"Decompose" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like tar, peat, and vegetable fiber are used, they produce hydrocarbon gases on being heated—gases principally composed of hydrogen and carbon. These gases are unstable in the presence of hot iron: it seems to decompose them and sooty carbon is deposited on the surface of the metal. This diffuses into the metal a little, but it acts principally by being a ready source of carbon, highly active and waiting to be carried into the metal by the carbon monoxide—which ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... of painting would seem to Seurat and Signac to be artless, primitive, unscientific, childish, presque du Louvre—above all, unscientific. They would say, "Decompose the tone. That tone is composed of yellow, white, and violet turning towards lake"; and, having satisfied themselves in what proportions, they would dot their canvases over with pure yellow and pure white, the interspaces being filled in with touches of lake and violet, ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... or of figure: an excess of heat produces smarting, of cold another kind of pain; it is probable by this sense of heat the pain produced by caustic bodies is perceived, and of electricity, as all these are fluids, that permeate, distend, or decompose the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of acids to the teeth cannot be too strongly deprecated: they decompose their substance, and lead to their rapid decay. Hence the whiteness produced by acid tooth-powders and washes is not less deceitful than ruinous in its consequences. As has been just observed, they perform all ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... water every night.—P. 414. It is highly probable that the termites are endowed with some such faculty: nor is it more remarkable that an insect should combine the gases of its food to produce water, than that a fish should decompose water in order to provide itself with gas. FOURCROIX found the contents of the air-bladder in a carp to be pure nitrogen.—Yarrell, vol. i. p. 42. And the aquatic larva of the dragon-fly extracts air for its respiration from the water in which it is submerged. A similar ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the Great Babylon. Young Oxonians or young barristers, even when they become slashing London critics, are more harmless than they themselves imagine, and after all inspire less awe than Ben-Nevis, or than the celebrated agriculturist who proposed to decompose that mountain with acids, and to scatter the debris as a fertiliser over the Lochaber moss. But a Highlander born, who has been nurtured on oatmeal porridge and oatmeal cakes; who in his youth wore ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... Certainly not that to which the surgeon usually has recourse—a liquid one. Certainly not one that speedily deliquesces; for they are both unmanageable, and, what is a more important consideration, they may hold in solution, and not decompose the poison, and thus inoculate the whole of the wound. The application which promises to be successful, is that of the 'lunar caustic'. It is perfectly manageable, and, being sharpened to a point, may be ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... purple disk and its long streamers floating perhaps twenty or thirty feet behind it as it swims,—or the Ctenophore, with its more delicate, transparent structure, and almost invisible fringes in parallel rows upon the body, which decompose the rays of light as the creature moves through the water, so that hues of ruby-red and emerald-green, blue, purple, yellow, all the colors of the rainbow, ripple constantly over its surface when ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... completely successful; in fact, metallic calcium remained a laboratory curiosity until the beginning of the 20th century. Davy, inspired by his successful isolation of the metals sodium and potassium by the electrolysis of their hydrates, attempted to decompose a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide by the electric current; an amalgam of calcium was obtained, but the separation of the mercury was so difficult that even Davy himself was not sure as to whether he had obtained pure metallic calcium. Electrolysis ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... dry, and many of the trees look scrubby and half dead. Except in the 'gulches' and the deep holes between the hills, the island is covered with lava, in many places of so recent a deposit that it has not yet had time to decompose, and there is consequently only a thin layer of soil on its surface. This soil being, however, very rich, vegetation flourishes luxuriantly for a time; but as soon as the roots have penetrated a certain depth, and have come into contact with the lava, the trees wither ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... which are perfect near the beach become, in ascending, gradually less and less perfect, until scarcely a trace of their original structure can be discovered. It is known that carbonate of lime and common salt left in a mass together, and slightly moistened, partially decompose each other (I am informed by Dr. Kane, through Mr. Reeks, that a manufactory was established on this principle in France, but failed from the small quantity of carbonate of soda produced. Sprengel "Gardeners' Chronicle" 1845 ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... that makes these hard hearts?'