"Steepness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crown of fir-trees that towered remote and very blue upon the uplifted sky-line. Swallows, with white breasts flashing, circled over the river, and while their elevation above the water appeared at times tremendous, the abrupt steepness of the gorge was such that the birds almost brushed the hillside with their wings. A sledge, laden with the timber of barked sapling oaks, creaked and jingled over the rough road beside the stream; a man called to his horses and a dog barked beside him; then they disappeared and the spacious ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... As shoveling is the most costly system of transport known, any means of stoping that decreases the need for it has merit. Shrinkage-stoping eliminates it altogether. In the other methods, gravity helps in proportion to the steepness of the dip. When the underlie becomes too flat for the ore to "run," transport can sometimes be helped by pitching the ore-passes at a steeper angle than the dip (Fig. 36). In some cases of flat deposits, crosscuts into the walls, or even levels under the ore-body, ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... the purpose, as now the use of our toes became necessary to a further advance. I availed myself of a sort of comb of the mountain, which stood against the wall like a buttress, and which the wind and the solar radiation, joined to the steepness of the smooth rock, had kept almost entirely free from snow. Up this, I made my way rapidly. Our cautious method of advancing, at the outset, had spared my strength; and, with the exception of a slight disposition to headache, I felt no remains of yesterday's illness, ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... IXth Infantry Divisions, under Kelly-Kenny, Tucker, and Colvile respectively, were withdrawn from Modder River and the stations south of it, and concentrated at Ramdam on February 11 and the two following days. Owing to the steepness of its banks the Riet River could only be crossed at Waterval and De Kiel's Drifts, and on these the Army converged, and trickled through them like the sands in the neck of an hour-glass. Men, horses, guns, supply and ammunition ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Gibbie—he can seldom be in doubt whether he is going right, even where there is no track. Indeed in all more arduous ways, men leave no track behind them, no finger-post—there is always but the steepness. He climbed and climbed. The mountain grew steeper and barer as he went, and he became absorbed in his climbing. All at once he discovered that he had lost the stream, where or when he could not tell. All below and around him was red granite rock, scattered over with the chips and splinters ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... attempted to deceive us by turning off from the high road, when an exclamation from Peter Barnett (who, from his exalted station, was able to command a more extended view than ourselves) attracted my attention. We were at the moment descending a hill, which from its steepness obliged the postilions to proceed at a more moderate pace. Thrusting my head and shoulders out of one of the front windows, and raising myself by my hands, I contrived to obtain a view of the scene which had called forth Peter's ejaculation. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... stone facing, flashed like lightning; and then, in a black cloud of dust, flew up fragments of shattered stone. The wall crumbled and fell to pieces; but the fortress, by the thickness of its walls, resisted long the shattering force of the iron; and the precipitous steepness of the ruins offered no opportunity for storming. For the heated guns, and for the weary artillerymen, worn out by incessant firing, repose was absolutely necessary. By degrees the firing from the batteries by land and sea began to slacken; thick clouds of smoke, floating from the shore, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... equally with the Manor, to a period of the past. It was a delightful, roomy, almost medieval kind of a place, so picturesque, in its old-world fashion, that one could forgive the lowness of the rooms, the narrowness of the passages, the steepness of the stairs, and the inconvenience of the fact that the front door opened directly into the dining-room, and the bedrooms nearly all led into one another. None of these drawbacks seemed to distress the young Greenwoods, who thought their home the nicest spot in the world. They were a particularly ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... gradually away from the scene of action, and, turning his line of ascent rather to the left, had pursued it until it brought him under a front of the Castle different from that before which the parties were engaged, and to which the defenders had given no attention, trusting to the steepness of the precipice. There was, however, on this point, a certain window belonging to a certain pantry, and communicating with a certain yew-tree, which grew out of a steep cleft of the rock, being the very pass through which Goose Gibbie was smuggled out of the Castle in order ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... him to the business of pity. She had thought of dances for no more than a minute, though it had long been one of her dreams to enter a ballroom by a marble staircase (which she imagined of a size and steepness really more suited to a water-chute), carrying a black ostrich-feather fan such as she had seen Sarah Bernhardt pythoning about with in "La Dame aux Camelias." This hour she had dedicated to Mr. Philip, and he knew it. She was thinking of him with an intentness ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... at him in great gusts; first came the great boom of the sea, and then a blast of air. The way twisted and circled, making his head giddy for a fall; his feet slipped on the steepness and slime of the descent, and at each turn the sound grew more appalling, and the driving force of the wind more and more like the stroke of a ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... feel convinced that although she will have a great struggle, in the end she will yield to it. This is like the 'Hill Difficulty' to Primrose, but she is not the sort of girl to turn away from it without conquering its steepness and its toils. Jasmine, dear, you three have tried bravely to help yourselves, and you have—yes, I must say it, dear—you have failed. Primrose cannot spend her life as continual reader to Mrs. Mortlock; you see now, my dear little girl, that you are much too young to earn anything ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... why not drag the toboggan a yard or two further up the steep bank beyond the path which made the present start? It was a tree- crowned bank, forming the very crest of the hill, so short that it measured at the most six or seven yards, but of a steepness far eclipsing any other portion of the run. If she could start from this higher point she would accomplish a feat unattempted by any of her companions, and descend at a velocity ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... cork-tree, the long reeds, the willows, above all, the sound of the flowing water, absolute ecstasy. There was an instant rush for the river, impeded by many a thorn-bush and creeper; but almost anything green was welcome at the moment, and the only disappointment was at the height and steepness of the banks of rock. However, at last one happy man found a place where it was possible to climb down to the shingly bed of the river, close to a great mass of the branching headed papyrus reed. Into the muddy but eminently sweet water most of them waded; helmets ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 27th, I proceeded on my route over the chain hills, with which the town of Cuddapah is surrounded; the roads are very good, but the steepness of the hills made it very fatiguing: in six hours I arrived at Batoor, a distance of twelve miles. Batoor is a large village, the houses are built of mud and bamboo, and form a motley group; the only protection they have from the number of robbers which infest that part, is a small fort, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... of the rear stairs in the home of Widow Friestone was an ordinary door latched at night, but without any lock. When Mike Murphy was groping about in the blank darkness, where nothing was familiar, he did not know, as has been said, of the steepness of the steps. Thus he placed his shoe upon vacancy, and, unable to check himself, bumped to the bottom, striking every step on the route, and banging against the door with such force that the latch ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... fatigued, Godfrey had enough will not to slacken his pace. He would doubtless have run had it not been for the steepness of the earlier ascents. ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... British cheer. Four guns were run forward, and the infantry, at full speed, dashed on towards the river, and rushed up the sloping bank. The stern Beloochees, with matchlocks resting on the summit, let their assailants come within 15 yards before they delivered their fire; but the steepness of the slope inside, which rendered their footing unsteady, and the rapid pace of the British, spoilt their aim, and the execution ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... however, Nelly found less great than she had expected it to be. It is a curious fact, but well known to all, that those who have once mounted Multiplication staircase never complain any more of its steepness. Nelly ascended it without a single stumble, till, when she had almost reached the top, she met her brother Dick coming down from Mr. Arithmetic's. What was her astonishment to see the strong boy laden with three grates fastened together, Division, ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... proceeding of Soteridas, that they reproached and even struck him, until they compelled him to resume his shield as well as his place in the ranks. Xenophon then remounted and ascended the hill on horseback as far as the ground permitted; but was obliged again to dismount presently, in consequence of the steepness of the uppermost portion. Such energetic efforts enabled him and his detachment to reach the summit first. As soon as the enemy saw this, they desisted from their ascent, and dispersed in all directions; leaving the forward ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... which, for that without great danger he could not accomplish, he deferred it until a more convenient time. All along the coast lie very high mountains, covered with snow, except in such places where, through the steepness of the mountains, of force it must needs fall. Four days coasting along this land we found no sign of habitation. Little birds which we judged to have lost the shore, by reason of thick fogs which that country ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... hollow; the ladies left their cavaliers, but she did not let go my arm. The witticisms of the local dandies failed to make her laugh; the steepness of the declivity beside which she was standing caused her no alarm, although the other ladies uttered shrill cries ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... he ran the distance, finding the hard, sandy soil like a track under his feet. The slope, when he had reached it, proved to be abrupt and boulder-strewn, and the path had an ugly trick of avoiding steepness by skirting horrible precipices. Luckily the moon was bright, and the man was an old mountaineer; otherwise he might have found a grave in the crevices which seamed ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the leafless maples and brown vine tendrils a young man that he had never seen, who stopped before him breathing quickly from the steepness of the ascent. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... my steps down-hill, tacking and zigzagging in the descent because of the steepness. I was soon at the foot of the mount, across the brook, and seated in the garden, enjoying the fresh fruit, with an ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... second-rate mountaineering which is so dear to dons and schoolmasters. When the time came he was ready for that, but he had had his experiences. He had gone through a phase of real cowardice. He was afraid, he confessed, before even he reached Montana; he was afraid of the steepness of the mountains. He had to drive ten or twelve miles up and up the mountain-side, a road of innumerable hairpin bends and precipitous banks, the horse was gaunt and ugly with a disposition to shy, and he confesses he clutched the side of the vehicle and speculated ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the king, proposed to undertake a desperate enterprise which, if successful, must put Alhama in his power. Early one morning, when it was scarcely the gray of the dawn, about the time of changing the watch, these cavaliers approached the town at a place considered inaccessible from the steepness of the rocks on which the wall was founded, which, it was supposed, elevated the battlements beyond the reach of the longest scaling-ladder. The Moorish knights, aided by a number of the strongest and most active escaladors, mounted these ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... The steepness of the trail increased. At times the meager pathway disappeared entirely. It lay upon rocks that gave no sign of the hoofs that had previously rung metallic clinks upon the granite. How the man in the lead discerned it here was a matter Beth could ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... in the shanty heard the click of the horse's shoes and the rumble of the departing wheels on the stones amid the wagon's creaking complaints against the steepness ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... severed it with his hunting knife, upon which I fell into a crevice full of soft snow. We were driven lower down the mountains than he had intended by impassable tracts of ice, and the ascent was tremendous. For the last 200 feet the boulders were of enormous size, and the steepness fearful. Sometimes I drew myself up on hands and knees, sometimes crawled; sometimes "Jim" pulled me up by my arms or a lariat, and sometimes I stood on his shoulders, or he made steps for me of his feet and hands, but at six we stood on the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... is crude ambergris. Moreover, the trees of the island are all of the most precious aloes-wood, both Chinese and Comorin; but there is no way of issue from the place, for it is as an abyss midmost the sea; the steepness of its shore forbiddeth the drawing up of ships, and if any approach the mountain, they fall into the eddy aforesaid; nor is there any ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... steep sides all round. The reef, however, continually increases, and being prevented from going higher, extends itself laterally in all directions. But this growth being as rapid at the upper edge as it is lower down, the steepness of the face of the reef is still preserved. These are the circumstances which render coral reefs so dangerous in navigation; for, in the first place, they are seldom seen above the water; and, in the next, their sides are so steep, that a ship's bows may strike against the ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... in a Voice unknown though convulsed with agitation—it was the voice of my dear son! Oh what a quick transition from every direful apprehension to' joy and delight! yet knowing his precipitancy, and fearing a rash descent to join me, in ignorance of the steepness and dangers of the precipice which parted us, I called out with all the energy in my power to conjure him to await patiently, as I would myself, the entire going ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... agreed to conduct me by the best way for carts to Wallamoul on the Peel, for which service I undertook to reward him with a tomahawk.* It was necessary, that we should ford the Cuerindie, which flows to the north-west, and notwithstanding the steepness of its banks, we effected a passage without difficulty, guided by Jemmy. One mile beyond this, another creek lay in our way. It was smaller, but much more formidable and difficult to cross, for the bottom and banks consisted of blue-mud or clay, half-hardened on ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... for themselves, in order that they may go up and down to their chalets and pasturages. The people of the country have been making and improving these paths now for two thousand years or more, and they have got them at last in very excellent condition; so that, except the steepness, they are very ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... and Zama, on the north-west those of Naraggara and Thagaste, on the south those of Thala and Theveste.[1009] Metellus's march led him over a mountain height which was some miles from the river.[1010] The western side of this height, down which the Roman army must descend, although of some steepness at the beginning of its declivity, did not terminate in a plain, but was continued by a swelling rise, of vast and even slope, which found its eastern termination on the river's bank. The greater portion of this great hill, and especially that part of it which lay nearest ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... they shouted, and had it not been for their own fatigue, and the steepness of the hill, they would have broken into ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... prevented our accepting. After breakfast, therefore, on the 18th of March, we set out for the convent, situated about two or three miles from the town in a very large ravine, not unlike the bed of the Rosslyn river, and traversed by roads which from their steepness and precipitancy are not at all laudable, but the views were beautiful and changing incessantly, while the spring advancing was spreading her green mantle over rock and tree, and making that beautiful which was lately a blighted and sterile thicket. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... armed with waste make short work of cutting their beds to grade, and thus erode narrow, steep-sided gorges only wide enough at the base to accommodate the stream. The steepness of the valley slopes depends on the relative rates at which the bed is cut down by the stream and the sides are worn back by the weather. In resistant rock a swift, well-laden stream may saw out a gorge whose ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... a thin slice of a house with three rooms on each little floor, and a staircase like a ladder. There is something very sinister about this smallness and narrowness and steepness. You say to yourself: Supposing the Germans really do come into Ghent; there will be some Uhlans among them; and the Uhlans will certainly come into the Hotel Cecil, and they will get very drunk in the restaurant below; ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... a long range and a difficult mark, but I had to take the risk, for I was on my trial. I allowed for the throw of the musket and the steepness of the hill, and pulled the trigger. The shot might have been better, for I had aimed for the shoulder, and hit the neck. The buck leaped into the air, ran three yards, and toppled over. By the grace of God, I had found the single chance in ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... by two stout ponies passed them at an amazing pace considering the steepness of the street, and they saw in it a florid young man in a splendid costume, his powdered hair tied in ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... owing to the steepness of the ascent now wound a great deal, but it was smooth and safe, and the automobile, despite its size, had an organism as delicate as that of a watch. It obeyed the least pressure of his hand, and his exultation became all the greater when he ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... San Lorenzo, which guarded the Chagres River's mouth, was built on the right bank of that river, on a high hill of great steepness. The hill has two peaks, with a sort of natural ditch some thirty feet in depth between them. The castle was built upon the seaward peak, and a narrow drawbridge crossed the gully to the other summit, which was ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... that is surely self-evident. For our way in a holy life is always closely fenced up. It is far oftener a lonely way than otherwise. And the steepness, sternness, and loneliness of our way are all aggravated by the remembrance of our past sins and follies. They still, and more and more, lie upon our hearts a heart-crushing burden. But if we, like Christian, know how to keep our back to our former house and ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... on the map London was first founded. The site had many advantages: it was raised above the malarious marsh, it overlooked the river, which here was at its narrowest, it was protected by two other streams and by the steepness of the cliff, and it was over the little port formed by the fall of one stream into the river. Here, on the western hill, the Britons formed their first settlement; there were as yet no ships on the silent ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... stairs which were trodden so often by Galileo in going up to make his astronomical observations; in climbing spirally around the hollow cylinder in the dark, it was easy to tell on which side of the Tower we were, from the proportionate steepness of the staircase. There is a fine view from the top, embracing the whole plain as far as Leghorn on one side, with its gardens and grain fields spread out like a vast map. In a valley of the Carrarrese Mountains to the north, we could see the little town of Lucca, much frequented ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... brushing the sides of our horses and wetting us with dew. It is not long until we begin to ascend a high ridge. Here there are no paths whatever, and at times our horses can scarcely move on because of the steepness of the ascent. But a few minutes before nine o'clock, after a toilsome struggle, we reach the summit of the ridge, and here I get my first panoramic view of the west-Jordan ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... rougher. If anything, Roaring Bill increased his pace. He himself no longer rode. When the steepness of the hills and canons made the going hard the packs were redivided, and henceforth Satin bore on his back a portion of the supplies. Bill led the way tirelessly. Through flies, river crossings, camp labor, and all the petty irritations of the trail he kept an unruffled ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... continued in a whole family, the little children finding quite a solace of their pain in the Daily Prayer, it is impossible not to feel more at ease in our Church, as at least a sort of Zoar, a place of refuge and temporary rest, because of the steepness of the way. Only, may we be kept from unlawful security, lest we have Moab and Ammon for our ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... down the steepness of West Street. They walked athwart the metallic and leathery tumult of sound into the light cast by the little circle of yellow lamps. Several people saw them and wondered what the boys and girls were ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... instant, from parched wastes to the geen, and lovely islands of Abyssinia, presenting one scene of rich and thriving cultivation. The baggage having at length been consigned to the shoulders of six hundred grumbling Moslem porters—for here the camel, from the steepness of the hills, was useless—and forming a line, which extended upwards of a mile, the embassy, on the morning of the 17th, comnenced the ascent of the Abyssinian Alps; the flutes again played, the wild warriors of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... and its surface scarcely ruffled by the faintest zephyr, though it was blowing moderately fresh outside. The shore all round sloped very gently up from the water's-edge, with a gradually increasing steepness, however, further inland, until just before the culminating ridge was reached the inclination appeared to be quite precipitous, giving indeed to the entire basin some similitude to the interior of a gigantic ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... black buildings became perceptible, though only darkly and indistinctly, in the gorge, and after some hesitation, Plattner began to clamber down the precipitous descent towards them. The descent was long and exceedingly tedious, being so not only by the extraordinary steepness, but also by reason of the looseness of the boulders with which the whole face of the hill was strewn. The noise of his descent—now and then his heels struck fire from the rocks—seemed now the only sound in the universe, for the beating of the bell had ceased. As he drew nearer, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... capital a, Fig. XXV., be just safe. Then the capital b, in which the slope is the same but the excess greater, is unsafe. But the capital c, in which, though the excess equals that of b, the steepness of the supporting slope is increased, will be as safe as b, and probably as strong ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... a hold or bite on the road of 1-12 of 4 tons, or 6 2-3rds cwt. per wheel, or 13 1-3rd cwt. for the two wheels. This is likewise the propelling force of the carriage. Supposing, therefore, we were ascending a hill of 1 foot rise in 8, which I am assured exceeds in steepness any hill we have, we should be able to draw a load behind of 2 tons 2 cwt., or between 3 ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... landscape. The scientific man actually turned his back to it in examining first one rock, then another. The practical man must have looked both at the plain in front and at the hill he was on, since he judged that there was pasture and water-power, and that the steepness required supplementing the tramway by a funicular. But besides the different items of landscape, and the same items under different angles, which were thus offered to these two men's bodily eyes, there was a far greater ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... undisturbed, we can see that the islets may still extend in length; but as they cannot resist the surf until broken by rolling over a wide space, their increase in breadth must depend on the increasing breadth of the reef; and this must be limited by the steepness of the submarine flanks, which can be added to only by sediment derived from the wear and tear of the coral. From the rapid growth of the coral in the channel cut for the schooner, and from the several agents at work in producing fine sediment, it might be thought that the lagoon would ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... better entertainment of his Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth answered "Satis"—and it takes its name from having received the restored Merry Monarch under its roof on his way to London and the throne. Pepys, who was terrified by the steepness of the castle cliff and had no time to stay to service at the Cathedral, when he had been inspecting the defences at Chatham, found something more to his mind in a stroll by Restoration House, and into the Cherry Garden, where ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... scenery to keep pace with the weather. It was evident that we were nearing the monastery very rapidly. On catching the first distinct view of it, my companion could not restrain his admiration. At this moment, from the steepness of the ascent, I thought it prudent to descend, and to walk to the monastery. The view from thence was at once commanding and enchanting. The Danube was the grand feature in the landscape; while, near its very borders, at the distance perhaps of three English miles, stood ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... abruptly rising from the very edge of the Seine, whose sinuous course here shapes the adjoining land into a narrow peninsula. The chalky cliffs on each side of the castle are broken into hills of romantic form, which add to the impressive wildness of the scene. Towards the river, the steepness of the cliff renders the fortress unassailable: a double fosse of great depth, defended by a strong wall, originally afforded almost equal ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... passing through these, came to a path running north-east, down which we went. I must say the forest scenery here was superbly lovely. Along this mountain side cliff to the mangrove-swamp the sun could reach the soil, owing to the steepness and abruptness and the changes of curves of the ground; while the soft steamy air which came up off the swamp swathed everything, and although unpleasantly strong in smell to us, was yet evidently highly agreeable to the vegetation. Lovely ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... work getting up the knoll. What with the steepness of the incline, the thick tree stumps, and the soft sand, he and his crutch were as helpless as a ship in stays. But he stuck to it like a man in silence, and at last arrived before the captain, whom he saluted in the handsomest style. He was tricked out in his best; an immense blue coat, thick ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they could have come through with their reason or their life. I have no fear for the Christian man, so he keeps to the path of duty. Straining up the steep hill, his heart will grow stout in just proportion to its steepness. Yes, and if the call to martyrdom came, I should not despair of finding men who would show themselves equal to it, even in this commonplace age, and among people who wear Highland cloaks and knickerbockers. The martyr's strength would come with the martyr's day. It is because ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... know that there is a more pleasant residential quarter of London than the quiet streets and gardens that straggle over this airy height. The very steepness of the slopes leading up from the Kensington High Street on the one side and from Holland Park Avenue on the other effectually preserves the atmosphere of old-world languor which envelops this retired spot. The hill, with its approaches ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... and rode off at a canter. Dick gave the horse his head and drove home as fast as the steepness of the hill permitted, Yasmini talking to ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... projecting into the river, and upon it are the remains of a fort, which they call eppah, or heppah. The best engineer in Europe could not have chosen a situation better adapted to enable a small number to defend themselves against a greater. The steepness of the cliffs renders it wholly inaccessible from the water which incloses it on three sides; and, to the land, it is fortified by a ditch, and a bank raised on the inside: From the top of the bank to the bottom of the ditch, is two-and-twenty feet; the ditch on the outside ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... is covered with snow, as it is in the beginning of winter, the steepness of its declivity may be very dangerous to the traveller. M. Le Gros showed us the place where captain Baudin was nearly killed when he visited the Peak of Teneriffe. That officer had the courage to undertake, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... and larger has been the castle of Leiria, some fifty miles south of Coimbra: it or the keep was begun by Dom Diniz in 1324.[64] The rock on which it stands, in steepness and in height recalls that of Edinburgh Castle, but without the long slope of the old town leading nearly to the summit: towering high above Leiria it is further defended on the only accessible quarter by the river Lis which runs round two sides not far from ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... charge and brought down a land slide which it took them a day to clear. On a previous day he had blasted too close to the wagon and a bowlder had smashed the rear axle. He took extraordinarily narrow chances with the steepness of grade but in spite of the Sun Planters' prophecies they did not lose either horses or wagon down canyon or mountain side. Ernest, however, slipped on top of one of the finished sections and rolled two hundred feet before he could ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... gradually thins out in consequence of the packing of its mass, however large and numerous may be its accessions. The analogy fails also in one important point, that of the acceleration of speed with the steepness of the slope. The motion of the glacier bears no such direct relation to the inclination of its bed. And though in a glacier, as in a river, the axis of swiftest motion is thrown alternately on one or the other side of the valley, according ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... himself in with a pass-key at a low door, and then conducted Hugh, by a stair whose narrowness was equalled by its steepness, to a room, which, though not many yards above the level of the court, was yet next to the roof of the low house. Hugh could see nothing till his conductor lighted a candle. Then he found himself in a rather large room with a ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... some half-dozen lesser places, among them Surra, Abuku, Arura, and Arubi. The inhabitants assembled upon a mountain ridge which they believed to be inaccessible, its peak being likened to "the point of an iron dagger," and the steepness of its sides such that "no winged bird of the heavens dare venture on them." In the short space of three days Assur-nazir-pal succeeded in climbing its precipices and forcing the entrenchments which had been thrown up on its ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... speck close to them—perhaps it was a vessel. This made me melancholy, and I could not help asking myself whether I was to remain all my life upon the island, alone, or if there were any chance of my ever being taken off it. As I looked down upon the cabin, I was surprised at the steepness of the rocks which I had climbed, and felt alarmed, as if I never should be able to get back again. But these thoughts were soon chased away. I turned from the seaward, and looked inland. I found that on one side of me there was a chasm ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... steeper than the Alp-king; and steepness is a quality more quickly appreciated than mere massiveness. "Mont Blanc (says a writer in Frazer's Magazine) is scarcely admired, because he is built with a certain regard to stability; but the apparently reckless architecture of ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... of a vast pyramidical mound, situated abruptly in an opening of the chalk range extending from Ballard Down to Worthbarrow in the Isle of Purbeck, county of Dorset. The walls are extremely thick, (12 feet in some places,) and are about half a mile in circuit. On the northern side the steepness of the ascent renders it inaccessible, and on the south is a deep ditch, over which is a bridge of three arches commanded by a gateway, flanked by two circular massive towers. The first ward has several towers. Passing onwards in a considerable ascent, we reached a second bridge guarded ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... wind brought us, without much delay from the opposing ebb-tide, to the northern shore. We left the common embouchure of its two principal rivers, distinguished by the steepness of their banks to the right, and rowing up the narrow channel which has formed itself through the marsh land, reached our landing-place just as the sun's disk touched the blue summits of ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... 5.45, 20 [micron]; at 8 P.M., 70 [micron] and so on. Such curves show differences of steepness according to the temperature (see temp. curve), and to alterations of light (lamp) and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... twilight rather, was around them again. How unlike a winter night it seemed, the further they went through the endless, lonely, turf-grown tracts, and along the edge of a valley, at length—vallis monachorum, monksvale—taken aback by its sudden steepness and depth, as of an immense oval cup sunken in the grassy upland, over which a golden moon now shone broadly. Ah! there it was at last, the white Grange, the white gable of the chapel apart amid a few scattered white gravestones, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... did you drop something?" he called down, coming meanwhile as rapidly after them as the steepness of the flight allowed. "Mr. Harper says, he found this where you ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... long ocean-nursed waves to dash against it in foam; for century after century have the never-ceasing currents of the Pentland chafed against its steep sides, or eddied over its rough crest; and yet still does it remain unwasted and unworn,—its abrupt wall retaining all its former steepness, and every angular jutting all the original sharpness of edge. As we advance the scenery becomes wilder and more broken: here an irregular wall of rock projects from the crags towards the sea; there a dock-like hollow, in which the water gleams green, intrudes ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... and the slender force he had then with him. He, suffering Hicetes to pass forward, pursued him with his horsemen and light infantry, which Hicetes perceiving, crossed the river Damyrias, and then stood in a posture to receive him; the difficulty of the passage, and the height and steepness of the bank on each side, giving advantage enough to make him confident. A strange contention and dispute, meantime, among the officers of Timoleon, a little retarded the conflict; no one of them was willing to let another ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... way called Destruction, which led him into a wide field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell and rose no more. I looked then to Christian to see him go up the hill, and then I saw that he had begun to clamber upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now about midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbor, made by the Lord of the hill for the refreshing of weary travelers. When Christian got there he sat down to rest, then he pulled out his roll and read in it to comfort himself, ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... here and there in solitary majesty, amid an area of rock forbidding to the eye and suggestive of sudden and impassable chasms. It was like circumambulating the sinuous verge of a canyon; and for the two miles they rode along its edge they saw no let-up in the steepness on one side or of the almost equally abrupt rise of towering rock on the other. It was Reuther's first experience of so precipitous a climb, and under other circumstances she might have been timid; but in her present heroic mood, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... region of extravagance in size and color, there ran immense bare open slopes of smooth turf that led to the foot of the eternal snowfields, with, far below, valleys of prodigious scale and steepness that touched somehow with disdain all memory of other mountain ranges ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... Road. These we occupied, and came in touch with the enemy who had sent out troops to attack. "No. 1" Section was in action along with two squadrons of Deccan Horse. They only reached their positions a few minutes in front of the enemy's flank guard, who, owing to the steepness and rocky nature of the ground, was able to approach within a few yards of the guns before being repulsed. During this encounter it is much regretted that Pte. ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... coast, besides the organic remains, there are in very many parts, marks of erosion, caves, ancient beaches, sand-dunes, and successive terraces of gravel, all above the present level of the sea. From the steepness of the land on this side of the continent, shells have rarely been found at greater distances inland than from two to three leagues; but the marks of sea-action are evident farther from the coast; for instance, in the valley of Guasco, at a distance of between thirty and ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... prolonged examination of the data I have collected about the Matterhorn, I am at this moment in doubt which is its top. For as, in order to examine the beds on its flanks, I walked up the Zmutt glacier, I saw that the line a b in Fig. 31 gradually lost its steepness; and about half-way up the glacier, the conjectural summit a then bearing nearly S. E. (forty degrees east of south), I found the contour was as in Fig. 32. In Fig. 33, I have given the contour as seen from Zermatt; and in all three, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... centuries to creep up near and yet nearer to the base of the castle, but have always stopped short before reaching it. The furrows of these environing attempts show themselves distinctly, bending to the incline as they trench upon it; mounting in steeper curves, till the steepness baffles them, and their parallel threads show like the striae of waves pausing on the curl. The peculiar place of which these are some of the features is 'Mai-Dun,' 'The Castle of the Great Hill,' said to be the Dunium ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... discipline of firemen as of the first importance in the organization of a fire brigade, Mr. Braidwood gave a large share of attention to the improvement of fire-engines and their kindred appliances. While in Edinburgh, where the steepness of many of the streets, and the roughness of the pavements in the older parts of the town prevented the rapid and easy movement of heavy engines, he recommended and adopted a lighter description, but in London he recognised the necessity ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... course of this river there are limited areas of intense erosion where naked gulleys of no mean magnitude have developed but these were exceptions and we were continually surprised at the remarkable steepness of the slopes, with convexly rounded contours almost everywhere, well mantled with soil, devoid of gulleys and completely covered with herbaceous growth dotted with small trees. The absence of forest growth finds its explanation in human ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... above visiting-lists, of hurried hands dispensing notes and cards to attendant footmen—this glimpse of the ever-revolving wheels of the great social machine made Lily more than ever conscious of the steepness and narrowness of Gerty's stairs, and of the cramped blind alley of life to which they led. Dull stairs destined to be mounted by dull people: how many thousands of insignificant figures were going up and down such stairs ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... of a little oak tree. Near the crest the road looped on itself, so that, looking back, it sloped below them up to the right and then came towards them. About them grew a rich heather with stunted oaks on the edge of a deep ditch along the roadside, and this road was sandy; below the steepness of the hill, however, it was grey and barred with shadows, for there the trees clustered thick and tall. Mr. Hoopdriver fumbled ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... daughter, check the gathering tear That lurks beneath thine eyelid, ere it flow And weaken thy resolve; be firm and true— True to thyself and me; the path of life Will lead o'er hill and plain, o'er rough and smooth, And all must feel the steepness of the way; Though rugged be thy ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Moro, who served as guide. With only these men, and one soldier armed with a shield, the master-of-camp advanced toward the Moro fort. He reached the foot of the hill, without allowing any others to follow him; and, being unable to proceed any further on account of its steepness, he summoned from above two Moros, to treat for peace. There seemed to be a difference of opinion among the Moros, as was gathered from their demeanor, for some made gestures of war, and others of peace, some of them even going so ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... up the precipitous wall, at whose bottom he had slid down. He climbed remarkably well. He went up hand-over-hand despite the steepness of the stone. It looked almost impossible, but Dillon apparently found handgrips by instinct, as a good climber does. In a matter of minutes he vanished, some fifty feet up, behind a bulging mass of stone. ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... as if he would run away from his own thoughts. The torn strips of clouds, that had looked like molten gold, were now darkening, and their darkness seemed ominous to him. The steepness of the "loanie" made him pant and presently he slackened his pace and slowed-down to walking. His eyes felt hot and stiff in their sockets and when he put his hand on his forehead, he felt that it was ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... but, beyond the ridges, it lay heavy, and in that heaviness Weldon placed his trust. For two thirds of his whole distance, he could keep below a ridge to the westward of the laager. The final third lay full in view of the enemy, full up the increasing steepness of the mountain side, where, horses failing, it would be necessary to creep by stealth and upon the hands and knees. And, where the shelter ended, there lay before them a short defile between walls of naked rock, and ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... waved my hand to the assembly, and "Sretnj poot!" (a prosperous journey!) burst from a thousand tongues. The scene was so moving that I could scarcely refrain a tear. Clapping spurs to my horse I cantered over the bridge and gave him his will of the bridle till the steepness of the ascent ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... having got the church and marked that it stands on a bit of high ground with a slope to the south-east, we run down a lane and into a field to the north-west, and there find a charming site for the "motte." The little hill rises with a fair amount of steepness above a flat piece of land with a small stream wriggling about in it. Then we go on and find that there is a near slope to the north-east also, so we have our "moutier" and the almost certain site of our "motte." They are fixed, as they should ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... one step, apparently, from a meadow of flowers to a wilderness of fissured rock, lying white and skeleton-like in the afternoon sun. We only skirted this rock in the first instance, and made for a clump of trees some little way off, in which we found a deep pit, with a path of sufficient steepness leading to the bottom. Here we came to a collection of snow, much sheltered by overhanging rocks and trees; and this, our guide told us, was the neigiere, a word evidently formed on the same principle as glaciere. The snow was half-covered with leaves, and was unpleasantly wet to our feet, so ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... was. Then abruptly the truth came to her. It was the top of a man's Stetson. The ledge sloped upward, and where she stood it was a good two feet higher than at the entrance. A man was riding up the outer slope and, remembering the steepness of it, Mary knew that, in a moment, more of him would come into view before he became visible ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... to the province of Guaccaiarima; but that of Bainoa is larger than the three preceding ones. Caizcimu extends from the point of the island as far as the river Hozama, which flows by Santo Domingo, the capital. Its northern border is marked by precipitous mountains,[4] which on account of their steepness especially bear the name of Haiti. The province of Huhabo lies between the mountains of Haiti and the Iacaga River. The third province Cahibo, includes all the country lying between the Cubaho and the Dahazio rivers as far as the mouth of Iaccha, one of the rivers dividing ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... in no mood to have the place profaned by their silly tremblings and stares: I beat at them with my hands, tearing them away, and hurling them back down the steepness of the steps. They asked me what was my title to the place above their own, and I answered them with blows and gnashing teeth. I was careless as to what they thought me or who they thought me. Only I wished them gone. And so they went, wailing and crying that I was a devil of the night, for they ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... adequate supply of trench-mortars and artillery support, gave greater hope of security. Just after midnight a general attack of no great weight commenced, but the enemy did not push it home, although the steepness of the sides of the valley prevented the full effect of our artillery fire, and the machine-guns posted in Tahta and firing up the valley made little impression. Soon after 02.00 the enemy attack forced ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... the ravine; and Toby could not find the place where he had previously crossed. He passed beyond it. Then they crossed at random in the easiest place. Once on the side where the cave was, Toby decided that they were above it; and, owing to the steepness of the banks, it was necessary to go around over the rocks, at a short distance from the ravine, in order to reach the shelf behind the thickets. It was in making this movement that they had been seen to descend the ledge and pass behind the bushes ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... to-day with Maria and Du B. This is the place I carried away in my thoughts and wishes, a mere rapidly passed steep grassy hill, topped with pines and leafless chestnuts, from that motor drive last year round by Monte Compatri and Grottaferrata. The steepness and bareness of that great grass slope was heightened to-day by the tremendous gales blowing in a cloudless sky; one felt as if it were that wind which had kept the place so inaccessible, so virgin of trees and people, nay, had made ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... blessed Ubaldo, hangs the fertile slope of a high mountain, wherefrom Perugia at Porta Sole[2] feeleth cold and heat, while behind it Nocera and Gualdo weep because of their heavy yoke.[3] On that slope, where it most breaks its steepness, rose a Sun upon the world, as this one sometimes does from the Ganges. Therefore let him who talks of that place not say Ascesi,[4] for he would speak short, but Orient,[5] if be would speak properly. He was not yet very far from his rising when he began to make the earth feel some ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... consisted of a number of small bedrooms, each with just enough in the way of furnishings to provide for the comfort of the occupants, without adding to housekeeping cares. From this story a staircase of ladder-like steepness, led up to an unfinished garret, empty, except for a few pieces of dilapidated furniture and sundry piles of magazines and paper-covered books, which had undoubtedly contributed to the entertainment of the ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Adderdean. It lifted to a spasmodic sneeze and ended. Gibbons had heard nothing of the morning's occurrences, but the phenomenon was so striking and disturbing that his philosophical tranquillity vanished; he got up hastily, and hurried down the steepness of the hill towards the village, as fast ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... on which they had camped, at its junction, the party followed down a narrow river flat for four miles, to where a large sandy creek joins it from the north. The steepness of its banks and freedom from fallen timber, suggested the name of "Canal Creek"—it is about 80 yards wide. Two miles further down a small creek joins, and at 12 miles a high rocky hill was reached. From this hill a bar of granite ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... the period is made clear, and the poet, whose tortures came from the heart, is as feelingly touched on as he who suffered from the political factions of the Bianchi and the Neri, and who felt the steepness of other's stairs and the salt savour of other's bread. Petrarch's banishment through love is not less feelingly described, and we are taken to the life and the homes of the time in the living descriptions given by Mary. One passage ought in fairness ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... in a long file, clawing their way, cursing the steepness, now and then one or another of them fumbling uncertainly, close to a slip and a fall. It was clear that, with the possible exception of Swen Brodie, not a man of them was entirely sober. But they made the climb safely and hastened into the upper ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... Arab way of doing things—rush and riot to begin with. The steepness of the stony ravine we rode up soon reduced the horses to a walk, after which there was a good deal of attention to rifle-bolts, and a settling down to the more serious aspects of the adventure. The escort began to look sullenly ferocious, as ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... hills, which locally have the name of kopjes, now become so familiar. These kopjes are of varying heights, from fifty to five hundred feet, and consist mainly of large boulders, with, however, a plentiful sprinkling of smaller rocks not too heavy for handling. The steepness and roughness of the surface make climbing a matter {p.143} of hands as well as of feet, and are therefore a source of particular difficulty and exposure to an assailant; while, on the other hand, the broken heaps of huge stones afford to the defence much natural protection, ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... worst mountain climbing I have done with a bicycle; all the way across the Rockies there is nothing approaching this pass for steepness; although on foot or horseback it would of course not appear so formidable. When part way up, a bank of low hanging clouds come rolling down to meet me, enveloping the mountain in fog, and bringing on a disagreeable drizzle which ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... westward for more than a hundred miles and contains some of the highest peaks to be found on the island. As seen from the water its furrowed slopes and flanks are deceptively foreshortened, so that they appear to fall with extraordinary steepness and abruptness to the sea; its rocky, wave-worn base is whitened by a long line of snowy breakers; its deep, wild ravines are filled with soft blue summer haze; and down from the clouds which shroud its higher peaks tumble in white, tortuous streaks the foaming waters of unnamed ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... at flood-tide. Thought focussed to one point of consciousness set on fire of its own rays. He walked as one unseeing, unhearing, hardened to singleness of purpose, heedless of the steepness of the climb, of his blood leaping like a mountain cataract, of his muscles moving with the ease of piston rods; heedless of all but the warmth of the glow enveloping his outer body from ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... The company halted, fearing lest these might herald some attack and that the woman was a man disguised to deceive them. While they waited thus irresolute, the pair upon the hill turned their horses' heads, and notwithstanding its steepness, began to gallop towards them very swiftly. Wulf looked at them ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... There was steepness on three sides of their nest. Above it was the wide expanse of the sky. Around, about, and beneath it lay bones washed and whitened by the rain. The nest itself was made of stones and mud, ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... by the state of the ice, and the weather fine and warm, Brother Kmoch and Ogiksuk rowed across the straits to the nearest great cataract, and were able, notwithstanding the steepness of the ascent, to get pretty close to it. It falls fifty or sixty feet perpendicular, and the noise is terrible. The spray ascending from it, like the steam of a huge cauldron, wetted the travellers completely. They amused themselves some time by rolling large stones into the ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... spite of the steepness of the road, pressed her husband with questions. When she heard that Joshua was resting on the heights with his father and the young men and refreshing themselves with wine, and that Hur had promised to resign voluntarily, if Moses desired to entrust the command to him, her heavy eye-brows contracted ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... or Ootslashshoots sometimes reside. in descending the creek this morning on the steep side of a high hill my horse sliped with both his hinder feet out of the road and fell, I also fell off backwards and slid near 40 feet down the hill before I could stop myself such was the steepness of the declivity; the horse was near falling on me in the first instance but fortunately recovers and we both escaped unhirt. I saw a small grey squirrel today much like those of the Pacific coast only ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Anglo-Saxon heads to direct them. The road is, as far as possible, to be secured by frequent culverts, and by macadamizing it, from the force of winter torrents. But that nothing is impossible to modern science, it would seem impossible to vanquish the obstacles to the enterprise, the inevitable steepness of the ascent, the rocky precipices, etc. We amused ourselves with graduating the intellectual development of the Celtic workmen by their answers to our questions: 'When is the road to be finished?' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... The hill was, however, so steep and rocky that it was necessary to form a path for the horses, and while Mr. H. Gregory returned, and was bringing up the party from the camp, I employed myself in filling up chasms with stones and removing rocks from the path, the steepness of the declivity greatly facilitating their removal, as it required but little force to hurl rocks of several tons weight into the valley below. Fortunately, we accomplished the descent without any accident, and reached the base of the hill at 11.30 a.m. ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... follow, I started down the zigzags on the farther side. It was already dusk, and the steepness of the road and the brisk night air sent me swinging down the turns with something of the anchor-like escapement of a watch. Midway I passed a solitary pedestrian, who was trolling to himself down the descent; and when in turn he passed me, as I was waiting under a tree ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... of the water Abel Keeling lifted his head. The strands of lean muscle about his emaciated mouth worked, and he made a little pressure of his sun-blackened hand on the deck, as if to verify its steepness and his own balance. The mainmast was some seven or eight yards away.... He put one stiff leg under him and began, seated as he was, to make ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... gate, for a blazing hut fell across his path. Turning he sped to the edge of a cliff that rose near by, where, because of its steepness, there was no wall. Here for a while he ran up and down till the wind-driven fire from new-lit huts at its brink leapt out upon him like thin, scarlet tongues. He threw himself to the ground, he rose again, beating his head with ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... miles in length, by 24 or 25 in medial breadth, and rises above the neighbouring plains probably 2000 feet. The sides of the mountain slope with considerable steepness, and are furrowed by streams that water narrow valleys, the verdant banks of which are the favorite haunts of Gaurs. On being disturbed, they retreat into the thick jungles (of saul-trees), which cover the sides ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... Again, the extreme steepness of the particular little spur, or swelling of the Downs, in which this cave had been formed, made it highly improbable that the feet of man would ever come that way. The surrounding turf had doubtless known the sharp little feet of many hundreds of generations of sheep; but it ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... enough to bear them; and as it was not glazed, but covered with an inch of hoar-frost, it retained the imprint of their feet with distinctness. They were obliged to carry their skees, on account both of the steepness of the slope and the density of the underbrush. Roads and paths were invisible under the white pall of the snow, and only the facility with which they could retrace their steps saved them from the fear of going astray. Through ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the flat, two in the leafy and gradually ascending creek-bed of a canon, a half hour of laboring steepness in the overarching mountain lilac and laurel. There you came to a great rock gateway which seemed the top of the world. At the gateway was a Bad Place where the ponies planted warily their little hoofs, and the visitor played "eyes front," and ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... Neither are their steep and Hilly Lands uncapable of being thus overflown with Water. For the doing of which they use this Art. They level these Hills into narrow Allies, some three; some eight foot wide one beneath another, according to the steepness of the Hills, working and digging them in that fashion that they lye smooth and flat, like so many Stairs up the Hills one above another. The Waters at the top of the Hills falling down wards are let into these Allies, and so successively by running out ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... it, it was not easy. The wood grew in loose rocks and the slope was much too steep for anything but hands and knees, and far too soft and broken for true climbing. And no wonder this ridge seemed a wall for steepness and difficulty, since it was the watershed between the Mediterranean and the cold North Sea. But I did not know this at the time. It must have taken me close on an hour before I had covered the last thousand feet or so that brought me to the top of the ridge, and ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... As the steepness of its sides utterly forbade all idea of reaching the summit of the flat-topped peak, he directed his course downwards to the river, steering SSE to go clear of the head of the creek, and of the swamps in its vicinity; but this direction took him a great way inland; ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... mainland at low tide by a rocky tidal flat, there was no way for a car to cross. The cove was reached by a flight of stairs leading down from the north side of the island. Elsewhere, the island dropped away in cliffs of varying heights and steepness to the Atlantic. ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... them, and they had sunk to three or four hundred feet in height, but in no place did we find any point where they could be ascended. If anything, they were more impossible than at the first point where we had met them. Their absolute steepness is indicated in the photograph which I took over the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Although, from the greater force of gravitation upon its exterior, the mountains, other circumstances being equal, might have been expected to be much smaller than ours, they are, in many instances, equal in height to nearly the highest of our Andes. They are generally of extreme steepness, and sharp of outline, a peculiarity which might be looked for in a planet deficient in water and atmosphere, seeing that these are the agents which wear down ruggedness on the surface of our earth. The volcanic operations are on a stupendous scale. They are the cause of the bright spots of the ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... servant to answer questions. He searched the dark recesses of a dirty letter-rack, on the chance that he might find a telegram from his wife waiting for him. Then he went gaily up the interminable staircase, making nothing now of its five flights, enjoying their steepness as productive ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the edge of this precipice was marvelous. From the lower margin of the mighty wall the broken hills, covered with virgin forest, fell away with lessening steepness to the plains. These, also, were covered with trees; here, however, the woodland had a different character, for there was little or no undergrowth. The plains stretched away, to an immense distance. It was in this tract, ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... looked, then, after Christian, to see him go up the hill, where I perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now, about the midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbour, made by the Lord of the hill for the refreshing of weary travellers; thither, therefore, Christian got, where also he sat down to rest him. Then he pulled his roll out of his ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... These towering cliffs are clothed with verdure, large trees clinging to their precipitous sides in a marvellous way. Except at one small bight, known as Denham Bay, the place is inaccessible, not only from the steepness of its cliffs, but because, owing to its position, the gigantic swell of the South Pacific assails those immense bastions with a force and volume that would destroy instantly any vessel that unfortunately ventured too near. Denham Bay, however, is in some measure protected by reefs of scattered ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... which the carriage started out of the village and up the rise beyond was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... mountain-chain had been crossed by a locomotive before the Alleghanies were outraged, as we see them, here and by this track. As the railroad we follow was the first to take existence in this country, excepting some short mining roads, so the grade here used was the first of equal steepness, saving on some English roads of inferior length and no mountainous prestige. Here the engineer, like Van Arnburgh in the lion's den, first planted his conqueror's foot upon the mane of the wilderness; and 'in this spot modern science first claimed the right to reapply that grand word of a French ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... the given word, No. 1 rushed from the plateau on the hilltop, down the hill itself. The pace, in consequence of the steepness, was tremendous. On he came; on to the little platform built out from the mountain-side he rushed; then, with a huge spring, his legs doubled up, and whirling his arms like a windmill to keep ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... mystery and sadness. Beyond them, without a shore, spreads open sea. But the fantastic grandeur of the place cannot be described in words. The pencil of the artist must be trusted. I can vouch that he has not in the least exaggerated the slenderness and steepness of the rock-masses. One of them, it is said, has never been climbed; unless a myth which hangs about it is true. Certain English sailors, probably of Rodney's men—and numbering, according to the pleasure of the narrator, three hundred, thirty, or three—are said to have warped themselves up ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... half the ammunition useless, and themselves wearied, while the steepness of the track to the valley, and its treacherous condition after the rain made it wise to seek the Hapaas for rest and food. But, first, they fired a volley to let friendly tribes know they still had serviceable weapons, and as threat and warning to the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... storey. The lower part is generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided, and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving of this nature is ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... the moon shone out. We were obliged to stay in the bottom of the trench till morning, and then till evening, for the machine-gun swept the approaches without pause. We could not see the prostrate bodies through the loop-holes of the post, by reason of the steepness of the ground—except, just on the level of our field of vision, a lump which appeared to be the back of one of them. In the evening, a sap was dug to reach the place where they had fallen. The work could not be finished ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... construct between us the necessary path. The undertaking was one wholly according to my own heart; and next morning Johnstone and I were hard at work on the giddy brow of the precipice. It was topped by a thick bed of boulder clay, itself—such was the steepness of the slope—almost a precipice; but a series of deeply-cut steps led us easily adown the bed of clay; and then a sloping shelf, which, with much labour, we deepened and flattened, conducted us not unsafely some five-and-twenty or thirty feet along the face of the precipice proper. A second ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... steepness of the ground absorbed all Christina's attention. The road, or rather stairs, came down to the stream at the bottom of the fissure, and then went again on the other side up still more tremendous steeps, which ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time that his thoughts had begun to be busy over the other ring, by a chance he had learned from Mrs. Henry a number of old fancies regarding precious stones. Mrs. Henry often accompanied the Judge in venturesome mountain climbs, and sometimes the steepness of the rocks required her to use her hands for safety. One day when the Virginian went with them to help mark out certain boundary corners, she removed her rings lest they should get scratched; and he, being just behind her, took them during ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... perceiving this, halted after crossing the river Damyrias, and drew up his troops along the farther bank to dispute the passage, encouraged to do so by the different nature of the ford, and the steepness of the hills on either hand. Now a strange rivalry and contest arose among Timoleon's captains, which delayed their onset. No one chose to let any one else lead the way against the enemy, but each man wished to be first; so that their crossing was conducted in a disorderly fashion, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... leagues distant. It lies in the latitude of 53 deg. 57', and in the longitude of 191 deg. 2', and hath no place in the Russian map.[2] We must have passed very near it in the night. We could judge of its steepness from this circumstance, that the sea, which now run very high, broke no where but against it. At three in the afternoon, after getting a sight of Oonalashka, we shortened sail, and hauled the wind, not having time to get through the passage before night. At day-break ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... more than a mile from Ay, owing to the steepness of the slopes and to the roads through the vineyards being impracticable for carts, the grapes were being conveyed to the press-houses in baskets slung across the backs of mules and donkeys, who, on account of their known partiality for the ripe fruit, were ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... of the Wady by a foot-path which winds among the masses of rock, dismounting on account of the steepness of the road, as we had been obliged to do in the two former valleys which we had passed in this day's march; this is a very dangerous pass, as robbers often waylay travellers here, concealing themselves behind the rocks, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... The steepness of the declivity made it necessary for Orso to dismount. He was walking quickly down the hill, which was slippery with ashes (he had thrown the bridle on his horse's neck), and was hardly five-and-twenty paces from one of these stone fences, when, just in front of him, on the right-hand ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... invited, and his journey hospitably facilitated, by the Resident, Captain Knox, he paid a visit to the mountain-cave in which, according to tradition, Ulysses deposited the presents of the Phaeacians. "Lord Byron (says Count Gamba) ascended to the grotto, but the steepness and height prevented him from reaching the remains of the Castle. I myself experienced considerable difficulty in gaining it. Lord Byron sat reading in the grotto, but fell asleep. I awoke him on my return, and he said that I had interrupted dreams ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... waiting some time in the hope that they would discover their mistake and return, we had no alternative but to struggle up a most fearful precipice towards the only ray of light which we could see in the distance. It really was hard work, not only on account of the steepness of the ascent, but of the slippery and slimy condition of the rocks. Sometimes we knocked ourselves with painful abruptness against hard projections, at other times we sank to our knees in a mass of soft, wet guano teeming with animal life of various kinds, but ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the two boys, with extra care for rattling twigs, moved stealthily up the banks of the Potomac that rose with increasing steepness. The men, who were huddled near their fire now, came directly into their view below, and Chris and Amos could see that they were playing cards. One seemed to be losing to the other two. He had piled a heap of his small possessions in front of ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... toilsome journey, rendered positively dangerous now by the vicinity of the water and the steepness of the banks that led down to it. But I did not go far, for as, in my avoidance of the stream, I drew nearer and nearer the walls, I caught glimpses of what I at first thought to be the flash of a fire-fly in the bushes, but in another moment discovered to be the fitful glimmer of a ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... climbing brought into view the tobacco barn which was one of the mountain's landmarks. Beyond it the grade became much more abrupt, and although it was worn fairly smooth by the sleds of the men who planted aerial cornfields far up on the highest clearings, yet its steepness rendered this last half-mile the truly ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... the beauties of the wild scenery through which we passed, and occasionally laying a hand upon her bridle to guide the mule over some unusually rugged portion of the almost trackless mountain. M'Dermot and I were walking behind, a little puffed by the steepness of the ascent; our guide, whose name was Cadet, a name answered to by every second man one meets in that part of France, strode along beside us, like a pair of compasses with leathern lungs. Presently the last-named ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... loud cry, the lad sprang down upon the enemy, regardless of the steepness of the place, and in an instant the man was locked in his arms, just as the musket report came. Down the two fell, bounding over two or three shelves of rock, and then pitching headlong some twenty or thirty feet into the ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... The height and the steepness of the hill were, however, but a small part of the difficulty with which the British forces had to contend. The real serious point lay in the fact that there was but one path by which the summit of the hill could be reached, and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 53, November 11, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various |
