"Metallic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about composting warn about metallic pesticide residues adhering to fruit skins. However, it has been nearly half a century since arsenic and lead arsenate were used as pesticides and mercury is no longer used in ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... she said, and her voice, metallic enough at all times, seemed, for the bitterness of it, to bite the close air like a rasp. "'Tis well enough for you, Cicely, who had but little to do with him, but do you forget that I was his affianced wife? I have stood up in the ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... is a very simple process. Metallic mercury is easily volatilized, and separated from the gangue, at temperatures far below redness. Our closed retort would be admirable ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... in great numbers enliven the forests and lowland plains with their graceful movements. Squirrels[1], of which there are a great variety, make their shrill metallic call heard at early morning in the woods; and when sounding their note of warning on the approach of a civet or a tree-snake, the ears tingle with the loud trill of defiance, which rings as clear and rapid as the running down of an alarum, and is instantly ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... generators, building toward maximum output, had been dampened to a level more imaginary than tangible. Internal gravity was momentarily in operation, as an additional blessing; and, walking down the blue-lit corridor toward Astrogation, I could feel the occasional, metallic, thermal thump that meant the IP ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... beautiful species of Cormorants, having brilliant violet green metallic reflections and, in the breeding plumage, crests on the forehead and nape, as well as large white flank patches. They breed in large colonies on the Aleutian Islands, placing their nests of sticks and sea mosses on the rocky ledges, often hundreds of feet above the sea level. Three or four eggs are ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... turned to a light grey with pink smudges from the forefinger of sunrise. Punctually at five o'clock the order, "Start up!" passed down the long line of machines. The flight-commander's engine began a loud metallic roar, then softened as it was throttled down. The pilot waved his hand, the chocks were pulled from under the wheels, and the machine moved forward. The throttle was again opened full out as the bus raced into the wind until flying speed had been attained, when it skimmed gently ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... others all the time, in little asides, what the bird said or wished to say, or, rather, what she imagined it wished to say. There were also several tame young ostriches, always hanging about the big kitchen or living-room on the look-out for a brass thimble, or iron spoon, or other little metallic bonne bouche to be gobbled up when no one was looking. A pet armadillo kept trotting in and out, in and out, the whole evening, and a lame gull was always standing on the threshold in everybody's way, perpetually wailing ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... shall more than five gallons of same be taken into the mine at any one time, and at no time shall there be more than ten gallons in the mine, including that in the supply tank: No gasoline, naphtha or kerosene shall be taken into the mine except in metallic cans, with a screw cap opening at the top, fitted with a suitable gasket: No package or can, or the supply tank of an engine, containing gasoline, naphtha or kerosene, shall be opened until ready to make the ...
— Mining Laws of Ohio, 1921 • Anonymous
... asteroid was a pretty unlikely place for a grave. That wasn't dirt I was walking on, it was rock, solid metallic rock. You don't dig a grave in solid rock, not with a shovel. You maybe can do it with dynamite, but that won't work too well if your object is to keep anybody from seeing that the hole has been made. Dirt can be patted down. Blown-up rock looks like blown-up ...
— The Risk Profession • Donald Edwin Westlake
... and blighted lives; just the sort of song that Tommy loves to warble after a good meal in the evening. It conjured to the Subaltern's eyes the picture of the dainty little star who had sung it on the boards of the Coliseum. And to conclude, Madame's voice, French, and sonorously metallic, was heard in the dining-room striking up the "Marseillaise." Tommy did not know a word of it, but he yelled "March on" (a very good translation of "Marchons") and sang "lar lar" to the rest of ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... the matter of tonal volume. If Liszt or Tausig, or, for that matter, Rubinstein, produced more clangor from their instruments than Eugen d'Albert, then my aural memory is at fault. My recollection of Liszt is a vivid one: to me he was iron; Tausig, steel; Rubinstein, gold. This metallic classification is not intended to praise gold at the expense of steel, or iron to the detriment of gold. It is merely my way of describing the adamantine qualities of Liszt and Tausig—two magnetic mountains ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... Dawson's rather metallic voice became almost sympathetic, and I was pleased to observe that his harsh profession had not destroyed in him ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... metallic clatter. Moments later a tremor rattled the objects on the shelf, followed a few seconds later by a heavy shuddering. Papers slid from my desk, fluttered across the floor. The whiskey bottle toppled, rolled to the far wall. I felt dizzy, as my bunk ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... that mark of the new moon upon her neck. After our return to Africa, however, for as I have spoken of this matter I may as well tell you all," here he stared me full in the eyes and spoke in a clear metallic voice which somehow no longer convinced me, "we found that we had made a mistake, for the real Oracle, a mere girl, was discovered among our own people, and has now been for two years installed in her office. Without doubt the last Guardian of the Child was wandering ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... both of his—only to suddenly hear a quick, metallic snap, and feel links of cold steel confining his wrists. Their icy chill went through him like a knife, and he reeled as if stricken ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... Naples, without having seen. But Ruth confessed that she was tired of them, and also of the Mint. She was tired of other things. She tried this morning an air or two upon the piano, sang a simple song in a sweet but slightly metallic voice, and then seating herself by the open window, read Philip's letter. Was she thinking about Philip, as she gazed across the fresh lawn over the tree tops to the Chelton Hills, or of that world ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... consumptive-breeding, sickening, stifling, suffocating. It is hot and has a metallic flavor; and it flies from the hot steel teeth of the saws, as pestilence from the hot breath of ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... in a mechanically measured tone; her voice had a metallic ring, her eyes were veiled and half closed, her little hands hung heavy at her side, and when she ceased she gazed before her with ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... curious vehicle, a kind of frame on two long beams, a little raised in front like the runners of a sledge, and upon which there was room for five or six persons. A high mast was fixed on the frame, held firmly by metallic lashings, to which was attached a large brigantine sail. This mast held an iron stay upon which to hoist a jib-sail. Behind, a sort of rudder served to guide the vehicle. It was, in short, a sledge rigged like a sloop. During the winter, when the trains are blocked up by the snow, these sledges ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... houses of the suburbs, the factories, taverns, and gloomy hovels in the debatable land round Paris are so many points of sunshine in the far distance. The train is going at full speed. The fields of green or gold are being unrolled like ribbons before my eyes. Now and again a metallic sound and a glimpse of columns and advertisements show that we are rushing through a station in a whirlwind of dust. A flash of light across our path is a tributary of the river. I am off, well on my way, and no one can stop me—not Lampron, nor Counsellor Boule, nor yet ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... what they showed him, and he knew them at once for his little boy's buttons, the workmanship being peculiar to one village of his district, and one family thereof. The sailor would thankfully have taken one rupee apiece for them; but Sir Duncan gave him thirty for the three—their full metallic value—upon his pledging honor to tell all he knew about them, and make affidavit, if required. Then he told all he knew, to the best of his knowledge, and swore to it when sober, accepted a refresher, and made oath to it again, with some lively particulars added. And the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... is born of the flame, as, in thine ignorance thou dost call that mighty agent. Look now;" and she pointed to the metallic lump she had brought with her, which, still gleaming faintly, lay upon the floor. "Nay, it has no heat. Thinkest thou that I would wish to burn my tender hands and so make ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... instant his dark cheek was laid close to hers, with a tender caressing touch, that astonished her as completely as if one of the bronze statuettes on the console above her head had laughed aloud, and clapped its metallic hands. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... seen in (a) corrosive poisons; (b) irritant poisons, causing congestion and inflammation of the mucous membranes—e.g., metallic and vegetable irritants; (c) stimulants or sedatives to the nerve endings, ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... of the country, however, are a total waste at the present time, but which the Pacific railroad will at once develop, and make to itself the foundation of a vast revenue. I refer to its metallic wealth, the silver, gold, and copper mines that abound in almost every mountain and valley, between the Rio Grande and the ...
— Memoir of the Proposed Territory of Arizona • Sylvester Mowry
... difficult to diagnose—an odd whirring sound broken by repeated muffled clanks and by several others as baffling, notably a muted metallic knocking and rattling. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... experiments. He soon made several valuable discoveries. One was that explosions of inflammable gases could not pass through long narrow metallic tubes. Another was that when he held a piece of wire gauze over a lighted candle, the flame would not pass through it. As a result of his long and patient toil Davy was able at last to construct his now famous Safety-Lamp, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... cave twenty feet below the surface, and carefully protected by means of a carpet from any accidental disturbance in its immediate vicinity, revealed what is called "natural telluric phenomena; such as roarings, explosions, occurring isolated or in volleys, and metallic or bell-like sounds." "The noises sometimes become intolerably loud," especially on one occasion in the middle of the night, half an hour before a ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... perhaps also of gold, are met with in Sanscrit, and these names can scarcely have originated before man had learned to separate and to utilize the ores; the Sanscrit -asis-, Latin -ensis-, points in fact to the primeval use of metallic weapons. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... following like the yellings of eager, metallic hounds, increased to a loud and joyous burst, and then, as the sun went serenely up the sky, throwing illuminating rays into the gloomy thickets, it broke forth into prolonged pealings. The woods began to crackle ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... curly hair, a somewhat hooked nose, thick lips, sunken cheeks, a narrow chest, and sinewy hands. He was dry and sinewy all over, and spoke in a curt, harsh, metallic voice. The sleepy look in his eyes, the gloomy expression, denoted a bilious temperament! He ate very little, amused himself by making bread pills, and every now and again would fix his eyes on Kollomietzev. The latter had just returned from town, where he had been to see the governor ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of cogs that changed the manuscript from one envelope to another and stuck on the stamps. It was like the slot machines wherein one dropped pennies, and, with a metallic whirl of machinery had delivered to him a stick of chewing-gum or a tablet of chocolate. It depended upon which slot one dropped the penny in, whether he got chocolate or gum. And so with the editorial machine. One slot brought checks and the other brought rejection slips. So far he had ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... single jerk, the officer released the first torpedo, even as both lads, unable to endure the suspense and inaction any longer, leaped upon him. There was a short, metallic click, the noise of water rushing into the empty tube, and it was over. The first torpedo had sped on its errand ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... picture is more brown and never so agreeable as a positive. 3rd. The protonitrate of iron used pure produces a picture as delicate, and having all the brilliancy of a Daguerreotype, without its unpleasant metallic reflexion—the fine metal being deposited of a dead white; and combined with the pyrogallic acid solution in the proportion of one part to six or ten, produces pictures of a most agreeable ivory-like colour.—4th. The protonitrate ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... maintain that the uprising resulted primarily from a scarcity of money, from a shortage in the circulating medium; that, while the eastern counties were keeping up their foreign trade sufficiently at least to bring in enough metallic currency to relieve the stringency and could also use various forms of credit, the western counties had no such remedy. Others are inclined to think that the difficulties of the farmers in western Massachusetts were caused largely by the return to normal conditions after the extraordinarily ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... Duncan Farll, a solicitor, a cousin of your late employer," the metallic voice continued, coming through a set of large, fine, white teeth. "What arrangements have you made during ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... could do. I could excuse myself from dinner and thus secure an hour's quietude. I gave no false plea, when I urged a violent headache as the reason for my seclusion. My temples ached and throbbed as if trying to burst from a metallic band, and the sun rays, though sifted through curtains of folding lace, fell like needle ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the ruins industrious research discovered the metal rings and charred coverings of two linen buttons, three shanked buttons entire, and one of that metallic sort which is used in the less conspicuous sutures of the human Oeconomy. These remains have been accepted by persons in authority as conclusive of a destroyed and scattered Skinner, but for my own entire ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... summoning all her strength, she leaned over the bed, kissed M. de Chalusse, and went away. But she was too late, for in passing through the hall she encountered the undertakers, who carried on their shoulders a long metallic case enclosed in two oaken ones. And she had scarcely reached her own room before a smell of resin told her that the men were closing the coffin which contained all that was mortal of ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... she said. She turned her discontented face towards the window. The distant sound of a roaring and rushing drew nearer and grew in volume; the house quivered; one heard the metallic rattle of the tender. As the train passed, there was a glare of light above the cutting and a driving tumult of smoke; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black oblongs—eight trucks—passed across the dim grey of the embankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one in ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... manner, the rise and fall of the tide probably answer to the periodical inundations; and thus the same effects are produced under apparently different but really similar circumstances. The origin, however, of these coatings of metallic oxides, which seem as if cemented to the rocks, is not understood; and no reason, I believe, can be assigned for ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... his bag and fetched an angular stone about as big as one's fist. It was white, stained on one side with rust-colour, but in the heart veined with a bright yellow metallic substance, in some places running in delicate veins into the stone, in others breaking ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... pale, bluish flame turned to bluish white, and white fumes were formed. In the ignition tube a sort of metallic ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... found himself lying comfortably in bed, listening with closed eyes to a number of sounds. Of these there most impressed him two. They were a certain rhythmical muffled beat, punctuated at intervals by a slight rustling of paper; and a series of metallic clicks, softened somewhat by distance. After a time it occurred to him to open his eyes. At once he noticed two things more—that he had some way acquired fresh white sheets for his bed, and that on a little table near ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... Monographs, fifty-eight Bulletins and five Statistical Papers. In these there is a discussion of the geological structure of every state and territory, and information concerning the occurrence and production of each great metallic and mineral staple of the country. The bureau comprises one geographical, twelve geological, six paleontological and four accessory divisions. A division of mines and mining publishes an annual report on the mineral resources and production of the ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... rhubarb, blister in perinaeum, cold bath, injections of metallic salts, flannel shirt, change of the form of the accustomed chair ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the cabin in a dozen seconds, tugging at the dogs. It cost an effort to get them through the door, with the sledge after them. Half a dozen shots came from the forest. A bullet spattered against the log wall, found a crevice, and something metallic jingled inside. As Olaf swung the door shut and dropped the wooden bar in place Philip turned for a moment toward Celie. She went to him, her eyes shining in the semi-gloom of the cabin, and put her arms up about his shoulders. The Swede, looking on, stood transfixed, and ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... Let them hear each other breathing For a moment mouth to mouth! Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals! Let them prove their living souls against the notion That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! Still, all day the iron wheels go onward, Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls which God is calling sunward Spin on ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... decomposition had made such progress even while he was still living as to render embalming impossible: He accordingly instructed Don Christopher to see his body wrapped in a shroud just as it lay, and to cause it to be placed in a well-soldered metallic coffin already provided. The coffin of state, in which the leaden one was to be enclosed, was then brought into the chamber by his command, that he might see if it was entirely to his taste. Having examined it, he ordered that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is heightened by the mighty cupola of the all-dominating Aja Sofia mosque, which looks right over all these palaces into the golden mirror of the Bosphorus. Soon this golden mirror changes into a mirror of bronze, the sun disappears, and the tranquil oval of the sea borrows a metallic shimmer from the dark-blue sky. The kiosks fade into darkness; the vast outlines of the Rumili Hisar and the Anatoli Hisar stand out against the starry heaven; and excepting the lamps lit here and there in the khans of the ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... like the vast Arctic ice-fields that Kane looked on, and lay sparkling under the moonlight, crisp and Christmasy, and all the crystals on the trees and bushes hung glistening, as if ready, at a breath of air, to break out into metallic ringing, like a million silver joy-bells. I mentioned the conceit to Polly, as we stood at the window, and she said it reminded her of Jean Paul. She is a woman of most ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... seems part of a half-buried sphinx, protrudes into the deep green water. On the other—less prominent, for even at full tide the traveller can wind between its base and the sea—there rises a shattered and ruined precipice, seamed with blood-red ironstone, that retains on its surface the bright metallic gleam, and amid whose piles of loose and fractured rock one may still detect fragments of stalactite. The stalactite is all that remains of a spacious cavern, which once hollowed the precipice, but which, more than a hundred years before, had tumbled ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... little ivory ball was thrown into a cylinder, where it rolled with a metallic noise. Although he had never seen roulette, it required no effort to divine that this ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... end. But he is a Roman father, at best. He has little compassion and no tenderness; he is acute, brisk, and sensible; but he has (at least to me) neither grace nor wisdom; or, if he has, he keeps them under a polished metallic dish-cover, and only lifts it in private. I do not feel that the Headmaster has any religion, except the religion of all sensible men. In seeming to despise all sentiment, Kipling seems to me to throw aside several beautiful flowers, tied carelessly up in ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... gold, copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), steel, wood products, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, clothing ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... excessive duties. He proposed a duty upon all books, bound and unbound, imported into this country, of sixpence per pound; on paper threepence per pound; and upon glass bottles three shillings per dozen. He next proceeded to the duties on metallic substances, as iron, copper, zinc, and lead. The duty on foreign iron was to be reduced from L6. 10s. to L1. 10s. per ton; that on copper from L54 to L27 a ton; that on zinc from L28 to L14 a ton; and that on lead from L20 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... walls. Turpin, suspicious, tore several of them down. A door, previously hidden, was revealed. Turpin placed an ear to the crack and listened intently. He heard the soft hum of many voices, low and guarded laughter, and a sharp, metallic clicking and scraping as if from a multitude of tiny but ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... gleamed out through his open overcoat. His face was gaunt and swarthy, scored with deep, savage lines. In his hand he carried what appeared to be a stick, but as he laid it down upon the floor it gave a metallic clang. Then from the pocket of his overcoat he drew a bulky object, and he busied himself in some task which ended with a loud, sharp click, as if a spring or bolt had fallen into its place. Still kneeling upon the floor he bent forward and threw ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a corruption. Above the velvet collar, rubbed and worn till the frame showed through it, rose a head like that which Frederick Lemaitre makes up for the last act in "The Life of a Gambler,"—where the exhaustion of a man still in the prime of life is betrayed by the metallic, brassy skin, discolored as if with verdigris. Such tints are seen on the faces of debauched gamblers who spend their nights in play: the eyes are sunken in a dusky circle, the lids are reddened rather than red, the brow is menacing from the wreck and ruin it reveals. Philippe's ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... black, or black and red, or turquoise blue and green, or white flit across from tree to tree; parrots chatter, crows scream, and the brain-fever bird soothes or irritates you according to your mood, and you tap your fingers on the table in time to the metallic anvil cry of the coppersmith bird, until a tiger-ant or some such voracious insect ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... the cicada trills his sonorous drum on the sunny bark of some tall tree. At morning the dew hangs in diamond drops on the threads and gossamer which the spiders suspend across every pathway; and above the pool dragon flies, of more than metallic lustre, flash in the early sunbeams. The earth teems with countless ants, which emerge from beneath its surface, or make their devious highways to ascend to their nests in the trees. Lustrous beetles, with their ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, "is that any reason for you letting the birds burn? The color"—here he turned to me—"is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the scales emit; but of this you cannot judge till to-morrow. In the meantime I can give you some idea of the shape." Saying this, he seated himself at a small table on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some in a ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... its logic no less than in its beauty. But fashion restored, a thing which neither time nor revolution ever pretended to do. Fashion, on the plea of "good taste," impudently adapted to the wounds of Gothic architecture the paltry gewgaws of a day,—marble ribbons, metallic plumes, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped moldings, of volutes, wreaths, draperies, spirals, fringes, stone flames, bronze clouds, lusty cupids, and bloated cherubs, which began to ravage the face of art in the oratory of Catherine de ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... glow from the two huqas that belonged to Janoo and Azizun. The seal cutter came in, and I heard Suddhoo throw himself down on the floor and groan. Azizun caught her breath, and Janoo backed on to one of the beds with a shudder. There was a clink of something metallic, and then shot up a pale blue-green flame near the ground. The light was just enough to show Azizun, pressed against one corner of the room with the terrier between her knees; Janoo, with her hands clasped, leaning forward ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... magnetic sense, he could cling for hours to any metallic surface, or at will propel himself about or hang suspended between any two or more metallic objects. As to his personality, he was equally magnetic, for wherever Denver took him he attracted curious stares and comments. Most people have never seen a moondog. Such creatures, found only on ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... moment he thought he heard the metallic twang of a stringed instrument in the Mission garden beyond his own, and remembered his contiguity to the church with a stir of defiance. But he was relieved, nevertheless. His pent-up emotion had found vent, and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... doorbell rang. Melinda opened the front door and gaped. This little man could have been Porteous's double, except for the black metallic ...
— Teething Ring • James Causey
... dealer in lightning-rods," said the stranger, softening his tone; "my special business is—Merciful heaven! what a crash!—Have you ever been struck—your premises, I mean? No? It's best to be provided;"—significantly rattling his metallic staff on the floor;—"by nature, there are no castles in thunder-storms; yet, say but the word, and of this cottage I can make a Gibraltar by a few waves of this wand. Hark, what Himalayas ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the tapers of the Christmas-trees, and wondering whether I too, on returning home, should be let into a wonderful room all blazing with lights and gilded nuts and glass beads. They are hanging the last strings of those blue and red metallic beads, fastening on the last gilded and silvered walnuts on the trees out there at home in the North; they are lighting the blue and red tapers; the wax is beginning to run on to the beautiful spruce green branches; the children are waiting with beating hearts behind the door, to be ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... The metallic dress which is superadded to these means of defence consists of five principal pieces, viz., a casque or cap, with a mask large enough to leave a proper space between it and the asbestos cap; a cuirass ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... message—written in code—or a map is to be dropped from aloft it is enclosed within a special metallic cylinder, fitted with a vane tail to ensure direction of flight when launched, and with a detonating head. This is dropped overboard. When it strikes the ground the detonator fires a charge which emits ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... voice was flat and metallic and low, but his eyes never left the muzzle until the line of it was drawn past ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... difficulty in constructing a telescope quite as powerful as that which first brought Herschel into fame. I should, however, mention that in these modern days the material generally used for the mirror is of a more tractable description than the metallic substance which was employed by Herschel and by Lord Rosse. A reflecting telescope of the present day would not be fitted with a mirror composed of that alloy known as speculum metal, whose composition I have already mentioned. It has been found more advantageous to employ a glass mirror carefully ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... crowded with bottles and fragments of food, and a worn, velvet jacket and much-beplumed hat lay amongst them. A ragged lace skirt hung over the blue sofa, on one corner of which Miss De Courcy threw herself down, revealing a pair of high heeled scarlet slippers. "Sit down," she said, in a rather metallic voice, that ill accorded with the rounded curves of face and figure. "I've got a beastly headache," pushing up the bandage on her low brow. "What did you run for, when I opened the door? Did your folks tell you not to ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... at last, that time of importunate certainty and eye-straining suspense. The sharp sound of a voice, almost as metallic as the rap that followed it, had ceased; the tramping of footsteps on the gravel had died out. Mrs. Tulliver's blond face seemed aged ten years by the last thirty hours; the poor woman's mind had been busy divining when her favorite ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... solidified but still slightly soft paste from settling under its own weight at this moment, it is supported by directing a current of compressed air into the mould, or, through atmospheric pressure, by forming a vacuum in the metallic jacket in which the mould ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... strip of metallic lead was used instead of graphite in the first pencils made. The use of graphite did not become general until about 1850. The hardness of a pencil is regulated by mixing clay ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... scrofula, from the troubles of their ancestors. Perhaps this, too, was a disease, and but the reflex of the wild energy with which Hester had fought against her sorrows before Pearl's birth. It was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre to the child's character. She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanise and make her capable of sympathy. But there was time enough ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... no stronger than the very earliest intimation of a winter's dawn, seemed to issue in a most unusual way from the far corner of this apartment near the ceiling. I directed my course towards it, and in the transit made violent contact with some metallic object, which proved to be an upright iron shaft, perhaps three inches in diameter, running from ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... called her mother "Annette"? Always on the side of her Father—as children are ever on one side or the other in houses where relations are a little strained—she stood, uncertain. Her mother was speaking in her low, pleasing, slightly metallic voice—one word she caught: "Demain." And Profond's answer: "All right." Fleur frowned. A little sound came out into the stillness. Then Profond's voice: "I'm takin' a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... West, on a hint from the boatswain, searched the pockets of the dead man, and took out of them a knife, some string, an empty tobacco box, and lastly a leather pocket-book furnished with a metallic pencil. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... size; its gloom and darkness; the richness of ornamentation in the details, contrasted with the severe simplicity of the larger outlines; the variety of its architecture; the glory of its paintings; and the wondrous splendour of its metallic decoration, its altar-friezes, screens, rails, gates, and the like, render it, to my mind, the first in interest among churches. It has not the coloured glass of Chartres, or the marble glory of Milan, or such a forest of aisles as Antwerp, ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... are true; so an enormous number of newspaper readers seem to have it fixed firmly in their heads that Mr. H.G. Wells is a harsh and horrible Eugenist in great goblin spectacles, who wants to put us all into metallic microscopes and dissect us with metallic tools. As a matter of fact, of course, Mr. Wells, so far from being too definite, is generally not definite enough. He is an absolute wizard in the appreciation of atmospheres and the opening ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... blue, as if it were made of painted china. The blue of Alec Trenholme's eyes was very much like the sky; sometimes it was deep and dark, sometimes it was a shadowy grey, sometimes it was hard and metallic. A woman having to deal with him would probably have imagined that something of his inward mood was to be read in these changes; but, indeed, they were owing solely to those causes which change the face of the sky—degrees of light and the position of that light. As for Bates, he ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... atmospheres of similar kinds repel, of different kinds attract each other strongly; explode on uniting; nonconductors; imperfect conductors; perfect conductors; torpedo, gymnotus, galvanism. III. Effect of metallic points. IV. Accumulation of electric ethers by contact. V. By vicinity; Volta's electrophorus and Rennet's doubler. VI. By heat and by decomposition; the tourmalin; cats; galvanic pile; evaporation of water. VII. The spark from the conductor; electric ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... a victim of science. If the earth wire of a magneto makes a metallic contact there is trouble in the cylinders, so Simmonds is switched off until he ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... him. The operative crawled up and glanced over the crest. In a hollow before them was a crude one-storied house, and erected on an open space before it was a massive piece of apparatus. It consisted of a number of huge metallic cylinders, from which lines ran to a silvery concave mirror mounted on an elaborate frame which would allow it to be rotated so as to point ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... forceps, and divided, after which the optic nerve is cut through with the scissors. A slight preliminary extension outwards of the optic commissure will facilitate the dissection, and must be secured with metallic sutures; any vessels should be tied, and the orbit filled up with a light compress of charpie ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... the country, so conspicuous in their velvety-black, green, and rose-coloured hues, which Linnaeus, in pursuance of his elegant system of nomenclature— naming the different kinds after the heroes of Greek mythology— called Trojans, never leave the shades of the forest. The splendid metallic blue Morphos, some of which measure seven inches in expanse, are generally confined to the shady alleys of the forest. They sometimes come forth into ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... independent of each other; and in sciences, so many natural miracles, as it were, have been brought to light,—such as the fall of stones from meteors in the atmosphere, the disarming of a thunder-cloud by a metallic point, the production of fire from ice by a metal white as silver, and referring certain laws of motion of the sea to the moon,—that the physical inquirer is seldom disposed to assert, confidently, on any abstruse subjects belonging ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... rich stuff," he explained. "Chiefly hydrogen and helium, of course; but the scoopships separate out most of that during a pickup. The rest is ammonia, water, methane, a dozen important organics, including some of the damn ... doggonedest metallic complexes you ever heard of. We need them as the basis of a chemosynthetic industry, which we need for survival, which we need if we're to get the minerals that were the reason for colonizing the Belt in the first place." He waved his hand at the ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... thicknesses of goldbeaters' skin, measuring from 7 to 10 feet in diameter, and needing only two or three gas cylinders for inflation. Within the balloon, which is sufficiently translucent, are placed several incandescent lamps in metallic circuit, with a source of electricity on the ground. This source of electricity may consist of batteries of moderate size or a portable hand dynamo. In the circuit is placed an apparatus for making and breaking contact rapidly, and by varying ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... and metallic, like the click of a withdrawn bolt, and came first from the case at his side. A second sharp rap replied from the other raised casket, then an echoing tattoo of metallic impacts rattled and clattered in the resounding room. Each of the hundreds ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... punctuated by the occasional flare of a match, and the silence broken now and then, as he worked before the safe, by the metallic click and scrape of steel against steel, and by the muffled rasp and whine of his file against the wax-covered key which from time to time he fitted into the unyielding safe lock. As he filed and tested and refiled, with infinite care and patience, his preoccupied mind ranged vaguely ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... are acquainted with a few but there are hundreds equally powerful, the properties of which we are ignorant of. Could we add to medical science the knowledge of the African negroes and Indians, which they so carefully conceal from us, our pharmacopoeia would be much extended. When metallic medicines were first introduced into general use by a physician, an ancestor of mine, and the wonderful effect of them established by the cures, the whole fraternity was up in arms, and he was decried us a quack; notwithstanding which, the works he wrote have gone through twenty five editions, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... dead coral, of the same kind as that of which I have before spoken as resembling a fan, strewed over a limestone foundation one foot above the level of the sea, in the greatest possible confusion, to the height of five feet. In walking over them they yielded a metallic sound. Pelsart, like Easter Group, is marked by a detached islet lying a mile off ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... stained. That wouldn't do at all! Striding to the kitchen he poked about and finally unearthed a box of stove-polish that he had purchased and laid away for future use against that happy time when stove-polish would be doubly appreciated. The metallic luster of his boots was not altogether satisfactory, but it would do. "This here bein' chief engineer of a popcorn machine ain't what it's said to be in the perspectus. Gets a fella lookin' greasy and feelin' greasy, but ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... he is still alive after I have met him!" responded Andras, in hard, metallic tones, waving back the unhappy woman who threw herself on her knees, her arms outstretched ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... not only in clay and indeed in most rocks except sandstone and limestone, but also in several of the precious stones, in the yellow topaz, the blue sapphire and lapis-lazuli, and the red garnet and ruby. It might look down upon some of its metallic relatives, but it is friendly with them all, and perfectly willing to form alloys with most of them. A single ounce of it put into a ton of steel as the latter is being poured out will drive away the gases which often make little holes ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... barnyards beyond the fences showed sometimes a harrow left to rust, with its iron seat half filled with stiffened snow, and sometimes an old dead buggy, it's wheels forever set, it seemed, in the solid ice of deep ruts. Chickens scratched the metallic earth with an air of protest, and a masterless ragged colt looked up in sudden horror at the mild tinkle of the passing bells, then blew fierce clouds of steam at the sleigh. The snow no longer fell, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... with the soiled river below. In the evening this was a favorite resort of many birds that came to drink at the pellucid stream, or catch insects playing above the water. Amongst the last was the beautiful blue, green and white humming-bird; the head and neck deep metallic-blue, bordered on the back by a pure white collar over the shoulders, followed by deep metallic-green; on the underside the blue neck is succeeded by green, the green from the centre of the breast to the end of the tail by pure white; ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... moved in profound silence," says Mercer, and the only sound that could be heard from them, amidst the incessant roar of battle, was the low, thunder-like reverberation of the ground beneath the simultaneous tread of so many horses, through which ran a jangling ripple of sharp metallic sound, the ring of steel on steel. The British gunners, on their part, showed a stern coolness fully equal to the occasion. Every man stood steadily at his post, "the guns ready loaded with round-shot first, and a case over it; the tubes were in the vents, the port-fires glared and sputtered ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... bolt shot with a hard click, like cocking a trigger, and he raised the lid. The chest was full of silver money. I picked up a couple of the coins, and, bringing them to the candle, perceived them to be Spanish pieces of eight. The money was tarnished, yet it reflected a sort of dull metallic light. The Frenchman grasped a handful and dropped them, as though, like a child, he loved to hear the chink the pieces made as ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... grind of the brakes as the speed is slowed, and tumultuous roars as passing trains are met with, besides the names of the stations shouted out during the short stoppages, and the banging of the doors which are opened or shut with metallic sonority. ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... a gas, the fulcrum being gaseous, must also be movable; but although the air, being the most elastic body with which we are acquainted, is therefore the least apt to furnish a fulcrum, yet, as compressed air is capable of bursting the strongest metallic receptacles, splitting the solid rock, and rending the bosom of the earth, it would seem that we have only to act upon the air through pressure, in order to obtain the requisite ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... bucket came down again with a horrible rush. They held their breaths and looked to see the form of Lucy hurtling through the air. But no, the bucket swung loose a moment in mid-air, then it was hastily drawn up, and a hollow metallic clang ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... is gorgeous with his metallic green upper parts, bordered on the tail with purplish black, his white or grayish under parts, and his gorget of purple which gleams in bright, varying tints in the sun. He closely resembles our common ruby-throated humming-bird, whose ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... 'buses tinkled noisily, and there was an incessant roar of the traffic that rumbled heavily over the wooden pavements. There was a clatter of horses' hoofs, and the blowing of horns; the electric broughams whizzed past with an odd, metallic whirr. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... cent. of coal. The coal from Elsberg's peat was greatly fissured, and could be crushed in the fingers to small fragments. That from the other peats was more firm, and required considerable exertion to break it. All had a decided metallic brilliancy ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson |
