"Isthmus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wounded, and which may have taken place any time during the Corinthian war, between the years 390-387. The later date which has been suggested, 369, when the Athenians and Lacedaemonians disputed the Isthmus with Epaminondas, would make the age of Theaetetus at his death forty-five or forty-six. This a little impairs the beauty of Socrates' remark, that 'he would be a great man if ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... his Memoirs of Horace Walpole, and the story of Darien, or, The Merchant Prince. Mr. Warburton had been deputed by the Atlantic and Pacific Junction Company, to come to a friendly understanding with the tribes of Indians who inhabit the Isthmus of Darien. It was also the intention of Mr. Warburton to make himself perfectly acquainted with every part of these districts, and with whatever referred to their topography, climate, and resources, and he undoubtedly would have given the results of his visit ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... itself to return through Gaul to Italy, and so to complete his circle of the empire which would be bounded on all sides by the ocean. During this expedition he intended also to dig through the Corinthian Isthmus,[584] and he had already commissioned Anienus to superintend the work; and to receive the Tiber[585] immediately below the city in a deep cut, and giving it a bend towards Circaeum to make it enter the sea by Tarracina, with the view of giving security and facility to those who came to Rome for ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... them all to stand in the stadium, and commanded them to kill the old men, together with the others that were useless, which were in number a thousand and two hundred. Out of the young men he chose six thousand of the strongest, and sent them to Nero, to dig through the Isthmus, and sold the remainder for slaves, being thirty thousand and four hundred, besides such as he made a present of to Agrippa; for as to those that belonged to his kingdom, he gave him leave to do what he pleased with them; however, the king sold these also for slaves; but for the rest of the multitude, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... of the road in the neighbourhood of his dwelling. It is the one good road of Tahiti, encircling the larger of the two peninsulas close to the sea-shore, and surmounting the low mountain range in the centre of the isthmus. ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... his task marked out Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. Our time is one that calls for earnest deeds; 210 Season and Government, like two broad seas, Yearn for each other with outstretched arms Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, And roll their white surf higher every day. One age moves onward, and the next builds up Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood The rude log-huts of those who tamed the wild, Rearing from out the forests they had felled The goodly framework of a fairer state; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... confiscated, but luckily he had some investments away from home, which prevented him from being left wholly penniless. He was a man of projects. He emigrated to America with his wife and his son; he dreamed of making a name and a fortune by cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Panama. He repaired to New Granada, there to make his studies and his charts. He made them so thoroughly that he died of yellow fever before having begun his work, having come to the end of his money and leaving ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... I. p. 42,) indicates that he found the continent inhabited, and either originated the distribution of property or became a conqueror of the country. The evidence of tradition would clearly prove that at the arrival of Votan the great proportion of the inhabitants, from the Isthmus of Panama to the territories of California, were in a savage condition. The builders of the Cyclopean ruins were the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... for three years, and even indemnify them for any losses they might incur; threatening if they did not do as he advised, to abandon them, deprive them of their priests, have their wives and children carried off, and their property laid waste by the Indians."[99] Some passed over the isthmus to the shores of the gulf, and others made their way to the Strait of Canseau. Vessels were provided to convey them, in the one case to Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island, and in the other to ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... of the world's commerce has led to an urgent demand for shortening the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by constructing ship canals or railways across the isthmus which unites the continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will need consideration, but none of them has been sufficiently matured to warrant the United States in extending pecuniary aid. The subject, however, is one which will immediately engage the attention of the Government ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VIII.: James A. Garfield • James D. Richardson
... frequently barren sides with a mantle of verdure. A few bell-shaped blossoms hung over crevices of rock, fearless in the frail foothold of their thread-like stems, as innocent child-faces above a precipice. It was in this simple way, and by the isthmus of sand connecting it to the continent, long and level, like the dash Nature made after so grand a work, before descending to the commonplaces of ordinary creation, that he had toned down the grandeur of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... material work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is of such consequence to the American people as the building of a canal across the Isthmus connecting North and South America. Its importance to the Nation is by no means limited merely to its material effects upon our business prosperity; and yet with view to these effects alone it would be to the last degree important for us immediately to begin it. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... the earth; the beautiful, the mystic hour, blent with a thousand memories, hallowed by a thousand dreams, made tender to remembrance by the vows our youth breathed beneath its star, and solemn by the olden legends which are linked to its majesty and peace—the hour in which, men should die; the isthmus between two worlds; the climax of the past day; the verge of that which is to come; wrapping us in sleep after a weary travail, and promising us a morrow which, since the first birth of Creation has ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... quarter from Namur, is one of the best examples we can quote.[210] The camp, first made out in 1865, formed a long square, covering some thirteen hectares, or about thirty-two acres. It is situated on an isolated mound connected with the main plateau by an isthmus 227 feet long, and is protected on the south and west by a deep ravine: To these natural defences men had added important works to those parts that were accessible. The cutting of trenches a few years ago brought to light walls of a mean thickness of more than nine feet, formed ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... were different, he still flattered himself that those rich countries were at no great distance; and in a subsequent voyage, accordingly, went in quest of them along the coast of Terra Firma, and towards the Isthmus of Darien. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific should sweep across the Isthmus of Panama? That men should run under the Alps? That thoughts and words should be winged across the ocean without any visible or tangible medium? Yes; it is His will, if men will it, and work to these ends in harmony with His ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... to an inverted cornucopia. Its greatest length from northwest to southeast is almost exactly two thousand miles, and its greatest width, which is at the twenty-sixth degree of north latitude, is seven hundred and fifty miles. The minimum width is at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where it contracts to a hundred and fifty miles. The area of the entire republic is probably a little less than eight hundred thousand square miles. Trustworthy statistics relating to Mexico are not attainable. Even official reports are scarcely better than estimates. Carlos ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... now Bolivia and Ecuador, a precious stream poured into the leaking treasure box of Spain that totalled a value of no less than ten billion dollars. Much of the wealth which came from Peru was shipped up to the isthmus of Panama, and thence transferred to plate-fleets. But the buccaneers became so active along the Pacific coast that water shipment was finally abandoned, and from that time transportation had to be made overland by way of the Andean plateau, sometimes a distance of two thousand miles, to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Salt Lake City by way of California? (That is, he went by steamer from New York to Aspinwall, thence across the Isthmus of Panama by railway, and then from Panama to California by another steamboat. A journey which then ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 6 • Charles Farrar Browne
... which islands it is presumed by historians they originated; but it would seem more reasonable to suppose that both the people of the Bahamas and of the West India isles came originally from the mainland; that is, either north or south of the Isthmus of Panama. In numbers they were vaguely estimated at a million, a calculation the correctness of which we cannot but doubt. Reliable local authority, Cubans who have made a study of the early history of the island, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... tell the entering visitor briefly of the milestones along the way of time up to the digging of the Canal. Its enrichment of sculpture, painting and inscription summarizes the story of Panama and of the Pacific shore northward from the Isthmus. The architect has expressed in its upper decorations something of the feeling of Aztec art. The four inscriptions on the south faces of the arches tell how Rodrigo de Bastides discovered Panama in 1501; how Balboa first saw the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... caravans traversed Arabia to Hadramaut, where they met ships from India. Others went north to Damascus, while still others made their way {83} along the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Ships sailed from the isthmus of Suez to all the commercial ports of Southern Europe and up into the Black Sea. Hindus were found among the merchants[332] who frequented the bazaars of Alexandria, and Brahmins ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... a tree for Christmas in this Louisiana isthmus, Where the orange trees are waving and the jasmines are ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... up the stream, on the other side of the ravine, there was a cave, a very small one, and so high up in the face of the rock that it could only be reached by a ladder. In this lived five black men, members of the company of slaves who had gone from Guiana to the isthmus, and who had been brought down there about a year before by two wicked men, who had promised them well-paid work in a lovely country. They had, however, been made actual slaves in this barren and doleful ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... indeed compared to those of Fanny Van de Grift. R. L. S. had been thrilled enough by a few nights spent in the dark with the docile ass of the Cevennes; but here was one, sprung from sober Philadelphia blood, born in Indianapolis and baptized by Henry Ward Beecher, who had pioneered across the fabled Isthmus, lived in the roaring mining camps of Nevada, worked for a dressmaker in Frisco, and venturously taken her young children to Belgium and France to study art. She had been married at seventeen, had already once thought herself to be a widow in fact by the temporary disappearance of her ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... strike a blow for it. At last he heard of a very rich ship, called the Cacofogo, which had recently sailed for Panama, to which place they were taking the treasure, in order that it might be transported across the isthmus, and so taken home to Spain; for, before Drake's voyage, scarcely a single vessel had ever passed round Cape Horn. The ships which he had plundered had been all built upon the coast, by Spaniards who had come across the country at the Isthmus of Darien, and were to be used only to transport ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... ease, mutually conscious of their own abilities, and of the abilities of each other. The General spoke Italian, and Dr. Johnson English, and understood one another very well, with a little aid of interpretation from me, in which I compared myself to an isthmus which joins two great continents. Upon Johnson's approach, the General said, 'From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Boswell has told me of you, I have long held you in great veneration.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... was no appearance of an enemy; and Napoleon seized the opportunity to explore the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow neck of land divides the Red Sea from the Mediterranean, partly with the view of restoring the communication which in remote times existed between them, and partly of providing for the defence of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... sea, which are very dangerous. Past that point is the river of Capalonga, [121] where the province of Camarines ends and that of Tayabas begins again. At this point the sea runs inland and forms an isthmus only five leguas [wide] with the sea of Visayas. That small gulf is found in the sea of Gumaca; it is very rough, and along its coast are found the villages of Gumaca, Atimonan, and Mambau [sc. Mauban]. Going north, one meets the island of Polo [i.e., Polillo?], the bay of Lampon, and the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... plateau of the Soissonnais from the south. The very considerable depression is more than 100 metres below the surface of the plateau, which it cuts in two, effectively shutting off all progress from west to east; for on the south a narrow isthmus, that of Vierzy, barely separates it from the ravine of the Savieres; and on the southeast it reaches to the foot of the wooded hills of Hartennes. Clinging to the sides of the valley and of the ravines which ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... craft and sailing down Kilbrannan Sound and so round the Mull of Kintyre, by the way he had gone with the galleys. But he now adopted a speedier way and a much safer one. The great peninsula of Kintyre, which at the north joins to Knapdale, forms at Tarbert a narrow isthmus of but a mile broad. Landing at the head of Tarbert Bay, Kenric bade Aasta carry the paddles and her basket of fish, and himself taking up the little boat in his two strong arms and raising it upon his back, he thus crossed the mile ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... Spaniard, named Balboa, set out to explore the Isthmus of Panama.[5] One day he climbed to the top of a very high hill, and discovered that vast ocean—the greatest of all the oceans of the globe—which we call ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... effort was made, it was met and defeated. Entering the Morea with an army which seemed capable of bearing down all resistance, the Turks were nevertheless defeated and driven back, and pursued beyond the isthmus, within which, as far as it appears, from that time to the present, they have not been able ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... took his fancy, and he adopted it as a weapon, and always used it, just as Herakles used his lion's skin; for the skin was a proof of how huge a beast the wearer had overcome, while the club, invincible in the hands of Theseus, had yet been worsted when used against him. At the Isthmus he destroyed Sinis the Pine-bender by the very device by which he had slain so many people, and that too without having ever practised the art, proving that true valour is better than practice and training. Sinis had ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... chain of the Pyrenees which forms the embattled isthmus of the peninsula, in the centre of those blue pyramids, covered in gradation with snow, forests, and downs, there opens a narrow defile, a path cut in the dried-up bed of a perpendicular torrent; it circulates among rocks, glides under bridges of frozen ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the fisher huts, the rocks rose high and dark, and quite hid the pine woods and the isthmus of yellow sand, and everything that could make Culm at all cheery or pleasant. This eminence was Wind Cliff, and served as a landmark for all the sailors whose path lay along the coast. Around this the gulls were alway flitting and screaming, and their nests were everywhere in the crevices of the ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... the Red Sea. It was commenced by Nekos, son of Psammetichus, and afterwards continued by Darius, king of the Persians, who made some progress with the work, but abandoned it when he learned that, if the isthmus was dug through, all Egypt would be inundated, as the level of the Red Sea is higher than that of the soil of Egypt. At last Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus) completed the undertaking; having adapted an ingenious contrivance to the ingress of the canal, which was opened when a vessel was about ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... meaning of "Acadie, with its ancient boundaries"—but their negotiations came to naught and the issue was only settled by the arbitrament of war. The French built the forts of Beausejour and Gaspereau—the latter a mere palisade—on the Isthmus of Chignecto, which became the rendezvous of the French Acadians, whom the former persuaded by promises or threats to join their fortunes. In 1755 a force of English and Colonial troops, under the command of Colonels Moncton, Winslow and Scott, ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... leaders several gained prominence for superior boldness or cruelty, among whom we may particularly name L'Olonnois, a Frenchman, of such savage ferocity that all mariners of Spanish birth shuddered with fear at his very name. This wretch suffered the fate he deserved. In an expedition to the Isthmus of Darien he was taken prisoner by a band of savage Indians, who tore him to pieces alive, flung his quivering limbs into the fire, and then scattered the ashes to ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... strong place, assuredly," he said to Harry, on his return. "In the first place, it would be necessary for a force attacking it to cross over the narrow isthmus, and causeway, uniting the island with the land; and that would be impossible, in face of a force provided with artillery guarding it. Then, if they succeeded in winning that, they would have to make their ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... large enough to accommodate Cortes and his fourteen hundred and fifty men including Indian allies as they had previously been accommodated in one Cholulan house and elsewhere, on the way to Mexico. From New Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama there was scarcely a principal village in which an equal number could not have found accommodations in a single house. When it is found to be unnecessary to call it a palace in order to account for ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... fidelity of the representations of so great a variety of subjects copied from animal life, they furnish evidence of a knowledge in the Mississippi Valley, of the fauna peculiar not only to southern, but to tropical latitudes, extending beyond the Isthmus into the southern continent; and suggestive either of arts derived from a foreign source, and of an intimate intercourse maintained with the central regions where the civilization of ancient America attained its highest development: or ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... discovered in California he started a line on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Darien and secured from the government of Nicaragua the privilege of crossing the Isthmus for a transportation system through its territory, and then established a line of steamers on the Pacific to San Francisco. In a short time the old-established ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... troops surrounded them, headed by Vespasian in person. Twelve hundred of the aged and helpless he ordered to be slain, at once; six thousand of the most able-bodied he sent to Nero, to be employed on the canal he was digging across the isthmus of Corinth; thirty thousand four hundred were sold as slaves; and a large number were bestowed upon Agrippa, who also sold them as slaves. This act, after the formal promise of pardon, disgraces the memory of Vespasian even more than the ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... of the continent but approaches so near the Atlantic, in latitude 41 Degrees N., that is, in the vicinity of New York, that according to a legend describing it, the two oceans are there only six miles apart, and can be seen from each other. This isthmus occurs several hundred miles north of Dieppa, and therefore at a point absolutely fixed within the limits of the Verrazzano discoveries, and where the navigator must have sailed, according to both the letter and the map, whether the latitudes on the map be ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... day four huge barges passed us towed by a steamer and crammed with hundreds of the poor souls torn from their homes to work at the Isthmus of Suez, or some palace of the Pasha's, for a nominal piastre a day, and find their own bread and water and cloak. One of my crew, Andrasool, a black savage whose function is always to jump overboard whenever the rope gets entangled or anything is wanted, recognised some relations of his from a village ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... her burden.—Ver. 530. This was her son Melicerta, who, according to Pausanias, was received by dolphins, and was landed by them on the isthmus of Corinth.] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Gooderich Castle, and opposed by the waving eminences of the forest of Dean. The mighty pile, or peninsula, of Symonds' Rock succeeds, round which the river flows in a circuit of seven miles, though the opposite points of the isthmus are only one mile asunder. Shortly afterwards, the Wye quits the county, and enters Monmouthshire ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... less common. Hardly a periodical is published but contains argumentative writing. The fiery editorial that urges voters to the polls, the calm and polished essay that points out the dangers of organized labor, the scientific treatise that demonstrates the practicability of a sea-level canal on the Isthmus are attempts to change existing conditions and ideas, and thus come within ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... gracilis Miller (N. Amer. Fauna, 13:126, October 16, 1897) only three specimens are known; two are from Piaxtla, Puebla, and the third is from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Only the specimen from the Isthmus has a complete skull. The broken skull of the holotype is partly separated from the skin of the head and in such a manner as to reveal the teeth. The skull of ...
— Taxonomic Notes on Mexican Bats of the Genus Rhogeessa • E. Raymond Hall
... are being landed at three points—at Enos, at Suol, a promontory on the west of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and at the Bulair Isthmus. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... eat our dinner in a grocery, stared at by all the youth of Corinth. Half a dozen Doric columns, belonging to a very old temple, are the only considerable relics of ancient Corinth. And as we had a long afternoon's work before us, we set off before twelve. We galloped at good speed across the Isthmus, about an hour's ride; Dhemetri, who understood the management of Greek horses, driving us before him like a flock of sheep. We paused a moment at the Isthmic sanctuary of Poseidon, passed through the village of Kalamaki, whence steamers run to Athens, then continued ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Tcherkesses considered robbery honorable provided the robber was not caught in flagrante. Compare Koch, Reise in den kaukasischen Isthmus, I, 370 ff. Bell, Journal of a Residence in Circassia, I, 181, II, 201. The organized robber bands of ancient Egypt, when it was so highly civilized (Diodor., I, 80) may, on the other hand, be accounted for by similar conditions actually existing ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... up their ships on the shore. We are also told that ancient mariners, when they came to a long narrow promontory of land, were sometimes wont to land, draw their ships bodily across the narrowest part of the isthmus, and launch them ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... cut-offs behind the many islands of the river; for besides those islands which have been numbered, new ones are forming every year. At times, when the water is very high, the current will cut a new route across the low isthmus, or neck, of a peninsula, around which sweeps a long reach of the main channel, leaving the tortuous bend which it has deserted to be gradually filled up with snags, deposits of alluvium, and finally to be carpeted with a vegetable growth. In some cases, as the stream works away ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... great section of humanity, represented in the genealogy of Chap. X. by the name of MIZRAIM, second son of Ham. These must have come from the east along the Persian Gulf, then across Northern Arabia and the Isthmus of Suez. In the color and features of the Egyptians the mixture with black races is also noticeable, but not enough to destroy the beauty and expressiveness of the original type, at all events far less than in their southern ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... have only a limited influence on the industry as a whole. Our government now publishes a weekly paper in Panama, which takes no advertisements, and is furnished free to every government employee on the Isthmus. It is a model paper in many respects, but manifestly its example is not apt to be followed extensively before the dawn of the Cooeperative Commonwealth. It may be that the practice newspapers conducted by the schools of journalism connected with our great universities will raise the standard ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... the great Peloponnesian war, in which Sparta, at the head of nearly all the Peloponnesian states, and aided by the Boeotians and some of the other Greeks beyond the Isthmus, endeavours to reduce the power of Athens, and to restore independence to the Greek maritime states who were the subject allies of Athens. At the commencement of the war the Peloponnesian armies repeatedly invade and ravage Attica, but Athens herself is impregnable, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... to be re-crossed on the other arm of the bend, each carried his raft across the neck or isthmus, where a similar fording was made, that brought them once more on the path they were following. Thus every day—almost every hour—our travellers were astonished by some new feat of their hunter-guide, and some new ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... says, "by way of the Isthmus of Panama—the route had just been opened—reached San Francisco in August, and spent five months in the midst of the rough, half-savage life of a new country. I lived almost entirely in the open air, sleeping on the ground with my saddle ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... Balboa on the isthmus until the death of that valiant commander, when he united his fortunes with those of the governor, Pedrarias, and headed various expeditions along the Pacific coast and to the islands beyond, in quest of pearls and gold. He was occupied in this way, or in cultivating with the aid of Indian ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... others to only occasional or local use; and with their rarity, in consequence of which intercourse between opposite slopes is concentrated upon one or two defiles. The low dips of the Central American Cordilleras to 262 feet (80 meters) at Panama, 151 feet (46 meters) in the Nicaraguan isthmus, and 689 feet (210 meters) at Tehuantepec, present a striking contrast both orographically and historically to the South American Andes, where from the equator to the Uspallata or Bermejo Pass (12,562 feet or 3842 meters) back of Valparaiso, a stretch measuring ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... difficulty, they were led a third time to the works. The redoubt was attacked on three sides, while some pieces of artillery raked the breast work from end to end. At the same time, a cross fire from the ships, and floating batteries lying on both sides of the isthmus by which the peninsula is connected with the continent, not only annoyed the works on Breed's hill, but deterred any considerable reinforcements from entering the peninsula. The ammunition of the Americans ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... this assumption lay in the forgetfulness of the fact that the profitable and peculiar exports of Southern California must go East by rail, and reach a market in the shortest possible time, and that the inhabitants look to the Pacific for comparatively little of the imports they need. If the Isthmus route were opened by a ship-canal, San Diego would doubtless have a great share of the Pacific trade, and when the population of that part of the State is large enough to demand great importations ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... Canadian Pacific Railway in 1887, which placed it within two weeks' journey from London. Before that time it was cut off by the immense prairies of the north-west of Canada, and could only be reached by a long journey round Cape Horn or over the Isthmus of Panama. Since the date given, however, a new era has dawned for the country, and all the southern part of it has been opened up by railways. Thus its waters have been rendered easy of access to any fisherman willing to try them. The position ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... effectually, that, out of some scores of ducks, we only detained one to ourselves, sending all the rest down to those stationed below. After this I landed at the head of the cove, and walked across the narrow isthmus that disjoins it from the sea, or rather from another cove which runs in from the sea about one mile, and lies open to the north winds. It, however, had all the appearance of a good harbour and safe anchorage. At the head is a fine sandy beach, where I ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the glory of this, and transfer it to another, writes thus word for word: "Whilst things were thus, Mnesiphilus, an Athenian, asked Themistocles, as he was going aboard his ship, what had been resolved on in council. And being answered, that it was decreed the ships should be brought back to Isthmus, and a battle fought at sea before Peloponnesus; he said, If then they remove the navy from Salamis, you will no longer be fighting for one country for they will return every one to his own city. Wherefore, if there ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... emblems that land and sea were his, but each state was resolved to be free, and only Thessaly, that which lay first in his path, consented to yield the token of subjugation. A council was held at the Isthmus of Corinth, and attended by deputies from all the states of Greece to consider of the best means of defense. The ships of the enemy would coast round the shores of the Aegean sea, the land army would cross the Hellespont on a bridge of boats lashed together, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... squared Basile with the ticket treasurer and by some adroitness of Ramsey and Mrs. Gilmore the restless boy had been won from his brothers and given a hand at euchre with the actor, the senator, and a picturesque Kentuckian, late of California, "back East" by way of the Isthmus and about to return ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... New Granada are three ranges of lofty mountains, into which the main branch of the Andes is divided, extending from Quito northwards to the Caribbean Sea; a fourth branch, running close to the shores of the Pacific, extends towards the Isthmus of Panama. These four ranges form three valleys, elevated, however, a considerable distance above the sea. Throughout that to the east runs the magnificent river Magdalena; the next is watered by the Cauca, of equal length; and ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... about two months after its departure from Cadiz. On its arrival, the general forwarded the news to Porto Bello, together with the packets destined for the viceroy at Lima. From Porto Bello a courier hastened across the isthmus to the President of Panama, who spread the advice amongst the merchants in his jurisdiction, and, at the same time, sent a dispatch boat to Payta, in Peru. The general of the galleons, meanwhile, was also sending a courier overland to Lima, and another to Santa Fe, the capital ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... Arthur had ceased to be an important objective of Kuropatkin before he planned his Heikautai attack. The great fortress fell on the last day of 1904. It was not until the middle of May that the Kinchou isthmus and Dalny came into Japanese hands, nor was the siege army under General Nogi marshalled until the close of June. During that interval, General Stossel, who commanded, on the Russian side, availed himself of all possible ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... preparations were made to defend the town.[586] The neighboring militia was summoned. Four guns were dragged to Sandy Bay to command the narrow neck of land that connected the peninsula with the left bank of the river.[587] It was proposed to construct palisades across the isthmus. Early on the morning of the 23d, Berkeley went out himself to direct the mounting of the guns.[588] But it was too late. On all sides the people were crying, "To arms! To arms! Bacon is within two miles of the town." ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... timber, &c. after it has escaped through the falls. Here the canoes and boats from Fredericton and different parts of the river land, and if bound for Madawaska they are taken out of the water and carried or drawn, as well as their loads, across the isthmus to the small bay above the falls before mentioned, where they are again put in the water, and proceed without any farther interruption to the upper settlements and the Canada line. The distance of the portage, including the windings of the road up the hill is about 100 rods from water to ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... energy has been the robbing of graveyards on the Isthmus of Darien, an enterprise which appears to be but in its infancy; for, according to late accounts, an act has passed its second reading in the legislature of New Granada, regulating this kind of mining; and a correspondent of the "Tribune" writes:—"In the dry season, when the weather will permit ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... mine landed at Gibraltar for a few hours, and he was anxious to be able to say that he had been to Spain. So he walked along the Isthmus to Ceuta, where the British and Spanish sentries faced one another, and directly the Spanish soldier turned his head he hopped quickly over into Spain. Then the sentry turned round, and he hopped back ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... almost reaching another bay winding around a like promontory beyond, leaving a peninsula of five hundred acres joined to the main land, by a narrow neck of some forty rods in width. Our first sport among the deer was to be the "driving" of this peninsula. We stationed ourselves on the narrow isthmus within a few rods of each other, while a boatman went round to the opposite side to lay on the dogs. We had been at our posts perhaps half an hour, when we heard the measured bounds of a deer, as he came crashing through the forest. ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... a mountain region, occupied by the northern end of the Andes, except where it slopes down towards the Isthmus of Panama and the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela, however, contains three distinct zones or characters of country—mountains, forests, and open plains. The mountain regions, which are also three in number, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... great empire, which should extend south to the Isthmus of Darien and west to the Pacific Ocean, and made slavery its cornerstone. They talked of conquering the North. They declared that the time would come when they would muster their slaves on Bunker Hill, when the laboring men ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... place. We could cross the isthmus to Chagres; but before going to England, I should like to call at La Guayra, and find out whether my friend Carmen ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... found the army disorganized, and immediately restored strict discipline to its ranks. The suburb of Megara, from which the people of the city obtained their chief supply of fresh provisions, was quickly taken. Want of food began to be felt. The isthmus which connected the city with the mainland was strongly occupied, and land-supplies were thus cut off. The fleet blockaded the harbor, but, as vessels still made their way in, Scipio determined to build an embankment across ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the Peloponnesian Greeks commenced to fortify the isthmus of Corinth with the view of defending it with their small army against the invading host of Xerxes. The Spartan troops were under the command of Cleombrotus, the brother of Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae. He had been consulting the oracles at Sparta, and Herodotus states ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... juncture. Military opinion invariably favours active in preference to passive defence, so long as active defence can be regarded as reasonably feasible and the troops needed for the purpose are available. The Turks were mustering for an attack upon Egypt across the Isthmus of Sinai at that time. It was an axiom in our military policy that the Nile delta must be rendered secure against such efforts. There was something decidedly attractive about employing the troops—or a portion of them—who must in any case be charged with the protection of Egypt, actively ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... by the absence of all incentive to fight stoutly for a leader so unpopular as Walker. It was a common saying, that in this army an old rule was reversed,—the veterans were worse fighters than the recruits. The soldier was at his best when he first landed upon the Isthmus, raw and healthy. After that, he rapidly deteriorated, losing spirit with every battle, until he became at last a thoroughbred coward. Seven or eight greasers to one filibuster was said to be good fighting, at one time; but now three ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... who was at Panama when Bachicao arrived, fled immediately across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios on the Atlantic, where he embarked accompanied by Diego Alvarez de Cueto and Jerom Zurbano. Doctor Texada and Francisco Maldonado escaped likewise to the same port, where they all embarked together for Spain. Texada died on the voyage while passing the Bahamas. On their arrival ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the insurrection had spread to the narrow territory of Megaris, situated to the north of the isthmus. The Albanian population of this country, amounting to about ten thousand, and employed by the Porte to guard the defiles of the entrance into Peloponnesus, raised the standard of revolt, and marched to invest the Acrocorinthus. In the Messenian territory, the Bishop of Modon, having made his guard ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of it which breaks on the western shores of North America and then flows southeast towards the Isthmus of Panama." ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... pleased, and after he had regarded the animal for a time with pleasure, set it free. No longer under Hercules' management, the ox became wild again, wandered through all Laconia and Arcadia, crossed over the isthmus to Marathon in Attica and devastated the country there as formerly on the island of Crete. Later it was given to the hero Theseus ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... well, in this brief little journey On over the isthmus, down into the tide, We give him a fish instead of a serpent, Ere folding the hands to be and abide Forever and aye ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... should all have been ventilated and made part and parcel of the charges, that it should be shown that he, as a newly commissioned officer of the army, had made the journey from New Orleans to the Isthmus and thence to San Francisco with men whom he knew to be deserters from commands stationed in the Crescent City, that he should have gambled with them and associated with them and brought one of them all the way ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... name of my royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty, Jaikark the Seventeenth, King of Konkrook and of all the lands of the Konk Isthmus," Gurgurk squeaked and clicked. "I have the honor to bring with me the Lord Ambassador of King Orgzild of Keegark to the court of ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... reached. At that time the streets of the town were eight or ten inches under water, and foot passengers passed from place to place on raised foot-walks. July is at the height of the wet season, on the Isthmus. At intervals the rain would pour down in streams, followed in not many minutes by a blazing, tropical summer's sun. These alternate changes, from rain to sunshine, were continuous in the afternoons. I wondered how any person ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of the Suez Canal, Reeve had strongly opposed it. He held, and in fact all history warranted him in holding, that the opening of a water-way through the isthmus would be more than prejudicial, would be destructive, to English interests. He was very far from being alone in this opinion; it was one which he shared with several of the most able and experienced men of the day, quite ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... colonists, the plants never succeeded under their management; so that, disgusted with the troublesome and unprofitable cultivation, they soon substituted indigo." Yet forests of cacao trees grow wild in Guiana, the Isthmus of Darien, Yucatan, Honduras, Guatemala, Chiapa, and Nicaragua; while in Cuba, St. Domingo, and Jamaica, it was once an ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... explain steps that led to building of Panama Canal, celebrated by Exposition. On both sides of inscriptions Roman fasces denoting public authority. From left to right: "1501 Rodrigo de Bastides pursuing his course beyond the West Indies discovers Panama"; "1513 Vasco Nunes de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and discovers the Pacific Ocean"; "1904 the United States, succeeding France, begins operations on the Panama Canal"; "1915 the Panama Canal is opened to ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... doing much business over the so-called Southern and Central routes. Perhaps the most common route for sending mail from the East to the Pacific Coast was by steamship from New York to Panama where it was unloaded, hurried across the Isthmus, and again shipped by water to San Francisco. All these lines of traffic were slow and tedious, a letter in any case requiring from three to four weeks to reach its destination. The need of a more rapid system of communication between the ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... continued his lecture tour into December, and then, on the 15th of that month, sailed by way of the Isthmus of Panama for New York. He had made some money, and was going home to see his people. He had planned to make a trip around the world later, contributing a series of letters to the "Alta California," lecturing where opportunity afforded. He had been on the Coast ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... too often blocking the passage across or through, and constraining you to steer a foolishly, really quite inordinately divergent course. Under this obstructive head the two Americas offend direfully, sprawling their united strength wellnigh from pole to pole. The piercing of their central isthmus promised some mitigation of this impertinence of emergent matter; though whether in his, the speaker's lifetime, remained—so he took it—open to doubt. The "roaring forties," and grim blizzard-ridden ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the most remarkable geographical positions on the earth. Constantinople on the Bosphorus, the Straits of Gibraltar, Singapore on the Strait of Malacca, and the Isthmus of Panama, are the only ones which seem to present a parallel. The two former have been for ages renowned as the most important in the commercial world. Singapore has rapidly become the key and centre of Asiatic navigation, at which may be found the shipping and people of all commercial nations, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... Railroad Company has been able to prevent effective water competition by way of the Isthmus of Panama. The Government has a line of steamers running from New York to the Isthmus, and a railroad line across the Isthmus. With an additional line of steamers running from San Francisco to Panama, the Government would have a through line from San Francisco ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... to pass the fortifications, which lay across the isthmus which parts the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, and which were intended to protect Egypt from the incursions of the nomad tribes of the Chasu, he was subjected to a strict interrogatory, and among other questions was asked whether he had nowhere met with the traitor Paaker, who was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on three sides only, as the perpendicular face of the cliff renders any defence unnecessary on that side; and on the summit of the precipice stands the upper town and castle. The rock is of a red colour, and the whole has a very picturesque appearance. A narrow isthmus and a lofty bridge connect the island with the adjacent continent. The mountains are barren; but the valleys ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... in his brief little journey, On over the isthmus, down into the tide, We give him a fish instead of a serpent, Ere folding the hands to be and abide Forever, and aye, in dust ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... the United States, in view of the limited appropriation by Congress, and the economy of short voyages, has recommended one of the great interoceanic routes through the American isthmus for a new negro colony. It is a great object to secure the control of this isthmus by a friendly race, born on our soil, and the selection corresponds with the views expressed in my Texas letter of 1844. As, however, the negroes can only be colonized by their own consent, we should ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... first with a firm stride, despite his lameness, his gaunt figure erect, the soldierly chest well thrown out from the threadbare but speckless coat. First he took his way towards the purlieus of Leicester Square; several times, to and fro, did he pace the isthmus that leads from Piccadilly into that reservoir of foreigners, and the lanes and courts that start thence towards St. Martin's. After an hour or two so passed, the step became more slow; and often the sleek, napless hat was lifted ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... discovered her brother, and which now causes her bright light, "while the moon, having lost his taper, is cold, and could not be seen but for his sister's light." [39] This belief prevails as far south as Panama, for the inhabitants of the Isthmus of Darien have a tradition that the man in the moon was guilty of gross misconduct towards his elder sister, the ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... away to discover new birds on the yet unexplored Rio Magdalena, in New Grenada; planters, merchants, what not, all ready, when once at St. Thomas's, to spread themselves over the islands, and the Spanish Main, and the Isthmus of Panama, and after that, some of them, down the Pacific shore to Callao and Valparaiso. The very names of their different destinations, and the imagination of the wonders they would see (though we were going to ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... a vast commerce, between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and at the same time cause our fellow-citizens in California and Oregon no longer to be regarded as exiles. This road being once opened, the passage of the Isthmus, now so much dreaded, will be effected with perfect ease and comfort in a couple of hours, instead of two or three days, as at present, and families, instead of individuals, will be enabled to seek homes in the fertile valleys of our possessions on the Pacific ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... this arrangement into effect, I was induced to go aside from the direct route, and to visit Velhi Pasha, at Tripolizza, to whom I had letters. Returning by Argos and Corinth, I crossed the isthmus, and taking the road by Megara, reached Athens on the 20th of February. In the course of this journey, I heard of two English travellers being in the city; and on reaching the convent of the Propaganda, where I had been advised to take up my lodgings, the friar in charge of the house informed ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... a position to say whether the price of meal at Voe is higher than at Lerwick, or about the same?-It is higher than at Lerwick as a matter of course, because we have considerable more expense in bringing it here. We have to bring it up to Brae by water, then cart it across the isthmus, and bring it to my house in boats. When the weather is bad, we have to cart it ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Crete, and entering upon it the hero soon ended his journey and laid his capture before Eurystheus. A day or two later Hercules loosed the bull, which, after wandering through the woodlands of Arcadia, crossed the isthmus and came to the plains of Marathon, whence, after doing much damage, it swam off to sea and was ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the further fact that all the stages are represented in the mature antlers of existing species. But a curious result follows from a study of the past distribution of deer in America. At a time when the branched stage had been already reached in North America, the isthmus of Panama was under water; deer were then absent from South America and the earliest forms found fossil there had antlers of the type of M. virginiana. The small species with simple antlers only made their appearance in later periods, ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... true that almost every habitable part of America had already been seized by some European power. Paterson, however, imagined that one province, the most important of all, had been overlooked by the short-sighted cupidity of vulgar politicians and vulgar traders. The isthmus which joined the two great continents of the New World remained, according to him, unappropriated. Great Spanish viceroyalties, he said, lay on the east and on the west; but the mountains and forests of Darien were abandoned to rude tribes which followed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... idea of an interoceanic canal is by no means a modern one, as travelers and navigators observed that there was a great depression among the hills of the Isthmus of Panama. As Professor T.E. Nurse, of the U.S.N., says ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... the building of the Suez Canal was begun. This canal extends across the Isthmus of Suez, and connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, opening a ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 38, July 29, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Commission, special tests are made to determine the liability of the explosive to exude nitro-glycerine, and to deteriorate in unfavorable weather conditions. These tests are necessary, because of the warm and moist climate of the Isthmus of Panama. ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... In those days the hind-part of the harbour adjoining this scene was so named, and at high tides the waves washed across the isthmus at a point ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the north-western shore, near what we now term Morocco. If this were the fact, the voyage by the ocean along this sweep of shore would be even shorter than the voyage through the Mediterranean and Red Seas, while of course there would be no need for disembarking at the Isthmus of Suez. The writers who thus curtailed Africa of its true proportions assumed another continent south of it, which, however, was in the torrid zone, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... down the Danube to the Black Sea and the city of Constantinople. Thence she repaired to Broussa, Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Damascus, Baalbek, the Lebanon, Alexandria, and Cairo; and travelled across the sandy Desert to the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea. From Egypt the adventurous lady returned home by way of Sicily and Italy, visiting Naples, Rome, and Florence, and arriving in Vienna in December 1842. In the following year she published ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... hunger. I reminded the Duke that General Cass had said, "I have an awful swallow ('swaller' was his pronunciation) for territory;" and all Americans have that "awful swallow." The dream of possessing a country extending from the Pole to the Isthmus of Panama, if not to Cape Horn, has been the ambition of the Great Republic—and it is a dangerous ambition for the rest of the world. We have seen its effects in all our treaties. We have always been asked for land. ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... Tennent, on Ceylon), and yet they have almost always a sort of general family resemblance to the animals and plants of the nearest mainland. On the other hand, there is hardly a species of fish, shell, or crab common to the opposite sides of the narrow isthmus of Panama. Wherever we look, then, living nature offers us riddles of difficult solution, if we suppose that what we see is all that can be ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... you, sir," Ned Land replied, "that the Red Sea is just as landlocked as the gulf, since the Isthmus of Suez hasn't been cut all the way through yet; and even if it was, a boat as secretive as ours wouldn't risk a canal intersected with locks. So the Red Sea won't be our ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... with bamboo canes, and being forced to keep upon their feet. We were informed that suicide is very common among them in Cuba; it being their last resort against misery and oppression. Colonel Totten, the able civil engineer who constructed the railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, once gave a party of us a graphic account of the mortality among a number of them, who had been employed by him in that pestilential climate. Having no access to opium, and being deprived of knives, ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... than objects at Jamestown. They sought to unravel the mystery of that part of the first settlement which disappeared beneath the eroding current of the James River during the past 300 years. It has always been known that the island in the 17th century was connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus extending to Glasshouse Point, where a glassmaking venture took place in 1608. Over this isthmus the "Greate Road" ran, and its traces have been discovered on the island as far as the brick church tower. As the isthmus disappeared ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... "Advertisement" to the Siege of Corinth (vide post, p. 447), Byron puts it on record that during the years 1809-10 he had crossed the Isthmus of Corinth eight times, and in a letter to his mother, dated Patras, July 30, 1810, he alludes to a recent visit to the town of Corinth, in company with his friend Lord Sligo. (See, too, his letter to Coleridge, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... end of isthmus forming land bridge connecting North and South America; controls Panama Canal that links North Atlantic Ocean via Caribbean Sea ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and the unguent vase; the whole subject being painted in blue and red upon a white ground. From the time of the Greek domination, the national poverty being always on the increase, baked clay was much used for coffins as well as for canopic vases. In the Isthmus of Suez, at Ahnas el Medineh, in the Fayum, at Asuan, and in Nubia, we find whole cemeteries in which the sarcophagi are made of baked clay. Some are like oblong boxes rounded at each end, with a saddle-back lid. Some are in human form, but ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... improbable. Cyril, by reason, Elma, by instinct, argued out the whole situation at once, and correctly. There had been much rain lately. The sandstone was water-logged. It had caved in bodily, before them and behind them. A little isthmus of archway still held out in isolation just above their heads. At any moment that isthmus might give way too, and, falling on their carriage, might crush them beneath its weight. Their lives depended upon the continued resisting ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... speedily transported from the Atlantic States to meet and to repel the invader? In the event of a war with a naval power much stronger than our own we should then have no other available access to the Pacific Coast, because such a power would instantly close the route across the isthmus of Central America. It is impossible to conceive that whilst the Constitution has expressly required Congress to defend all the States it should yet deny to them, by any fair construction, the only possible means by which one of these States can be defended. Besides, the Government, ever since ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... its name from the isthmus or city of that name, or the Red Sea; more properly from the former, as it makes its passage through it," Mr. Woolridge began. "Our old friend, Ramses II., of whom we have heard so much in the last four weeks, is said to have been the first to dig out a Suez Canal, though ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... Jack insisted. "There are plenty of wildcats in the Philippines, and snakes, and lizards. In fact, the islands are not unlike the Isthmus of Panama in this regard. And monkeys! Well, we've heard enough chattering already to put us wise ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson |
