"Precious metal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their beauties to satiety, he wanders from grace to grace, scarce pausing to enjoy. Is it possible to hear his symphonies without recognizing in them the germs of innumerable modern melodies, the precious metal which others beat out, wherewith to plate their baser compositions,—exhaustless materials for the use of his successors, like those noble temples which antiquity has raised in the East, to become, in the sequel, the quarries from ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... themselves know. Three reasons are, however, given, each of which would suffice to account for it. The first is that the name owes its origin to the great quantity of gold that is found in the land. Indeed, in this respect Zu-Vendis is a veritable Eldorado, the precious metal being extraordinarily plentiful. At present it is collected from purely alluvial diggings, which we subsequently inspected, and which are situated within a day's journey from Milosis, being mostly found ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... a great deal of scoriae, showing that metal of some kind had been excavated, and that the smelting had been done on the spot. That the mine was worked for gold seems quite probable, inasmuch as a lump of mineral containing a considerable quantity of the precious metal was picked up near the entrance some years ago. Besides the scoriae, I found upon the hillside much broken pottery, and from the shape of several fragments it was easy to restore the form of earthenware pots which were probably used for ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... of Potosi, fifty-seven blocks of precious metal were added to the store; and from thence they made haste to Lima, where the largest booty was looked for. They found that they had just missed it. Twelve ships lay at anchor in the port without arms, without crews, and ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... seated on a throne of the most splendid workmanship; the precious metal had been oxydised to every shade of colour, and was wrought in beautiful Mosaic: the walls and ceiling were entirely covered with the same, in some parts burnished, to reflect as mirrors, in others elaborately carved in ornamental fretwork, as peculiar from the elegance of its ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... specimens of the precious metal which I captured, varying in size from a grain of wheat ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Yukon," he went on, "the gold was found under the ice, where it had been deposited by glaciers which are now dead. The same conditions exist here. For all we know, there may be tons of the precious metal at the bottom of ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... from the stream, lay languorous on the meadow. Long bars of it slanted through an unguessed gap in the hills behind us to touch with magic the very tops of the trees over our heads. The sheen of the precious metal was over the land. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... tables and chairs occupied by the guests were of solid silver, while that occupied by the Inca and such of his guests as he chose to especially honour by an invitation to sit with him were of solid gold; and all the table utensils throughout the room were of the same precious metal, most ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... which Bird had promised himself and his fellow-citizens. He no longer talked of going to Chicoutimi, that was true, and there was not the danger of his putting his money into Markham's enterprise there; but neither did he show any interest or any curiosity concerning Bird's discovery of the precious metal at Haha Bay. Bird had his delicacy as well as Pere Etienne, and he could not thrust himself upon his guest, even with the intention of making ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... extent of the gold and silver mining industries is considered, and when it is borne in mind that a considerable percentage of the precious metal present in the ore is, in the ordinary process of extraction, lost through defective amalgamation—due to insufficient contact with the mercury or to a total absence of contact, as in the case of float gold—it is obvious that the introduction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... Spanish who were helping their enemies. Along the San Saba River there were rich veins of silver which the Tawehash owned. Miners from the mining district of Amalgres, Mexico, came to the mission and worked the veins, and sent the precious metal away. The Indians did not wish to have their silver taken; and they set out to close the mines. This they achieved in one stroke—wiped the mission and the pupils and the miners from ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... melting-pot. Attracted by the prospect of the precious metal that was to be wrung from it, there had drifted into the Valley a flotsam and jetsam, representatives of all nations and of all callings. As was natural, Americans in the majority; but, with them, Englishmen and Frenchmen ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... poetry of France and Italy during the Renaissance, and in England during the reign of Queen Anne. It exhibits the most exquisite polish, allied with an avoidance of every shocking or perturbing theme. It seems to combine the enduring lustre of a precious metal with the tenuity of gold-leaf. Even the most vivid emotions of grief and love, as well as the horrors of war, were banished from the Japanese Parnassus, where the Muse of Tragedy warbles, and the lyric Muse utters nothing but ditties of exquisite and melting sweetness, which soothe the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... condition that his neighbour had twice as much. The Avaricious man prayed to have a room full of gold. No sooner said than done; but all his joy was turned to grief when he found that his neighbour had two rooms full of the precious metal. Then came the turn of the Envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbour had any joy at all. So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes put out, by which means his ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... down the declivities trod only by the sturdy burro or the agile, sure-footed mountain-horse. These wavering paths, worn deep and dusty once, are grass-grown now, for they were built in the days when silver was accounted a precious metal, and only an occasional hunter or prospector makes ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... Ionia; and then, winding up the long train, appeared a band of wild-looking men, dressed in the skins of animals, whose features bespoke them foreigners in Babylon. They wore girdles and shoulderbands of solid, unwrought gold; and of the same precious metal were their bow-cases, axes, lance-points, and the ornaments on their high fur caps. They were preceded by a man in Persian dress, whose features