—the strain of thought which appears here seems to be present in some degree throughout the play. We seem to trace the tendency which, a few years later, produced Ariel and Caliban, the tendency of imagination to analyse and abstract, to decompose human nature into its constituent factors, and then to construct beings in whom one or more of these factors is absent or atrophied or only incipient. This, of course, is a tendency which produces symbols, allegories, personifications of qualities and abstract ideas; ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... that the wonderful explosive did not do what was expected of it, either in England or Holland, for it was found to decompose on keeping. It did everything else that was boasted of it, but no one succeeded in keeping it more than fifteen months, an irremediate defect in an explosive for military purposes. This, of course, was ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... 1foot below the ground, at the extremities of the fibrous roots, both of the common and of the evergreen oak. The season for gathering them is from November to the end of March, after which those which remain become soft and decompose. They are at their best in January, when the rind is black, hard, and rough, and the inside mottled black and white. In size and shape the best resemble small round potatoes, of which the largest may weigh lb., ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... startled us with the information that we were in the execution grounds. He pointed out spots still damp with the blood of criminals, several jars containing the heads of victims, the protruding hair matted with the lime used to decompose the flesh more rapidly, and a rude cross still remaining upon which a woman had recently been crucified and cut to pieces while alive. Her crime was the gravest known to Chinese law: she had murdered ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... departments, called the "soft-ware" and the "hard-ware," are very important. The former includes all vegetable and animal matters—everything that will decompose. These are selected and bagged at once, and carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for plowed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are generally ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... lining membrane of the mouth. Febrile, or digestive disorders, or any condition that may interfere with feeding, may cause this disorder. In the latter cases the mucous membrane of the mouth is not cleansed by the saliva. Particles of feed may decompose and irritating organisms set up an inflammation. Putrid or decomposed slops, hot feeds, irritating drenches and drinking from filthy wallows are common causes of inflammation of the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... inferior to that felt by the unfortunate sufferer, we shall probably think this a truth also, and a more normal and a profounder truth than the other. But is it a law? Is it a scientific discovery that can lead us to definite inferences about what will happen or help us to decompose a single event, accurately and without ambiguity, into its component forces? Not only is such a thing impossible, but the Scotch philosopher's amiable generalities, perhaps largely applicable to himself and to his friends ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... remodelled, and finally made his own. Elated with success and piqued by the growing interest of the problem, they have left no bookstall unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened, no file of old yellow accounts to decompose in damp and worms, so keen was the hope to discover whether the boy Shakspeare poached or not, whether he held horses at the theatre door, whether he kept school, and why he left in his will only his second-best bed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... and human flesh. On the other hand, it had not harmed the horny flipper of the termite worker that had flicked it onto the garden slug. Did that mean that the flipper was immunized to the stuff, like the lining of the stomach, which is unharmed by acids powerful enough to decompose other organic master? Or did it mean that all horn ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... of Gold (when gold was yet unknown, By which its nomenclature came to pass; Thus most appropriately has been shown 'Lucus a non lucendo,' not what was, But what was not; a sort of style that 's grown Extremely common in this age, whose metal The devil may decompose, but ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... remembered, is not subject to decay; a saint does not decompose in the flesh like mortal sinners. One of these, I have been told, dead fifty years ago and now canonised, can be seen yet in one of the monasteries of North Lebanon, keeping well his flesh and bones together—divinely embalmed. It has been ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... forces resume their sway, and the oxygen of the air combines with the newly deposited carbon to reproduce a little carbonic acid. But this must be placed to the account of decomposing, not of growing vegetation; for by so much as plants grow, they decompose carbonic acid and give its oxygen to the air, or, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... shown itself in any household, the very first thing is to see to the continuous freshening of the air in the sick-room and in all the house. Ventilation is, indeed, the first and most important method of disinfection. Chloride of lime and other disinfecting fluids will decompose the offensive and noxious odours, but pure air will sweep the organisms of disease themselves away. Fresh air kills the microbes of certain diseases, e.g., consumption, and is hostile to all disease. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... full instructions. And, for the present, you may know that it is a continuous explosion that drives the ship. I have learned to decompose water into its components and split them into subatomic form. They reunite to give something other than matter. It is a liquid—liquid energy, though the term is inaccurate—that separates out in two forms, and a fluid ounce of each is the product ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... Here's more for you!" said the watchman; and one after the other, opening the lids, exhibited the decedents—all, probably, the poorest of the poor: picked up on the streets, intoxicated, crushed, maimed and mutilated, beginning to decompose. Certain ones had already begun to show on their hands and faces bluish-green spots, resembling mould—signs of putrefaction. One man, without a nose, with an upper hare-lip cloven in two, had worms, like little white dots, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... more or less exemplified, it will, on the whole, be an easier way of explaining them to analyze one composition thoroughly, than to give instances from various works. I shall therefore take one of Turner's simplest; which will allow us, so to speak, easily to decompose it, and illustrate each law by ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... frozen corpse, which was covered with the mantle, had thawed. It may be from the heat of the burning candles, it had begun to decompose with extraordinary rapidity, and the face of the young count looked indeed terrible. The enormously swollen, and livid mouth looked something monstrous, the blue and swollen curled lips had the appearance of a ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... insulated line to a source of such currents, we may pass an inappreciable current over the line, and on any point of the same we are able to obtain a heavy current, capable of fusing a thick copper wire. Or we may, by the help of some artifice, decompose a solution in any electrolytic cell by connecting only one pole of the cell to the line or source of energy. Or we may, by attaching to the line, or only bringing into its vicinity, light up an incandescent lamp, an exhausted tube, ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... among comparatively stable compounds by the help of compounds much less stable, but we employ for the purpose compounds of the same general class. Our modern method of firing a gun is to place in close proximity with the gunpowder which we choose to decompose or explode, a small portion of fulminating powder, which is decomposed or exploded with extreme facility, and which on decomposing, communicates the consequent molecular disturbances to the less easily decomposed gunpowder. When ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... according to the tension of the carbonic acid; that is, by an increased quantity its tension increases, and more would pass in solution in the form of bicarbonates. On the other hand, by diminishing the quantity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, some of the bicarbonates would decompose and carbonic acid ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... elements combined with avidity, and that the gold thus treated resisted amalgamation with mercury. Mr. Skey proved the act of absorption of sulphur by gold to be a chemical act, and that electricity was generated in sufficient quantity and intensity during the process to decompose metallic solutions. Sulphur in certain forms had long been known to exercise a prejudicial effect upon the amalgamation of gold, but this had always been attributed to the combination of the sulphur with the quicksilver used. Now, however, it is ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... of a dead animal that is left exposed upon the ground to decompose does not moulder away by the usual process of decay, but what is left of the body after the hungry buzzards and coyotes have finished their feast, dries up into a ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... discolor and impart a disagreeable flavor to food cooked in them, are not objectionable from a health standpoint, if kept clean and free from rust. Iron rust is the result of the combination of the iron with oxygen, for which it has so great an affinity that it will decompose water to get oxygen to unite with; hence it is that iron utensils rust so quickly when not carefully dried after using, or if left where they can collect moisture. This is the reason why a coating of tallow, which serves to exclude the air and moisture, will preserve ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... continued Balthazar. "You alone could I forgive for that terrible disappointment. I was about to decompose nitrogen. Go back to your ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... must always be fresh, although different forms of the drug are used. It tends quickly to decompose—forming a toxic by-product—and, according to some authorities, this decomposed scopolamin is responsible for many undesirable results which have attended some cases of "twilight sleep." Various forms of morphin are also used, as also ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... a corrosive action because of the presence of acid in the water or of oil containing fatty acids which will decompose and cause pitting wherever the sludge can find a resting place, it may be overcome by the neutralization of the water by carbonate of soda. Such neutralization should be carried to the point where the water will just turn red litmus paper blue. ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... crushed, is placed in the boiler, A, and the quantity of acid necessary to decompose it is added. The mass is afterward mixed with care by means of the stirrer, and the distillation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... water has always been thought a simple substance, insomuch that the older chemists considered it as an element. Such it undoubtedly was to them, as they were unable to decompose it; or, at least, since the decomposition which took place daily before their eyes was entirely unnoticed. But we mean to prove, that water is by no means a simple or elementary substance. I shall not here pretend to give the history ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... he spoke, and went into the interior of the cave, whither Ellen followed him. There was a fire, and some apparatus belonging to Paulett, which he had used in experiments upon the decreasing water of the basin. He knocked the stone out of its setting, and applied himself to decompose it over the fire. He put forth all his skill and all his power, and was successful; the diamond disappeared, and there remained a few drops of water. He looked at his wife and smiled; she raised her eyes to his, astonished and pleased, took the cup from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... and formation of soil. Every grain of dust that is borne through the air by the lazy breeze of summer, instead of sliding from a glassy surface, is held where it falls. The rocks themselves crumble and decompose, and turn into a fertile mold. Thus, the Coliseum is throughout crowned and draped with a covering of earth, in many places of considerable depth. Trailing plants clasp the stones with arms of verdure; wild flowers bloom in their seasons; and long grass nods and waves ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... Jackson, and pondering it in solitude. Ways of rendering the electricity sensible at the far end of the line were considered. The spark might pierce a band of travelling paper, as Professor Day had mentioned years before; it might decompose a chemical solution, and leave a stain to mark its passage, as tried by Mr. Dyar in 1827; Or it could excite an electro-magnet, which, by attracting a piece of soft iron, would inscribe the passage with a pen or pencil. The signals could be made by very short currents or jets of electricity, according ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... The ability of the electric current to decompose a liquid and to deposit a metal constituent has practically revolutionized the process of printing. Formerly, type was arranged and retained in position until the required number of impressions had been made, the type meanwhile being unavailable for other uses. Moreover, ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... vegetation, is quite unlike the peat of Europe, as the plants become so decayed as to leave no traces of organisation. Frequently the trees are overthrown, and numbers are found lying beneath the surface of the soil, where, covered with water, they never decompose. So completely preserved are they, that they are frequently sawn up into planks. In one part of the Dismal Swamp there is a lake seven miles in length, and more than five wide, with a forest growing on its banks. The water is transparent, though tinged ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... alteration that these great masses undergo, left uncovered and exposed to the incessant action of the air, light, and a variable humidity, changes them gradually into fossils and destroys their membranous or gelatinous part, which is the readiest to decompose. This alteration, which the enormous masses of the corals in question continued to undergo, caused their structure to gradually disappear, and their great porosity unceasingly diminished the parts of these stony ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... permeated with lime, all parts of the body are rigid, with the exception of the upper margin, the stomach, and the tentacles. The tentacles are soft and waving, projected or drawn in at will; they retain their flexible character through life, and decompose when the animal dies. For this reason the dried specimens of corals preserved in museums do not give us the least idea of the living corals, in which every one of the millions of beings composing such a community is crowned by ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... they decompose affords them nourishment for the support of their vital juices, and enables them, by combining the fluid gases which compose it with those of the air and the soil, to form their different products; while the superfluous gas ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... apart from the words; you apprehend them from point to point in the words, and the words as expressions of them. Afterwards, no doubt, when you are out of the poetic experience but remember it, you may by analysis decompose this unity, and attend to a substance more or less isolated, and a form more or less isolated. But these are things in your analytic head, not in the poem, which is poetic experience. And if you want to have the poem again, ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... alcohol lamp and some asbestos into the pulpit and told his audience that God would turn their souls into a substance resembling asbestos. He showed them that though the asbestos were heated red hot it did not decompose into ashes. Fortunately the day of the hell preacher has gone by, and if we believe the Bible which says that "in God we live and move and have our being," we can readily understand that a lost soul ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... found that in poor pastures black walnut trees improved both the species composition and chemical content of the plants growing under the trees. He rated walnut high as an ideal pasture tree because of its period of leaf activity; its light crown canopy; its small, fragile leaves which decompose rapidly, and are high in mineral matter and nitrogen; its deep tap root which competes very little with the surface rooted grasses for moisture and nutrients; its hardiness; and ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... in connection with means for promoting felting properties. If a hair such as described, with the scales lying flat on the shaft, be treated with certain substances or reagents which act upon and dissolve, or decompose or disintegrate its parts, then the free edges of these scales rise up, they "set their backs up," so to say. They, in fact, stand off like the scales of a fir-cone, and at length act like the fir-cone in ripening, at last becoming entirely loose. ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... that even in green coffee there is no definite compound "caffetannic acid," and there is even less likelihood of its being present in roasted coffee. The conditions, high heat and oxidation, to which coffee is subjected in roasting would suffice to decompose this hypothetical ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... sees, nor is seen. Its course is devious, And will not come when desired. On land and on sea It is indispensable. It is without equal, It is many-sided; It is not confined, It is incomparable; It comes from four quarters; It is noxious, it is beneficial; It is yonder, it is here; It will decompose, But it will not repair the injury; It will not suffer for its doings, Seeing it is blameless. One Being has prepared it, Out of all creatures, By a tremendous blast, To wreak ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... which might almost make us suppose that Shakespeare knew something of the details of the pearl fisheries, when the oysters are piled up on shore and allowed to decompose, so as to render it easier to get at the pearls, for he makes one of his characters say, speaking of an honest man in a poor dwelling, that he was like a "pearl in your foul oyster". (As You Like It, ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... experiment the watering of the soil with cultures of micro-organisms—a rational idea, conceived but yesterday, which will permit us to give to the soil those little living beings, necessary to feed the rootlets, to decompose and assimilate the component ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... white mass, which readily absorbs moisture and dissolves. It will not volatilize at a low red heat, nor will it decompose. Exposed to a strong heat, it is decomposed, yielding oxygen, and ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... heavens were sounded to the utmost extent; the apparent diameter of a great number of stars was accurately measured; and Mr. Clark, of the Cambridge staff, resolved the Crab nebula in Taurus, which the reflector of Lord Rosse had never been able to decompose. ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... his whole strength is given to a struggle with Nature. Besides, in our science results are perceivable; we can measure effects and predict them; whereas all things are uncertain and vacillating in the struggles of men and their selfish interests. We decompose the diamond in our crucibles, and we shall make diamonds, we shall make gold! We shall impel vessels (as they have at Barcelona) with fire and a little water! We test the wind, and we shall make wind; we shall make light; we shall renew the face of empires with new industries! But we shall never ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... attains almost certainty, when we remember that it stands the crucial test of experiment—that we need only decompose the blood in order to find there what we contend to be ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... operations; for when he was told to employ "the homogeneous water of gold," for example, the expression might mean anything, and in despair he distilled, and calcined, and cohobated, and tried to decompose everything he could lay hands on. Those who pretended to know abused and vilified those ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... of flame at an immensely high temperature rush through the long apertures from end to end, and acting as a combination of a modified oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, with the reverberatory furnace, utterly and completely consume and decompose the body, in an incredibly short space of time. Even the large quantity of water it contains is decomposed by the extreme heat, and its elements, instead of retarding, aid combustion, as is the case in fierce conflagrations. The gaseous products of combustion are conveyed away by flues; and means ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... increase the amount of oxygen in the air to produce terrible results. It has been shown[1] that, of our forty-five miles of atmosphere, one fifth, or a stratum of nine miles in thickness, is oxygen. A shock, or an electrical or other convulsion, which would even partially disarrange or decompose this combination, and send an increased quantity of oxygen, the heavier gas, to the earth, would wrap everything in flames. Or the same effects might follow from any great change in the constitution of the water of the world. Water is composed of eight parts of oxygen ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... overdistended, when it may be expelled in a gush by the active contraction of the muscular walls of the abdomen; this never empties the bladder, however, and the oiled hand introduced through the rectum may feel the soft, flabby organ still half full of urine. This retained urine is liable to decompose and give off ammonia, which dissolves the epithelial cells, exposing the raw, mucous membrane and causing the worst type of cystitis. Suppression and incontinence of urine are common also to obstruction of the urethra by stone or otherwise; hence this source of fallacy should be excluded ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... blood, no nerves, no circulation and apparently no life in a full grown feather, yet it does not decompose; indeed, it is one of the hardest things in the world to destroy by any process of decomposition. It retains its resiliency and all its flexibility for years—all that is necessary is to keep it dry. It is finished all along the rib (or quill) with a hard, glossy enamel on the ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... seeds, not much unlike in appearance, and two of larger size. Hand them to the learned Pundit, Chemistry, who tells us how combustion goes on in the lungs, and plants are fed with phosphorus and carbon, and the alkalies and silex. Let her decompose them, analyze them, torture them in all the ways she knows. The net result of each is a little sugar, a little fibrin, a little water—carbon, potassium, sodium, and the like—one ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... d. Its level in A will of course not be changed greatly. Now, incline the apparatus till the surface of the hypobromite touches the urine in the longer part of the urine tube, and then bring it upright again. The urine will thus be discharged into the hypobromite, which will of course decompose the urea, liberating nitrogen, which will cause the mercury to rise in B. Shake until no further change of level is seen, and mark the level of mercury in B with a rubber band, then remove the cork, draw out the liquid with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... or the Soul, or the Personality that uses, and that in using shapes and moulds, the body and that also determines its strength or its weakness. When this is separated from the body, the body at once becomes a cold, inert mass, commencing immediately to decompose into the constituent material elements that composed it—literally going back to the earth and ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... say this is a very good definition, but it is sufficiently good for my purpose—an element is a thing from which nothing can be obtained but the element itself. Iron is an element. You cannot get anything out of iron but iron; you cannot decompose iron. Carbon is an element; you can get nothing out of carbon but carbon. You can combine it with other things, but if you have only carbon you can get nothing out of the carbon but carbon. But this carbon is found to exist in very different ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy
... new combination, he easily separated the olein, the margarin, and the stearin, by employing boiling water. But to simplify the operation, he preferred to saponify the fat by means of lime. By this he obtained a calcareous soap, easy to decompose by sulphuric acid, which precipitated the lime into the state of sulphate, and liberated the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... of preserving his whole family in health, while many died in the neighbouring houses. It was impossible to bury all the dead, and the bodies were left to decompose where they died. After the plague had ceased, the Arabs of the desert made their appearance for the purpose of robbing and plundering. They found an easy spoil, for they penetrated without resistance into the empty houses, or without difficulty overpowered the few enfeebled people who ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... and forces and sun and moon and earth and stars and so forth. In short, the outer universe, the Cosmos. The Cosmos is nothing but the aggregate of the dead bodies and dead energies of bygone individuals. The dead bodies decompose as we know into earth, air, and water, heat and radiant energy and free electricity and innumerable other scientific facts. The dead souls likewise decompose—or else they don't decompose. But if they do ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... that of allowing the dead to decompose in the open air, and of burying the bones only. The corpse was placed in a hut about fifteen feet in length, and eleven in height, and of proportionate width. One end was closed up, and the three other sides shut in by trellis-work of twigs. The ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... believed in a God, and that she hoped for compensation from him for the miseries she had endured. She had now begun to decompose, and to become, in turn, a plant. She who had blossomed in the sun was now to be eaten up by the cattle, carried away in herbs, and in the flesh of beasts, again to become human flesh. But that which is called the soul ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... are represented in both, this is a more reasonable proposition, if we assume that the Babylonian narrator had the Genesis account as it now stands, and did not have to combine two separate statements. For surely if he had the separate Priestly and Jehovistic narratives we should now be able to decompose the Babylonian narrative just as easily as we do the one in Genesis. The Babylonian adapter of the Genesis story must have either been less astute than ourselves, and did not perceive that he had really two distinct (and "contradictory") narratives ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... the jars are kept in a damp cellar where the rubbers may decompose, mold may enter ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... the fermentation produces alcohol. As I mentioned above, the cacao bean is covered with a fruity pulp. The bean as it comes from the pod is moist, whilst the pulp is full of juice. It would be impossible to convey it to Europe in this condition; it would decompose, and, when it reached its destination, would be worthless. In order that a product can be handled commercially it is desirable to have it in such a condition that it does not change, and thus with cacao ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... fern-fronds of pure rime may be found in myriads on the meadows. They are fashioned like perfect vegetable structures, opening fan-shaped upon crystal stems, and catching the sunbeams with the brilliancy of diamonds. Taken at certain angles, they decompose light into iridescent colours, appearing now like emeralds, rubies, or topazes, and now like Labrador spar, blending all hues in a wondrous sheen. When the lake freezes for the first time, its surface is of course quite black, and so transparent ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Organic matter, he argues, dissolved from the surface of the earth, or from rocks percolating the strata, assumes a state in which it powerfully attracts oxygen; and waters holding this matter in solution readily decompose sulphates of lime and soda even when partially exposed to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... that the gunners require a week's clear notice before firing a salute.[B] There is no locomotion save in boxes and on the backs of quadrupeds; and quadrupeds of the inferior order are usually, when overtaken by death, thrown in the streets to decompose. But if the irregularity of the town would galvanize the late Monsieur Haussmann in his grave, its situation would satisfy the most exacting Yankee engineer. It is huddled in a sheltered nest on the fringe of a land of milk and honey; it has the advantage of a spread of ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... to wish to submit your faith to a process which invariably breaks your apparatus and leaves you very much dissatisfied, with your faith still a simple element in you, in spite of your endeavors to analyze or decompose it. Are not, after all, our convictions our only steadfastly grounded faith? I do not mean conviction wrought out in the loom of logical argument, where one's understanding must have shuttled backward and forward through every thread a thousand times before the woof ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... were alike, but with this point of resemblance the similarity ends. Neander is entirely free from that necessity under which Niebuhr labored, of regarding every recorded aggregate of facts as a mass of error which the modern philosophy of history was either to decompose into a myth, or reconstruct into a new form more ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... which is an invisible gas, but not at all like pure oxygen; oxygen combines with hydrogen and forms water. All of the water, ice, steam, etc., are composed of these two gases. We know this because we can artificially decompose, or separate, all water, and obtain as a result simply oxygen and hydrogen, or we can combine these two gases and thus form pure water; oxygen combines with nitrogen and forms nitric acid. These chemical changes and combinations take place only under certain ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... surplus drained off freely. A soil answering all these requirements is made as follows: cut from an old ditch or fence-side, thick sods, and stack them with the grass sides together to rot. This heap should be forked over several times, when it has begun to decompose. In dry weather, if within reach of the hose, a good soaking occasionally will help the process along. The sods should be cut during spring or summer. To this pile of sod, when well rotted (or at time of using), add one-third in bulk of ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... salt is added little by little to rectified oil of lavender, placed on a glass paint-grinding plate, and the salt and oil are ground together with a muller. Care is required to prevent any appreciable rise of temperature which would decompose the compound aimed at, and it is for this reason that the salt is to be added gradually. Of course the absorption of water from the air must be prevented from taking place as far as possible. Finally, the compound is diluted by adding oil of lavender up to a total ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... washed every day before the work-people leave. In case any nitro-glycerine is spilt upon the floors, after sponging it up as far as possible, the floor should be washed with an alcoholic solution of soda or potash to decompose the nitro-glycerine, which it does ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... mechanical power is the sun which exhales vapors that descend in rain, to turn mills, or which causes winds to blow by the unequal rarefaction of the atmosphere. It is from the sun too that the power comes which is liberated in a steam engine. The solar rays enable plants to decompose carbonic acid gas, the product of combustion, and the vegetation thus rendered possible is the source of coal and other combustible bodies. The combustion of coal under a steam boiler therefore merely liberates the power which the sun gave out ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... mines are gaping gashes in the earth thousands of feet wide and thousands deep. They are all "pipes" which are formed by volcanic eruption. These pipes are the real source of the diamonds. The precious blue ground which contains the stones is spread out on immense "floors" to decompose under sun and rain. Afterwards it is broken in crushers and goes through a series of mechanical transformations. The diamonds are separated from the concentrates on a pulsating table covered with vaseline. The gems cling to the oleaginous ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... this to be said about fruits, that all those containing acids decompose the gastric juice, as they all contain potash salts in union with fruit acids. As soon as they reach the stomach the free hydrochloric acid of the gastric juice unites with the potash, setting the fruit acid free to irritate the stomach. There is never any desire for acid fruits through ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... that the shells of pteropods and other surface Mollusca which are constantly falling on the bottom, are absent, or, if a few remain, they are brittle and yellow, and evidently decaying rapidly. These shells of Mollusca decompose more easily and disappear sooner than the smaller, and apparently more delicate, shells of rhizopods. The smaller Foraminifera now give way, and are found in lessening proportion to the larger; the coccoliths first lose their thin outer border ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... this—neither banker nor croupier even turning their eyes in the direction, of the bet. Such a sum as five dollars would not decompose the well-practised nerves of these gentlemen—where sums of ten, twenty, or even fifty times the amount, were constantly passing to and ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... be, the Chalicodoma grub is none the less alive. The primrose tint and the glossy skin are unequivocal signs of health: Were it really dead, it would, in less than twenty-four hours, turn a dirty brown and, soon after, decompose into a fluid putrescence. Now here is the marvelous thing: during the fortnight, roughly, that the Anthrax' meal lasts, the butter color of the larva, an unfailing symptom of the presence of life, continues unaltered and does ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... cotyledons, as we shall presently see, were lifted up still enclosed in their seed-coats. They were, however, cast off in the course of two or three days by the swelling of the cotyledons. Until this occurs light is excluded, and the cotyledons cannot decompose carbonic acid; but no one probably would have thought that the advantage thus gained ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... auxiliary tool in water quality management for a good while to come. This is not a form of flushing wastes downstream from their source and out of sight, as some opponents continue to insist, but a means of helping streams to oxygenate and decompose excess wastes by the same processes they have always used on natural and normal loads. On the other hand, neither is flow augmentation the end-all cure for pollution that enthusiasts of a few years ago claimed ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... Truesdale, "we don't look at a painting with our noses, but with our eyes. I decompose what is before me into the primary colors. Now the thing for you to do is to step back ten or twelve feet and recompose them. That armchair over there is just about your point of view precisely—and so inviting and comfortable! ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... the suburbs. The effects of the bombardment were evident on every side. Women and children lay frightfully mangled in the roadway. At one place a whole family had been crushed by a projectile. Dead Dervishes, already in the fierce heat beginning to decompose, dotted the ground. The houses were crammed with wounded. Hundreds of decaying carcasses of animals filled the air with a sickening smell. Here, as without the wall, the anxious inhabitants renewed their protestations of loyalty ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill |
