about us, ahead and behind. At breakfast next morning—four o'clock—we were off Delaware Breakwater, and that afternoon at two we began the mast-head watch for fish. And on that fine April day it was a handsome sight—forty sail of seiners in sight, ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... a loss which of the two risks to choose, whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea, he at last determined to draw his men into as small a space as possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea. Not without difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the breakwater through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe, though a few were lost. Meanwhile the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans from Olynthus, which is about seven miles off and in sight of Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were raised, advanced a ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... too, patrolling the riverside from here to Tilbury. Another lies at the breakwater." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Should you care to take a run down ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... strangely enough, is higher than the land immediately behind it, as if it had been a dike, or natural breakwater, thrown up by the sea. Every here and there, there were gaps in this natural dike, and it was through one of these we shoved, and soon swung to our grapnel in perfect security, but in a most ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... on the least encouragement, but Dick's indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol, restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically bombarded the breakwater. "Got it at last!" he exclaimed, as a lock of weed flew from ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... to New York. But, with lawyerlike caution, he thought he would put off the committal as long as possible. If his heart had been in his attentions the caution would not have been worth much. Caution is a good breakwater against vanity, but it isn't worth much against the springtide of love, as John Harlow soon ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... noontide of Mahometan vigour—and that assault, also, in the presence of the caliph and the crescent, was gloriously discomfited. Now if, in the moment of triumph, some voice in the innumerable crowd had cried out, "How long shall this great Christian breakwater, against which are shattered into surge and foam all the mountainous billows of idolaters and misbelievers, stand up on behalf of infant Christendom?" and if from the clouds some trumpet of prophecy had replied, "Even yet for eight hundred years!" could any man have persuaded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... this lovely spot you will witness one of the most splendid panoramas in the world. You will see—I hardly know what you will not see—you will see Ram Head, and Cawsand Bay; and then you will see the Breakwater, and Drake's Island, and the Devil's Bridge below you; and the town of Plymouth and its fortifications, and the Hoe; and then you will come to the Devil's Point, round which the tide runs devilish strong; and then you will see the New Victualling Office—about ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... the broad and eternal foundations of freedom, truth, and justice, then neither domestic traitors nor foreign despots will ever dash against its adamantine base. There it will stand, and stand forever, the mighty continental breakwater between the continents of Asia and of Europe, against which the breakers of internal faction, and the waves of despotic power would dash in vain. To that home of the oppressed, to that asylum of genuine and universal freedom, millions from the Old World would then come, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... experience avails for present needs. If you would have 'your peace' to be 'as the waves of the sea,' your trust in Christ must be continuous and strong. The moment you cease trusting, that moment you cease being peaceful. Keep behind the breakwater, and you will ride smoothly, whatever the storm. Venture out beyond it, and you will be exposed to the dash of the waves and the howling of the tempest. Your own past tells you where the means of blessing are. It was your faith that saved you, and it is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of a new county from the sea is going on on the Lincolnshire coast; and there appears to be a prospect of a similar work being undertaken on the western shore—at Liverpool. Mr G. Rennie has prepared a plan for a breakwater five miles long, to be constructed at the mouth of the Mersey, stretching out from Black Rock Point. If carried into execution, it will reclaim a vast extent of sandbanks lying within it, and greatly improve the navigable channel of the river. A proposal has ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... corner of the cliff beyond the large idol, is much destroyed; on this, the force of the current would have acted: a breakwater ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... "That way, sir." You opened a door with "Private" painted in black letters upon its ground-glass panel. Another bald-headed gentleman, with a grim determination about the mouth, rose up from his table and barred your way. This was Mr. Dyke, the breakwater against which the waves of would-be intruders into the inner seclusion often broke themselves in vain; and unless you had a genuine pass, your expedition ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of the breakwater into the English Channel she breasted a northeaster that lasted all the way to the Banks. Even Hymie Salzman went under, and Leon Sammet walked the swaying decks alone. Twice a day he poked his ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... the town. Or else to walk with Abby in the morning down the broad Embarcadero Road to the little wharf on the bay. It was charming enough there when all was idle, with white adobe huts, and dark faces sleeping in the sun, and the lap of the tide on the breakwater. But when a ship was coming in, or was loading to get out, the Embarcadero filled the eye,—carts backing up with vegetables; casks being rolled out on the wharf with a hollow and reverberating ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... receive my sanction if separated from the rest, however much I might deplore the reproduction of a system which for some time past has been permitted to sleep with apparently the acquiescence of the country. I might particularize the Delaware Breakwater as an improvement which looks to the security from the storms of our extended Atlantic seaboard of the vessels of all the country engaged either in the foreign or the coastwise trade, as well as to the safety of the revenue; but when, in connection with that, the same bill ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... August 29th, while cruising to the westward, weather threatening, ran in for a harbor behind the Stonington breakwater, where we anchored. My glass falling and there being every indication of a storm, I prepared my vessel ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the Channel packet and had seen the bows swing westward of Dover Castle and head toward the pier. Would Sylvia be there, he had wondered, as he watched the cluster of atoms on the quay, and in a little while he had seen her, standing quite alone, at the very end of the breakwater that she might catch the first glimpse of her lover. Others had traveled with them in the carriage to London and there had been no opportunity of speech. All that he knew was that she had been alone now for some weeks in the little ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... is formed in part by a recess of the coast-line at Matautu, in part by the slim peninsula of Mulinuu, and in part by the fresh waters of the Mulivai and Vaisingano. The barrier reef—that singular breakwater that makes so much of the circuit of Pacific islands—is carried far to sea at Matautu and Mulinuu; inside of these two horns it runs sharply landward, and between them it is burst or dissolved ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... States, and was cited as strong authority in Congress for the creation of the Inter-State Commerce Law. The railroad men, after fighting it for ten years, have come round to acknowledge its value. It has stood as a breakwater between the corporations and the people. It has guaranteed justice to the citizen, and has worked no injury to the railroads. Under its wise provisions Georgia has prospered, and leads the Union to-day in railroad building. And when, during a recent session of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... sea bay, Their sails they furl'd, and lower'd to the hold; Slack'd the retaining shrouds, and quickly struck And stow'd away the mast; then with their sweeps Pull'd for the beach, and cast their anchors out, And made her fast with cables to the shore. Then on the shingly breakwater themselves They landed, and the sacred hecatomb To great Apollo; and Chryseis last. Her to the altar straight Ulysses led, The wise in counsel; in her father's hand He plac'd the maiden, and address'd him thus: "Chryses, from Agamemnon, King of men, To thee I come, thy daughter to restore; ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... sailor finds a great bay, perhaps miles in extent, entered by a gateway thousands of yards across, offering a harbor of refuge in time of storm, the lake navigator has to run into the narrow mouth of a river, or round under the lee of a government breakwater hidden from sight under the crested waves and offering but a precarious shelter at best. Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee—most of the lake ports have witnessed such scenes of shipwreck and death right at the doorway of the harbor, as no ocean port could tell. At Chicago ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... on the bay I took passage in a small steam-launch to visit the Olympia, where the Admiral's flag floated, to call on him. There was plenty of steam, and it was pleasant to get out a good way behind the breakwater, for the waves beyond were white with anger, and the boat, when departing from partial shelter, had proceeded but two or three hundred yards when it made a supreme effort in two motions—the first, to roll over; the second, to ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... solitary prisoner of the Grummet Rock noticed mysterious movements along the shore of the island settlement. The prison boats, which had put off every morning at sunrise to the foot of the timbered ranges on the other side of the harbour, had not appeared for some days. The building of a pier, or breakwater, running from the western point of the settlement, was discontinued; and all hands appeared to be occupied with the newly-built Osprey, which was lying on the slips. Parties of soldiers also daily left the Ladybird, and assisted ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... desires to work for social betterment finds this question at the gateway of organized effort. Shall one turn to the centralizing tendency in political life of our country for support of a given measure, or shall one make a breakwater in that tendency and concentrate attention upon ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... honor, its sacredness, its rank as the first necessity of society and the deepest concern of the nation. We shall continue to maintain the White Slave Trade and protect its exploiters by, on the one hand, tolerating the white slave as the necessary breakwater of marriage; and, on the other, trampling on her and degrading her until she has nothing to hope from our Courts; and so, with policemen at every corner, and law triumphant all over Europe, she will still be smuggled and cattle-driven from one end ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... from the Atlantic into the Chagre of a larger class of vessels than those drawing twelve feet might be thus facilitated, according to Mr Lloyd's own avowal a breakwater would still be necessary at the entrance of Limon Bay, which is situated round Point Brujas, about eight geographical miles higher up towards Porto Bello than the mouth of that river, as the heavy sea setting into the bay would render the anchorage of vessels ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... not a craft that one would choose for comfort in such weather. Nor was our feeling of security increased by the knowledge that we were skirting the edges of one of the largest mine-fields in the Adriatic. But the Sirio had scarcely poked her sharp nose around the end of the breakwater which provides the excuse for dignifying the exposed roadstead of Antivari (with the accent on the second syllable, so that it rhymes with "discovery") by the name of harbor before I saw what we had stumbled upon some form of trouble. There were three ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... a vast expanse about seventy miles across from Sivan Island to Roanoke. On the seaward side stretches a chain of long and narrow islands, forming a natural breakwater north and south from Cape Lookout to Cape Hatteras and from the latter to Cape Henry, near Norfolk ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... of them mere rocks, form a sort of sheltered strait, or roadstead, of which the island of Rion, with Cape Morgion on the mainland opposite, are the extreme points. Pomègue and Ratoneau are connected by a breakwater. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... resembles that of Oban. A quiet bay has its secure island-breakwater in front; a line of tall, well-built houses, not in the least rural in their aspect, but that seem rather as if they had been transported from the centre of some stately city entire and at once, sweeps round ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... then bound forward. He wondered again what he should do with it. If he kept it, Lottie would be sure to find it, and he could not bring himself to the sacrilege of destroying it. He thought he would walk out on the breakwater as far as he could and throw it into the sea, but when he got to the end of the mole he could not do so. He decided that he would give it to Ellen to keep for him, and not let Lottie see it; or perhaps ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... midnight, after which it lessened a trifle, and came off from the larboard quarter. Daybreak found the boat off the north-eastern extremity of the Isle of Pines, and about five miles distant from that curious chain of islets called by the Spaniards the Islas de Mangles, which curves out like a breakwater across the northern face of the island. Their hunger, which had to some extent been appeased by their last plentiful meal of wild raspberries, and which had been altogether forgotten in the excitement of their subsequent flight now returned to them in full ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... point of brown, rugged rocks which form a natural breakwater to this tiny boat harbour, the water is deep, showing a pale transparent green at their base, and deep inpenetrable blue ten fathoms beyond. To-day, because it is mid-winter, and the wind blows from the west, the sea is clearer than ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... his intimate knowledge of navigation, knew that the only way possible to board the prize was to run to leeward of her, and let the hull of the large vessel serve as a breakwater. He also knew that the submarine would have to be constantly under way during the boarding operations, otherwise the tank-vessel, offering considerable resistance to the wind, would drift down upon U75, whose ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... their ears. The boat was overmanned, and old Jacobs, the coxswain, had to order several of them to go ashore again. In another minute they were at the mouth of the harbour, and the men paused an instant as if to gather strength for the mortal struggle before quitting the shelter of the breakwater, and facing the fury of wind ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... span in the glory of new paint, standing ready on its rollers, and the record of splendid rescues in past years inscribed upon the walls. There was the circular basin-harbour, with the workmen slowly repairing the breakwater, and a couple of ancient looking schooners reposing on their sides in the mud at low tide. And there, back on the hill, looking down over the town and far away across the yellow waters of the Bristol Channel, was the high ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... up and we are in a stately ship moving on slowly into the Suez Canal. When we arrived at Port Said—how many weeks ago was it? It seems to me like a year—we were on the Orontes, of the Orient Line, and we steamed into the harbour past a long breakwater like a thin arm; standing upon it is a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who made the Suez Canal. That meant nothing to you then, for the canal was merely a name and not of any special interest, but now that we are actually passing into it it ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... the arrival of the Kearsarge at Dover, England, for dispatches, and the day after (Tuesday) her appearance off Cherbourg Breakwater. At anchor in the harbor was seen the celebrated Alabama—a beautiful specimen of naval architecture, eliciting encomiums for evident neatness, good order, and a well-disciplined crew, indicative of efficiency in any duty required. The surgeon of the Kearsarge ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne
... before by her gold-seeking crew, with the debris of her scattered stores and cargo, overtaken by the wild growth of the strange city and the reclamation of the muddy flat, wherein she lay hopelessly imbedded; her retreat cut off by wharves and quays and breakwater, jostled at first by sheds, and then impacted in a block of solid warehouses and dwellings, her rudder, port, and counter boarded in, and now gazing hopelessly through her cabin windows upon the busy street before her. But still a ship despite her transformation. The faintest ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... he was away, during which the flotilla of canoes came into view like a flock of ducks, still so far off that the boys could not hear the sound of paddles. Presently Muata splashed back, and, towing the boat, made across a barrier of reeds that had been banked up, forming a sort of natural breakwater, and most effectually hiding the mouth of the stream he sought. Mr. Hume was awakened, and the entire crew, taking to the water, managed to hoist the boat over the barrier. This done, they climbed on board again, and were soon in ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... how suddenly darkness would fall, and not daring to attempt the unknown without light, the travellers looked for a mooring spot. There was a grim abutment at least eighteen hundred feet high; at its base two rocks, which had tumbled ages ago from the summit, formed a rude breakwater; and on this barrier had collected a bed of coarse pebbles, strewn with driftwood. Here they stopped their flight, unloaded the boat and beached it. The drift-wood furnished them a softer bed than usual, and materials for ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... feet away a reef, often awash and stained with the purple scum, angled out into the sea in a long curve which formed a natural breakwater. This was the point of attack. But first the purple film must be removed so that land and sea dwellers could meet on ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... them, of course, so we decided to spend the days of their absence junketing about the southern islets of the group. We marked down several spots for subsequent exploration, and on the morning of the third day set forth along the east face of the breakwater for our camp on Uschen-Tau, planning to have everything in readiness for the return of our ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... cap she wore. The skies were gray, heavy, overcast, with an occasional wind-rift in the clouds that only revealed new depths of grayness behind; the tideless waters murmured a faint ripple against the logs and jutting beams of the breakwater, and were answered by the crescendo wail of the dried reeds on the other bank,—reeds that rustled and moaned among themselves for the golden days ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... at Folkestone; the weather was very cold and a mist hung over the sea, blotting everything out of view beyond the end of the breakwater. The train drew up alongside and it emptied itself of its human khaki freight, who, with one accord, made their way to the waiting steamboats, painted a dull green-grey. All aboard: quickly and methodically we passed up the gangway, giving up our embarkation tickets ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... Charles de Massas presented a project (the first in order of date), which consisted in constructing upon the Eclat reef a semi-lunate dike, and a breakwater at Cape Heve. Moreover, upon the emergent parts of the Eclat reef and heights of the roadstead he ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... French naval port. Until warships became floating fortresses Villefranche was useful to France. Now it sees only torpedo-boats and destroyers, and the lack of direct communication with the interior has prevented its commercial development. Better an artificial breakwater with no Alps behind than a natural ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... Upper Dock. By the Harbour Act of 1868, the Dee near the harbour was diverted from the south at a cost of L. 80,000, and 90 acres of new ground (in addition to 25 acres formerly made up) were provided on the north side of the river for the Albert Basin (with a graving dock), quays and warehouses. A breakwater of concrete, 1050 ft. long, was constructed on the south side of the stream as a protection against south-easterly gales. On Girdleness, the southern point of the bay, a lighthouse was built in 1833. Near the harbour mouth are three batteries ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... days, I was for a little while really happy. Later on I took a tram back to Genoa, and walked up to the tall lighthouse on the further side of the town, and looked westward at the great curve of the shore, beyond the breakwater and the sands. ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... the natives were always in the habit of bathing, a party of soldiers of the regiment then in garrison went down one sultry afternoon for a swim. It was a lovely spot for bathing; the water was blue, clear and calm, as the reef that stretched far out to sea served as a breakwater to the heavy surf, and preserved the inner water as smooth as a lake. Here were a fine lot of English soldiers stripped to bathe; and although the ruddy hue of British health had long since departed in the languid ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... top, where a long inscription proclaims the name, rank, and virtues of the founder, with dates of the commencement of the island and the shrine. The whole of the space, extending to the low stone breakwater that surrounds the island, is paved with the same kind of brick, and encloses, in addition to the P'hra-Cha-dei ("The Lord's Delight"), a smaller temple with a brass image of the sitting Buddha. It also affords accommodation to the numerous retinue of princes, nobles, retainers, and pages who ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... seen the ship out, and, perched on the extreme end of the breakwater, he remained watching until she was hull down on the horizon. Then he made his way back to the town and the nearest confectioner, and started for home just as Miss Nugent, who was about to pay a call with her aunt, waited, beautifully dressed, in the front garden while ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... harbour, with wet and slip dock, occupies both sides of the river from the New Bridge to the sea, and is protected on the south by a pier projecting some distance into the sea, and on the north by a breakwater with a commodious dry dock. There are esplanades to the south and north of the harbour. The town is governed by a provost and council, and unites with Irvine, Inveraray, Campbeltown and Oban in returning one member ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... his principles in the matter, "since your spread when we opened the railroad—that's six months ago; and the time before that I wore one at MacGolderick's funeral. MacGolderick blew himself up at Puerto Truxillo, shooting rocks for the breakwater. We never found all of him, but we gave what we could get together as fine a funeral as those natives ever saw. The boys, they wanted to make him look respectable, so they asked me to lend them my dress-suit, but I told them ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... thirty or forty feet; disappearing altogether again as it fell crashing into the roar of the retreating wave. It was a spectacle, moreover, that changed every few seconds, as the heavy volumes of the sea hit the breakwater at different angles. The air was thick with the salt spray; and hot with the ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... stronghold of those who exchange cash for artists' dreams. He ransacked the studio and set out on his mission in a cab bulging with large, small, and medium-sized canvases. Like a wave receding from a breakwater he returned late in the day, ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... purple hills of the Isle of Wight, with the white- terraced Ryde lying in between, its houses lit up likewise by the rays of the sunset, and their windows all aflame; and, under their feet, stretching away to where it met the hills opposite and to the harbour's mouth and Haslar breakwater on the right, with the now twinkling Nab light on the extreme left, was the dancing, murmuring, restless sea, its hue varying every instant, from the rich crimson and gold it reflected from the western horizon to the darker ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... ourselves that there is a thread of something that will not bear calm scrutiny. There is much that is disquieting about the storm, admirably as it begins. I am very doubtful whether it would be possible to keep the boat from foundering in such circumstances, by any amount of breakwater and broken rock. I do not understand the way in which the waves are spoken of, and prefer just to take it as a loose way of speaking, and pass on. And lastly, how does it happen that the sea was quite calm next day? Is this great hurricane a piece of scene-painting ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as they did the defiles of the Alleghanies, would form a permanent bulwark between the young Anglo-Saxon republic and the French possessions on the Mississippi. But the permanent bulwark could no more resist the advancing wave than a lath and plaster breakwater could withstand the seas of the Channel. In a few short years not a vestige of it was to be found, and in less than a quarter of a century both French and Cherokees had disappeared from the scene. Not only were the defiles of the Alleghanies opened, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... wall constructed in the sea as a breakwater to protect an anchorage or a harbor. Anchorage or harbor ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... ancient towers of Castleclare rising from its mossed lawns studded with immemorial oaks. And Loch Kilbawne among the wild highlands, and Lochs Innsa and Barre, and Ballybarron Harbour, with its Titanic breakwater, and three beacons, and the dun-brown islands bidden in their veil of surf-edged spindrift, shaken by the voices of hidden waters roaring in ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and as inconsolable as his own. And in the very torrent of the man's meditative and solitary passion, a very Phlegethon of agony and fury and ravenous hunger after the achievement of a desperate expiation, comes the sudden touch of sarcasm which serves as a momentary breakwater to the raging tide of his reflections, and reveals the else unfathomable bitterness of a spiritual Marah that no plummet even of his own sinking can sound, and no infusion of less fiery sorrow or less venomous remembrance can ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and dropped anchor inside the Breakwater. Sweeping toward her, pushing the white foam in long lines from her bow, her flag of black smoke trailing behind, came the company's ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... while we were tumbling about in the rough sea outside, to see the natives placidly fishing in the tiniest of canoes on the lagoon inside the reef, the waves beating all the time furiously on the outer surface of the coral breakwater, as if anxious ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... backed away from him the better to take in this new and strange creature in overalls. Thorpe and his grizzled host had just come down from the woods with a load of pine logs, and had found the trim, immaculate little New Yorker waiting for them at the breakwater, directed thither by the housewife in the winding lane that was called High Street. "By the way, is your name ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... extremity of the island, which Leslie judged to be a fairly bold headland. The barrier reef, upon which the brig lay stranded, was visible with startling distinctness throughout its entire length from this point; and Leslie observed that it formed a natural and most efficient breakwater to the lagoon that stretched along the entire south-east shore of the island, curving gradually round in a crescent form until it joined the island itself at its most westerly extremity, while away to the eastward there was a deep-water passage, between the reef and the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... wrecked upon them in going in. The above information is from a plan drawn by Lieutenant Jeffreys, in the Hydrographical Office at the Admiralty: it was drawn in the year 1816; since which a portion of the labour of the convicts has been employed in building a breakwater, or pier, from the south entrance to the Nobby Rock, which will tend to direct the stream of tide through the channel, and also protect it from the surf and swell, which, during a south-east gale, must render the harbour of dangerous access. The town was formerly called King's ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... they found that they had been driven to the landward shore of a long island, which formed a natural breakwater to a spacious bay, with a narrow entrance at either end. The island was thickly covered with woods, giving shelter to a multitude of wild goats, its only inhabitants. For the Cyclopes have no ships, so that the ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... vote; of that we are not certain. But of the greater question back of it, of Miss Anthony's inherent right to vote we have no question, and that after all is the more important matter. This Rochester breakwater may damn back the stream for a while, but it is bound to come, sweeping away all barriers. The opposition to extending the suffrage to the other sex is founded alone on prejudice arising from social custom. Reason and logic are both against it. Women will not be voters possibly for some ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... points in front, and with the greatest difficulty the vessel was steered through an opening between them; but in another few minutes she struck heavily, one of her masts went over the side, and she lay fast and immovable. Fortunately, the outside bank of sand acted as a sort of breakwater; had she struck upon this the good ship would have gone to pieces instantly; but although the waves still struck her with considerable force, the captain had good hope that she would not break up. Darkness came on; ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... became, under Polycrates, "the first of all cities, Greek or barbarian." It was adorned with magnificent buildings and costly works of art; was supplied with water by a great aqueduct, tunnelled for nearly a mile through a mountain; had a great breakwater to protect the harbor, and a vast and magnificent temple to Juno: all of which seem to have been partly or ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... city is almost closed, on one side, by a bold majestic promontory called Point Loma; and on the other, by a natural breakwater, in the form of a crescent, twelve miles long, upon the outer rim of which the ocean beats a ceaseless monody. At one extremity of this silver strand, directly opposite Point Loma and close to the rhythmic surf, stands the Hotel ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... ultimately drove her to the Azores, just as her crew were getting very short of water and provisions. And here Augusta bid farewell to her friend the Yankee skipper; for the whaler that had saved her life and Dick's, after refitting once more, set sail upon its almost endless voyage. She stood on the breakwater at Ponta Delgada, and watched the Harpoon drop past. The men recognized her and cheered lustily, and Captain Thomas took off his hat; for the entire ship's company, down to the cabin-boy, were head-over-heels in love with Augusta; and the extraordinary ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... on the least encouragement, but Dick's indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol, restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically bombarded the breakwater. 'Got it at last!' he exclaimed, as a lock of weed flew ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... new breakwater which government is constructing here at great expense. When finished it is proposed that the Indian steamers shall call here instead of at Galle, the harbor of which is dangerous. This may be a decided improvement upon the whole, but the tourist who does not see pretty Galle ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... had fine weather as she ran along the south coast, anchoring under Portland for a day, while the party examined the works of the breakwater and paid a visit to the quarries, where the convicts were at work. She put into Torquay, Dartmouth and Plymouth, spending a day in the two former ports and two at the last named. They looked into Fowey, and stopped two days at Falmouth, and then, rounding the Land's End, made for ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... 100—and mounted 22 guns. She had been built at Cawsand, that village which in smuggling days attained so much notoriety, and stands at the end of a delightful bay facing the western end of Plymouth Breakwater. This vessel had a successful time in landing cargoes to the east of Torbay without paying the lawful duty. And there were many fishing-boats of from 18 to 25 tons, belonging to Torbay, which were at this time accustomed to run across the Channel, load up with the usual contraband, and then ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... appears to have taken place in the depth of water in Cleveland Bay. The damage to the eastern breakwater caused by the cyclone of last year has been repaired, and the structure has been greatly strengthened. At its outer extremity a massive concrete foundation has been embedded in the masonry, upon which the lighthouse has been strongly secured. The light is of the 4th order dioptric, showing ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours
... school-house for Dunure. And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of childish voices from within, I struck off into a steep road leading downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill: a haven among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus for drying nets, and a score or so of fishers' houses. Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall gable honeycombed with windows. The snow lay on the beach to the tide-mark. It was daubed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... year to bathe, and the Etablissement had the bankrupt aspect which belongs to such places out of the season; so I turned my back upon it and gained, by a circuit in the course of which there were sundry water-side items to observe, the other side of the cheery little port, where there is a long breakwater and a still longer sea-wall, on which I walked a while, to inhale the strong, salt breath of the Bay of Biscay. La Rochelle serves, in the months of July and August, as a station de bains for a modest provincial society; and, putting aside ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... "ye 've be'n helpin' me nicely wid the washin', an' I 'm going ter give ye a holiday. Ye can take yer hook an' line an' go fishin' on the breakwater. I 'll fix ye a lunch, an' ye need n't come back till night. An' there 's half a dollar; ye can buy yerself a pipe er terbacky. But be careful an' don't waste it," she added, for fear she was overdoing ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... halloo!" I turned, half thinking it imagination, but there I really saw a man up to the breast in the flood, supporting with arms and shoulders a powerful black horse, which he urged across the current. Another minute, and I stood firm behind the breakwater they formed at my side. My dear charge had again fainted; he assisted me to raise her to the saddle; but suddenly, as he looked at her, he uttered a wild cry of astonishment, and kissing and embracing her, exclaimed, "My Madeline, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... and enthusiasm the few miles to the sea. She reached it at a point where the cliff dwindled into flatness, where the gentle tide rattled on pebbles instead of on sand, where the tall breakwaters contradicted the line of the shore. The furthest breakwater had seaweed like hair waving on the water. At intervals it would seem to be thrust up between two glassy waves, like a victim beckoning for deliverance from the grip of some monster. And then the sea's lips ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... Breakwater seem to have spite against us," remarked Jack. "That is the second time they have stepped on ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... nearing the Irish coast and the barometer is as low down as I have seen it for many a year and there is every indication of a gale. The coast you intend to land on acts as a breakwater for all northern Europe and the waves that pile up on it during a storm are something astounding. The cliffs that resist them are from one hundred and eighty to three hundred feet high and they are as straight up and down as a mainmast in a calm. Cape Clear that I expect to sight ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... splendid and very powerful organs, and several beautiful piano fortes, in the Exhibition; and there is an accurate model of Plymouth Breakwater, with a very very little ship attached to it, and all complete, even to the smallest rope ladder. Plymouth Breakwater is a vast heap of stones built across the entrance of the Sound, so as to leave a passage for ...
— The World's Fair • Anonymous
... hey!" he bawled. "What are you doing, Rolling? Are you coming to an anchor already? Have I been asleep six months, and is this the Breakwater ahead? No? Well, do you expect to get to port without canvas on the ship? Split me, but I thought you knew how to sail a boat when you signed on as mate. Don't come any of these grandmother tricks on me, hey? I won't have it. Don't make a fool of yourself before these ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... raiders themselves, five old British cruisers were run aground in the harbor channels, blown up, and abandoned by their crews. The ships were loaded with concrete. An old submarine, loaded with explosives, was also run under a bridge connecting the mole, or breakwater, at Zeebrugge with the shore, and there blown up, so as to prevent interruption of the raiders while they were doing their work alongside ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... having been detained. Reached Boulogne in safety, and in high spirits made our way on board the steamer, deposited our traps below, came on deck, and prepared for the ordeal. A high north-wester had been blowing all day, and as we ran along behind the breakwater, I could see over it the white and green waves fiendishly running, and showing their malign eyes sparkling with hungry expectation. "Come out, come out!" they seemed to say; "come out, you little black imp ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... five minutes brought Garnet to the sleepy little town. He passed through the narrow street, and turned on to the beach, walking in the direction of the cob, that combination of pier and breakwater which the misadventures of one of Jane Austen's young misses have made ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Earl Edgecombe. The park is one of the most beautiful in England and occupies the whole of one side of the Sound. Through our glasses we could see beautiful lawns, walks and tropical palm trees growing here in the open air. Soon we could distinguish the great breakwater that almost closes the entrance to the Sound. On all sides we could see from grimy walls and caverns the black gaping mouths of cannon. The shore outlines rose about five hundred feet on each side and great batteries and ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... and after dinner we went down to the water front. The ship's boat was waiting for us and we rowed out. The schooner was anchored some way across the harbour, not far from the breakwater. We came alongside, and I heard the sound of a ukalele. We clambered ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... rock by old Fort Christina, upon which Governor Stuyvesant—Irving's Stuyvesant—stood on his silver leg and took the surrender of the Swedish governor-general, is now quarried out and reconstructed into Delaware Breakwater. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... chance. The idea at home seems to be that a woman's goodness depends on someone else keeping it for her: that she should stick her head into the sand like an ostrich and, since she sees nothing, be womanly. If I have a soul at all, and it can't sail beyond a harbor's breakwater, I have nothing to lose, but if it can go out and come back safe it has the right to do it. That's what college means to me: the preparation for a real life: the chance to equip myself. That's why the question seems a vital crisis—why it ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... entirely to the inscrutable design of Providence which arranged that Port Michael, and not Kirkmull, should lie on the opposite side of the Irish Sea; and every Sunday morning, after church, and sometimes on Sunday afternoon, the people walk along the breakwater to the lighthouse and remind each other of the days when their town was of consequence. "We spent a hundred and fifty thousand pounds on our harbour," they say to each other, "and then the Scotch went and did the like of that!"—the like of that being their stupidity in living in an exposed situation. ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... appointed to the Euryalus, in the course of the summer visited South Africa. After making a tour through Kaffraria, Natal, and the Orange Free State, he returned to Cape Town, where, in September, he laid the foundation stone of the breakwater in Table Bay. In a letter written by the Prince Consort a few weeks earlier to Baron Stockmar, he remarks upon the noteworthy coincidence that almost in the same week in which the elder brother would open the great bridge across the St Lawrence, the younger ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... the road to the right. The view is magnificent. In front is the Mediterranean, and behind Lake Thau with its villages. At the base of the mountain is Cette, and beyond Frontignan. The Port of Cette is protected by a breakwater 548 yds. long, which encloses a harbour of 210 acres, furnished with two jetties; the western, constructed by Vauban, is 656 yds. long, and the eastern 548 yds. This busy port, besides having an extensive carrying trade, has a large wine manufactory, where above 100,000 pipes of imitations ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... approached in winter. The Santa Barbara Channel was liable to the same objection, not to mention the trouble often caused by kelp and wintry fogs. The bay of San Luis Obispo was still worse in every respect; having no islands to act as a breakwater, landing there in winter was often impossible. The harbor of the picturesque old town of Monterey was safe enough, but some uncertainty regarding sure telegraphic communications with San Francisco, decided the council not to venture ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... sixty yards, and its surface is level and smooth; it is composed of obscurely-stratified hard sandstone. At high water the waves break over it; at low water its summit is left dry, and it might then be mistaken for a breakwater erected by Cyclopean workmen. On this coast the currents of the sea tend to throw up in front of the land long spits and bars of loose sand, and on one of these part of the town of Pernambuco stands. In former times a long spit of this nature seems to have become consolidated by the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... tea and looked, still frowning, at the river, which began to lose its brown colour slowly, to gleam at first with pallid gold, then with a gold that shone like fire. The eddies beyond the breakwater were a light and delicate mauve and looked nervously alive. A strange radiance that was both ethereal and voluptuous, that seemed to combine elements both spiritual and material, was falling over this world, clothing it in a sparkling ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... from base to crest, crowned with its lighthouse and signal staff—from the latter of which was fluttering the answering pennant, acknowledging the deciphering of the Concordia's number—with the long breakwater jutting out into the sea from its foot, while, nearer at hand, there stretched across the scene the low outline of the Point, also bush-crowned, with the roofs of a few houses and a flagstaff or two showing above the verdure, the sandy beach, with the eternal surf thundering upon it in long ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... their commerce. Many English ports benefited by this condition of things, but none more than Brisport. It had long ceased to be a fishing village, but was now a large and prosperous town, with a great breakwater in place of the quay on which Mary had stood, and a frontage of terraces and grand hotels where all the grandees of the west country came when they were in need of a change. All these extensions had made Brisport the centre of a busy trade, and her ships found their way into every harbour in ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... render the passage from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, like a trip across the Channel. But it is to be observed that whatever disadvantages the island may possess, its natural position is of the highest importance, since it lies as a breakwater at the bottom of St. Vincent's Gulf, and prevents the effects of the heavy southerly seas from being felt in it. There is, perhaps, no gulf, whether it is entered by the eastern or western passage, the navigation of which ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... pierced with scuttles, which, with water let into certain compartments, could draw it down into great depths. These apparatuses were at San Francisco, where they had been used in the construction of a submarine breakwater; and very fortunately it was so, for there was no time to construct any. But in spite of the perfection of the machinery, in spite of the ingenuity of the savants entrusted with the use of them, the success of the operation was far from being certain. How great were the chances against them, the ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... the breakwater of the reefs, and the rolling swell of ocean gave way at once to a millpond calmness. Through this we sped along for some ten miles or so, following a low, barren coast-line till at length, to our right, the water began to spread out ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... of Manila Bay to be as tranquil as a lake should conclusions be drawn from its almost landlocked position. On the contrary, it is noted among sailors the world over for the roughness of its waters; and a breakwater behind which ships can lie in quiet and take on or discharge their cargoes is essential to the proper development of the city's shipping. But, so far as we were concerned, this was a possible joy of the future. So, one by one we descended the narrow stairway ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... his Diary (Dec. 30th, 1818) a most amusing blunder of a translator who knew nothing of the technical name for a breakwater. He translated the line in ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... with the flat of his spade, partly with the palm of one hand, redressed some (to me obscure) fault in one of the gables. He rose, stood back, his eyes slowly endorsed the amendment. A few moments later, very suddenly, he scudded away to the adjacent breakwater and gave himself to the task of scraping off it some of the short green sea-weed wherewith he had made the cottage's two gardens so pleasantly realistic, oases so refreshing in the sandy desert. Were the lawns somehow imperfect? ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... with the religious settlement were the questions of the heir to the throne [Sidenote: Succession] and of foreign policy. Elizabeth's life was the only breakwater that stood between the people and a Catholic, if not a disputed, succession. The nearest heir was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry VIII's sister. As a Catholic and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... society never paid more than eleven annual dividends, because for many years it saved up its income for building an extension to its harbour, and eventually lost all these savings and L100,000 of Government money besides in a great breakwater, which proved an irremediable engineering failure, and lies now in the bottom of ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... and worked to a merry tune that struck chill to the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped, and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... founded by Hasdrubal (the uncle of Hannibal) 243 B.C. The city is situated on a promontory running out into the sea, and possesses one of the finest harbours in the world, protected by an island as by a natural breakwater. But it had a weak side, and this had been betrayed by fishermen to Scipio. During ebb-tide the water of the shallow pool W. of the town fell so much that it was fordable and the bottom was firm. Of this Scipio took advantage. ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... weary days we went tacking about, the wind somewhat abating. Sometimes we caught sight of the French coast through the mist; and then we tacked back again. At length Eddystone light came in view, and we knew we were not far from the entrance to Plymouth Sound. Once inside the Breakwater, we felt ourselves in smooth ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... being appointed for life has acted as a breakwater of adamant and reinforced concrete against all labor or capital legislation that has arisen from the passions of the moment. More than once when labor or capital, holding the whip handle in the Commons, would have forced through hasty ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... stands the rather mean port of Newhaven. After many years of neglect and decay this Elizabethan sea-gate is once more of great importance in continental traffic. Much money and skill were expended during the latter half of the nineteenth century in improving the harbour and building a breakwater and new quays. Louis Philippe landed here in 1848, having left Havre in his flight from France in the steamer "Express"; he was received by William Catt, who at one time owned the tide mills at Bishopstone; this worthy was a well known Sussex character and is immortalized by ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... village on the Normandy coast, about six miles from Arromanches. It is in an extremely exposed position, and many houses have been destroyed by the inroads of the sea. To prevent further damage, Lazare Chanteau constructed a breakwater, which was, however, washed away by the first storm. The inhabitants of the village were mostly engaged in ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... houses, taller than is usual in Andalusia, have almost as cared-for an appearance as those in a prosperous suburb of London; and it is only quite occasionally, when you catch a glimpse of tawny rock and of white breakwater against the blue sea, that by a reminiscence of Naples you can persuade yourself it is as immoral as they say. For, not unlike the Syren City, Cadiz lies white and cool along the bay, with gardens at the water's edge; but it has not the magic colour of its rival, it is quieter, smaller, more restful; ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... referred to, and saw many of the sights in the neighbourhood. After visiting Penzance on the conclusion of our work we saw Cape Cornwall (where Whewell overturned me in a gig), and returned homewards by way of Truro, Plymouth (where we saw the watering-place and breakwater: also the Dockyard, and descended in one of the working diving-bells), Exeter, Salisbury, and Portsmouth. In returning from Camborne in 1826 I lost the principal of our papers. It was an odd thing that, in going through Exeter on our way to Camborne ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... stood out firmly before him against the pitiless blue of sea and sky. He wandered over the hot stone causeway, but found no one. The revenue officers were away, and not a labourer, not a sailor, was visible. Beyond the breakwater little tufts of silvery foam flashed on the rollers, and a solitary steamer steered steadily for the horizon. He could see the Greek flag at her stern, and his eyes filled with tears. Ah, how little his ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... shingly beach in the centre of the bay. This sheltered cove, about 300 yards across the chord of the arc, formed rather more than a semicircle by the natural formation of the coast, and was further improved by a long reef of hard sandstone, which extended from either point like an artificial breakwater. ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... which forms the easternmost extremity of the island of Tierra Bomba. It is this same island of Tierra Bomba, by the way, which converts what would otherwise be an open roadstead into a landlocked harbour, for it forms the western side of the harbour, and serves as a natural breakwater, sheltering the roadstead very effectually when the wind happens to blow from the westward. Also, being roughly triangular in shape, its eastern and western sides each measuring about four miles long, and its northern side about three miles, it divides the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... anchor at Fayal, exactly eighteen days from Cape Sable. The American consul, in a smart boat, came alongside before the Spray reached the breakwater, and a young naval officer, who feared for the safety of my vessel, boarded, and offered his services as pilot. The youngster, I have no good reason to doubt, could have handled a man-of-war, but the Spray was too small for the amount of uniform he wore. However, after fouling all the craft ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... that Rosenthall was one. He must have let it out to Purvis in his cups. Anyhow, I heard Purvis taunting him with it, and threatening him with the breakwater at Capetown; and I begin to think our friends are friend and foe. But about to-morrow night: there's nothing subtle in my plan. It's simply to get in while these fellows are out on the loose, and to lie low till they come ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... in prosperity. The two great engineers, Thomas Telford (1757-1834), famous for the Caledonian canal and the Menai bridge; and John Rennie (1761-1821), drainer of Lincolnshire fens, and builder of Waterloo bridge and the Plymouth breakwater, rose from the ranks. Telford inherited and displayed in a different direction the energies of Eskdale borderers, whose achievements in the days of cattle-stealing were to be made famous by Scott: Rennie was the son of an East Lothian ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... by the bay of the great window in the library. When Stewart had returned to the girl he noticed that she had provided the harbor with a breakwater—a tall Japanese screen; waiting there she had found the room draughty, she ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... blue, or was it purple that day? Randal Courteney stretched his lazy length on the shady side of the great natural breakwater that protected Hurley Bay from the Atlantic rollers, and wondered. It was a day in late September, but the warmth of it was as a dream of summer returned. The season was nearly over, or he had not betaken ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... quietude of Ronkonkoma. Toward the west, beyond our ken, stretches the Great South Bay, far past where the lighthouse of Fire Island can be seen flashing out upon the night. To the south, about three miles distant, are the undulating dunes of the Great South Beach, that like a huge breakwater shuts out the ocean. To the east is the broad promontory lying behind Mastic Point. This is practically the same view upon which we have imagined the traveller by the old-time stage feasting his eyes at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various |