proved him, however, to be of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... well as of pity. Indeed he was the very embodiment of misery, a wretched, woebegone, human being! He had lost one arm in an accident during his mining days. Chinamen in the thirst for gold had mining claims as well as Anglo-Saxons. This desire for the precious metal seems to be universal. All men more or less love gold; and for its acquisition they will undergo great hardship, face peril, risk their lives. This aged Chinaman for whom there was no future except ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... importance probably are the precious metal and coal deposits of the county, which have, however, been but little developed. The coal measures include bituminous, lignite and anthracite, and are of great extent in the foothills of the eastern part of the county. Two systems of railroads have been projected into these fields, and ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... tortuous course, thus giving time for all the gold or other metal to become amalgamated. There are ridges in the pan, too, against which the amalgam lodges. It is claimed for this machine that not a particle of the precious metal is lost, and experiments seem to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... the proper objects of critical inquisition. To expunge faults where there are no excellencies is a task equally useless with that of the chymist, who employs the arts of separation and refinement upon ore in which no precious metal is contained ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... was in progress, the carpenter who had nailed up the case, and the carpenter's son, accompanying him, joined us in front of the house. They followed Oscar in, and came out again, bearing the heavy burden of precious metal—more than one man ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... agreed to pay any sum Reidmar might name. Otter was flayed, and Reidmar commanded the AEsir to fill the skin with gold, and cover it without that not a hair could be seen. Odin sent Loki down to the dwellings of the black elves to obtain the precious metal. The cunning god caught Andvari, the dwarf, and compelled him to surrender all the gold he had accumulated. The dwarf begged and prayed that he might be permitted to retain one ring, for it was the source of all ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... that betrayed a care for beauty on the part of my aunt was her dear old flower garden, and even there she was not above suspicion. Her favourite flowers were tulips, rigid tulips with opulent crimson streaks. She despised wildings. Her ornaments were simply displays of the precious metal. Had she known the price of platinum she would have worn that by preference. Her chains and brooches and rings were bought by weight. She would have turned her back on Benvenuto Cellini if he was ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... civilization before the arrival of Europeans.] confederacy of Mexico, was overthrown in 1519 by the reckless Hernando Cortez with a small band of soldiers. Here at last the Spaniards found treasures of gold and silver, and more abundant yet were the stores of precious metal found by Pizarro in Peru (1531). Those were the days when a few score of brave men could capture kingdoms ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Golden Rose; and the first foreign potentate recorded to have received it from the Holy See is Fulk, Count of Anjou, to whom it was presented by Urban II. in 1096. A homily of Innocent III. also contains all explanation of this beautiful symbol—the precious metal, the balsam and musk used in consecrating it, being taken in mystic sense as allusion to the triple substance in the person of the Incarnate Lord—divinity, soul, and body. It is not merely a single flower, but an entire ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... an olive, with a pair of shrewd gray eyes, and a clever, clean-shaven mouth. He was well-dressed, and was continually probing with a quill tooth-pick at his gold-filled front teeth, evidently desirous of excavating some of the precious metal. ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... and ghastly, were now clothed with hangings of sky-blue velvet and silver; the chairs were of ebony, richly carved, with cushions corresponding to the hangings; and the place of the silver sconces which enlightened the ante-chamber was supplied by a huge chandelier of the same precious metal. The floor was covered with a Spanish foot-cloth, or carpet, on which flowers and fruits were represented in such glowing and natural colours, that you hesitated to place the foot on such exquisite workmanship. The table, of old English oak, stood ready covered with the finest ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... storekeeper at Bender, had given up his own bed to Twitchett, and when Crockey was moved with sympathy for any one, it was a sure sign that the object of his commiseration was going to soon stake a perpetual claim in a distant land, whose very streets, we are told, are of precious metal, and whose walls and gates are of rare and ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... hundred men. Each table is long enough to accommodate twenty men, and resembles an ordinary school-desk. There are no table-cloths or napkins; nothing but a plain, clean board. The table furniture consists of a tin quart cup, a small pan of the same precious metal, which holds the hash, an iron knife, fork and spoon. No beautiful silverware adorns this table; on the contrary, all the dining service is very plain and cheap. The convicts are marched into the dining-room in divisions, and seated at ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... brown fingers the places of the vanished rings were still marked in white skin. He carried not the long staff nor the heavy nail-studded rod of the shepherd, but a slender stick of carved cedar battered and scratched by hard usage, and the handle, which must once have been of precious metal, was missing. ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke
... at last came to terms, exhausted with wrangling, and then went their way fairly satisfied with one another.* It sometimes happened that a clever and unscrupulous dealer would alloy the rings, and mix with the precious metal as much of a baser sort as would be possible without danger of detection. The honest merchant who thought he was receiving in payment for some article, say eight tabnu of fine gold, and who had handed to him eight tabnu of some alloy resembling gold, but containing one-third of silver, lost ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... others. Mr Knapps, to further his views, took an opportunity to mention with encomium my talent for drawing, added that he had seen several of my performances. "The boy hath talent," replied the Dominie; "he is a rich mine, from which much precious metal is to ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... handled the little bar, and expressed our opinion regarding what Hercus supposed it to be. It was heavy enough, certainly, to be silver; but the improbability of such a piece of the precious metal being left there presented itself, and none of us was quite satisfied until Hercus, taking out his knife, cut and scraped the surface of the ingot and revealed the shining white metal underlying the grit and tarnish that had gathered upon it during the years—perhaps ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... on a wet day), they wiped their fierce lips upon their furry sleeves, and the leader began reciting the tribute for the year. So much corn, so much wine—and very much it was—so many thousands ells of cloth and webbing, and so much hammered gold, and sinah and lar, precious metal of which I knew nothing as yet; and ever as he went growling through the list in his harsh animal voice, he refreshed his memory with a coloured stick whereon a notch was made for every item, the ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Helvetia discovered the precious metal in grains, and nuggets, interspersed with the drift of a fluvial deposit. They were not the first found in California, but the first coming under the eyes of European settlers—men imbued with the energy to collect, and carry them to the far-off ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... loaded with gold also; in fact, the whole country about Fraser and Thompson Rivers are mere beds of gold, so abundant as to make it quite disgusting. I have already seen pounds and pounds of it, and hope before long to feast my eyes upon tons of the precious metal." And the same high authority writes on 17th June,—"There is no longer room to doubt that all the country bordering on Fraser River is one continuous gold bed. Miners abandoning the partially exhausted placers of California, are ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... brown thin fingers, like a dentist's steel nippers, laid down the cards, and carefully picked up his winnings, even to the smallest bit of the precious metal, and dropped it piece by piece into his long pouch, following them each with his glittering eye, like a magpie peering into a narrow-necked bottle, and smiling with his wrinkled old lips as the dull ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... worth, the symbol of integration for the whole social fabric. Women, with their intuitive wisdom, are more subtle in this subject. They never wholly outgrow safety pins, and though they love to ornament them with jewellery, precious metal, and enamels, they are naught but safety pins after all. Some ingenious philosopher could write a full tractate on woman in her relation to pins—hairpins, clothes pins, ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... last scene of the stranger's labors, and from which the two masses of ore were taken. Even to his inexperienced eye it represented a wealth almost incalculable. Through the loose, red soil everywhere glittering star points of the precious metal threw back the rays of his candle. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... be theirs who've won full well The love of Alma Mater, The smiles of every light-blue Belle, The shouts of every Pater! Unlimited was each man's store Of courage, strength, and fettle, From Goldie downwards every oar Was ore of precious metal. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... measurement of sick persons (not especially children), and of the payment of an image or a rod of precious metal of the height of a given person, or the height of his waist, shoulders, knee, etc., of the person, in recompense for some insult or injury, has been treated of by Grimm, Gaidoz, and Haberlandt. Gaidoz remarks (236. 74): "It is well known that in Catholic countries it is customary to present ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... in the sunlight, a slim, short-skirted, almost childish figure. He followed. They crossed the bridge, left the island, reached the roadway almost in silence. At the side of the road was a roadster. Its hood was the kind that conceals power. Its lamps were two giant eyes rimmed in precious metal. Its line spelled strength. Its body was foreign. Nick's engine-wise eyes saw these ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... and nothing but gold! The same auriferous shine behold Wherever the eye could settle! On the walls—the sideboard—the ceiling-sky— On the gorgeous footmen standing by, In coats to delight a miner's eye With seams of the precious metal. ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... a young snake. I shook it, and the ripples ran down the length of it like silver waves in a little lake. The strength of the ages was in its voice. It has gathered its power in the womb of the earth. It was smelted from the precious metal taken from the mines of the Peninsula of Malacca, and it will have its gleam when the sparkle ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... boxes of the wheels, the ends of the axle, the springs for the head, the bar to keep the feet off the splash-board, the steps, the points of the fastenings of carriage and harness are all silvered and kept bright. Nor does the use of the precious metal stop here; the niggers who bestride the poor horses are put into high jack-boots fitted with plated buckles and huge spurs, both equally brilliant. These niggers have a most comical appearance; they wear a skull-cap, or a handkerchief ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... the week. Her husband's enthusiastic reports of the Island gold. His talks with the carefully non-committal trader and the thin-nosed, shifty-eye Silvertip; and finally his decision to spend the winter on the Island in search of the precious metal. Shane was sitting now at the table pouring some shining dust into a saucer and studying the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... the sister kingdoms, and her ancient art-works are remarkable for their skilled and tasteful elaboration. Gold, too, appears to have been used more commonly there, and the museum of the Royal Irish Academy can show a more wonderful collection of personal ornaments in that precious metal, as once worn by the native nobles, than is to be seen in the national museums of any other country, with the exception of Denmark. The gold is of the purest kind and richest colour, and the manner of its working could not be excelled ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... from Naples in order that it might be laid on the window-sill of the room in which Francesca and Paolo read of Lancelot and Guinevere. In an interview published in one of the English papers, d'Annunzio declared that he had all his stage decorations made in precious metal by fine craftsmen, and that he had done this for an artistic purpose, and not only for the beauty of the things themselves. The gesture, he said, of the actor who lifts to his lips a cup of finely-wrought gold will be finer, more sincere, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... California.—A workman in digging a mill-race in the Sacramento valley (February, 1848) discovered shining particles of gold. A further search proved that the soil for miles around was full of the precious metal. The news flew in every direction. Emigration began from all parts of America, and even from Europe and Asia. In eighteen months one hundred thousand persons had gone from the United States to this El Dorado, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... field that supplied the precious metal to mediaeval Europe. The French claim to have imported it from Elmina as early as A.D. 1382. In 1442 Goncales Baldeza returned from his second voyage to the regions about Bojador, bringing with him the first gold. Presently a company was formed for the purpose of carrying on the gold-trade between ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... fonder of gold than of anything else in the world. He valued his royal crown chiefly because it was composed of that precious metal. If he loved anything better, or half so well, it was the one little maiden who played so merrily around her father's footstool. But the more Midas loved his daughter, the more did he desire and seek for wealth. He thought, foolish man, that the best thing he could possibly do for ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... century; so that the method was probably first used for gold, which, except in the form of thin wire or extraordinarily fine thread, is not quite the thing to stitch with. Besides, it was natural to wish to keep the precious metal on the surface, and not waste it at ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... finally, with his hand, he brushed the remaining grains off the torn paper into the envelope, poured them into the gaping sack-mouth, and lazily pulled at the buckskin draw-string, everybody sat wondering how much, if any, of the precious metal had escaped through the tear, and how soon Dillon would come out of his brown study, remember, and recover the loss. But a spell seemed to have fallen on the company. No one spoke, till Dillon, with that lazy motion, hoisting one square shoulder and half ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... haughtily. "I will not suffer my power to be thus doubted, nor that of the pure and precious metal through ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... watch was kept, in case something else might turn up, and every piece of hard substance disinterred was carefully scrutinised; but, alas! no more golden images or nuggets of the precious metal gladdened our eyes! Nothing came in view but sand and lava, lava and sand, varied occasionally by the sight of some fragment of half-fossilised tortoise-shell, or the chalky bones of cuttlefish and similar debris of the deep, washed up by the sea, and buried a fathom ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... turned back if sure of the way home, but Job Grinnell led steadily on, and they were fain to follow. They lagged to look at a spot where some man, unheeded even by tradition, had dug his heart's grave in a vain search for precious metal. A deep excavation in the midst of the wilderness told the story; how long ago it was might be guessed from the age of a stalwart oak that had sunk roots into its depths; the shadows were heavy about it; a sense of despair brooded ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... hand of Ferdinand. The cavaliers and courtiers admitted to the royal pavilion remained standing. The count de Tendilla served the viands to King Ferdinand in golden dishes, and the count Cifuentes gave him to drink out of cups of the same precious metal; Don Alvaro Bazan and Garcilasso de la Vega performed the same offices, in similar style and with vessels of equal richness, to the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... in the church of St. John was mainly of silver, and, according to Quincarnon, at the time of a Huguenot outbreak at Lyons it was thrown to the ground by a Calvinist minister named Ruffy, who, after reducing it to fragments, carried all the precious metal ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... loved gold in a lavish way, and on a superb scale. They were not content with chaste rings and necklets, or even with golden crowns. The royal thrones were of gold; their armour was decorated with the precious metal, and their chariots enriched in the same way. Even the houses of the rich people were more endowed with precious furnishings than most of the churches of other nations, and every family possessed a massive silver table, and solid ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... of the primitive operations of the aboriginal inhabitants of the globe in pursuit of gold is barely traditional, as we are only aware that from very early times the precious metal was collected and highly prized by them, and that they chiefly extracted the visible gold, which existed in prodigious quantities on or closely beneath the surface of the earth, and of its being particularly abundant ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... appearance it is practically identical with gold. Indeed, in all ages," he went on, dropping at once into the classroom tone and adopting the professional habit of jumping backwards twenty centuries in order to explain anything properly, "it has been readily mistaken for the precious metal. The ancients called it 'fool's gold.' Martin Frobisher brought back four shiploads of it from Baffin Land thinking that he had discovered an Eldorado. There are large deposits of it in the mines of Cornwall, and it is just possible," here the professor measured ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... essential part of the police protection which it gives to the people, the coining of currency, stamping the coin in such a way that anybody who took one might know that he was getting a certain weight of a precious metal. But the money-dealing business very soon developed the machinery of credit by which anybody who had an enterprise or a venture out of which he expected to make an attractive profit could, if he had sufficient ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... lure of the precious metal was in every heart. Even Kars lay under its fascination once more, now that the strenuous goal lay within sight. He knew it was there, and in great quantities. And, for all the saner purposes he had in his mind, its ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... admixture of baser with precious metal, as for giving hardness to coin or the like, or it may be a compound or mixture of two or more metals. Adulteration, debasement, and deterioration are always used in the bad sense; admixture is neutral, and may be good or bad; alloy is commonly good in the literal ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... paper and placed them in his pocket. But it puzzled him to explain how there came to be gold on the cabin floor. His surprise deepened when, a few days later, he found another "prospect" in the same place. His two sweepings had yielded perhaps a pennyweight of the precious metal—enough to set him to thinking. It seemed queer that in the neighborhood of Black Jack's bunk he could ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Agassiz was given, not the art of the refiner, but the instinct of the discoverer, and the strength of the delver who brings ore from the recesses of the mine. That ore may contain its share of dross, but it also contains the precious metal which gives employment to the refiner, and without which his ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Spain? Columbus found a way out of the difficulty. He decided to found a colony on the coast. Forty men were to be left behind to search for gold, and by the time Columbus returned from Spain they would no doubt have a tun full of the precious metal, and that would be enough for the conquest of Jerusalem. The sailors were only too glad to remain, for they found the natives accommodating and the climate good. It was in all respects much pleasanter than to endure hardship on the Nina, and perhaps ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Mooney. No remonstrance - no tears. Now, Mr. Grig, let me conduct you to that hallowed ground, that philosophical retreat, where my friend and partner, the gifted Mooney of whom I have just now spoken, is even now pursuing those discoveries which shall enrich us with the precious metal, and make us masters of the world. ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... native furniture—namely, a chair of the purest beaten gold of octagonal shape, and formed of two bowls reversed, decorated with acanthus and lotus in repousee ornament. This is of eighteenth century workmanship, and was formerly the property of Runjeet Sing. The precious metal is thinly laid on, according to the Eastern method, the wood underneath the gold taking ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... reading him, through the treasures of some royal collection; in him the presentation of almost every aspect of life is [197] beautified by the work of cunning hands. The thrones, coffers, couches of curious carpentry, are studded with bossy ornaments of precious metal effectively disposed, or inlaid with stained ivory, or blue cyanus, or amber, or pale amber-like gold; the surfaces of the stone conduits, the sea-walls, the public washing-troughs, the ramparts on which the weary soldiers ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... decorated with plates of silver; the marten's fur of his cap was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the buttons of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of Mexico; the stock of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted and banded with the same precious metal, and the trinkets of no less than three worthless watches dangled from different parts of his person. In addition to the pack and the rifle which were slung at his back, together with the well filled, and carefully guarded pouch and horn, he had carelessly cast a keen ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in their effects; but when we recall the Ephesian decree and its execution, we feel inclined to regard them as a comparatively mild retaliation. That the exactions in other respects were not unusually oppressive, is shown by the value of the spoil afterwards carried in triumph, which amounted in precious metal to only about 1,000,000 pounds. The few communities on the other hand that had remained faithful—particularly the island of Rhodes, the region of Lycia, Magnesia on the Maeander—were richly rewarded: Rhodes received back at least a portion of the possessions withdrawn from it after ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... that. The metal, however, is unfit for coinage. When you have the two metals, gold and silver, used for coinage, you have a little confusion in the value of the two in the market; but when you have three precious metals (for you may call platinum a precious metal) worked into coin, they will be sure to run counter to one another. Indeed, the case did happen, that the price of platinum coin fixed by the Government was such, that it was worth while to purchase platinum in other countries, and make coin ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... contain a considerable quantity of gold. The mine was bought, and not one scrap of gold was ever found in it. Mr. X—— had provided himself with cigarettes made for the purpose, which contained gold dust in lieu of tobacco, and the ashes which he had dropped were in reality the precious metal, the presence of which was to persuade the unfortunate Frenchman that he was buying a property of considerable value. He paid for it something like two hundred thousand pounds, whilst the fame of the man who had thus cleverly tricked him ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... sorrel spires—deep drinkers of reddest sun wine—stand the boldest, and in their numbers threaten the buttercups. To these in the distance they give the gipsy-gold tint—the reflection of fire on plates of the precious metal. It will show even on a ring by firelight; blood in the gold, they say. Gather the open marguerite daisies, and they seem large—so wide a disc, such fingers of rays; but in the grass their size is toned by ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... California, during the early years of that State, an epidemic fever broke out, and raged with great malignity among the miners. The settlement was more than two hundred miles from San Francisco, in a secluded mountain gorge, barren of all but the precious metal which had attracted thither a rough, and motley multitude. There was no doctor within a hundred miles, and not a single female to nurse and watch the forlorn subjects of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... be more glorious than the golden crown of King Solomon; and so Solomon decreed that the Hoopoes should thenceforward wear golden crowns as a mark of his favour. But alas! when men found the Hoopoes all adorned with golden crowns, they pursued and slew them in great multitudes for greed of the precious metal, until the King of the Hoopoes, in heavy sorrow, hied hastily to King Solomon, and begged that the gift of the golden crowns might be rescinded, ere every Hoopoe ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... eventually reached the claim, he found Sandy sitting on an upturned bucket amidst the most deplorable surroundings in which a gold prospector in quest of the precious metal could ever hope to ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... man did not appear much gratified by this arrangement, especially as he had a shrewd suspicion that some of the ornaments of the bridle were of precious metal, having made occasional examinations of them with the edge of a file. But he did not see exactly what to do about it, except to get them from Abel in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... tips of their snouts, and he proceeded to put his conception into execution, and continued it daily whenever the hogs made their appearance. Of course their owner made a row about it; but when Old Red daily settled for his fun by paying liberally with gold-dust from some small bottles of the precious metal in his possession, Switzler readily became contented, and I think ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of discipline in his army, he allowed his soldiers, indeed, to destroy the images in the churches and to melt down the rich reliquaries of gold and silver, but scrupulously required them to place the precious metal in the hands of the local authorities. At length, forced to capitulate to the Comte de Tende, the royal governor, he obtained the promise of security of person and liberty of worship. New acts of treachery rendered his position unsafe, and he retired to Geneva. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... awaited eagerly the irregular mails which straggled in from unsettled, unorganized, often inaccessible regions where men cut and slashed the bowels of the earth for precious metal, or waded knee-deep in icy torrents, washing their sands in shallow containers for golden residue. No letter had come from Benito to Inez or Adrian. But Robert Windham wrote ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... baccarat, invited him to shoot with him, and a month later, as if it were an affair to be hurried over, he asked for and obtained the hand of Mademoiselle Therese de Montsaigne, and felt as happy as a miner who has discovered a vein of precious metal. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything said boastfully, 'Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much an ounce;—wouldn't you like to melt me down?' A corpulent straddling epergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather than been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... fetish had grown into a monstrous and crushing weight. It was as if the inspiration of their early years had left her heart to turn into a wall of silver-bricks, erected by the silent work of evil spirits, between her and her husband. He seemed to dwell alone within a circumvallation of precious metal, leaving her outside with her school, her hospital, the sick mothers and the feeble old men, mere insignificant vestiges of the initial inspiration. "Those poor people!" she ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... unrolled the delicately wrought mats and displayed the gifts they had brought. There were shields, helmets, and cuirasses embossed with plates and ornaments of pure gold, with collars and bracelets of the same precious metal, sandals, fans, plumes, and crests of variegated feathers wrought with gold and silver thread and sprinkled with pearls and precious stones. Also imitations of birds and animals in wrought or cast gold and silver of exquisite workmanship; and curtain coverlets and robes of cotton, fine ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... Australia to know that if he meant to hold his own among such men as Mr. Crinkett, he must make the best of such turns of fortune as chance might give him. Under no circumstances would Crinkett have been generous to him. Had Polyeuka suddenly become more prolific in the precious metal than any mine in the colony the Crinkett Company would have laughed at any claim made by him for further payment. When a bargain has been fairly made, the parties must make the best of it. He was therefore very decided in his refusal to make restitution, though he was ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... to draw him aside—a positive silver mine. The West Church is merely a negative one. Were it to get into the hands of the Moderates, it would become waterlogged to a certainty, and not a single ounce of the precious metal would ever be fished out of it; whereas you think there is still some little chance of recovery when you remain to ply the pump yourself. Most disinterested man!—let your statement of the case be but fairly printed, and it will serve you not only as an apology, but as an advertisement ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... similar is also used in the third chapter of Malachi. Speaking of the Messiah, the prophet says, "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." A refiner of silver sits over the fire, with his eye steadily fixed upon the precious metal in the crucible, until he sees his own image in it, as we see our faces in the glass. So the Lord will carry on his purifying work in the hearts of his children, till he sees his own image there. ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... drift into heaven on a kiss!" Jacqueline's voice was like some precious metal, molten ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... was to be found, and threatened with torture if they refused the information, they with great apparent reluctance directed their captors to a spot, at the distance of but a few leagues, where the precious metal could be obtained in great abundance. These unlettered savages executed their artifice with skill which would have done ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... matter-of-fact, everyday-life Aladdin's cave, where, after a little search, he was going to hit upon a vein of copper and become an independent man. And now that he was making his first bold venture into the region where the precious metal was to be found, all was darkness, nothing but stone walls, now wet and slimy, now cold, and ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... obtained; but that it must be taken to some place where there was plenty of coal or wood, before the gold could be melted out of it, and then intrusted to white men who understood the art of extracting the precious metal from the rocks. ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... to see can assure himself that Axim is the threshold of the Gold-region. It abounds in diorite, a rock usually associated with the best paying lodes. After heavy showers the naked eye can note spangles of the precious metal in the street-roads. You can pan it out of the wall-swish. The little stream-beds, bone-dry throughout the hot season, roll down, during the rains, a quantity of dark arenaceous matter, like that of Taranaki, New Zealand, and ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... accepted the sacrifice of all their jewelry, rich laces, velvets and silks, their looking glasses of solid precious metal. These being made of metal could be used for building purposes. The women carried these with them wherever they went, and always stood with them in hand at the door of the Tabernacle, as they were the doorkeepers ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... hung curling down over his sombre robe. One hand protruded from the folds and held the richly-jewelled mouthpiece of the pipe to his lips, and I noticed that the fingers were long and crooked, winding themselves curiously round the gold stem, as if revelling in the touch of the precious metal and the gems. As we came within his range of vision, his dark eyes shot a quick glance of scrutiny at me and then dropped again. Not a movement of the head or body betrayed a consciousness of our presence. Isaacs made a long salutation ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... Proof that he had carried on with a Front Row Floss in New Haven, but it was Common Talk that one of his Uncles had been a Regular at a Retreat where the Doctor shoots a Precious Metal into the Arm. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... feudal castles; while beside the roadbed, broken by sharp acclivities, the small, muddy, vile-smelling river Guanajuato flows sluggishly along, bearing silver tailings away from the mills above, and wasting at least twenty-five per cent, of the precious metal contained in the badly manipulated ore. Here and there in the river's bed—the stream being low—scores of natives were seen washing the earth which had been deposited from the mines, working knee-deep in the ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... eyes upon the ground beneath us, in consequence of Hargreaves, on his return from California about this time, having predicted gold, and subsequently fulfilled his prophecy by washing out some of the precious metal in the Bathurst vicinities. Passing over trifling intermediate finds of gold, as at Anderson's Creek in August, Ballarat ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... motor-cars carrying gold to Russia are said to have transferred the precious metal to cyclists ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... nestling in the hand of the earth-mother, known to be so gentle with her children. On the hill-sides, smaller mining houses stood, each one emphasized by the blue-gray heap of earth and granite—the dump—formed by the labors of the restless men who burrowed in the rock for precious metal. The road, which seemed to have no ending-place, was blazed through the brush and through the hills in either direction across the miles and miles of this land without a people. The houses of Borealis stood to right and left of this path through the wilderness, as if by common ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... substance into this lake, the demons exhibited their anger by furious storms. In one part of the mountain was perpetual snow and ice, with abundance of crystal. At its foot flowed a river, whose sands were of gold; and the precious metal thus obtained, was denominated, by the vulgar, its cloak. The mountain itself and the parts adjacent, furnished silver; and its inexhaustible fertility was not the ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... the south of Trebizond, which are still worked with sufficient profit, were a subject of national dispute between Justinian and Chozroes; and, as Gibbon remarks, "it is not unreasonable to believe that a vein of precious metal may be equally diffused through the circle of the hills." On what account these mines were shadowed out under the appellation of a Golden Fleece, it is not easy to explain. Pliny, and some other writers, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... have heard the age-old legend of the Mother Vein of Gold, which appears and vanishes, now and again, in this corner of the world. Superstition regarding this great original vein of gold is found wherever men seek the precious metal. The feverish Spaniards called this phantom lode the Madre d'Oro, or "Mother of Gold." Now it is located in Mexico, now in India or Peru, California or Australia. Tradition says that Montezuma got his gold from this great vein, which lay in a secret valley whose where-abouts ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Cordillera, where once lived the powerful and wealthy Inca race with their great stores of pure gold obtained from prolific mines known to them, it is again not surprising that Mr. Lange should have stumbled upon a marvellously rich deposit of the precious metal in a singular form. The geology of the region is unknown and the origin of the gold Mr. Lange found cannot at present ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... itself is just beyond that barrier of broken and twisted trees," replied the elder Russian brother. "It is an irregular opening in the ground, as though once, centuries ago, an ancient people tried to get out the precious metal. We will go ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... mistake that is!" cried Innocent Smith, leaping up in great excitement. "All is gold that glitters— especially now we are a Sovereign State. What's the good of a Sovereign State if you can't define a sovereign? We can make anything a precious metal, as men could in the morning of the world. They didn't choose gold because it was rare; your scientists can tell you twenty sorts of slime much rarer. They chose gold because it was bright—because it was a hard thing to ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first experiment in smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred dollars, the estimated value of his gold-mounted hookah, with its complicated array of tubes and vessels of the same precious metal, none of which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... put a value upon what he had lost. His master had saved his life, and he would set that against the pilfered gold, and would forgive what had been done against himself. So having ascertained that it was only too true that his bag contained but two or three little pieces of the precious metal, he cast the rest of its contents into the sea, and determined to start afresh in life, as if the sorrowful part of his past history never had been. But first he posted Frank's letter, with one of his own, in which he stated where he ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... the walls and ceiling were everywhere in crusted. Gold, in the figurative language of the people was "the tears wept by the sun," 17 and every part of the interior of the temple glowed with burnished plates and studs of the precious metal. The cornices, which surrounded the walls of the sanctuary, were of the same costly material; and a broad belt or frieze of gold, let into the stonework, encompassed the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Gifts in this precious metal are naturally circumscribed, but a gold coin is apropos, particularly if Fortune has been chary of her favors. In the seventh and eighth decade people have ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... words when there is no corresponding rant in the soul; whilst Chapman's tragedy, like Marlowe's "Tamburlaine," indicates a greater swell in the thoughts and passions of his characters than in their expression. The poetry is to Shakespeare's what gold ore is to gold. Veins and lumps of the precious metal gleam on the eye from the duller substance in which it is imbedded. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... he advanced, and finally took Tours, to which city much treasure had been carried for safe-keeping. Charles the Bald, who had bought off the former expedition with silver, bought off this one with gold, offering the bold adventurer a bribe of six hundred and eighty-five pounds of the precious metal, to which he added a ton and a half of silver, to leave ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... and it was just as it had been shot down from the breast. Some was silver-lead; and there was copper to boot, though that would hardly do to ship. Yet at thirty cents a pound copper was almost a precious metal, and a report from the smelter would be a check. He would know from that how the ore really ran and how much he would be penalized for the zinc. So he picked out the best of it and broke it up fine, for the rough chunks would not do to sack; and before he had more than ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... not enough of nature's charm around this sunny, truly Canadian home? And how much of the precious metal would many an English duke give to possess, in his own famed isle, a site of such exquisite beauty? We confess, we denizens of Quebec, we do feel proud of our Quebec scenery; not that on comparison we think the less of other localities, but that ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... why a different theory is in favor at the South. It would be very convenient, no doubt, to the slaveholder to be permitted to transfer his slaves to the gold diggings, and gather the precious metal in lieu of a crop of cotton. But this, the policy of the whole country forbids. Congress has very justly left the decision of this very important matter to the people of California itself; and they have almost unanimously raised their ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... two is illegible, from the injury made by the clasp, before the last K. Both the clasps are torn away, perhaps from their having been of some precious metal. Has this K anything to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... given by J. L. Myres and M. O. Richter in Catalogue of the Cyprus Museum) shows more than five-and-twenty settlements in and about the Mesaorea district alone, of which one, that at Enkomi, near the site of Salamis, has yielded the richest Aegean treasure in precious metal found outside Mycenae. E. Chantre in 1894 picked up lustreless ware, like that of Hissariik, in central Phtygia and at Pteria (q.v.), and the English archaeological expeditions, sent subsequently into north-western Anatolia, have never falled to bring back ceramic specimens ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of the Old World, we find them acquainted with iron, but such knowledge, at least on the part of the Mediterranean nations, does not long precede history, for at that early time, iron was still a most precious metal. It was not yet produced in sufficient quantities to take the place of bronze; hence the prehistoric Iron Age was there but of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... keep them as many more, and here is a gold dollar for the term;" and her mistress tossed her carelessly two fives in the precious metal. "See that I am not disturbed, and only admit as I ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... There are only four of these cannon, two of which are solid gold four-pounders, fitted with an internal tube of steel. The carriages are plated with gold, and the harness for the team of oxen is heavily ornamented with the same precious metal. Gold horns are fitted upon those of the oxen employed, and these animals are selected for their immense size and general ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... California, I am informed that the laborers in the mines are compelled to dispose of their gold dust at a large discount. This appears to me to be a heavy and unjust tax upon the labor of those employed in extracting this precious metal, and I doubt not you will be disposed at the earliest period possible to relieve them from it by the establishment of a mint. In the meantime, as an assayer's office is established there, I would respectfully ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... recital, one of the guests at the head of the festal board had listened with peculiar eagerness. He was a knight, tall and finely limbed, and attired with pointed elegance and taste. His pourpoint was barred with gold, and deep fringes of the same precious metal adorned its borders. His face was swarthy from exposure, though classical in contour, and eminently handsome in expression. His lips curled proudly, his nostrils were thin, and in every feature might be traced ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... buy 'em all?" eagerly asked the other, as, with a grin of delight, he clutched the precious metal. ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... dread an enormous depreciation of this metal, that they ceased to make it the standard of value—Holland for instance did so for a while, though she has since changed her mind; and it has been found convenient to invent a word, 'to demonetize' to express this process of turning a precious metal from being the legal standard into a mere article of commerce. So, too, diplomacy has recently added more than one new word to our vocabulary. I suppose nobody ever heard of 'extradition' till within the last few years; ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... come out to Canada to make their fortunes; almost even to realise the story told in the nursery, of the sheep and oxen that ran about the streets, ready roasted, and with knives and forks upon their backs. They were made to believe that if it did not actually rain gold, that precious metal could be obtained, as is now stated of California and Australia, by ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Australia attracted the energetic youth of Britain. Arriving in Melbourne in '52, when the gold fever was at its height, he and his companions lost no time in finding their way to the fields in search of the precious metal. He spent twelve months in rough living and hard labour then, to realize it was not as easy to make a fortune as he imagined. But he was a good artizan and, men of his stamp being scarce, he returned to Melbourne and started working at his trade. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... thieves had scarcely reckoned. In his usual berth, crouched at the side of the fireplace, sat Gum. The robber was weighing the gold in his hand, turning it round and round, and gloating over it, when the glitter from the precious metal attracted the monkey's eye. It seemed to feel some sense of property in this gold, for, quick as lightning, one hairy paw brushed the robber's hand, and the next moment the nugget was gone. With a great oath the robber turned ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond |
