"Contraction" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of wharves or overhanging rocks. As they grow larger, they lose something of their gregarious disposition,—they scatter more; and at this time they prefer the sunniest exposures, and like to bask in the light and warmth. They assume every variety of attitude, but move always by the regular contraction and expansion of the disk, which rises and falls with rhythmical alternations, the average number of these movements being from twelve to fifteen in a minute. There can be no doubt that they perceive what is going on about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the greatest emotion of her experience. As a rule the most trying and embarrassing part of encountering a former lover is that you wonder what, under Heaven, induced you to like him so well? Here the position was reversed, so that Henrietta wondered—with a sickening little contraction of the heart—what, under Heaven, had prevented her liking him much more, why, under Heaven, she ever let him go? Of course, as things turned out, it was all for the best, since her insensibility made for righteousness, or anyhow for respectability—in ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... this classification, inasmuch as to every one but the subject of them, they are known only as transitory changes in the relative positions of parts of the body. Speech, gesture, and every other form of human action are, in the long run, resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular contraction is but a transitory change in the relative positions of the parts of a muscle. But the scheme which is large enough to embrace the activities of the highest form of life, covers all those of the lower creatures. The lowest plant, or animalcule, feeds, grows, and reproduces ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... by a network of cracks and fissures. Every one who is familiar with clay land, or who has observed the bottom of a ditch or frog pond by the roadside, must have observed these cracks, thus caused by the contraction of the soil in drying. The same contraction occurs in drier land, by cold, in Winter; by which, in cold regions, deep rents are made in the earth, and reports, like those of cannon, are often heard. The cracking by drying, however, is more quiet ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... there runs thus: "Si ergo in isto loco mansissem non Ysseal .i. imus esset id est non paruus sed altus .i. magnus et honorabilis." Here id est occurs three times, once in full, and twice represented by the common contraction .i., which is universally used in MSS. of Irish origin for the introduction of a gloss. If we write the sentence as below, we shall see the significance of the different ways in which the expression is written, and ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... cause it to tilt and sag out of its true position. As soon as it does this the weight of the bowels and other structures above will push and crowd it further out [115] of place. This crowding and tilting interferes with the circulation in the womb and its proper contraction is interfered with, and thus is laid the foundation for the multitude of womb ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... felt the air becoming fresher, and the strange contraction in our breasts was gradually relieved as our pace became less rapid, and distant lights showed before us. Then suddenly we emerged from the curious shaft down which we had travelled to such enormous depth, gliding slowly ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... when the commercial crash of 1837 carried disaster to multitudes, they survived. "We did not fail," said Mr. David, "for we owed no one anything, but we lost nearly all we had by the failure of others." The result of this experiment was a contraction of the system of credits and selling goods for cash or ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... contraction for Lizette, the name of the French horse-trainer and breeder, Jules La Rocque, gave to her mother, who in her day was queen of the ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... six miles to the north. It was still loose on the following morning, and I had the boiler pumped up with the intention of attempting to clear the propeller; but one of the manholes developed a leak, the packing being perished by cold or loosened by contraction, and the boiler had ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... large part of the people in the West were finding fault with "contraction." Calling in the greenbacks, they held, was making money scarce and lowering prices. Congress, therefore, in 1868 yielded to the pressure, and ordered that further contraction should stop and that there should not be less ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... painful effort and a choking contraction of the throat, he swallowed a few drops. But the greater part of the draught spilt out sideways, and would have dribbled down on to the pillows had not Katherine held ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... From Getting and Spreading Typhoid Fever.—Typhoid fever is a communicable disease, but, if certain precautions are taken, its contraction and spread ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... fifty-seven. We are not told from what source this table was made, but "Henry VIII." was first published in the folio of 1623. Professor Thorndike says that later editions have strictly followed it, and in Knight's edition, which he certifies to be a reprint of the first folio, "'em" as a contraction for "them" occurs just once and no more. Thus far, then, the new "test" seems to give ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... stealthy cowardice of Indian warfare. His invariable practice was, whenever a village or estate could be surprised, to sew up the leading inhabitants as tightly as possible in raw ox-hides stripped from their own cattle, when, being laid in the burning sun, the contraction of the hides as they dried caused a slow and lingering death of perfect agony, which it was the amusement of himself and the savages whom he led to enjoy whilst smoking their cigars. When any persons of influence fell into his hands, he cut out their tongues, and otherwise horribly mutilated ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... the legs were convulsed! Struck with this occurrence, he replaced the frog, took it down again, put it back, took it down, until he discovered that, as often as the damp frog (still hanging upon its copper hook) touched the iron nail, the contraction of the muscles took place, as if the frog had been touched by a conductor connected with an electrical machine. This experiment was repeated hundreds of times, and varied in as many ways as mortal ingenuity could devise. Galvani at length settled down upon the method following: ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... contraction of the lip accompanying this remark that Tom by no means fancied. He hastened to ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, in consequence of his having been hanged. He will never lose it, and it has not a little contributed to give him the horrible look he has, and to invest him with some of the seeming ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... technical work, namely, their relations to the impressions of the senses. The so-called dynamogenic experiments of the psychological laboratory have demonstrated what a manifold influence flows from the sense-impressions to the will-impulses. If the muscle contraction of a man's fist is measured, the experiment shows that the strongest possible pressure may be very different when the visual field appears in different colors, or tones of different pitch or different noises are stimulating the ear, and so on. As yet no systematic experiments ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... intrenchments, where, from the beginning of the combat, had been lying plenty of idle infantry, some of which at least, it seemed plain to me, ought to have been thrown into the fight. This action was the last one of consequence around Sedan, for, though with the contraction of the German lines their batteries kept cannonading more or less, and the rattle of musketry continued to be heard here and there, yet the hard fighting of the day practically ended ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... a movement of the head, which seemed to signify, "Since you are determined, duke, there is nothing to be said." Buckingham returned the gesture, concealing under a smile a contraction of his heart; and then Monsieur moved away in the same direction by which he had approached. At the same moment, however, De Guiche advanced from the opposite direction. Raoul feared that the impatient young ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is used for was, and were: I war, thou or thee wart, he war, &c., we have besides, we'm, you'm, they'm, for we, you, they, are, there is a constant tendency to pleonasm in some cases, as well as to contraction, and elision in others. Thus we have a lost, agone, abought, &c., for lost, gone, bought, &c., Chaucer has many of these prefixes; but he often uses y instead of a, as ylost. The frequent use of Z and V, the softened musical sounds for S and F, together ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... him with a slight contraction of the features. But the announcement, if ill-meant, availed to procure silence. The more sober had resumed their seats. He ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... discovery of the law of its rhythms, the measurement of its expansion and contraction, movement and pause, the pursuit of its evolution of forms and characters, are true achievements of the mind; but we cannot stop there. It is like a railway station; but the station platform is not our home. Only he has attained the final truth ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... words roused again into activity the loathsome memory which my interest in his story had partially deadened. He noticed the quick involuntary contraction of my muscles, and read it aright. "That reminds me," he went on; "I must claim your promise. I have told you my story. Now, tell ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... theoretical and practically impotent. It cannot be brought to understand that successful politics demands a "machine." Each of its individual members is a boss. They have been derisively termed "goo-goos," which is a contraction of "goody-goods." They are youthful, sanguine, patriotic, impertinent, impractical and self-sufficient. Their idea of conducting a campaign is nebulous. They believe that a number of voluble young men, clad irreproachably in evening dress and touring the city in carts after nightfall, ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... move at the shock of her touch, at the sound of his little name upon these unaccustomed lips. She was aware only of a subtle contraction, a sort of tightening going on somewhere within him. So Cally finished her small speech with her hand over his. But at just that point, a stir seemed to shake through the man; he was seen to be turning his head; and in the same breath, her moment of high strength broke abruptly. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... nerve and dexterity displayed by Mr. Sponge, Mr. Buckram stood meditating a further trial of his equestrian ability, as he watched him bucketing 'Ercles' about. Hercules had 'spang-hewed' so many triers, and the hideous contraction of his resolute back had deterred so many from mounting, that Buckram had begun to fear he would have to place him in the only remaining school for incurables, the 'bus. Hack-horse riders are seldom great horsemen. The ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... and the race by habitually lowering our powers of life and energy in such a manner. As a matter of fact it is doubtful whether any persons have ever been found who would say that their stays were at all tight; and, indeed, by a muscular contraction they can apparently prove that they are not so by moving them about on themselves, and thus probably believe what they say. That they are in error all the same they can easily assure themselves by first measuring round the waist outside the stays; then take them off, let them measure ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Aline slipped into the room on hurried feet, her eyes dilated, her hair in anxious disorder. But the invalid made no signal. She lay with closed eyelids, the contraction of her nostrils a faint proclamation of life. Again the niece took her place at the headboard, and with folded fingers watched the whispering indications of speedy flight. The maid soon beckoned her from a narrowed door. Aline ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... softly. "I did not give your major-domo my word that I was unarmed. I merely gave him a weapon. I got these from two policemen who tried to arrest me an hour or so ago. And I also remind you, Senhor, that if the armed men you have posted to prevent my escape try to shoot me, that the inevitable contraction of my muscles will send two bullets into your heart—even if I am dead. I am a dead man, Senhor, if you give the word, but so are you if you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... continually received, in twirling the merciless thing around and behind his devoted head, were due to some kind of crowding influence from the boundaries on either side the way, and it was to gain relief from such damaging contraction of area that he left the highway for the wider wintry fields. Going onward in these latter at an irregular pace; sometimes momentarily stunned into a rangy stagger by a sounding blow on the cerebrum or the cerebellum; and, again, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... Arkwright, pleased; for with truly human vanity he had accepted the compliment and had thrown away the criticism. "I'll go bring Josh Craig." "No, not to-night," said Miss Severence, with a sudden compression of the lips and a stern, almost stormy contraction of the brows. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... seat opposite the princess and her niece. Though he seemingly endured with the most Christianly patience all the railleries of the young woman who possessed all kinds of precious mines, the furtive glance he cast on her now and then, and the contraction of his thin lips, betrayed the rancour that filled his heart and foreboded no ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... inclosed within a hide, a skin covered with hair; and if that hide or skin be taken off, we find a great mass of flesh, or what is technically called muscle, being the substance which by its power of contraction enables the animal to move. These muscles move the hard parts one upon the other, and so give that strength and power of motion which renders the Horse so useful to us in the performance of those services ...
— The Present Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... of her face. The smile lingered, but it had become merely a muscular contraction, like the smile on dead lips. The soul ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... contraction of my stomach, an icy chill, a gradual though rapid cessation of consciousness and being. For what period I know not I slept the sleep ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... trade union members were returned as unemployed during August 1914, whilst in coal mining the percentage was 1.3. As compared with the previous month of July, there was a general decline in all industries except shipbuilding, which benefited by increased activity on Government work. The contraction in the volume of employment was specially marked in the case of tin-plate works and in the textile, furnishing and woodworking, and pottery trades. Again, in the trades where the Government scheme of compulsory ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... the voice for the more vigorous or intense forms of speaking is a contraction or straining of the throat. This impedes the free flow of voice, causing impaired tone, poor enunciation, and unhealthy physical conditions. Students should, therefore, be constantly warned against ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... him. While he undressed, the two surgeons opened their surgical cases and displayed the array of glittering steel instruments within. One of them was a youngish man, pale, bald, and with feminine hands and a hard mouth, with a continual and visible contraction of the lower jaw, which was extraordinarily developed. The other was a thickset man of mature years with a freckled face, bushy red beard and the neck of an ox. The one seemed the antithesis of the other, and their disparity excited Sperelli's curiosity and attention. They ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... heart is caused by its alternate expansion and contraction, as it receives and expels the blood. With one throb, the blood is sent from the right ventricle into the lungs, and from the ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... but I will to stretch out my arm, and lo! it remains glued to my side, for I have suddenly been paralysed. Or I may be told that the consciousness of exerting power is a mere experience of muscular contraction, and the like. I would ask you to think rather of your power of directing the succession of your own thoughts. I am directly conscious, for instance, that the reason why I am now thinking of Causality, and not (say) of Tariff ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... to Abby's question, Amos Lee frowned with a swift contraction of dissent, but did not speak until Abby had retorted. "You needn't talk that way to me, Granville Joy," said she. "You can't cheat ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... them predominates. An animal does not die unless the mixture of the heart is injured, or the heart is wounded seriously. Death is also caused by disease or injury of the brain. For the brain is the origin of the nerves which control the voluntary activities by means of contraction and expansion. If the chest does not contract, the warm air does not come out; if it does not expand, the cold air does not come in; and if the air does not come in or out, the heart loses its proportionality, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... death was spasmodic contraction of every muscle in the thing's body; some of them were partly relaxed before we could get to work on it, but not completely. Every bone that isn't broken is dislocated; a good many both. There is not the slightest ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... now seen more clearly than at any earlier period, that most of the planets possess special characteristics which distinguish them from one another, and that such an origin as Laplace suggested—the slow cooling and contraction of one vast sun-mist or nebula, besides presenting inherent difficulties—many think them impossibilities—in itself does not afford an adequate explanation of these peculiarities. Hence has arisen what is termed the Meteoritic theory, which has been ably ...
— Is Mars Habitable? • Alfred Russel Wallace
... was in rather urgent circumstances just then, and his troubles had closed in recently with a noiseless, but tremendous contraction, like that iron shroud in Mr. Mudford's fine tale; and to have gone away into outer darkness, with no project on the stocks, and the attorney's countenance averted, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the forehead and on the ears, round the mouth and under the nostrils, on the arms and legs. In cases of very long standing, a peculiar whitish discoloration of the skin and gums was to be noticed, with abnormal contraction of the pupils. That such a disease is well rooted in the country we have proof enough in the foul teeth which the majority of Tibetans possess. In nearly all cases that I examined, the teeth were, even in young men, so loose, decayed and broken as to make me feel quite sorry for ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... is interesting; coming directly from the Romans, who wrote it vipera. This in turn is a contraction of the feminine form of the adjective vivipera, in reference to the habit of these snakes of bringing forth their ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... him, clinging with both hands to the seat. The skiff creaked and danced upon the river. She could not close her eyes, a frightful contraction kept them wide open riveted on the hideous struggle. She remained rigid ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... are used in the treatment of constipation. If it is the purpose of the injection to soften hardened fecal masses, the water should be comfortably warm and may have a little clean soap in it. If it is the purpose of the injection to stimulate sluggish bowels to contraction, the water ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... warlike title, had a most pacific appearance. He was large and fat, with a broad, hazy, muffin face, a sleepy eye, and a full double chin. He had a deep ravine from each corner of his mouth, not occasioned by any irascible contraction of the muscles, but apparently the deep-worn channels of two rivulets of gravy that oozed out from the huge mouthfuls that he masticated. But I forbear to dwell on the odd beings that were congregated together in one hotel. I have been thus prolix about ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... silent. There was a contraction of pain in his face, as though a violent mental struggle were going on within him. Unorna tapped the pavement impatiently with her foot and bent ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... cylindrical end of the tube, and retains that calibre until it reaches the point where the cylinder subsides into the mouth-piece, when it contracts gradually to one-tenth of an inch. The inner surface of the tube is perfectly smooth till within a short distance of the point of contraction. For the remaining distance the circular striae, formed by the drill in boring, are distinctly marked. The carving ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... from towns and provinces as if they were organs and limbs of a single living body. The second is the vast system of iron muscles which, as it were, move the limbs of the mighty organism one upon another. What was the railroad-force which put the Sixth Regiment in Baltimore on the 19th of April but a contraction and extension of the arm of Massachusetts with a clenched fist full of bayonets ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... beats or the dropping of one or more beats at regular or irregular intervals. The latter condition sometimes occurs in chronic diseases of the brain. The pulse is said to be weak, or soft, when the beats are indistinct, because little blood is forced through the artery by each contraction of the heart. This condition occurs when there is a constriction of the vessels leading from the heart and it occurs in certain infectious and febrile diseases, and is ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the hermit's breast, although ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... N. decrease, diminution; lessening &c. v.; subtraction &c. 38; reduction, abatement, declension; shrinking &c. (contraction.) 195; coarctation|; abridgment &c. (shortening) 201; extenuation. subsidence, wane, ebb, decline; ebbing; descent &c. 306; decrement, reflux, depreciation; deterioration &c. 659; anticlimax; mitigation &c. (moderation) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... grieve to say that these irreverent brethren had long ago fallen into the scandalous habit of calling their teacher by a familiar contraction of his proper name, nor had the master rebuked them). "Hurrah, Jeff! we were afraid you ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... true, gentlemen. I have it from our friend the Priest (Lepretre), [Footnote: The name Lepretre is a contraction of the two words "le pretre," meaning the priest; hence the name under which this man died.] who saw him relay at Lyons one hour before me, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... articles is also effective, e.g. Delmar, Delamere, Delapole, impress more than Mears and Pool, and Larpent (Fr. I'arpent), Lemaitre, and Lestrange more than Acres, Masters, and Strange. There are few names of less heroic sound than Spark and Codlin, yet the former is sometimes a contraction of the picturesque Sparrow-hawk, used as a personal name by the Anglo-Saxons, while the latter can be traced back via the earlier forms Quodling (still found), Querdling, Querdelyoun ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... her avarice, all her rage of a saving woman against the man of whom she had always been suspicious, and against the girl whom she had always suspected, showed themselves in the contraction of her mouth, and the wrinkles in the cheeks and forehead of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... think her unfeeling if he liked; she felt as if she had only too much feeling just then, for it was bringing on her a strange contraction of heart. But he was too inherently good himself to put any harsh construction on her speech. Just before he went away, while he was ostensibly holding her hand and wishing her good-by, he said to her in a voice too low to ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... most instances has already happened beyond repair. Here there is no new and dangerous disturbance of the nation's economy whatever; and the fluctuations of value in the future which are inseparable from the gradual contraction of the volume of paper, continued until it has reached its nominal value, are avoided: this last, of course, only on the supposition that either the pure metallic or the redeemable paper currency is rigidly adhered to.(943) But the problem, how to protect both parties(944) to contracts ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... ears. They poised at the sides of Leon's shaved head of black bristles, as if butterflies had just lighted there, whispering, with very spread wings, their message, and presently would fly off again. By some sort of muscular contraction, he could wiggle these ears at will, and would do so for a penny, a whistle, and upon one occasion for his brother Rudolph's dead rat, so devised as to dangle from string and window before the unhappy passer-by. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... As the contraction and rod-like separation of the chromosomes serve to isnure the transmission of all hereditary units in the products of division of a nucleus, so, on the other hand, the reticular distension of each chromosome in the so-called resting nucleus may effect a separation of the carriers ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... form {Daos} is evidently a mere contraction, and any claim it may have had to represent more closely the original form of the name is to be disregarded in view ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... judgment, a constant embarrassment to the Government and a safe balance in the Treasury. Therefore I believe it necessary to devise a system which, without diminishing the circulating medium or offering a premium for its contraction, will present a remedy for those arrangements which, temporary in their nature, might well in the years of our prosperity have been displaced by wiser provisions. With adequate revenue secured, but not until then, we ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... complete thermometer. The water in the glass tube is caused to rise and fall by the expansion and contraction of the air in the tin box. A paper-fastener ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... and raises and lowers his arm). It would be interesting to produce contraction! The subject ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... anticipatory preparation for the liquid state were going on previous to the completion of the change. Performing the experiment again at 32 deg. C. (90 deg. Fahr.), the anticipatory preparation and the after-continuation of the contraction were more marked, and, instead of a separate and distinct liquid, wavy and mobile striae were perceived on the sides of the vessel as the only signs of a change of state which had not yet been effected. At temperatures above 32 deg. C. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... lethargy alternating with periods of apparent recovery. On the other hand, the disease is said to be confined to negroes; but that probably means only that negroes alone have hitherto been exposed to the conditions that produce it. A more important fact is that, as far as I know, extreme contraction of the pupils is not a symptom of sleeping sickness. To sum up, the probabilities are against sleeping sickness, but with our insufficient knowledge, we cannot definitely ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... the young girl's affection for him, when a trembling hand touched his arm. He turned round. Jeanne de Cernay was before him, pale and wan; her eyes sunken into her head like two black nails, and her lips tightened by a violent contraction. The Prince stood thunderstruck at the sight of her. He looked around him. Nobody was observing him. Pierre was beside Marechal, who was whispering those words which only true friends can find in the sad hours of life. Madame Desvarennes was ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... circumstance that too well confirmed the fact of De Haldimar's death having been accomplished by the ball from Sir Everard Valletort's rifle. It appeared, however, the ill-fated officer had struggled much in the agonies of death; for the left leg was drawn Up into an unnatural state of contraction, and the right hand, closely compressed, grasped a quantity of grass and soil, which had evidently been torn up in a paroxysm ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... equivalent to an alteration of every weight and measure employed by commerce. Understand? When the purchasing power of the dollar expands or contracts it has the same effect on exchange as would the expansion or contraction of the yard, the gallon ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Hesper's, her mouth was large and good, with fine teeth; her chin projected a little too much; her hands were finer than Hesper's, but bony. Her name was Septimia; Lady Margaret called her Sepia, and the contraction seemed to so many suitable that it was ere long generally adopted. She was in mourning, with a little crape. To the first glance she seemed as unlike Hesper as she could well be; but, as she stood gently regarding the two, Mary, gradually, and to her ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... graceful and trifling exercise of the imagination, in the grimy ballad of Fat Peg (Grosse Margot). I am not able to follow these gentlemen to this polite extreme. Out of all Villon's works that ballad stands forth in flaring reality, gross and ghastly, as a thing written in a contraction of disgust. M. Longnon shows us more and more clearly at every page that we are to read our poet literally, that his names are the names of real persons, and the events he chronicles were actual events. But even if the tendency of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Alderman Van Beverout was not easily disturbed. Still there was a play of the nether muscles of the face, which might be construed into self-complacency at his victory, while a certain contraction of those which controlled the expression of the forehead seemed to betray a full consciousness of the imminent risk he had run. The left hand was thrust into a pocket, where it diligently fingered the provision of Spanish coin without which the ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... CHARACTER (a contraction of "characteristic"), a term which is used, often rather vaguely, to designate any function, feature, or organ of ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... and thus they can nowise be together, since they are altogether contrary to one another, either on the part of the object (as when they have the same object), or at least on the part of the movement, for joy is with expansion [*Cf. I-II, Q. 33, A. 1] of the heart, whereas sorrow is with contraction; and it is in this sense that the Philosopher speaks in Ethic. ix. Secondly, we may speak of joy and sorrow as being simple acts of the will, to which something is pleasing or displeasing. Accordingly, they cannot be contrary to one another, except ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... news between 'em," he said to his companion, who had been the silent auditor of the conversation. A moment of indecision on the part of the Grangers had given him time to make this observation, but it was not concluded when Reuben's cracked voice sang out cheerfully, "Ye don't say!" A slight contraction passed over Stephen's face. Much as he would have liked to mark the bit of information for his own, now that it had been appropriated by another, he gave no further sign. The noise of the wagon died along the road, and still Reuben and Stephen Granger sat gazing straight ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... or the bird singing on the bough just over his head tell him that the hunter was near. Tayoga looked again down the arrow at the chosen place on the gleaming body of the deer, and with a sudden and powerful contraction of the muscles, bending the bow a little ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... apply a searching hand and know to a certainty that the constrictors of neck, or other muscles or ligaments do not pull cervical and hyoid bones so close as to bruise pneumogastric or any other nerves or fibres that would cause spasmodic contraction of digastric, stylo-hyoid or the whole remaining group of neck muscles and ligaments, with which you are or should be very familiar. Ever remember that the venous drainage must be kept normally active or congestion, ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... pyramids, when the only engines were living men. The whole confection is now undergoing incalculable chemical reactions between its several parts. Lime, mortar, and microscopical organisms are producing undesigned chromatic effects in the paper and plaster; the plaster, having methods of expansion and contraction of its own, crinkles and cracks; the skirting, having absorbed moisture and now drying again, opens its joints; the rough-cast coquettes with the frost and opens chinks and crannies for the humbler ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... his Times, saw a pale startled look. It seemed to be caused by something in the landscape. He turned his eyes to the window and saw that they were passing an old manor house, with a gabled front, standing above the line, among trees. What could that have had to do with the sudden contraction of the beautiful brow, the sudden look of terror—or distress? The house had a certain resemblance to Monk Lawrence. Had it reminded her of that speech in the Latchford marketplace from which he was certain she had ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... daylight made him blink painfully for a minute. But by the time he got his chance at greeting the invalid, he was able to see clearly for himself just how Sally was looking. He stared hard at her, noting with a contraction of the heart all the evidences of the fight for life she had been through. There was no doubt about it, it was as Josephine had said: she looked as if a breath ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... their native land, But, though (from the necessity of the times) Solon went to this desperate extent of remedy, comparable in our age only to the formal sanction of a national bankruptcy, he rejected with firmness the wild desire of a division of lands. There may be abuses in the contraction of debts which require far sterner alternatives than the inequalities of property. He contented himself in respect to the latter with a law which set a limit to the purchase of land—a theory of legislation not sufficiently to be praised, if it were possible to enforce it [202]. At first, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from Mrs. Renshaw's usual style, which explains the slight lack of fluency. The last line of the third stanza contains a redundant syllable, a defect which might be corrected by the removal of the article before the word "louder", or by the poetical contraction of "sympathy" into "symp'thy". The third line of the fourth stanza possesses only four feet. This may be an intentional shortening to give rhetorical effect, yet it mars none the less the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... height. She was as well made as most women. In hair and complexion she was neither light nor dark, but provokingly neutral just between the two. Worse even than this, there were positive defects in her face, which it was impossible to deny. A nervous contraction at one corner of her mouth drew up the lips out of the symmetrically right line, when, they moved. A nervous uncertainty in the eye on the same side narrowly escaped presenting the deformity of a "cast." And yet, with these indisputable drawbacks, here was one of those women—the ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... hereditary name of a long and illustrious lineof Dakota Chiefs. Wabashaw is a corrupt pronounciation. The name is a contraction of "Wa-pa-ha-sa," which is from "Wa-ha-pa," the standard or pole used in the Dakota dances, and upon which feathers of various colors are tied, and not from "Wa-pa"—leaf or leaves, as has been generally ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... complained of Oneguine's want of courtesy. He always replied "da" or "nyet," yes or no, instead of "das" or "nyets"—the final s being a contraction of "sudar" or ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... is a contraction of the Dutch's Gravenhage—the haag, or "hunting lodge," of the Graf, ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... construction equipment, tractors, agricultural machinery, and some defense items. The breakup of the USSR and the collapse of demand for Kazakstan's traditional heavy industry products have resulted in a sharp contraction of the economy since 1991, with the steepest annual decline occurring in 1994. In 1995-96 the pace of the government program of economic reform and privatization quickened, resulting in a substantial shifting of assets into the private sector. The December 1996 signing of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... respiration, the contraction and dilation (systole and diastole) of the heart, the ebb and flow of the tides, as also day and night, sleeping and waking, summer and winter, life and death, are all products of that law of ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... cut out of the cliff appeared to be the worst. It began to widen, with descents less precipitous. Tips of trees rose level with her gaze, obstructing sight of the blue depths. Then brush appeared on each side of the road. Gradually Carley's strain relaxed, and also the muscular contraction by which she had braced herself in the seat. The horses began to trot again. The wheels rattled. The road wound around abrupt corners, and soon the green and red wall of the opposite side of the canyon loomed close. Low roar of running water ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... imagine, as we are most rationally allowed to, that Mars has undergone a progressive secularization in cooling, that contraction has acted upon its surface as it has on ours, that water has accumulated in basins and depressed troughs, that atmospheric currents have been started, that meteorological changes in consequence have followed, and that the range of physical conditions embraces phases naturally very much ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... dead on the top of him. One quiver, one contraction of the claws (in poor Scroope's leg) and all was over. There it lay as though it were asleep, and ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... some chemists, that the progressive interior cooling and contraction of our orb will cause ever greater interstices or vacant spaces among the solid substances below the outer crust; and that into these pores, first all liquids, then all gases and the whole atmosphere, will be absorbed: so that the world will be left ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... or expansion, Drawing nearer, or contraction, Falling, rising, Slanting, crossing, Convex, concave, curved lines, Convex, concave, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... word of honor, madam, I know nothing of your necklace," asserted Greene, with a painful contraction of his features. "If this gentleman can throw ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... by some writers, I confidently believe. It is, however, cold enough to freeze mercury, and to reduce every other substance employed as a test of atmospheric or laboratory temperatures to a solidity which admits of no further contraction. I had filled one outside thermometer with spirit, but this was broken before I looked at it; and in another, whose bulb unfortunately was blackened, and which was filled with carbonic acid gas, an apparent vacuum had been created. Was it that ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... of syphilis appearing years after its contraction, occur especially in the shape of disorders of the blood-vessels and of the nervous system—apoplexy, paralysis, insanity and locomotor ataxia for example; and these but too often appear after the man has acquired a family ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... restored. This system confines itself mostly to chronic diseases. In the paralysis of the young, in defective volition from hysteria, in impaired local nutrition, in local deformities dependent on muscular contraction, and in lateral curvature of the spine, it unquestionably often produces the best results. Its advocates claim for it much more. On its further benefits we are unable to decide. Like all things else, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... fifty arguments of safety, and precedent, and high authority to justify her. But, indeed, we may observe, that in a religious attorney these illiberal scruples do not often occur. Mr. M'Slime knew the advantages of religion too well, to feel that contraction of the mind and principles, which in so many ordinary cases occasions religion and common morality to become almost identical. Religion was to him a friend—a patroness in whose graces he stood so high, that she permitted him to do many things which those who were ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... pisanorum." Of course I have my own conjecture on the subject, but should be glad to hear other opinions; so I again put the question to your correspondents. In conclusion I would observe to "GASTROS" that they must be very late MSS. indeed in which such a contraction as pisan for partisan can be found. If you have room, and think it worth while, I will from time to time send you some corrections of the more ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... in the corridors, passages and vestibules, but for comfort having a covering of wood in the audience room. The roof was of iron and masonry, the outer covering of slate being secured to masonry blocks. The iron roof beams of over one hundred feet span, were mounted on rollers to allow for contraction and expansion. The ceiling of the audience room was of iron. The ornamental work of the proscenium, the tier balustrades, and the frames of the partitions between the boxes were all of metal. The stage was supported by a complex iron system of about four thousand ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... gleam in his eye, could keep his face from paling a little or his lips from tightening, as he now beheld the inmost shrine of two hundred and thirty million human beings. Nor did any of the Legionaries, bold as they were, look upon it without a strange contraction of the heart. As for the Apostate Sheik, that old jackal of the desert was crouched in his place of confinement, with terror clutching at his soul; with visions of being torn to pieces by furious Sunnite mobs ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... diminished by the loss of Portugal; which, in 1664, the Lusitanians recovered, and proclaimed the Duke of Braganza King. When we add to this the loss of much of the Netherlands, and of the island of Jamaica, and concessions here and there to France and to Italy, it will be obvious that a process of contraction had soon followed that ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... production of a scoffer's pen," or it is any thing, but dull. Rasselas indeed is dull; but then it is privileged dulness. It may not be proper in a grave, discreet, orthodox, promising young divine, who studies his opinions in the contraction or distension of his patron's brow, to allow any merit to a work like Candide; but we conceive that it would have been more in character, that is, more manly, in Mr. Wordsworth, nor do we think it would have hurt the cause he espouses, if he had blotted ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... backbone of his invention. His "thermometer kirb," he himself says, "is composed of two thin plates of brass and steel, riveted together in several places, which, by the greater expansion of brass than steel by heat and contraction by cold, becomes convex on the brass side in hot weather and convex on the steel side in cold weather; whence, one end being fixed, the other end obtains a motion corresponding with the changes of heat and cold, and the two pins at the end, between which the balance spring passes, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... a muddy viscous water, brought away by violent efforts. Sometimes streaks of blood have been observed in this fluid. These convulsions are characterised by the precipitous, involuntary motion of all the limbs, and of the whole body; by the contraction of the throat—by the leaping motions of the hypochondria and the epigastrium—by the dimness and wandering of the eyes—by piercing shrieks, tears, sobbing, and immoderate laughter. They are preceded or followed by a state of langour or reverie, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... him and bathed his head and occasionally got a drop or two of weak brandy or wine and water down. Then came the last struggle. Oh! how I thanked God when his head at length fell back, or rather his whole body, for it was without joint, on my arm: long drawn sighs with still sadder contraction of feature succeeded, and while I said the Commendatory Prayer, he ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... droll, but somehow I can't laugh at you," he said, his handsome face drawn by his pain to a contraction sufficiently attesting the fact. "Do you remember the second time I ever saw you—the day you recited at my place?" he abruptly asked; a good deal as if he were taking from his quiver an arrow which, if it was the last, was also ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... of the Reduplicating Verbs; that is, those verbs that originally formed their preterits not by internal vowel change (ablaut), but by prefixing to the present stem the initial consonant e (cf. Gk. le-loipa and Lat. d[)e]-di). Contraction then took place between the syllabic prefix and the root, the fusion resulting in or o: *he-hat ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now, speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable MARK of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... down, are not so compressed, and continue to send the blood into the hand, and thus it accumulates. As soon as this pressure is removed, the blood springs onward from the restraint with accelerated motion. This same process takes place when any of the muscles are exercised. The contraction of any muscle presses some of the veins, so that the blood can not flow the natural way, while the valves in the veins prevent its flowing backward. Meantime the arteries continue to press the blood along until the veins become swollen. ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his own children, and his domestic pets, were incessantly watched, and suitable experiments were devised to bring out the real nature of their expressions. The period at which tears are formed and crying begins, the shape of the mouth in crying, the contraction of the muscles in shouting, the effects of steady gazing at objects, the various stages of smiling, the effects of shyness, shame, and fear, are all set before us, as thus observed. For instance, "I asked one of my boys to shout as loudly as ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... for luncheon, I suppose," she said carelessly, although there was a slight contraction of the eyelids. "He is ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... strength of the liquor he had drunk. They went into the Painting Room, and found Mr. Blyth there, pale and penitent, but manfully preparing to varnish The Golden Age, with a very trembling hand, and a very headachy contraction of ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... of memory, melancholy, sallow complexion, indigestion, loss of appetite, nervous symptoms. Spasmodic muscular contraction of the external sphincter. The bowel contents press upon it; spasm of this sphincter muscle is frequently brought on by the presence of a crack in the mucous membrane, caused by injury inflicted during expulsion of hardened feces. Instead of aiding a bowel movement, the muscles now present an ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... heart. Look to the door then, Katey. That was what made me so ready to fall in love with Laetitia. Her figure was graceful, and I think, even now, her face would have been beautiful but for a certain contraction of the skin over the nostrils, suggesting an invisible thumb and forefinger pinching them, which repelled me, although I did not then know what it indicated. I had not been with her one evening before the impression it made on me had vanished, ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... when the letters were frequent, it was frequent for Rosalie to greet the sight of them with just the swiftest, tiniest little contraction of her brows. Nothing at all really. Meaning virtually nothing and of itself absolutely nothing. Possessing a significance only by contrast, as a fine shade in silk or wool will not disclose a pronounced hue until contrasted with another. The contrast here, to give the thing significance, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... and get your time." His surprise was genuine as Bruce went on—"Do you imagine," he asked savagely, trying to steady his voice, "that I haven't intelligence enough to know that you've got to allow for the swaying of the trees in the wind, for the contraction and expansion of heat and cold, for the weight of snow and sleet? Do you think I haven't brains enough to see when you're deliberately destroying another man's work? I've been trying to make myself believe in you—believe that in spite of your faults you were honest. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... measuring-rods and clocks from the equations of transformation, for the magnitudes z, y, x, t, are nothing more nor less than the results of measurements obtainable by means of measuring-rods and clocks. If we had based our considerations on the Galileian transformation we should not have obtained a contraction of the rod as a consequence ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... liver: congestion, hardening and shrinking cirrhosis. (h) Diseases of the kidneys: change of structure into fatty or waxy-like condition and other changes leading to dropsy. (i) Diseases of the muscles: fatty changes in the muscles, by which they lose their power for proper active contraction. (j) Diseases of the membranes of the body: thickening and loss of elasticity, by which the parts wrapped up in the membrane are impaired for use, and premature decay ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... the little one, with a repelling gesture of the hand and a very impressive contraction of the brow. 'These are questions which I cannot answer, and, what is more, cannot suffer. It is not civil to put questions of the WHENCE and the WHAT. If thou wilt trust me, and I should think that I have the air of a proper gentleman, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... letter was then handed to Barre, who read it. An individual who was present on the occasion described to me the impression which the reading of the letter produced on Napoleon. His countenance exhibited that violent contraction of the features which I have often remarked when his mind was disturbed. However, he did not lose his self-command, which indeed never forsook him when policy or vanity required that he should retain it; and when the reading of Beurnonville's letter was ended ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Brian felt the whip stroking across his naked back. His muscles corded and heaved up in horrible contraction, but no sound broke from him; again and again the hide whip licked about him until he felt the warm blood running down his legs, and then with merciful suddenness all things went black, and he hung limp against ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... gradually obliterates the capillaries, until at the end of two, three, or four weeks both vessels and cells have almost entirely disappeared, and the original wound is occupied by cicatricial tissue. In course of time this tissue becomes consolidated, and the cicatrix undergoes a certain amount of contraction—cicatricial contraction. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... may know better in what this originality consists, we find that our author, after expatiating on the vast area of the Pantheon, "illuminated solely by the small circular opening in the dome above," and on other similar conditions of luminous contraction, tells us that "to Rembrandt belongs the glory of having first embodied in Art, and perpetuated, these rare and beautiful effects of nature." Such effects are indeed rare in nature; but they are not rare, absolutely. The sky, with the sun in ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... rather short and stocky, not to say fat; but if any of his friends mentioned such a thing Chet was up in arms at once. Chet, I might explain, was a contraction for Chetfield; the lad being named ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... contraction of Amir or Emir, much used by the Persians. From Amir comes our Admiral, first used by the Europeans during the crusades.—Astl. I. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... Dante (Durante, by contraction Dante) degli Alighieri was born at Florence in 1265, probably during the month of May.[5] This is the date given by Boccaccio, who is generally followed, though he makes a blunder in saying, sedendo Urbano quarto nella cattedra di San Pietro, for Urban died in October, 1264. Some, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... at this time nineteen, and for the last ten years had been afflicted with a disease in the hip-joint, which, in spite of the most anxious care, caused him frequent and severe suffering, and had occasioned such a contraction of the limb as to cripple him completely, while his general health was so much affected as to render him an object of constant anxiety. His mother had always been his most devoted and indefatigable nurse, giving up everything for his sake, and watching him night ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Forum. It must be the effect of the experience, at all extended, that when you think of Rome afterwards you will think still respectfully and regretfully enough of the Vatican and the Pincio, the streets and the picture-making street life; but will even more wonder, with an irrepressible contraction of the heart, when again you shall feel yourself bounding over the flower-smothered turf, or pass from one framed picture to another beside the open arches of the crumbling aqueducts. You look back at the City so often from some grassy hill-top—hugely compact within ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... trembling there, she saw that it was too late. Like a pointer freezing to the scent, Lynch's whole body had stiffened; one hand gripped the leveled Colt, a finger caressed the trigger. At this juncture a cry would almost surely bring that tiny, muscular contraction ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... or Nullah; called by travellers "winter-brook" and "dry river-bed." It is a channel without water, formed, probably, by secular cooling and contraction of the earth's surface, like the fissures which became true streams in the tropics, and in the higher temperate zones. Its geological age would be the same as the depressions occupied by the ocean and the "massive" eruptions forming the mountain-skeleton of the globe. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... mediaeval builders did this with a view of counteracting the "crawl" of the lead. Lead, under the variations of temperature of the atmosphere, expands and contracts considerably; and from its own weight, and the steepness of the roofs, the contraction takes place in a downward direction, and starts the joints, letting in the weather. This raking of the vertical rolls was a device whereby the old builders in some measure got over their difficulty by inducing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Norwich - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. H. B. Quennell
... note) says that these post-stations were established by Okkodai in 1234 throughout the Mongol empire. (D'Ohsson, ii. 63.) Dr. G. Schlegel (T'oung Pao, II. 1891, 265, note) observes that iam is not, as Pauthier supposed, a contraction of yi-ma, horse post-house (yi-ma means post-horse, and Pauthier makes a mistake), but represents the Chinese character [Chinese], pronounced at present chan, which means in fact a road station, a post. In Annamite, this character [Chinese] is pronounced tram, and it ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Solemnity called a Contraction a little before the Consummation of a marriage was allowed of. A Pastor was usually employed and a sermon also ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... one-millionth part of its length for a rise of one degree Centigrade at ordinary atmospheric temperature. For this reason it is used in watches and measuring instruments. The alloy of iron with 46 per cent. nickel is called "platinite" because its rate of expansion and contraction is the same as platinum and glass, and so it can be used to replace the platinum wire passing through the glass of an electric ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... want, Pannell?" I said, giving him a touch on the arm; but the hammer rose and fell still by the contraction of his right hand, and went ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... primitive lands. But in this state of things there was no order of events similar to the present; the crust of the globe was exceedingly slender, and the source of fire a small distance from the surface. In consequence of contraction in one part of the mass, cavities were opened, which caused the entrance of water, and immense volcanic explosions took place, raising one part of the surface, depressing another, producing mountains, and causing new and extensive depositions from ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... Mr. Birge, "yours is a very singular name. Fortunate that it is, or I never would have found you again; but it must be a contraction ...
— Three People • Pansy |
