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Fortification   Listen
noun
Fortification  n.  
1.
The act of fortifying; the art or science of fortifying places in order to defend them against an enemy.
2.
That which fortifies; especially, a work or works erected to defend a place against attack; a fortified place; a fortress; a fort; a castle.
Fortification agate, Scotch pebble.
Synonyms: Fortress; citadel; bulwark. See Fortress.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fortification" Quotes from Famous Books



... 28th we went to Fort George, which is accounted the most regular fortification in the island. The major of artillery walked with us round the walls, and showed us the principles upon which every part was constructed, and the way in which it could be defended. We dined with the governour, sir Eyre Coote, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... a situation for a fortification in one direction, the British effected a landing in another. They had captured the American flotilla guarding the entrance to Lake Borgne and were making ready to ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott

... where the Ottoman thought it necessary to have a foothold even in times of profound peace. To the traveller from Western Europe no spectacle on the way to Constantinople was so impressive as this ancient and picturesque fortification, suddenly affronting the vision with its odd walls, its minarets, its red-capped sentries, and the yellow sinister faces peering from balconies suspended above the current. It was the first glimpse of the Orient which one obtained; it appropriately ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... stationing himself in the upper regions, the king began his fight with the city. And that encounter commenced with a thick shower of weapons from all sides. And, O bull of the Bharata race, the city at that time was well-fortified on all sides, according to the science (of fortification), with pennons, and arches, and combatants, and walls and turrets, and engines, and miners, and streets barricaded with spiked wood-works and towers and edifices with gate-ways well-filled with provisions, and engines for hurling ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... one next the block had it to tote the length of the chain, and so on till we did our day's work. Since we've been here we've seen nine of our masters chained to that same block and made to shovel sand on that fortification yonder. There were forty of us that belonged to our plantation standing in this yard ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... people. But so wild and disorderly an invasion had no terrors for a civilized nation like the Romans. The brute herd was terrified by our Greek fire; it was snared and shot down by the wild nations who, while they pretend to independence, cover our frontier as with a protecting fortification. The vile multitude has been consumed even by the very quality of the provisions thrown in their way,—those wise means of resistance which were at once suggested by the paternal care of the Emperor, and by his unfailing policy. Thus wisdom has played its part, and ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... was perfectly satisfied with M. Bernard's information respecting Elyria; and when the chef de bataillon had finished speaking Napoleon said, "Colonel Bernard, I am now acquainted with Ragusa." The Emperor afterwards conversed familiarly with him, entered into details respecting the system of fortification adopted at Antwerp, referred to the plan of the works, criticised it, and showed how he would, if he besieged the town, render the means of defence unavailing. The new Colonel explained so well how he would ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... 'that the best fortification for the exercise of the a voice is hearty eating, so I 'll pay court again to that game-pie. I'm one with the pigs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... could not take our little fortification, or drive us from it, they circled around us several times, shooting their arrows at us. One of the arrows struck George Wood in the left shoulder, inflicting only a slight wound, however, and several lodged in the bodies of the dead mules; otherwise they did ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody

... resistance was thirty-three days. The Germans used siege artillery in fourteen cases; although only on two instances, Belfort and Strasburg, were formal sieges undertaken. "It appears," writes Major Sydenham Clarke in his recent remarkable work on Fortification [Footnote: Fortification. By Major G. Sydenham Clarke, C.M. G. (London: John Murray).] which ought to revolutionise that art, "that the average period of resistance of the (nominally obsolete) French fortresses ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... was but one—as the centre of the camp, it was placed upon the edge of a small grove, and fronting the stream. From the tent to the water's edge, the plain sloped gently downward, like the glacis of a fortification. The smooth sward, that covered the space between the trees and the water, was the ground of the camp. On this could be seen the dusky warriors, some afoot, standing in listless attitudes, or moving about; others reclining upon the grass, and still others ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... unusual, forming one side of a square enclosure, of which the barns and outhouses make up the rest. The high blank walls of these latter, pierced only here and there by two or three of the narrowest possible lancet-holes, give it something the air of a fortification. Indeed, if well garrisoned, it would be almost as strong a post as the Chateau of Hougoumont; with this additional advantage, that it has a moat on two sides of it, and a canal, only divided from it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... signature, was in the handwriting of Azimula Khan, a Mahomedan who had been employed by the Nana as his Agent in England, and was addressed, 'To the subjects of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria.' General Wheeler agreed to give up the fortification, the treasure, and the Artillery, on condition that each man should be allowed to carry his arms and sixty rounds of ammunition, that carriages should be provided for the conveyance of the wounded, the women, and the children, and that boats, with a sufficiency of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... father's kindness supposing it, as he does, to be pinchbeck gilded. He has had a hard task replacing the folios which were used in the barricade, smoothing out the creases And dog-ears, and repairing the other disasters they have sustained during their service in the Fortification. He brought us some pieces of lead and bullets which these ponderous tomes had intercepted during the action, and which he had extracted with great care; and, were I in spirits, I could give you a comic account of his astonishment at the apathy with ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... vermilion cloak lay around her like a fortification spoke to her escort. He did not understand. He tried to express himself in French, and failed. Then the woman recommenced, talking at length. When she had done he shook his head. His acquaintance with French was limited to the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... loss of time in cutting down trees and clearing spaces for the temporary tents. The matter of a fort had not been broached, yet Smith, whose military knowledge showed him how vulnerable the island was, made no suggestion for its fortification. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... discussing the point of having been ruled out of action during certain army manoeuvres he became so enraged that he pursued the umpire in question with a wooden tent hammer, had added more to his popularity than all his thirty odd years of service and his immense genius for fortification. ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... bayonets and the muzzles of hostile cannon, were expressed in the now rigid lines of his brow. His ruffled right hand was clutched by his side, as if grasping a cutlass. He paced the room as if advancing upon a fortification. Meantime a confused buzz of discussion came from the neighboring chamber. All else was profound midnight tranquillity. Presently, passing the large mirror over the mantel, Paul caught a glimpse of his person. He paused, grimly ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... warfare, caution is as needful as courage, and in caution they were so deficient that they were always being surprised. General Kuhn's numerically inferior force of tried marksmen, supported by good artillery and favoured by ground which may be described as one great natural fortification, had succeeded up till now in holding the Trentino, but his position was becoming critical, because while Garibaldi sought to approach Trento from the west, Medici with 10,000 men detached from the main army at Padua, was ascending the Venetian valleys that lead to the same destination from the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... the useful to a remarkable degree; he was no pamperer of imagination and the ornamental. His list of subjects might be said to be utility run wild:—comprising the chief parts of Mathematics, together with Engineering, Navigation, Architecture, and Fortification; Natural Philosophy; Natural History; Anatomy, and Practice of Physic; Ethics, Politics, Economics, Jurisprudence, Theology; a full course of the Orators and Poets; Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics. He tumbles out a whole library of reading: but only in Ethics, does he indicate a leading or preferential ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... main ocean, or the sea; very well. These pieces of cork to be our men of war; very well. Now where shall I raise my fortifications? I wish I had Mr. Major {95}Moncrieff here; he's the best in the world at raising a fortification. Oh! I have it. [Breaks the pipes.] We'll suppose them to be all the strong fortified places in the whole world; such as Fort Omoa, Tilbury Fort, Bergen op Zoom, and Tower Ditch, and all the other fortified ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens

... made of bricks, and the bricks were formed of clay and earth, which was dug from a trench made outside of the lines. This trench served the purpose of a ditch, to strengthen the fortification when the wall was completed. The water from the river, and from streams flowing toward the river, was admitted to these ditches on every side, and kept them ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... a direct line on the surface they would have compassed this distance in half an hour. To the angles of the underground road, arranged to impede the advance of an enemy, there had been added the obstacles of campaign fortification, tunnels cut with wire lattice work, large hanging cages of wire which, on falling, could block the passage and enable the defenders to ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... at first only a small fortification; under the kings and the republic, it greatly increased in size; but it could hardly be called magnificent before the time of Augustus Caesar. In the reign of the Emperor Valerian, the city, with its suburbs, covered ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... The wall extended from the water's edge south of the town to the water again on the north. There were fortifications at intervals along the line and at the angles. In front of the city, and on an island half a mile out in the Gulf, stands San Juan de Ulloa, an enclosed fortification of large dimensions and great strength for that period. Against artillery of the present day the land forts and walls would prove elements of weakness rather than strength. After the invading army had established their camps out of range ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... went on in England in days of old. For the Peerage is not quite dead, but sore stricken, robbed of its high functions, propped up and left standing to flatter the fools and the snobs, a kind of painted screen, or a cardboard fortification, armed with cannon which can not be discharged for fear they bring it down about the defenders' ears. And in the end it was all effected so simply, so easily could the bull be induced to charge. A rag was waved, first here, then there, and the dogs ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... unfavorable to the economy of a country, where there can be no guarantee of a consistent observance and development of the laws. To the best applications of the principle of the continuity of labor belong the church-building of the middle ages, the national canals, the street and fortification systems of modern times; all of which have been created only by the cooeperation of several generations to the same end.(391) The most striking means by which such a cooeperation has been advanced in modern times is public credit, "a draft on ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... Elitha and Leanna were staying when we arrived at Sutter's Fort was part of a long, low, single-story adobe building outside the fortification walls, and like others that were occupied by belated travellers, was the barest and crudest structure imaginable. It had an earthen floor, a thatched roof, a batten door, and an opening in the rear ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton

... Coila Villa was some distance from the fortified Moncrieff houses. It was now connected with the general rampart and ditches. It was part and parcel of the whole system of fortification; so my brothers and I might rest assured it would be defended, if ever there was ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... for any one to read; it is like having everybody call you by your first name and sitting in any pew in church, and like having your house in the middle of a road, to take away the fence which, slight as it may be, is a fortification round your home. More things than one may come in without being asked. We Americans had better build more fences than take any away from our lives. There should be gates for charity to go out and in, and kindness and ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... prodigal if he have not a Home of his own almost immediately upon leaving the fatherly roof. There are no reasons, no exceptions, which relieve the healthy, able-bodied young man from an early advance on the enemies who threaten the welfare of the citizen. The strongest fortification which the human heart can throw up against temptation is the Home. Certain men are almost invincible against the onslaughts of the many base allurements which wreak such misery on all sides of us. Why are they so firm? It is because a glorious ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... then he should evermore be on the watch against ambush and all espial, even in what seems a place of safety; though he should not be so cowardly, as to fear where is no cause for dread; yet he should dread to be poisoned, and therefore shun scorners, and fly their words as venom. As to the fortification of his house, she points out that towers and great edifices are costly and laborious, yet useless unless defended by true friends that be old and wise; and the greatest and strongest garrison that a rich man may have, as well ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single-stick, if required, writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr. Squeers is in town and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... forenoon of the eighth day from the fort we found the Indians on a tributary of Cash Valley in a deep canyon and fortified. They had cut logs and rolled them down the hill, piling them on each side of the canyon, several feet high and had intermingled them with brush. This was the first fortification I had ever ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan

... she entered was within the double fortification and its windows were securely barred. The walls were of heavy timbers stained just enough to bring out the beautiful grain. But some of the dressed deerskins were still hanging and there were festoons of wampum, curiously made bead and shell curtains interspersed ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... as cold as a cucumber; so, after having ascertained, as I best could, the bearings about the Sound, I rather think I did stop below for one moment—but not longer—just to mix a glass of swizzle by way of fortification, for I didn't expect to get to bed that night. All of a sudden I heard a shout from the bows, bolted upon deck, and there, sure enough, was a black object right ahead, with the surf shooting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... out to see the fortifications deserted by the Filipinos. They were curious indeed; built as an officer suggested, to be run away from, not to be defended. One fortification was ingeniously made of sacks of sugar. Everywhere was devastation and waste and burned buildings. The natives had fled to distant ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger

... were not only bears in the island, but tigers too, his lamentations again arose. Now he would never dare to go out! The wild beasts would end by discovering the road to Will Tree! There was no longer any safety anywhere! In his alarm the professor wanted for his protection quite a fortification! Yes! Stone walls with scarps and counterscarps, curtains and bastions, and ramparts, for what was the use of a shelter under a group of sequoias? Above all things, he would at all risks, like to ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne

... of the company notify his own men, who were instant to understand the situation, but they assisted the Ashbridges and Altmans into the exceedingly rude fortification. The utmost care was used, but, in spite of all, there were several stumbles, and more than one hasty ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... Red River, within the then assumed limits of the United States, he built a small fortification for his company, until the opening of the spring of 1807 should enable him to continue his descent to Natchitoches. As he was really within Mexican territory, and only about eighty miles from the northern settlements, his position ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... Parian in time were decapitated. Those who thus took refuge were confined to the point of Cavite or to the Parian of the city, so that we might keep them within range of our guns, and where they would be of advantage for whatever had to be done for the fortification of both posts and the protection of the shore. His Lordship commanded that lists be made of [the Sangleys engaged in the different] crafts, reserving as many of these as were deemed sufficient for the needs of the city and service; and he ordered that of all the rest as many as space ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various

... more than twenty steps when he stopped with an exclamation of surprise and astonishment, his way was barred by a great wall of stone that towered several feet above his head. It had once been a fortification of considerable strength, but growing trees had made breaches in it here and there, their thrusting, up-growing trunks tumbling its blocks to the ground, where they lay ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... Jerusalem. It is computed by modern tourists to be more than forty miles. The situation is extremely beautiful as well as naturally strong, being placed on a large hill encompassed all round by a broad deep valley, and therefore capable of an easy and complete fortification. But the splendid city of Herod is now reduced to a village, small and poor, exhibiting only the remains of its former greatness. In one place, according to Dr. Richardson, there are sixty columns of the Ionic order extended in a single row, marking the site of some gorgeous ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... safe as to the beasts of prey, I worked sideways, to the right hand, into the rock, and then turning to the right again, worked quite out, and made me a door to come out in the outside of my pale or fortification. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... pitching across the bay toward Ancon hill, scaled bare on one end by the work of fortification like a Hindu hair-cut. The water came spitting inboard now and then, and dejected silence reigned within the craft. But spirits gradually revived and before we could make out the details of the wharf the Corporal's hearty genuine laughter and the Lieutenant's ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... The Thames is thy ditch, And stout hearts are thy fortification. Let come who come may, All is open as day, Thy gates are as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... They marched and camped as nature prompted, but they had common-sense developed to the utmost by the exigencies of their daily lives, and they created, simply by being together, a discipline and tactics of their own; they even learned enough of the arts of fortification and intrenchment, during the siege, to serve all their requirements. They had the American instinct to break loose from tradition and solve problems from an original point of view; they laughed at the jargon and technicalities of conventional war, but ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... Ferdinand VII., and later in honour of Captain-General Jose Cienfuegos Jovellanos. The harbour was known from the earliest times, and has been declared by Mahan to be the most important of the Caribbean Sea for strategic purposes. In 1740-1745 a fortification called Nuestra Senora de los Angeles was erected at the entrance; it is still standing, on a steep bluff overlooking the sea, and is one of the most picturesque of the old fortifications of the island. On the 11th of May 1898 a force from two vessels of the United States fleet under ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... the first day's struggle, Thaine was running in a line of soldiery toward the Filipino fortification, when he was halted beside a thatched hut that stood between the guns of both armies and ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... Officers convened by President Cleveland adopted a comprehensive scheme of coast-defense fortifications which involved the outlay of something over one hundred million dollars. This plan received the approval of the Congress, and since then regular appropriations have been made and the work of fortification ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... The strongest fortification at Dhuspas was the citadel, which was erected on a rocky promontory jutting into Lake Van. A small garrison could there resist a prolonged siege. The water supply of the city was assured by the construction ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... above or below; the bridge was the only means of crossing without a wide detour; and not twenty yards from the mouth of the bridge (on the side held by the enemy), and perfectly commanding it, was a steep bluff (not too high) covered with timber, and affording an admirable natural fortification. As soon as the bridge was repaired, the column crossed and pressed on to Lebanon. Within a mile of the town, skirmishing commenced with the force which held it. Two companies (E and C of the Second Kentucky) were thrown out on foot, and advanced at a brisk pace, driving the enemy before ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... removal of the body easy. This was to be sent to Bankei's care for proper burial and rites. Meanwhile Shu[u]zen with interest and increasing gravity examined his prize. The books were all on war. One was in the suspected script of the western barbarian. From its plates, it was a work on fortification, and the art of attack and defence. Shu[u]zen did not understand the Dutch words, but he regarded the find as of importance, at least as adding to his own merit. So likewise did Abe Bungo no Kami, ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... like to know how many wives he has already, before I take that step, so that I may know how strong a fortification my eyes ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... read that 'when this picturesque and ancient structure was founded, or by whom, is extremely uncertain. But that a castle stood on the site in very early times appears from many old books of charters. In its prime it was such a masterpiece of fortification as to be the wonder of the world, and it was thought, before the invention of gunpowder, that it never could be taken by ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... BARBICAN, a fortification to a castle outside the walls, generally at the end of the drawbridge in front of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... of a square, the remaining one being the earthen mound, that constituted the rampart of the place. A halt was called. The two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, and having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the counterscarp, they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, would have been termed the covered way. The prisoners, perfectly unfettered, advanced between them, stepped down with a firm step into the ditch, led each by a grenadier. In the centre of it they turned and kneeled, neither of their eyes being bound. A ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... one in the main, seems capable of being considerably modified and improved by the hypothesis of Sir George. The hill-fort,—palpably the most primitive form of fortalice or stronghold originated in a mountainous country,—seems to constitute man's first essay towards neutralizing, by the art of fortification, the advantages of superior force on the side of an assailing enemy. It was found, on the discovery of New Zealand, that the savage inhabitants had already learned to erect exactly such hill-forts amid the fastnesses of that country as those which were erected two thousand ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... embankments, and mounting at least five heavy guns. A flag-staff rose from the center of the fort, and supported the "stars and bars," which flaunted defiantly in the breeze. This was Fort Pemberton, the only formidable fortification the rebels had between the Mississippi ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon

... the writer has done a little editing, of which it is needless to speak except in one respect. His views on the utility of coast fortification have met with pronounced adverse criticism in some quarters in England. Of this he has neither cause nor wish to complain; but he is somewhat surprised that his opinions on the subject here expressed are ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... at Nargue Island, which had a Russian governor, but no fortification, Sir James found a large quantity of wood prepared for transportation to Revel, which was very acceptable to the fleet; but the water was not plentiful. The inhabitants of this island, who are fishermen and speak the Swedish language, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... without first acquiring a competent knowledge of your profession. For this purpose (tho' I never had any proper knowledge of those matters myself yet I am sensible of my deficiency) I would have you study and read such books as treat of fortification and encampments; and as you are still very young I imagine you may soon acquire a competent knowledge by such reading, suitable to avail yourself of it ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... point was about twelve feet high, forming a natural fortification, which Stickney took advantage of and strengthened by throwing up slight rifle-pits on his flanks. These had only been carried a few yards, and were nowhere more than two feet high, when, about seven o'clock in the evening, under cover of the darkness, Major attacked. The attack was led ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... protection against the wolves. Doing the best we could under such unfavourable circumstances, we drew up the carts in the form of a half circle, of which the two extremities rested against the wall of snow it our rear, and within the sort of fortification thus formed we placed the horses and our sledge. Our arrangements were scarcely completed when it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... long wandering upon the desolate edges of the sea to the bank which we proposed to follow right round to the mouth of the Ouse: a bank that runs not straight, but in great broken lines, as in old-fashioned fortification, and from which far off upon the right one sees the famous churches of the Wringland, far off upon the left a hint beyond the marshes and the sands of the ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... wear his father's likeness somewhere betwixt buckram and Flanders lace," answered Hyacinth, gaily, pulling a locket from amidst the splendours of her corsage. "I call it next my heart; but there is a stout fortification of whalebone between heart and picture. You have gloated enough on the daughter's impertinent visage. Look now at the father, whom she resembles in little, as a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... attempt, whatever has been their success. Nor have those mathematicians been rejected, who have applied their science to the common purposes of life; or those that have deviated into the kindred arts of tacticks, architecture, and fortification. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... struggle for life between hostile and desperate men. Already the South has not hesitated, in some instances, to muster her slaves into armed regiments, and in all cases to avail herself of their brawny arms as equally valuable assistants in the work of fortification, camp service, and all the other incidents of war. Still further, as a great body of laborers, undisturbed by the war, quietly conducting the general industry at home, and providing the means of sustaining immense armies in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... was not long, and it was almost unbending. It terminated in a table-land of very limited extent, bounded by a rocky chain, on one of the front and more moderate elevations of which was the appearance of an extensive fortification; though, as the travellers approached it, they perceived that, in many instances, art had only availed itself of the natural advantages of the position, and that the towers and turrets were carved out of the living rock which formed ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... west of France, a pleasant little town, with a college, a library, &c., which they had selected for their first place of residence, rather than Paris. An Italian master was procured to teach young Jones "something of practical geometry and fortification"; and, for the rest, Oldenburg himself continued to superintend his studies, directing them a good deal in that line of physical and economical observation which might be supposed congenial to a nephew of Boyle, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... November, 1762. The family afterwards removed to London, where Edward received his education, partly at the Marylebone Grammar School and partly at home, where his father superintended his instruction in fortification, and navigation. Though of peculiarly sweet and amiable disposition, young Riou displayed remarkable firmness and even fearlessness as a boy. He rejoiced at all deeds of noble daring, and it was perhaps ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... King of Aragon, thus making the Pyrenees his frontier, and on several occasions he made his treasury fight his battles instead of the swords of his knights. He lived in the castle of Plessis les Tours, guarded by the utmost art of fortification, and filled with hired Scottish archers of his guard, whom he preferred as defenders to his own nobles. He was exceedingly unpopular with his nobles; but the statesman and historian, Philip de Comines, who had gone over to him from Charles ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... de Lery, the King's engineer, charged with the fortification of the Colony, a man of Vauban's genius in the art of defence. Had the schemes which he projected, and vainly urged upon the heedless Court of Versailles, been carried into effect, the conquest of New France would have ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... preamble that great disturbances have been committed by persons entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes, and other wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath, give notice that a watch will hereafter be set at the "fortification-gate," to prevent these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members, with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... little building, and others like it, were an original kind of fortification invented by the founders of New England. They are the martello-towers that protect our coast. This was the great discovery of our Puritan forefathers. They were the first lawgivers who saw clearly and enforced practically ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... Clementina, all faultless profile and repose, sat on the other. To Mrs. Harkutt's motherly concern at John Milton's absence, it was pointed out that he was wanted at the store,—was a mere boy anyhow, and could not be trusted. Mr. Harkutt, a little ruddier from weather, excitement, and the unusual fortification of a glass of liquor, a little more rugged in the lines of his face, and with an odd ring of defiant self-assertion in his voice, stood before them in ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte

... blessing of the gods that we inhabit a city unconquered, and that our fortification is proof against the multitude of our enemies. What Nemesis ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus

... now presented for the consideration of the Playground Association of America. We know only too well that we cannot give to childhood in great cities the simple and lovely ways we associate with childhood. We CAN give to it a wonderful fortification against the materialism and the sensationalism of daily life on the streets, against the deadly monotony of the struggle for existence, by a revival of the folk spirit in story, as well as in song and in dance, that will not spend ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... safely out of range of the Mexican guns, which were throwing away an occasional shot at her. She had not been touched by one of them, and she had the honor of being the first United States ship to try her batteries upon the renowned old Spanish fortress. It was, indeed, a well-built fortification, and it carried many guns, most of which had been brought over long ago from the foundries of old Spain. It did not stand upon the main shore, but on an island about half a mile out, and it therefore seemed unassailable, except ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... assigned, in the text, to the last refuge of Gryffyth ap Llewellyn, taken from a manuscript by Sir John Wynne in the time of Charles I. In this account are minutely described, "ruinous walls of an exceeding strong fortification, compassed with a treble wall, and, within each wall, the foundations of at least one hundred towers, about six yards in diameter within the walls. This castle seems (while it stood) impregnable; there being no way to offer any assault on it, the hill being so ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... is no exclusive property of theirs, and the military advantage they seemed to possess is due less to any superiority of their own than to the extent of their territory and the roadless wildernesses which are at once the reproach and the fortification of their wasteful system of agriculture. Their advantages in war have been in proportion to their disadvantages in peace, and it is peace which most convincingly tries both the vigor of a nation and the wisdom of its polity. It is with this class that we shall have to deal in arranging ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... more quickly and effectively than we could have done. Every stroke of the vibratory emanation made a gap in the side of the car, and we could perceive from the commotion within that our enemies were being rapidly massacred in their fortification. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss

... whole, however, the indications favour the view that Hoja Mustapha Pasha Mesjedi represents the church of S. Andrew near the Gate of Saturninus. A church in that position, though outside the Constantinian fortification, was still so near them that it could be, very appropriately, described as near one of the city gates. Again the Russian pilgrims[155] who visited the shrines of Constantinople in the second quarter of the fifteenth century found two churches dedicated to S. Andrew in this part of the city, ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... attended all Parisian insurrections. A chain across one of these dismal streets, an overturned cart, a pile of stones, would convert it at once into an impassable defile. Walls and windows, massive, lofty, and nearly touching each other from above afforded a perpetual fortification; lanes innumerable, and extending from one depth of darkness and intricacy into another, a network of attack and ambush, obviously gave an extraordinary advantage to the irregular daring of men accustomed to thread those wretched and dismal dens, crowded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... somewhat excessive, and it is true that no attack was ever made; but just as example is better than precept and practice better than theory, so prevention is better than cure, and there is little doubt that the fortification of that hill, in full view of many a Boer field-glass in the town, whence our movements were of course fully reported as frequently as possible to the enemy in the field, had a deterrent effect on any designs our very active foes might otherwise ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... sides of the steep arroyo near San Francisco were a great number of ancient walls of loose stones, one above the other, a kind of fortification. In other localities, sometimes in places where one would least expect them, I found a number of circular figures formed by upright stones firmly embedded in the ground, in the same way as those described ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... rear, while the sharp-shooters received them with a volley from their quick-firing rifles, and a general onslaught was begun upon the brave corps. The chasseurs endeavoured to break into the hop field, but such a plantation is a terrible fortification, with its walls of vines fastened to other walls of stout poles, and behind each a hidden foe with a quick-slaying weapon. The whole fine corps of cavalry was destroyed then ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... dog-headed monsters, to have a scorching sun overhead, and a noisome marsh under their feet. However, Regulus sternly put a stop to all murmurs, by making it known that disaffection would be punished by death, and the army safely landed, and set up a fortification at Clypea, and plundered the whole country round. Orders here came from Rome that Manlius should return thither, but that Regulus should remain to carry on the war. This was a great grief to him. He was a very poor man, with nothing of his own but a little ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... compresses the air in the rear parts of the opening. When the wave begins to retreat this air blows out, sending a gust of spray before it, the action resembling the discharge of a great gun from the face of a fortification. It often happens that two chasms converging separate a rock from the cliff. Then a lowering of the coast may bring the mass to the state of a columnar island, such as abound in the Hebrides ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... more words of disapproval, Barbara Meade shrugged her shoulders, and then she and Mildred re-entered the small curved doorway of the Russian fort. The left wing was being used as a hospital for the wounded, while the rest of the great fortification was crowded with officers ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook

... establishing anything in the nature of superiority in artillery. The skill, courage, and energy displayed by the commanders of the Royal Artillery have been very marked. The Royal Engineers have been indefatigable in their efforts to assist the infantry in field, fortification, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various

... less importance, but more calculated to call forth Sheridan's various powers, was the Plan of the Duke of Richmond for the fortification of dock-yards, which Mr. Pitt brought forward (it was said, with much reluctance) in the session of 1786, and which Sheridan must have felt the greater pleasure in attacking, from the renegade conduct ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... sides, leaving us hardly a rock with which, in case of necessity, to emulate the example of Roderick Dhu. Probably if we had travelled here on horseback in the open there would not have been this sense of having left our fortification behind. ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... repeated. "What object would a spy have on St. Mena's Island? This part of Cornwall is well outside the military area. There's nothing in the fortification line for miles. No, it's not that. ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... Hamilton, who commanded the British frigate Surprise, cruising on the coast, and that gallant officer conceived the daring design of boarding the Hermione with a portion of his crew, and cutting her out in spite of opposition, while she was lying under the guns of this heavy fortification. Such an enterprise could only have been conceived by a man of unusual intrepidity; but it was planned with a degree of prudence and cool calculation ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... one evening, that a solitary fugitive, hard chased by an armed troop of the brothers of St. Hermandad, was seen emerging from a wild and rocky defile, which opened abruptly on the gardens of a small, and, by the absence of fortification and sentries, seemingly deserted, castle. Behind him; in the exceeding stillness which characterises the air of a Spanish twilight, he heard, at a considerable distance the blast of the horn and the tramp of hoofs. His pursuers, divided into several detachments, were scouring the ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... continued to represent the dispute as a verbal one.] From this time until 1770, he supported himself as a private tutor in different families, or by giving private lectures in Koenigsberg, especially to military men on the art of fortification. In 1770, he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics, which he exchanged soon after for that of Logic and Metaphysics. On this occasion, he delivered an inaugural disputation—[De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis]—which is remarkable ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... from the Mediterranean. Congress will have a question as to all the Barbary powers of some difficulty. We have had under consideration Mr. Pusy's plans of fortification. They are scientifically done and expounded. He seems to prove that no works at either the Narrows or Governor's Island can stop a vessel; but to stop them at the Hook by a fort of eight thousand men, and protecting army of twenty-nine ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... to be dug many years before at a time when the Morattoe armies were invading Bengal, and never finished, there was no fortification of any kind round the town; so that barricades had now to be thrown up, and guns planted in the streets at whatever points seemed most favourable for intercepting the advance of the enemy. The plan of defence, so far as any plan was adhered to in the confusion and panic which prevailed, ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... are to set to work to-morrow to make a couple of cradles, the carpenter giving them an occasional helping hand, but occupying himself principally in superintending the construction of a large shanty, sufficient to accommodate the whole party, with a rough fortification around, com posed of pine logs and palisades, pointed at the top, sufficient to enclose a space of ground into which the horses could be driven at night, out of the way of any outlying Indian who might be thievishly inclined. We calculate that the construction of the shanty, with its appurtenances, ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks

... number of the subjects of the duke of Courland. Since the latter place was protected by a small fort the English began preparations to make it the seat of their operations in that region. Not long after they arrived, however, a fire destroyed the fortification and a large part of the goods which had been brought from England. Under these circumstances they chose to abandon that island, and to settle on two others which were better situated for defense and trade. These they named Charles Island and James ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... close to the powder. It could be reached only by means of three doors, the secret of which was known to no one but himself. Alongside of this was the harem, and in the neighbouring mosque was quartered his garrison, consisting of fifty men, all ready to bury themselves under the ruins of this fortification, the only spot remaining to him of all Greece, which had formerly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... fortification and of siege were improved together, many ingenious devices being called into being by the technically difficult war of the Spaniards against the Dutch. Tactics were not so perfect as they afterwards became and of strategy there was no consistent theory. Machiavelli, who wrote ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... townsfolk of Port Nassau. At the first note of the bells he frowned and blamed himself for not having started earlier. But he had already made appointment by letter to meet the Surveyor and the Assistant Surveyor at noon on the headland, to measure out and discuss the site of the proposed fortification; and he was a punctilious man in ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... reokazo. Red rugxa. Redbreast rugxgorgxo. Redden rugxigi—igxi. Reddish duberugxa. Redeem reacxeti, elacxeti. Redeemer Elacxetinto. Redemption elacxeto. Redness rugxeco. Redouble duobligi. Redoubt (fortification) reduto. Redoubtable timinda. Redress (amend) rebonigi, ripari. Reduce (to powder) pisti. Reduce (dissolve) solvi. Reduce malpliigi. Redundance suficxego. Redundant suficxega. Reed kano. Reef (rocks) rifo. Reel (stagger) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... species of fortification De Chemerant said to the chevalier, "This retreat is well chosen, your highness, to keep at a distance curious persons; to say nothing of the fact that the reports that you have caused to be made by the three fellows in your service, are not such as ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... do not, and therefore can study the arts of pleasing,—a man of sense, when he finds he has established his second parallel too soon, retires quietly to his first, and begins working on his covered ways again. The whole art of love may be read in any Encyclopaedia under the title Fortification, where the terms just used are explained. After the little adventure of the necklace, Dick retreated at once to his first parallel. Elsie loved riding,—and would go off with him on a gallop now and then. He was a master of all those strange ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... fortification capable of withstanding a long siege when the besieged city was, short of defenders or provisions. With equal forces an attack was generally a failure, for the defenders had always a great advantage. But when the number of defenders was reduced, or ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... in Virginia, together with his Kentuckians, and go against the British and Indians north of the Ohio River. Leaving Corn Island, now Louisville, he and his brave followers marched northward through swamps and swam streams, capturing every fortification to which they came. Among these were Kaskaskia and Vincennes. By this heroic deed of Clark's the great territory north of the Ohio River was secured from the British, and became a part of Virginia's territory. Clark continued ...
— The story of Kentucky • Rice S. Eubank

... remainder of each party came to the rescue a sharp battle ensued between the two forces, in which Antony was victorious. Elated by his success and in the knowledge that Vibius was approaching he assailed the antagonists' fortification, thinking possibly to destroy it beforehand and make the rest of the conflict easier. They, in consideration of their disaster and the hope which Vibius inspired, kept guard but would not come out for battle. Hence Antony left behind there a certain portion of his army with orders to come to close ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio

... economic conditions, standards of life, rates of wages, he has my gracious leave for his pilgrimage. If another desires to amass historical and archaeological facts, measurements of hypaethral temples, modes of burial, folk-lore, fortification, God forbid that I should throw cold water on the quest. But the only traveller whom I recognise as a kindred spirit is the man who goes in search of impressions and effects, of tone and atmosphere, of rare and curious beauty, of uplifting association. Nothing that has ever moved the interest, or ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... however, of a better race,—more reflective, more religious, and with a thirst for knowledge. The pure air and the simple food of the Arabian plains keep him in perfect health; and the necessity of constant watchfulness against his foes, from whom he has no defence of rock, forest, or fortification, quickens his perceptive faculties. But the Arab has also a sense of spiritual things, which appears to have a root in his organization. The Arabs say: "The children of Shem are prophets, the children of Japhet are kings, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... a certain church of the Apostle Paul,[146] fourteen stades distant from the fortifications of Rome, and the Tiber River flows beside it. In that place there is no fortification, but a colonnade extends all the way from the city to the church, and many other buildings which are round about it render the place not easy of access. But the Goths shew a certain degree of actual ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... Mascarenhas, where he met with a Portuguese ship of 70 guns, with the viceroy of Goa on board. This ship he made prize of, and hearing she had money on board, they would allow of no ransom, but carried her to the coast of Zanguebar, where was a Dutch fortification, which they took and plundered, razed the fort, and carried off several men voluntarily. From hence they stood for St. Mary's, where they shared their booty, broke up their company, and settled among the natives. Here a snow came from Bristol, which they ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... strewn with walled towns and villages; the latter, perched upon the precipitous mountain summits, and surrounded by deep ravines, owed their security solely to their position, and, indeed, needed no fortification. The country abounded in woods and pastures, interspersed with cornlands; access to it was gained by one or two passes on the eastern side, which thus permitted caravans or armies to reach the districts lying between the Erythraean and Caspian Seas. The tribes ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... attack no estimate can be made. He is stronger than he was by the greater part of Sir Charles Warren's division, and it is to be hoped, by plenty of heavy artillery and by an organised transport; but the Boers are stronger than they were by a new position, by three weeks of fortification, and by the consciousness of their last victory. Upon Sir Redvers Buller's fate depends more than anyone cares to say. If he wins and relieves Ladysmith the success of Great Britain in the war will be assured, though the operations may ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson

... crossed[b] the river, with five thousand horse, was joined by Lord Capel with the royalists from Hertfordshire, and by Sir Charles Lucas with a body of horse from Chelmsford, and assuming the command of the whole, fixed his head-quarters in Colchester. The town had no other fortification than a low rampart of earth; but, relying on his own resources and the constancy of his followers, he resolved to defend it against the enemy, that he might detain Fairfax and his army in the south, and keep the north open to the advance of the Scots. This plan succeeded; ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... "You are not frightening me. To threaten a woman is merely to increase her tenacity, and mine requires no fortification. Please ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... end of the street where he lived, taken from the north outside the bulwark (plate 6). On the opposite side of the town Rembrandt did that delightful sketch with the many mills in the foreground (plate 7). In the city he again sketched a former fortification-tower, called Montelbaenstoren (plate 9), showing to its right a perspective of the harbour. We miss in this drawing the steeple, with which it had been ornamented since 1606; the municipality had the good sense, when new extensions ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt

... to an officer, although a prisoner, studying fortification," replied the gendarme. "In two hours you will be within the walls; and now I recollect, in the map of the two towns, the fortress is laid down sufficiently accurately to give you an idea of it. But we have conversed too ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... new British settlement is through masses of the boldest and wildest rocks. After passing a defile between two mountains, we come to the only access on this side, the "lofty mountains forming an impregnable fortification." This entrance is cut through the solid rock. A strong guard of sepoys is posted there. The passage is so high and narrow, that "one might almost compare it to the eye in a darning needle." This is a female comparison, but an expressive one. Issuing from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... life, wrote and published several books on the potter's art, with a view to the instruction of his countrymen, and in order that they might avoid the many mistakes which he himself had made. He also wrote on agriculture, on fortification, and natural history, on which latter subject he even delivered lectures to a limited number of persons. He waged war against astrology, alchemy, witchcraft, and like impostures. This stirred up against him many enemies, who pointed the finger at him as ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... and where we can ourselves retire in extreme necessity. Therefore I propose that we shall build a fort of sufficient size to contain all the inhabitants of the district, with many flocks and herds. My cousin Egbert has ridden far over the country, and recommends that the Roman fortification at Moorcaster shall be utilized. It is large in extent, and has a double circle of earthen banks. These differ from those which we are wont to build, since we Saxons always fill up the ground so as to be flat with the top of the earthen ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty

... got off at the new fortification landing. Twenty-nine or thirty perhaps he was—a well-made, easy-moving kind." His voice was casual, but his gaze was keen enough. It never left her face. "A tall man came running down to meet him," he resumed. "They seemed terribly glad to see ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly

... burial ground, and coming into position. The gunners loaded the pieces and lighted their port fires, waved their lint-stocks, and touched them to the priming. Flames and smoke belched from the muzzle of the guns with deafening roar, sending the missiles upon the fortification. ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... beyond them fields of snow downtrodden and discolored, and strewn with fragments of leather, camp equipage, harness, and cast-off clothing, showed traces of the recent encampment and congregation of men. On some there were still standing the ruins of rudely constructed cabins, or the semblance of fortification equally rude and incomplete. A fox stealing along a half-filled ditch, a wolf slinking behind an earthwork, typified the human abandonment ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... we neither needed nor wanted, and we were anchored off the market steps at Halifax. The run up the harbor was very pleasant. Bright skies, a fresh breeze off the land, and vessels all about us made many lively marine pictures. The rather unformidable appearing fortification, on account of which Halifax boasts herself the most strongly fortified city of America, together with the flag-ship Bellerophon and two other vessels of the Atlantic squadron, the Canada and the Thrush, ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... Farallones, gleamed the powerful rays of one of the most costly and effective light-houses in the world. As we drew in through the Golden Gate, another light-house met our eyes, and in the clear moonlight of the unbroken California summer we saw, on the right, a large fortification protecting the narrow entrance, and just before us the little island of Alcatraz confronted us,—one entire fortress. We bore round the point toward the old anchoring-ground of the hide ships, and there, covering the sand-hills and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... gentlemen who have used the sea, and been in different climates, and come home to relax from cares in a temperate one, and are sober—are the likeliest to live long of any men in the world. Don't you see that his very skin is a fortification of buff? ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... about four o'clock, I went to return his visit in a small palace not yet finished, a pretty piece of miniature fortification, surrounded by what they call their 'chhaoni', or cantonments. The streets are good, and the buildings neat and substantial; but there is nothing to strike or particularly interest the stranger. The interview passed off without anything remarkable; and I was more than ever pleased with ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... Pignerol, which was then little more than a single fortification on the hill near the town called St Bride's, but the situation of that was very strong. I mention this because of the prodigious works since added to it, by which it has since obtained the name of "the right hand of France." They had begun a new line below the ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... 30,000 men, commanded by Xerxes, son of Kobad, and Perozes, the Mihran, attacked the Roman workmen; and when Belisarius, reinforced by fresh troops from Syria and Phoenicia, ventured an engagement, he was completely defeated and forced to seek safety in flight. The attempted fortification was, upon this, razed to the ground; and the Mihran returned, with numerous ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... tents were erected, and a rude fortification of stone thrown round in protection where the precious cargo of gold could be stored while the ship was to be careened and scraped. At the foot of the hill, the poor Indians gathered and gazed spellbound at the sight of this ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... crisis near; but the Commandant's mind was discursive, and he paused to wave a proprietary hand towards the walls and towers of his fortress. "A snug little shelter for the backwoods—eh, M. a Clive? I am, you must know, a student of the art of fortification; c'est ma rengaine, as my daughter will tell you, and I shall have much to ask concerning that famous outwork of M. de Montcalm's, which touches my curiosity. So far as Damase could tell me, Fort Carillon itself was never ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... objects noticed as we approached the coast was Fort Point, where is a massive fortification, well mounted with heavy guns. Between this point and Lime Point is the celebrated Golden Gate, which is about a mile wide and is the entrance into the bay of San Francisco. Connected with Fort Point is a lighthouse ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... disciples whom he sends, "Go ye into the castle over against you"; that is, to the place which is equally opposed to God and to you; no longer to be called a city, an assembly of men living under the law, but a castle of tyrannical fortification. Go confidently, saith he, into the place, though such it is, and though it is therefore opposed to you, and do with all security that which I command you. Whence he adds, also: "And if any man say aught unto you, say that the Lord hath need of them, and he will straightway ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... from Tamatave we entered the Gulf of Aden, and after some hours dropped anchor at Camp Aden, in Arabia. Mr. Byramzie, a Tamatave friend of mine, and of the London firm of Dadabhoy & Co., with a branch at Aden, came off to meet me and accompany me ashore. Camp Aden is a British fortification I cannot readily describe with reference to its topography or the heterogenous character and pursuits of its inhabitants. Nature was certainly in no passive mood when last it flung its constituents together; ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... of it for a wall; nor do they employ only their slaves in this, but the whole army works at it, except those that are then upon the guard; so that when so many hands are at work, a great line and a strong fortification is finished in so short a time that it is scarce credible. Their armour is very strong for defence, and yet is not so heavy as to make them uneasy in their marches; they can even swim with it. All that are trained up to ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... to benefit the commonwealth and adorn the State, and at the same time to leave behind him some splendid monument, in addition to the endless number that he had already erected, wished to execute the fortification of the Poggio Imperiale, above Poggibonsi, on the road to Rome, with a view to founding a city there; and he would not lay it out without the advice and design of Giuliano. Wherefore that master ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari

... three millions was proposed by the House of Representatives as an amendment to the fortification bill; and the loss of that bill, three millions and all, is the charge which has been made upon the Senate, sounded over all the land, and now again renewed. I propose to give the true history of this bill, its origin, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... treaties must be construed together; the first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty contained a prohibition against fortification; the second Hay-Pauncefote Treaty neither prohibited nor in terms agreed to fortifications, but was silent on the subject; therefore, the legal construction would be that Great Britain had receded ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... Royal fortifications. They court-martialed one of the non-commissioned officers for helping him get an admission to the fortress, but the officer shot himself, and Pobloff had the plates spirited away, so the case fell through. Now he's got duplicates of every Upper Gallery and every new fortification of the Rock ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... course of this ride the young people had reached Fort Pilar, at one end of the town, a weather-beaten old fortification built years and years before by the Spaniards as a protection against their implacable foes, the Moros, who waged continual warfare against them from the southern islands of the archipelago. Circling the stone walls of the fort the riders ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... St. James's, with great content and pride to see him treat me so friendly; and dined with him, and so to White Hall together; where we met upon the Tangier Commission, and discoursed many things thereon; but little will be done before my Lord Rutherford comes there, as to the fortification or Mole. That done, my Lord Sandwich and I walked together a good while in the Matted Gallery, he acquainting me with his late enquiries into the Wardrobe business to his content; and tells me how things stand. And that the first year was worth about L3000 to him, and the next about as ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... organist in the church of Notre Dame de Lorette, and the marriage took place there, February 22, 1848, in the very thick of the revolution. Indeed, to reach the church, the wedding party were obliged to climb a barricade, helped over by the insurgents, who were massed behind this particular fortification. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... are erected across the entrance; and as there is no ditch at this point, the hunters take advantage of the remarkable dread which the animal has of fire, to scare them from this most vulnerable part of the fortification. Fires are gradually lit all round the first enclosure, so that the only way of escape which is left is by the entrance ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... and choked with the balked weed. Time after time it essayed the deadly band, only to be thwarted. The glistening fortification, hardly battered, stood triumphant, imprisoning the invader within. Commentators in trembling voices broke the joyful news over every receivingset and even the stodgiest newspapers brought out their blackest type ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... BUCKNER, SEVENTY-NINTH ILLINOIS: ...."The right of the regiment rested on the left of the road, where it crossed the rebel fortification, leading up the hill toward Bragg's headquarters. We took a right oblique direction through a peach orchard until arriving at the woods and logs on the side of the ridge, when I ordered the men to commence firing, which they did with good effect, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan



Words linked to "Fortification" :   fieldwork, fortify, parapet, defence, lunette, artistry, palisade, scarp, defilade, rampart, escarp, escarpment, entrenchment, wall, defensive structure, Maginot Line, stockade



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