"Isthmus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Spaniard, named Balboa, set out to explore the Isthmus of Panama.[5] One day he climbed to the top of a very high hill, and discovered that vast ocean—the greatest of all the oceans of the ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... them, each surrounded by its own wall, and lying at some little distance one from the other.[470] There are no present traces of this arrangement, which seems indicative of distrust; but some remains have been found of a wall which was carried across the isthmus on the land side.[471] Tripolis ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... will that the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific should sweep across the Isthmus of Panama? That men should run under the Alps? That thoughts and words should be winged across the ocean without any visible or tangible medium? Yes; it is His will, if men will it, and work to these ends in harmony with His great physical laws. So in the spiritual world there are wonders ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... those of the Bay of Biscay are perhaps the best nourished. An isthmus is a piece of land which saves another piece of land from being an island. The principal exports of Germany are prisoners ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... means, and the completion of it can not fail to open the way for a vast commerce, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and at the same time cause our fellow-citizens in California and Oregon no longer to be regarded as exiles. This road being once opened, the passage of the Isthmus, now so much dreaded, will be effected with perfect ease and comfort in a couple of hours, instead of two or three days, as at present, and families, instead of individuals, will be enabled to seek homes in the fertile valleys of our possessions on the Pacific coast. The value of the ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... plan," he wrote, "was great, bold, and worthy of being executed by a more enlightened commander. The purpose of the expedition was to visit the Spanish possessions of South America, from the mouth of the River Plata to the kingdom of Quito and the isthmus of Panama. After traversing the archipelago of the great ocean, and exploring the coasts of New Holland from Van Diemen's Land to that of Nuyts, both vessels were to stop at Madagascar, and return by the Cape of Good Hope." Concerning the reasons why he was not ultimately ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... There he was killed. But one of his ships went on to make the first circumnavigation of the globe, a feat which redounded to the glory of both Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile, in 1513, the Spaniard Balboa had crossed the Isthmus of Panama and waded into the Pacific, sword in hand, to claim it for his king. Then came the Spanish explorers—Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Coronado, and many more—and later on the conquerors and founders of New Spain—Cortes, Pizarro, ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... government, however, in granting this favor to the Portuguese fenced it around with their usual caution, and placed many restrictions upon them. The point upon which Macao stands, is almost separated from the Island, the connection being an Isthmus of about three hundred feet; across which, about three miles from the Praya, a wall is built through which is a gateway, guarded by Chinese soldiers, and beyond which the Portuguese were not allowed to pass; and their municipal government was restricted to the ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... pet scheme during the war for establishing a colony of contrabands at the Chiriqui Lagoon, with a new transit route across the Isthmus to the harbor of Golfito, on the Pacific. The first company of emigrants, composed of freeborn negroes and liberated slaves, was organized, under President Lincoln's personal supervision, by Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, and would have started, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... one flies across the continent in a palace-car, it seems strange indeed to think of the long journey of these pilgrims to the land of Ophir, as it was called. The overland route, that across Mexico, or the isthmus, comprised the sail to Vera Cruz, and then up the Pacific coast, and was costly. That around Cape Horn took five months. Yet men were selling their property or business that they had been years in building up, leaving their families, and hurrying off, promising to be ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... French had also contemplated such a canal, and had even gone to work at the Isthmus of Panama, making an elaborate survey and doing not a little digging. But the work was beyond them, and the French Canal Company soon ran out of funds and went into the hands ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... sounding of a trumpet, or the oriental call by a clapping of hands, gates are thrown open, which have an effect corresponding in grandeur to the effect that would arise from the opening of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, viz., the introduction to each other—face to face—of two separate infinities. Such a canal would suddenly lay open to each other the two great oceans of our planet, the Atlantic and the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... the doctor. "See here, I'll give you the route of this mahogany-tree: it was carried to the Pacific Ocean by some river of the Isthmus of Panama or of Guatemala; thence the current carried it along the coast of America as far as Behring Strait, and so it was forced into the polar waters; it is neither so old nor so completely water-logged that we cannot set its departure at some recent date; it escaped all ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... then, to say that one of the great houses of the Aztecs was large enough to accommodate Cortes and his fourteen hundred and fifty men including Indian allies as they had previously been accommodated in one Cholulan house and elsewhere, on the way to Mexico. From New Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama there was scarcely a principal village in which an equal number could not have found accommodations in a single house. When it is found to be unnecessary to call it a palace in order to account for its size, we are led to the conclusion that an ordinary Aztec house was emptied ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... made in regard to the inefficiency of the means provided by the Government of New Granada for transporting the United States mail across the Isthmus of Panama, pursuant to our postal convention with that Republic of the 6th of March, 1844. Our charge d'affaires at Bogota has been directed to make such representations to the Government of New Granada as will, it is hoped, lead to a prompt removal of this cause ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... of Allies are being landed at three points—at Enos, at Suol, a promontory on the west of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and at the Bulair Isthmus. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... claim to consideration, but also all the senators, all the representatives in Congress, all the governors of States with their staffs, if they had any, all eminent citizens and their families throughout the Union and Canada, and finally every private individual, from the North Pole to the Isthmus of Panama, who had ever shown him a civility or was able to control interest enough to ask for a card. The result was that Baltimore promised to come in a body, and Philadelphia was equally well-disposed; New York provided several ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... dwelt on their borders. The Phaeacians were an unwarlike people, and being in no condition to resist the fierce assaults of these lawless neighbours, they abandoned their homes and built a new city on a little peninsula, connected with the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Defended by strong walls they were now safe against all attacks, and they soon grew rich and prosperous in the exercise ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... before he started on his fateful journey to Buffalo. Never had I seen him higher in hope and patriotic confidence. He was gratified to the heart that we had arranged a treaty which gave us a free hand in the Isthmus. In fancy he saw the canal already built and the argosies of the world passing through it in peace and amity. He saw in the immense evolution of American trade the fulfilment of all his dreams, the reward of all his labors. He ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the bandage and the unguent vase; the whole subject being painted in blue and red upon a white ground. From the time of the Greek domination, the national poverty being always on the increase, baked clay was much used for coffins as well as for canopic vases. In the Isthmus of Suez, at Ahnas el Medineh, in the Fayum, at Asuan, and in Nubia, we find whole cemeteries in which the sarcophagi are made of baked clay. Some are like oblong boxes rounded at each end, with a saddle-back ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... In the Isthmus of Darien, they are sent along with warriors and travellers, as we do baggage horses. Even their Queen appeared before some English gentlemen, carrying her sucking child, wrapt in a ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... rainy, warm, cloudy southwest monsoon (mid-May to September); dry, cool northeast monsoon (November to mid-March); southern isthmus ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... weather of midsummer and the snow, ice, and emptiness of winter were not in evidence. The choice of a site for settlement was both good and bad. The anchorage for ships at Jamestown was good. The Island had not then become a true island and had an easily controlled dry land isthmus connection with the mainland. As the river narrows here, it was one of the best control points on the James. It had been abandoned by the Indians; and it was a bit inland, hence somewhat out of range of the Spanish menace. ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch
... imagine your pathetic inquiry as to my whereabouts—pathetic, not to say hypothetic—for I am now where I cannot hear the dulcet strains of your voice. I am on board ship. I am half seas over. I am bound for California by way of the Isthmus. I am going for the gold, my boy, the gold. In the mean time I am lying around loose on the deck of this magnificent vessel, the Mercy G. Tarbox, of Nantucket, bred by Noah's Ark out of Pilot-boat, dam by Mudscow out of Raging Canawl. The Mercy ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... black ship was just spreading sail from Crete, and entering upon it the hero soon ended his journey and laid his capture before Eurystheus. A day or two later Hercules loosed the bull, which, after wandering through the woodlands of Arcadia, crossed the isthmus and came to the plains of Marathon, whence, after doing much damage, it swam off to sea and ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... turf was formed. There was not over a square perch of it altogether, but it was not square in shape. On the contrary, it was of oval form, and much narrower nearest the land, where it formed a neck, or isthmus, not more than three feet in width. It was, in short, a miniature peninsula, which by a very little work with the spade could have been converted into a miniature island—had that ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... in the naval battle they conducted themselves thus and incurred the greatest part of the danger, and by their own valor gained freedom for themselves and the rest. Afterwards when the Peloponnesians were putting a wall across the Isthmus and were content with their own safety, supposing they were rid of the danger by sea, and intending to watch the rest of the Greeks falling into the power of the barbarians, (45) the Athenians were angry and advised them ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias
... troops of the Greeks was sent out to take possession of Tempe, under the command of Themistocles, of Athens, and Euaenetus, of Sparta; but on finding that there they would be overwhelmed by the host of the barbarians, they returned to the Corinthian isthmus. When Xerxes arrived in Pieria, the Greek fleet took its post near Artemisium on the north coast of Euboea, under the command of the Spartan admiral Eurybiades, under whom Themistocles condescended to serve in order not to cause new dissensions among ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... its name from the isthmus or city of that name, or the Red Sea; more properly from the former, as it makes its passage through it," Mr. Woolridge began. "Our old friend, Ramses II., of whom we have heard so much in the last four weeks, is said to have been the first to dig out a Suez Canal, though I cannot inform you by ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... general invitation) All country gentlemen, esquired or knighted, May drop in without cards, and take their station At the full board, and sit alike delighted With fashionable wines and conversation; And, as the isthmus of the grand connection, Talk o'er themselves the past ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... on three sides by the river Severn, is most beautifully situated on a lofty peninsula. It was a British stronghold before the Conquest, when it was given by William the Conqueror to Roger de Montgomery, who built the castle which stands on the narrow isthmus leading to the town. Henry IV. stayed in the castle in 1403, before the battle with Harry Hotspur, which was fought at Battlefield, about 3 miles from the town. Only the keep of the old Norman castle remains, and that ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... Dr. Keil set out with ten or twelve families, eighty persons in all, across the plains, carrying along household utensils and some cattle. A few families started later, and crossed the Isthmus; and all gathered at Shoalwater Bay, north of the mouth of the Columbia River, and in Washington Territory. There a few families belonging to Aurora still live, managing farms of the community; but in June, 1856, the main body of the society removed to Aurora, and began there, ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... after years of resistance, been worn down to an exceedingly small breadth. Possibly the river has merely worn an arm in its side, leaving an extensive bulge standing out in the river, and connected with the mainland by an isthmus. The river striking in this arm, and not having sufficient scope to rebound toward the other bank, is thrown into a rotary motion, forming almost a whirlpool. The action of this motion upon the banks soon reduces the connecting neck, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... derive benefit not from discourses only, but from sights and actions, and cull what is good and useful, as is recorded of AEschylus and other similar kind of men. As to AEschylus, when he was watching a contest in boxing at the Isthmus, and the whole theatre cried out upon one of the boxers being beaten, he nudged with his elbow Ion of Chios, and said, "Do you observe the power of training? The beaten man holds his peace, while the spectators ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... and pursuits. There were various classes of citizens, including handicraftsmen and husbandmen and a superior class of warriors who dwelt apart, and were educated, and had all things in common, like our guardians. Attica in those days extended southwards to the Isthmus, and inland to the heights of Parnes and Cithaeron, and between them and the sea included the district of Oropus. The country was then, as what remains of it still is, the most fertile in the world, and abounded in rich plains ...
— Critias • Plato
... sand-warm, but pure. Their sufferings were over. The water continued to flow, running north for twenty miles, and at one point spreading into a lake two miles wide and twenty feet deep. When emigration was diverted, two years later, to the northern route and to the isthmus, New River Spring dried ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Morning Chronicle, November 6, 1822, prints the following proclamation of Jose Maria Carreno, Commandant-General of Panama: "Inhabitants of the Isthmus! The Genius of History, which has everywhere crowned our arms, announces peace to Colombia.... From the banks of Orinoco to the towering summits of Chimborazo not a single enemy exists, and those who proudly marched towards the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... this point of view, is to tell the entering visitor briefly of the milestones along the way of time up to the digging of the Canal. Its enrichment of sculpture, painting and inscription summarizes the story of Panama and of the Pacific shore northward from the Isthmus. The architect has expressed in its upper decorations something of the feeling of Aztec art. The four inscriptions on the south faces of the arches tell how Rodrigo de Bastides discovered Panama in 1501; how Balboa first saw the Pacific Ocean in 1513; how ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... Drake eagerly took up Spain's challenge; he would meet the raid with counter-raid. Three years later he was cruising the Spanish Main, capturing and plundering ships and forts and towns. In 1572 he led his men across the Isthmus of Panama, and intercepted and captured a Spanish convoy of treasure coming overland. Near the south side of the isthmus he climbed a tree and had his first glimpse of the Pacific. It set his blood on the leap. On bended knee he prayed aloud to the Almighty to be permitted to sail ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... rather its western basin, for we know that the Barbary island was once nearly a peninsula, joined at its two ends to Spain and Sicily, and that its Atlas ranges formed the connection between the Sierra Nevada and Mt. Aetna. By degrees the Isthmus between Cape Bona and Sicily sank out of sight, and the ocean flowed between Spain and Africa, while the great sea to the south dried up into the immense stony waste which is known preeminently as the Sahra, ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... Marvin's sail-loft occupied the upper. The staff then consisted of Mr. Wootton and J. M. Sparrow, as before stated, with occasional extra assistants, say on the arrival of an English mail, which came then via the Isthmus of Panama and San Francisco. The "whole staff" had to work hard then, and long hours, even into the morning. I have seen a line of letter hunters reaching from the post-office up Wharf Street nearly to Yates, waiting for the mail to be sorted and the wicket to open. I especially ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... few years we have as regards pretty much everything not connected with the Isthmus of Panama so failed in our duty of national preparedness that I fear there actually is a general consensus of opinion to precisely this effect among the nations of the world as regards the United States at the present day. This is ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... origin); wide stripe from lower posterior corner of eye extending downward, across mandibular articulation (and below tympanum) on throat to shoulder (wider at origin than behind); postorbital mark, four to five millimeters wide, approximately 26 millimeters long, connected to eye by narrow isthmus anteriorly and continuous with narrow stripe on upper part of neck posteriorly; stripe on mandibular symphysis widened and bifurcated posteriorly, its two branches enclosing one wide and two narrow stripes; ...
— A New Subspecies of Slider Turtle (Pseudemys scripta) from Coahuila, Mexico • John M. Legler
... ever proud and grand, with snow-topped heights rising tens of thousands of feet above the ocean, till it sinks once more towards the northern extremity of the southern half of the continent, running along the Isthmus of Panama, through Mexico at a less elevation, again to rise in the almost unbroken range of the Rocky Mountains, not to sink till it reaches the snow-covered ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the Red Sea, and, as the Isthmus of Suez was not then pierced by a canal, there was ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... luckily he had some investments away from home, which prevented him from being left wholly penniless. He was a man of projects. He emigrated to America with his wife and his son; he dreamed of making a name and a fortune by cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama. He repaired to New Granada, there to make his studies and his charts. He made them so thoroughly that he died of yellow fever before having begun his work, having come to the end of his money and leaving his widow in the most cruel destitution. Countess Larinski ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... with a few natives coming from Kigmuktoo to join the rest of the tribe on the lake, and with them was an aged crone named Toolooah, who had seen white men in Boothia Isthmus, when a young woman, and had also been with the party who found the boat and skeletons in Starvation Cove, near Richardson Point. She confirmed the testimony previously obtained in every essential particular. We gave her a few needles and a spoon, for ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... a volcano near Orizaba, mentioned by Sahagun. Acallan, a province bordering on the Laguna de los Terminos. The myth reported that Quetzalcoatl journeyed to the shores of the Gulf about the isthmus of ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... the isthmus, known as the Tana, some three miles in length, communicating with the mainland by a tongue of land a ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... as is well known, upon a long narrow neck of land stretching out into the ocean, from whose bosom the town appears to rise, the salt waters laving its walls on all sides save the east, where a sandy isthmus connects it with the coast of Spain. The town, as it exists at the present day, is of modern construction, and very unlike any other town which is to be found in the Peninsula, being built with great regularity and symmetry. The ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Panama Isthmus is discovered. 2. It is purchased by the United States. 3. You are reminded that the great waters - the Atlantic and the Pacific - play with titanic force on either side of the isthmus. 4. The Panama Canal is completed. 5. Labor is crowned. ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James
... Pacific Railway in 1887, which placed it within two weeks' journey from London. Before that time it was cut off by the immense prairies of the north-west of Canada, and could only be reached by a long journey round Cape Horn or over the Isthmus of Panama. Since the date given, however, a new era has dawned for the country, and all the southern part of it has been opened up by railways. Thus its waters have been rendered easy of access to ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... consequences, so far as Europe is concerned at least, would apparently ensue were the Isthmus of Panama to settle into the sea, allowing the Caribbean current to pass into the Pacific. But the geologist tells us that this isthmus rose at a comparatively recent geological period, though it is hinted that there had been some time previously a ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the fisher huts, the rocks rose high and dark, and quite hid the pine woods and the isthmus of yellow sand, and everything that could make Culm at all cheery or pleasant. This eminence was Wind Cliff, and served as a landmark for all the sailors whose path lay along the coast. Around this the gulls were alway flitting and screaming, and their nests ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... to the eastward, beyond which, some forty or fifty miles off, rose the lofty peaks of the Cordilleras, covered with eternal snows; or I should say, perhaps, the southern end of that mighty chain which rises abruptly from the Isthmus of Panama, and extends the whole length of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... and Spain, and considers that by the Pacific Ocean the better. The viceroy discusses the matter of sending reenforcements to the Philippines, and suggests that it might be advantageous to send troops to Acapulco via the Isthmus of Panama. He points out various dangers from the proposed ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... leaving. Indeed, he has already sold out; so that this house and the lands around it are no longer ours. As the lawyers have the deed of transfer, and the purchase money has been paid, we're only here on sufferance, and must soon yield possession. Then, we're to take ship for Panama, go across the Isthmus and over the Atlantic Ocean; once more to renew the Old-world life, with all its stupid ceremonies. How I shall miss the free wild ways of California—its rural sports—with their quaint originality and picturesqueness! I'm sure I shall die of ennui, soon after reaching ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... the globe, The ancestor-continents away group'd together, The present and future continents north and south, with the isthmus between. ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... ever, the principal departure from it being the signature and ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1850. By the terms of this treaty we recognized a joint British interest in any canal that might be built through the isthmus connecting North and South America, undertook to establish the general neutralization of such canal, and agreed to invite other powers, European and American, to unite in protecting the same. Owing to differences ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... of the party decided to remain loyal to Captain Sharp, and to go home around the southern part of the continent. Before the mutineers were put ashore, the ship had come north almost to the equator, so that the journey of the deserters was materially lessened. Two of the mutineers reached the Isthmus, crossed it and subsequently published some ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... savage America. Earlier still it reached England as the revival of learning, and it gave Portugal a shock which started its navigators towards the Cape of Good Hope in their search for a sea route to India. The history of South Africa is intimately connected with the Isthmus of Suez. It owes its Portuguese, Dutch, and English populations to that barrier on the Mediterranean pathway to the Orient; its importance as a way station on the outside route to India fluctuates with every crisis in the history ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... the reader with the particulars of our return. They were such only as occur to thousands in the rough and circuitous transit between San Francisco and New York. We came home by the Isthmus route, and in ships that ploughed the honest waves. We explained our absence to our disturbed families and friends as best we might; and some will remember—and if they do not, they can refresh their recollection by a reference to the public prints—that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... think, just at present; but I might probably catch him at Panama; he has something to do with the isthmus there." ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... deeply into the mainland on its opposite sides as to narrow it into a flat neck little more than a mile and a half in breadth, stretch away in long vista, the one to the south, and the other to the north; and so immediately is the Cathedral perched on the isthmus between, as to be nearly equally conspicuous from both. It forms in each, to the inward-bound vessel, the terminal object in the landscape. There was not much to admire in the town immediately beneath, with its roofs of gray slate,—almost the only parts of it visible from this point of view,—and ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... at once proceed to the attack. Entering the Bay of Gibraltar, the ships took up a position to prevent all communication between the rock and the continent, and the Prince of Hesse landed on the isthmus with 1800 marines. His highness having taken post there, summoned the governor, who answered that he would defend the place to the last. At daybreak on the following morning, the 22nd, Sir George ordered the ships under the command of Rear-Admiral Byng and Rear-Admiral Vanderduesen to commence ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Suez Canal was begun. This canal extends across the Isthmus of Suez, and connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, opening a waterway ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 38, July 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... suggested the recent rain which had clothed its frequently barren sides with a mantle of verdure. A few bell-shaped blossoms hung over crevices of rock, fearless in the frail foothold of their thread-like stems, as innocent child-faces above a precipice. It was in this simple way, and by the isthmus of sand connecting it to the continent, long and level, like the dash Nature made after so grand a work, before descending to the commonplaces of ordinary creation, that he had toned down the grandeur of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... next place, a daily thoroughfare such as the Isthmus, must have been far more suitable for the collecting of historical evidence than Skillus, where the crowd came by only once in four years. And then his grown-up sons could find something more serious to do than hunting deer, boars, and hares in the glades ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... the path led along a kind of isthmus, at the peninsular extremity of which the tower was situated, with that exclusive attention to strength and security, in preference to every circumstances of convenience, which dictated to the Scottish barons the choice of their situations, as ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... passive too passive, Mrs. Carleton thought. She did not know the course of the years that had gone, and could not understand how strangely Fleda seemed to herself now to stand alone, broken off from her old friends and her former life, on a little piece of time that was like an isthmus joining two continents. Fleda felt it all exceedingly; felt that she was changing from one sphere of life to another; never forgot the graves she had left at Queechy, and as little the thoughts and prayers that had sprung up beside them. ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to both of them now in the highest degree improbable. Cyril, by reason, Elma, by instinct, argued out the whole situation at once, and correctly. There had been much rain lately. The sandstone was water-logged. It had caved in bodily, before them and behind them. A little isthmus of archway still held out in isolation just above their heads. At any moment that isthmus might give way too, and, falling on their carriage, might crush them beneath its weight. Their lives depended upon ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... San Juan; a territory whereof, inconveniently for Great Britain, the United States, and the commerce of the world at large, the limits and definition are far from being universally recognized. Nicaragua has claims, and the Isthmus canal suffers accordingly. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... the waters, and it has stood there, frowning hostility and effecting separation. In the course of time, however, the necessities of man, and the silent workings of nature, have conspired to break down this mighty structure, till there remains of it only a narrow isthmus, standing ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... days Aspinwall was reached. At that time the streets of the town were eight or ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season, on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons. I wondered how any person could live many months in Aspinwall, and wondered still more ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... sixth of April, the insurrection had spread to the narrow territory of Megaris, situated to the north of the isthmus. The Albanian population of this country, amounting to about ten thousand, and employed by the Porte to guard the defiles of the entrance into Peloponnesus, raised the standard of revolt, and marched to invest the Acrocorinthus. In the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... landing, which was effected the following morning without opposition, at a spot which had been previously selected for that purpose, about two miles to the westward of the town. The troops were formed across the isthmus connecting the peninsula on which the town is situated with the neighboring country, and the whole of the day was occupied in getting the tents on shore, to shelter the men from rain, landing engineers, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... 8th landed on a narrow ridge of sand which, running out twenty miles to the westward, separates Limestone Bay from the body of the Lake. When the wind blows hard from the southward it is customary to carry boats across this isthmus and to pull up under its lee. From Norwegian Point to Limestone Bay the shore consists of high clay cliffs against which the waves beat with violence during strong southerly winds. When the wind blows from the land and the waters of the lake are low a narrow sandy ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... plateau of the Soissonnais from the south. The very considerable depression is more than 100 metres below the surface of the plateau, which it cuts in two, effectively shutting off all progress from west to east; for on the south a narrow isthmus, that of Vierzy, barely separates it from the ravine of the Savieres; and on the southeast it reaches to the foot of the wooded hills of Hartennes. Clinging to the sides of the valley and of the ravines which open into it, numerous villages—Vauxbuin, Berzy-le-Sec, Villemontoire, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... examples we can quote.[210] The camp, first made out in 1865, formed a long square, covering some thirteen hectares, or about thirty-two acres. It is situated on an isolated mound connected with the main plateau by an isthmus 227 feet long, and is protected on the south and west by a deep ravine: To these natural defences men had added important works to those parts that were accessible. The cutting of trenches a few years ago brought to light walls ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... that the morasses, indenting both shores and leaving a narrow isthmus, would enable the small Confederate force to defend that position; but the bravery and enterprise of the enemy enabled him to turn both flanks, and nothing was left Colonel Shaw and his command but to fall back to the northern end of the island and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... industries of the South continue to grow in the marvelous ratio already shown, the demand for labor must increase. The presence of the Southern community of white European labor from the southern part of Europe will have, I am hopeful, the same effect that it has had upon Negro labor on the Isthmus of Panama. It has introduced a spirit of emulation or competition, so that to-day the tropical Negroes of the West Indies do much better work for us in the canal construction since we brought over Spanish, Italian, and ...
— The South and the National Government • William Howard Taft
... that Ruetimeyer has shown that several wild mammals in Switzerland since the neolithic period have had their dentition and, I think, general size slightly modified. I cannot believe that the Isthmus of Panama has been open since the commencement of the glacial period; for, notwithstanding the fishes, so few shells, crustaceans, and, according to Agassiz, not one echinoderm is common to the sides. I am very glad you are going to publish ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... reached, and their supplies transported by the Colorado. Instead of calling upon Captain Johnson and chartering his steamboat, the Colorado, Ives ordered his steamer constructed in Philadelphia, and shipped in sections via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, and thence around Cape Lucas into the Gulf of California, to the mouth of the Colorado River. Yet he was able to report, doubtless with a clear conscience, that Johnson's company "was unable to spare a boat, except for a compensation beyond the ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... A.D. These dates are not so precise as one could wish, but if there was a Hindu kingdom in that distant region in the second century it was probably preceded by settlements in nearer halting places, such as the Isthmus of Kra[5] or Java, at a considerably anterior date, although the inscriptions discovered there are not earlier ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... refreshed by rest, and some milk and exquisite fruit they brought me, I went up the little hill where once stood the castle of Byrsa, and from thence I had a distinct view of the situation of the famous city of Carthage, which stood on an isthmus, the sea coming on each side of it. 'Tis now a marshy ground on one side, where there are salt ponds. Strabo calls Carthage forty miles in circumference. There are now no remains of it, but what I have described; and the history of it is ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... will be firm: but though we well may trust The issue to the justice of the cause, Caution must not be flung aside; remember, Yours is no common life. Self-stationed here, Upon these savage confines, we have seen you Stand like an isthmus 'twixt two stormy seas That oft have checked their fury at your bidding. 'Mid the deep holds of Solway's mossy waste, Your single virtue has transformed a Band Of fierce barbarians into Ministers Of peace and order. Aged men with tears Have blessed their steps, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... and Waipa Rivers. Potatau was an old man, remarkable rather for cunning than bravery; but he had a Prime Minister who was both intelligent and energetic, a descendant of the Ngatihahuas, who occupied the isthmus before the arrival of the strangers. This minister, William Thompson, became the soul of the War of Independence, and organized the Maori troops, with great skill. Under this guidance a Taranaki chief gathered the scattered ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... Nest of the morning, and conjectures there The dance of streams to idle shepherds' pipes, And fairer habitations softly hung 780 On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, For happier men. No mortal ever dreams That the scant isthmus he encamps upon Between two oceans, one, the Stormy, passed, And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, Has been that future whereto prophets yearned For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated hope, Shall be that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... public one, as a herald, or on an embassy, or on a sacred mission. Going abroad on an expedition or in war is not to be included among travels of the class authorised by the state. To Apollo at Delphi and to Zeus at Olympia and to Nemea and to the Isthmus, citizens should be sent to take part in the sacrifices and games there dedicated to the Gods; and they should send as many as possible, and the best and fairest that can be found, and they will make the city renowned at holy meetings in time of peace, procuring a glory which shall be the converse ...
— Laws • Plato
... was no appearance of an enemy; and Napoleon seized the opportunity to explore the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow neck of land divides the Red Sea from the Mediterranean, partly with the view of restoring the communication which in remote times existed between them, and partly of providing for the defence of Egypt, should the Ottomans attempt their invasion ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the superb steamship Golden Gate, gay with crowds of passengers, and lighting the sea for miles around with the glare of her signal lights of red, green, and white, and brilliant with lighted saloons and staterooms, bound up from the Isthmus of Panama, neared the entrance to San Francisco, the great centre of a world-wide commerce. Miles out at sea, on the desolate rocks of the Farallones, gleamed the powerful rays of one of the most costly and effective light-houses in the world. As we drew in through ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... had them struck out once by an editor! The first four lines, about the curtained and locked "coupe" in the train, were, we presume, looked upon as sure to set the hogs snorting over any such touch as "the isthmus of your waist." Some portions of "The Victories of Love" seem to have been worked into "Amelia." The piece entitled "Alexander and Lycon" does not strike us as being good enough for its company. But certainly we know of no such "lover's garland" as this, and ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... ship-loads, in caravans of one thousand mules, in masses that filled from cellar to attic of the King's Treasure House, where tribute of one-fifth was collected for royalty. It came from the subjugated Kingdom of Peru, by boat up the Pacific to the Port of Panama, by pack-train across the isthmus—mountainous, rugged, forests of mangroves tangled with vines, bogs that were bottomless—to Nombre de Dios, the Spanish fort on the Atlantic side, which had become the storehouse of all New Spain. Drake ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... gallant souls, Let's out, and drive them from that eminence, On which the foe, doth earth himself. I relish not, such haughty neighbourhood. Give orders, swiftly, to the Admiral, That some stout ship heave up the narrow bay, And pour indignant, from the full-tide wave, Fierce cannonade, across the isthmus point, That no assistance may be brought to them. If but seven hundred, we can treat with them. Yes, strew the hill, with death, and carcasses, And offer up, this band, a hecatomb, To Britain's glory, and ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... hand, before long the construction of the canal across the Isthmus of Panama, which will fulfill the dreams of the early navigators, which will accomplish the work projected for centuries, will at last be completed, while the men who are today active in the business of both countries are still ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... of the snow surrounding the north pole. To the system of the Mare Acidalium undoubtedly belong the temporary lake called Lacus Hyperboreus and the Lacus Niliacus. This last is ordinarily separated from the Mare Acidalium by means of an isthmus or regular dam, of which the continuity was only seen to be broken once for a short time in 1888. Other smaller dark spots are found here and there in the continental area which we may designate as lakes, but they are ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... winding around a like promontory beyond, leaving a peninsula of five hundred acres joined to the main land, by a narrow neck of some forty rods in width. Our first sport among the deer was to be the "driving" of this peninsula. We stationed ourselves on the narrow isthmus within a few rods of each other, while a boatman went round to the opposite side to lay on the dogs. We had been at our posts perhaps half an hour, when we heard the measured bounds of a deer, as he came crashing through the forest. We could see his white flag waving above the undergrowth, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... a trap Harold was not dismayed, but gave orders to sail to the inner end of the fiord. He knew that it ended near the North Sea, only a narrow isthmus dividing them. Then, with great trouble and labor, he managed to have his ships dragged across the isthmus and launched on the sea waters, and away he sailed in triumph, leaving Sweyn awaiting him ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... we knew it their forces had been added to ours, and the tunnel was begun, with the certainty that a two-thousand-barrel mill would be ready to grind the wheat from the elevator as soon as the flume began carrying water. This tunnel cut through an isthmus between the Brushy Creek valley and the river, and brought to bear on our turbines the head from a ten-mile loop of shoals and riffles. It opened into the gorge near the southern edge of Lynhurst Park, and crossed the Trescott farm. So it was that Bill ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... desired to share in the expedition, sailed with the Dolonkians and took possession of the land: and they who had invited him to come to them made him despot over them. First then he made a wall across the isthmus of the Chersonese from the city of Cardia to Pactye, in order that the Apsinthians might not be able to invade the land and do them damage. Now the number of furlongs 21 across the isthmus at this place is six-and-thirty, and from this isthmus the Chersonese within ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... and beds, or fair substitutes for beds. But then by this route the traveller must take a long additional sea voyage. He must convey himself and his weary baggage down to that wretched place on the Pacific, there wait for a steamer to take him to Panama, cross the isthmus, and reship himself in the other waters for his long journey home. That terrible unshipping and reshipping is a sore burden to the unaccustomed traveller. When it is absolutely necessary,—then indeed it is done without much thought; but in the case of ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... that the land of America was very wide in those parts, as wide as south of the isthmus where no man had yet crossed it. Then he told us of a sea-captain who had travelled inland in Mexico for five weeks and come to a land where gold was as common as chuckiestones, and a great people dwelt who worshipped a ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... that, out of some scores of ducks, we only detained one to ourselves, sending all the rest down to those stationed below. After this I landed at the head of the cove, and walked across the narrow isthmus that disjoins it from the sea, or rather from another cove which runs in from the sea about one mile, and lies open to the north winds. It, however, had all the appearance of a good harbour and safe ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... had to mend the ravages of that unnatural fight, and for seven months Harry had a little holiday lying on his back. No sooner recovered, the rover spirit seized his feet and round he came to California, by way of the Isthmus, where he acted as "a sort of reporter," until he had eked out enough knowledge to teach in the grade school. Thence he started on the law path, from which he emerged most triumphantly, and after practicing in California struck ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... 4. An Isthmus is that narrow neck of land which joins the Peninsula to the Continent, by which people go ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... steamer that was to convey her down the Danube to the Black Sea and the city of Constantinople. Thence she repaired to Broussa, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Damascus, Baalbek, the Lebanon, Alexandria, and Cairo; and travelled across the sandy Desert to the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. From Egypt the adventurous lady returned home by way of Sicily and Italy, visiting Naples, Rome, and Florence, and arriving in Vienna in December 1842. In the following year she published the ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... demesne, glebe, close, garth, holm, arado, assart, reliction, dereliction, alluvium, cadastre, appanage, arable, fallow, allodium, innings, abuttal; farm, plantation; continent, island, peninsula, delta, isthmus, headland, cape, plateau, barens. Associated Words: agronomy, agronomist, agronomics, agronomic, agricultre, agricultral, agriculturist, georgics, geoponics, escheat, arable, inarable, agrarian, agrarianism, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... hippopotami, no hyraces. All these peculiarly African animals, of African origin, I believe, found their way into Europe at least as far as the Sivalik Hills of India, but never across the Bering Sea Isthmus. The only truly African animal which reached America, and which flourished here in an extraordinary manner, was the elephant, or rather the mastodon, if we speak of the elephant in its Miocene stage of evolution. However, the resemblance between America and Africa is abundantly demonstrated ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... Pacific Railroad Company has been able to prevent effective water competition by way of the Isthmus of Panama. The Government has a line of steamers running from New York to the Isthmus, and a railroad line across the Isthmus. With an additional line of steamers running from San Francisco to Panama, the Government would have ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... was opened at her desire, but as they were then crossing the narrow isthmus of rock that connected the castle steep with the land, the wind, from that exposed position, was cutting sharp, and drove into the aperture the stinging snow, which entered the skin like ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the work, I enjoy the plant all right. There isn't anything like this equipment anywhere else. Lots of the fellows are here to fit themselves for work on the Isthmus. A good many of them are going to fail out on the finals. For all it's a rich man's son's school it's only fair to say the standard is kept up and I am told that over fifty failed to get through ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... should be carried out without war. The only measures of a military nature to which the British Government consented were the establishment in Thessaly of outposts for the control of the crops, and the occupation of the Isthmus of Corinth, should King Constantine attempt to move his army out of the Peloponnesus: unless the King committed acts of hostility, no violence should be used. Having thus satisfied their conscience, the British Ministers ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... its face evidence of its unhistorical character. As a matter of fact, the first goal of Alexander's conquest was the rich land of Egypt. Not being possessed of a navy, he entered it through its one vulnerable point, the Wady Tumilat, that ran from the Isthmus of Suez to the Nile Delta. By 331 B.C. he was master of the Nile Valley, and thence turned eastward, conquering in succession the different provinces of the great empire, until before his death in 323 B.C. his empire extended from the Mediterranean to the Indus, and in ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... done, and I left London in a night-coach for Southampton. The place of rendezvous was the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly—a spot almost as celebrated for those who are in transitu, as was the Isthmus of Suez of old. I took an inside seat this time, for the convenience of a nap. At first, I had but a single fellow-traveller. Venturing to ask him the names of one or two objects that we passed, and fearing he might think my curiosity impertinent, I apologized for it, by mentioning ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Englishmen that might be in the hands of the Spaniards. The project was a sufficiently daring one, for Nombre de Dios had at that time the reputation of being the Treasure-house of the World, since to it was brought across the isthmus, from Panama, all the treasure of Peru, for shipment to Spain, therefore it would almost certainly be well guarded by soldiers. On the other hand, however, probabilities favoured the assumption—which, as we have already seen, was correct—that the plate ships would by ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... In our Speculations of Eternity, we consider the Time which is present to us as the Middle, which divides the whole Line into two equal Parts. For this Reason, many witty Authors compare the present Time to an Isthmus or narrow Neck of Land, that rises in the midst of an Ocean, immeasurably diffused on either ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... brothers were noble youths, born of one mother, who sallied forth from Tulan, the golden city of the sun, and divided between them all the land from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the confines of Nicaragua, in other ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... State of Panama,[22] near the republics of New Granada and Costa Rica. The situation seemed favorable not only because of the ordinary advantages of soil and climate but also because of its proximity to a proposed canal across the Isthmus of Darien and because of its reputedly rich coal fields. There were two objections to this plan. One was the existence of a dispute over territory between the republics of Costa Rica and Granada. The other grew out of a specific examination of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... proper noun: Bay, block, building, canal, cape, cemetery, church, city, college, county, court (judicial), creek, dam, empire, falls, gulf, hall, high school, hospital, hotel, house, island, isthmus, kindergarten, lake, mountain, ocean, orchestra, park, pass, peak, peninsula, point, range, republic, river, square, school, state, strait, shoal, sea, slip, theatre, university, valley, etc.: South Hall, Park Hotel, Hayes Block, Singer Building, ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... his lecture tour into December, and then, on the 15th of that month, sailed by way of the Isthmus of Panama for New York. He had made some money, and was going home to see his people. He had planned to make a trip around the world later, contributing a series of letters to the "Alta California," lecturing ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Temple of Doboyba, of the golden sepulchres of Zenu; for gold was ever floating before their distempered vision, and the name of Castilla del Oro, Golden Castile, the most unhealthy and unprofitable region of the Isthmus, held out a bright promise to the unfortunate settler, who too frequently, instead of gold, found there ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... us from Leyden to Haarlem by the railway. It crosses an isthmus between the sea and a lake which covered the whole country between Leyden, Haarlem, and Amsterdam till 1839, when it became troublesome, and the States-General forthwith, after the fashion of Holland, voted its destruction. Enormous engines were at once employed to drain ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... have a tree for Christmas in this Louisiana isthmus, Where the orange trees are waving and ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... countries which had been conquered by Alexander. Even when at last convinced that they were different, he still flattered himself that those rich countries were at no great distance; and in a subsequent voyage, accordingly, went in quest of them along the coast of Terra Firma, and towards the Isthmus of Darien. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Castle. There is a wonderful precipice here. Further west we come to the village of Rossilly, near the Worms-Head, the termination of a range of rocks, which form the western point of the peninsula, being connected with it by a low isthmus. It extends more than a mile into the ocean, and at half-flood becomes an island. The name arose by mariners comparing it to a worm with its head erect, between the Nass Point and St. Gower's Head, in Pembrokeshire. The scenery here is deeply interesting. This ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... hills Natural resources: copper, mahogany forests, shrimp Land use: arable land 6%; permanent crops 2%; meadows and pastures 15%; forest and woodland 54%; other 23%; includes irrigated NEGL% Environment: dense tropical forest in east and northwest Note: strategic location on eastern end of isthmus forming land bridge connecting North and South America; controls Panama Canal that links North Atlantic Ocean via Caribbean ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... familiar objects to lunar observers. In the rude maps of the seventeenth century it figures as the "Lacus Niger Major," an appellation which not inaptly describes its appearance under a high sun, when the sombre tone of its apparently smooth interior is in striking contrast to that of the isthmus on which the formation stands. It will repay observation under every phase, and though during the last thirty years no portion of the moon has been more diligently scrutinised than the floor; the neighbourhood includes a very ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... frequent cut-offs behind the many islands of the river; for besides those islands which have been numbered, new ones are forming every year. At times, when the water is very high, the current will cut a new route across the low isthmus, or neck, of a peninsula, around which sweeps a long reach of the main channel, leaving the tortuous bend which it has deserted to be gradually filled up with snags, deposits of alluvium, and finally to be carpeted with a vegetable growth. In some cases, ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... by the Shubenacadie lakes, a chain—a bracelet—binding the province from the Basin of Minas to the seaboard. The eye never tires of this lovely feature of Acadia. Lake above lake—the division, the isthmus between, not wider than the breadth of your India shawl, my lady! I must declare that, all in all, the scenery of the province is surpassingly beautiful. As you ride by these sparkling waters, through the flowery, bowery, woods, you feel as if ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... political, its commercial, and its military bearings it has varied, great, and increasing claims to consideration. The heavy expense, the great delay, and, at times, fatality attending travel by either of the Isthmus routes have demonstrated the advantage which would result from interterritorial communication by such safe and rapid means ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... working at the quarters of a German artillery company, located on the isthmus next the Potomac side, an American Yankee soldier came around and raised a friendly conversation about the war issues and boasted about how he had fought for the Union and how much longer he would fight. A Louisianian made issue with him and showed ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... succeeded in my object, and brought them back in triumph through the Red Sea, across the Isthmus of Suez, and so by way of the Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, Southampton Water, the South-Western railway, and Alice's new dark-blue barouche, safe and sound to Clere and the castle, where they all are at this present speaking, unless some of ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... peninsula and trudged along the sandy isthmus with the plodding resolution of men who seemed almost to have made up their minds to be wanderers on the face of the earth. Despite Turnbull's air of scientific eagerness, he was really the less impatient of the two; and the Highlander ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... commerce, and the acquisition of scientific knowledge; the countries he passed through were accurately described, as he proceeded, and the intervals between halt and halt regularly measured.[72] His naval armaments explored nearly the whole distance from Attock on the Upper Indus to the Isthmus of Suez: his philosophers noted down the various productions and beasts of the unknown East; and his courtiers were the first to report to the western world ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... prosecution of the war. The Houses indeed were no mere tools in William's hands. They forced him to resume the prodigal grants of lands which he had made to his Dutch favourites, and to remove his Ministers in Scotland who had aided in a wild project for a Scotch colony on the Isthmus of Darien. They claimed a right to name members of the new Board of Trade which was established in 1696 for the regulation of commercial matters. They rejected a proposal, never henceforth to be revived, for a censorship of the Press. But there ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... of the world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing ship canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need consideration, but none of them has been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States in extending pecuniary ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... years I returned home by way of the Isthmus, when other and new interests claimed my time and attention, and I would only hear now and again that one and then another and yet others had left the trail and passed over the dividing ridge into the land where camps ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... the same year, under Hawkins and Drake, against the settlements of Spanish America. Repeated attacks had at length taught the Spaniards to stand on their defence; and the English were first repulsed from Porto Rico, and afterwards obliged to relinquish the attempt of marching across the isthmus of Darien to Panama. But the great and irreparable misfortune of the enterprise was the loss, first of the gallant sir John Hawkins, the kinsman and early patron of Drake, and afterwards of that great navigator himself, who fell a victim to the torrid ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... have undertaken the connection of the two oceans by means of a railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, under grants of the Mexican Government to a citizen of that Republic. It is understood that a thorough survey of the course of the communication is in preparation, and there is every reason to expect that it will ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... luminous certain stones, which gave light to the imprisoned voyagers. After a passage of three hundred and forty-four days, the colony landed on the western shore of North America, probably at a place south of the Gulf of California, and north of the Isthmus ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... huge barges passed us towed by a steamer and crammed with hundreds of the poor souls torn from their homes to work at the Isthmus of Suez, or some palace of the Pasha's, for a nominal piastre a day, and find their own bread and water and cloak. One of my crew, Andrasool, a black savage whose function is always to jump overboard whenever ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Vespasian in person. Twelve hundred of the aged and helpless he ordered to be slain, at once; six thousand of the most able-bodied he sent to Nero, to be employed on the canal he was digging across the isthmus of Corinth; thirty thousand four hundred were sold as slaves; and a large number were bestowed upon Agrippa, who also sold them as slaves. This act, after the formal promise of pardon, disgraces the memory of Vespasian even more than the wholesale massacres of the garrisons of the towns ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty |
