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Practicability   Listen
noun
Practicability  n.  The quality or state of being practicable; practicableness; feasibility. "The practicability of such a project."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Practicability" Quotes from Famous Books



... reader at least will promptly see, the much more practicable thing is that upper footpath, with these moving platforms beside it, running out over the street after the manner of the viaduct of an elevated railroad. But in some cases, at any rate, the demonstrated cheapness and practicability of tunnels at a considerable ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... and Pacific oceans through the Isthmus of Darien is one in which commerce is greatly interested. Instructions have been given to our minister to the Republic of the United States of Colombia to endeavor to obtain authority for a survey by this Government, in order to determine the practicability of such an undertaking, and a charter for the right of way to build, by private enterprise, such a work, if the survey proves it ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... propositions were more or less visionary and advanced by men of theory with little or no capital. They had the effect of awakening public interest and paved the way for a more feasible plan. The question of a Pacific railway, its practicability, earnings, and effect, were constantly before the people. In 1844 the idea had become firmly fixed, the leading advocate being a New York merchant named Asa Whitney, who has been called the "Father of the Pacific ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey

... about it is no objection from my standpoint," said he. "In fact, I think I prefer to have it morally right rather than otherwise, other things being equal, you know. As for its practicability, you watch the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... eloquently expressed this sentiment in the closing pages of his recent work, to which we have more than once referred. Speaking of those who distrust the practicability of securing such legislation as will effectually destroy the liquor trade, he says: "They are appalled at the power of the traffic. They see that it has uncounted wealth at its command; that it is organized ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur

... in coal and iron, and upon a river which insures it world-wide commerce, maritime enterprise has been a natural result. Here James Watt made his memorable improvements in the steam-engine, and here Henry Bell first demonstrated in the Old World the practicability of steam navigation. This was in 1812, four years after Fulton's successful experiments upon the Hudson River in this country, but of which Bell seems to have had no knowledge. Glasgow has many handsome and substantial blocks of dwelling-houses. Buchanan ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... ever an army might be permitted to murmur, it was this. In landing they had borne great hardships, not only without repining, but with cheerfulness; their hopes had been excited by false reports, as to the practicability of the attempt in which they were embarked; and now they found themselves entangled amidst difficulties from which there appeared to be no escape, except by victory. In their attempts upon the enemy's line, however, they had been twice foiled; in artillery they perceived themselves ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig

... Montreal, Boston, New York, or Philadelphia. His statements appear to have been based on theoretical considerations; but there is no longer any doubt as to the possibility of transferring power in this manner—its practicability for industrial purposes must be determined by trial. Dr. Paget Higgs, a distinguished English electrician, is now experimenting on it in the City of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... in this groundwork of premises on which the advocates of negotiable peace base their hopes were as well taken there need be no serious misgiving as to the practicability of such a plan. The plan counts on information, persuasion and reflection to subdue national animosities and jealousies, at least in such measure as would make them amenable to reason. The question of immediate interest on this head, ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... they can not do, and ought not to attempt, that transforms reformers into statesmen; and great should be the joy of the world over every reformer who comes to himself. The spectacle is not rare; the method is not hidden. The practicability of every reform is determined absolutely and always by "the circumstances of the case," and only those who put themselves into the midst of affairs, either by action or by observation, can know what those circumstances ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... said there was no practicability in the project of building a tunnel under the river, for there "is not a tunnel that is a successful project in this world. A suspension bridge cannot be built so high but that the chimneys of the boats will grow up till they cannot pass. The steamboat men will take pains to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... surveys were made by government to ascertain the practicability of a railroad to the Pacific. The country, however, at that time, was not prepared to engage in such an enterprise; but now the people are calling for greater facility of communication with a section of the country ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... for the blacks' camp intending to test the practicability of living with them, and to see what I could learn as to their ways ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills

... arguments by which they support and elucidate it they are preparing a few copies—not as meaning to publish them, but for private distribution. In this work they will have endeavoured to prove the exclusive justice of the system and its practicability; nor will they have omitted to sketch out the code of contracts necessary for the internal regulation of the Society; all of which will of course be submitted to the improvements and approbation of each component member. As soon as the ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... changes in social habits, ideas and institutions, education, business, and industry. Whether changes should or should not win critical approval depends on the kind of ideals or purposes we set ourselves and, secondly, on the practicability of the proposed changes. Change may thus be opposed or approved, in a given case, on the grounds of desirability or feasibility. Whether a change is or is not desirable depends on the ideals of the individual or the group. Whether it is or is not feasible ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... alchymy seized upon a mind still greater than that of Raymond Lulli. Roger Bacon firmly believed in the philosopher's stone, and spent much of his time in search of it. His example helped to render all the learned men of the time more convinced of its practicability, and more eager in the pursuit. He was born at Ilchester, in the county of Somerset, in the year 1214. He studied for some time in the university of Oxford, and afterwards in that of Paris, in which he received the degree ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... spent much thought upon the subject," hastily interrupted Aylmer. "I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal." ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... conversing with his brethren in the ministry on the practicability and importance of a mission to the heathen, and of his willingness to engage in it. At several ministers' meetings, between the year 1787 and 1790, this was the topic of his conversation. Some of our most aged and respectable ministers thought, I believe, at that time, that it was a wild and impracticable ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... doubt was expressed by eminent scientific men as to the practicability of successfully transmitting wireless messages through long distances, since these waves, travelling in all directions, would soon become too attenuated to produce intelligible signals; but when it was shown, from theoretical considerations, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... them all, and earnestly begging them to give the matter their most serious consideration. Suggestions were, of course, at once offered in plenty, but they all possessed one very serious drawback; they lacked practicability. The least unpromising of them all was that of Captain Blyth, who boldly advocated the abandonment of the scheme for building a vessel; and proposed that, instead of incurring the delay and risk involved in the carrying out of such a plan, the raft should first be strengthened as much as ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood

... convinced of the practicability of Jack's scheme that he set about immediately to put ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll

... two sisters. They are doing a great and good work now in Knoxville. From three to five hundred patients are thus daily supplied with delicate food, who would otherwise have scarcely anything to eat. The success of their labors has demonstrated beyond a doubt the practicability of the plan of Mrs. Wittenmeyer. The good resulting from their arduous labor proves that much can be done by these special efforts to rescue those who are laid upon languishing beds of sickness and pain, and have passed almost beyond the reach of ordinary means. The great need we have ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... the immediate subject of this part of our work, we may be allowed to deviate from strict chronological order, for the purpose of mentioning two striking and important facts, which naturally led to the belief of the practicability of circumnavigating Africa, long before that enterprise was actually accomplished by ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... perception of what is worthy and honorable, developing itself spontaneously on the removal of the ungenial circumstances in the constitution of society, which have been as a long winter on the intellectual and moral nature of its inferior portions. All this will conduce to the practicability and efficacy of education. It will be an education to fit them for an education to be introduced with the progress of that fitness; intellectual culture finding a felicitous adaptation of the soil. We may then adopt with some confidence a public system, or stimulate and ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... which they certainly could not be under secession. Others sympathized fully with what was called the Southern cause, held firmly the right of secession, and hated cordially the Yankees, but doubted either the practicability or the expediency of secession, and opposed it till resolved on, but, after it was resolved on, yielded to none in their earnest support of it. These last comprised the immense majority of those who voted against secession. Never ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... The little iron door, which had permitted access to the well, for the ordinary domestic purposes of the family, was still there; and it was only after each had cast a look down the deep shaft, that he appeared satisfied of the practicability of the deed. Then a look of triumph gleamed in the swarthy visage of Philip, while the features of his associate expressed equally his satisfaction and his regret. They walked apart, musing on what they had just seen and heard; and when ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... startle and grieve all thinking men, but I forbear. Let Sir Charles Grandison preach to his own sex; or if none there be who feels himself able to speak with authority from a life unspotted in will or deed, let those who are convinced of the practicability and need of a pure life, as the foreign artist was, advise the others, and warn them by their ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... compile and publish at periodic intervals catalogs of all copyright registrations. These catalogs shall be divided into parts in accordance with the various classes of works, and the Register has discretion to determine, on the basis of practicability and usefulness, the form and frequency of publication ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America: - contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. • Library of Congress Copyright Office

... expediency or even practicability of instituting a body of this nature so long as fourteen years back, I am aware that there exists a great difference of opinion among the respectable class of the colonists themselves. For my own part, however small may have been the number of those from or ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... whole; they take possession of him and are too much for him. We have no need therefore to discuss whether a State such as Plato has conceived is practicable or not, or whether the outward form or the inward life came first into the mind of the writer. For the practicability of his ideas has nothing to do with their truth; and the highest thoughts to which he attains may be truly said to bear the greatest 'marks of design'—justice more than the external frame-work of the State, the idea of good ...
— The Republic • Plato

... Dorrit. In the mere form, Fielding of course was only following the lead of Cervantes and Le Sage; but Dickens rightly judged his purpose also to have been, to supply a kind of connection between the episode and the story. "I don't see the practicability of making the History of a Self-Tormentor, with which I took great pains, a written narrative. But I do see the possibility" (he saw the other practicability before the number was published) "of making it a chapter by itself, which might enable me to dispense with the necessity of the turned commas. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... to land it was a neutral port."[13] The novel suggestion was made by Germany that "the mail steamer be allowed to go on bail so as not to interfere more than was necessary with her voyage," but the English representative doubted the practicability of such a plan. He was in favor of the suggestion if it could be adopted under suitable conditions, but since the ship had probably gone into the hands of the prize court, that tribunal, he said, would have ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... a curious fact that Morin had about this time proposed to determine the longitude by the moon's distance from a fixed star, and that the commissioners assembled in Paris to examine it requested Galileo's opinion of its value and practicability. Galileo's opinion was highly unfavourable. He saw clearly, and explained distinctly, the objection to Morin's method, arising from the imperfection of the lunar tables, and the inadequacy of astronomical instruments; but he seemed not to be conscious that the very same objections applied with even ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... any objection against them. His principal misfortune was in losing a small bark that accompanied him, and having some of his people trepanned at Baldivia. It even appeared, by the fears and precautions of the Spaniards, that they were fully convinced of the practicability of the scheme he was sent to execute, and were extremely alarmed with apprehensions for its consequences. It is said that Charles II. was so far prepossessed with the belief of the advantages that might redound to the public from this expedition, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr

... of Capica, had been proposed and topographically discussed; and yet nothing had been yet commenced." The French minister also read extracts from a paper addressed to the Academy of Sciences, by an American gentleman named Warren, advocating the practicability of a canal, by means of the rivers Vinotinto, Beverardino, and Farren, after which he enthusiastically exclaimed, that should this great work ever be accomplished—and in his own mind he had no doubt that some day or other it would—then the value of Oceana would ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... about human beings in a mine, about the practicability of keeping human twenty-five hundred men in a hole in the ground? And how can a mine-owner reach down to the men in the hole, make himself felt as a human being on the bottom floor of the hole ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... the Law, and he, thinking that the only method by which he could do him service was to save his life, proposed to him a very probable method of escaping, which for reasons not hard to be guessed at, I shall forbear describing. He pressed him so often and made the practicability of the thing so plain that the criminal at last condescended to make the experiment, and his friend promised the next day to bring him the materials for ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... meant; and the savant, without considering the practicability or the possibility of subjecting him to such an operation, was filled with rage and horror. The principal went on deck, and from the paper taken from Perth called the roll of the conspirators, summoning them ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... territorial dominion hereditarily his; and with a probability of obtaining the political power of ministerial station; plans, which in other circumstances might have been romantic, with Count Altenberg's prospects and abilities, were within the bounds of sound judgment and actual practicability. But whatever these intentions might be, they were only to be inferred from his conversation; he scarcely spoke of himself, or of his own designs; whatever he was led to say on such subjects, he seemed, immediately after he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... the use of his spare time. Urban laborers have contrived by one means or another to bring about a limitation of the number of hours per diem they are forced to toil. To the farmers such an alleviation of their hardships is not within the realm of practicability. They kick about it of course. They say it's a blooming nuisance. But neither their heartburnings nor their struggles can efface ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... possibility of reaching the Pole and getting home. Perhaps it is rest I need—to sleep, sleep! Am I afraid of venturing my life? No, it cannot be that. But what else, then, can be keeping me back? Perhaps a secret doubt of the practicability of the plan. My mind is confused; the whole thing has got into a tangle; I am a riddle to myself. I am worn out, and yet I do not feel any special tiredness. Is it perhaps because I sat up reading last night? Everything around is emptiness, and my brain is a blank. I look at the home pictures ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... deepest and best sense human which in the truest and highest sense is not also Christian. The characteristic feeling about Christmas, as it is revealed in literature and tradition and association, is the striking and beautiful tribute to the practicability of Christianity. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... some previous search, and, in case of any suspicion or alarm, the officers would go directly to them all. He took the travelers, accordingly, to the barn, and concealed them there among the hay. He said that he would himself, during the day, make inquiries in respect to the practicability of their going on upon their journey, and come and report to them in ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... citizen of the realm—was present with Sir Robert Peel and other distinguished personages, together with a vast throng of sightseers, enthusiastic spectators of the consummation of George Stephenson's dreams. Though marred by a fatal accident, the occasion proved the entire practicability of the railway as a means of transportation. The multitudes who rode in its cars on that memorable day were but a foretaste of the patronage which the line was to receive. Although the intention of its projectors was to limit its traffic chiefly to freight, the road from the first found its offices ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... State Board of Agriculture there was held in March, 1907, a New England Conference on Rural Progress. This meeting was held very largely for the purpose of discovering the sentiment among the leaders of New England agriculture with respect to the desirability and practicability of federating on so large a scale. In addition to the main meeting, the presidents of the agricultural colleges of New England were called together in a special section, and the same was true of the directors of the New England ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... object might easily be attained; but, on the other, it might be apprehended that the additional value put on the articles above-mentioned, would produce in their consumption a diminution equal to the difference in prices, in which cases no advantage would be gained. The practicability of the operation, in my opinion, depends on the proportion in which the means of obtaining the articles in question respectively stand with the probability of their being consumed. I will explain myself. ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... eastern as well as the western lands of the Mississippi Basin. The story goes that an old phlegmatic negro watched the approach of one of the first steamboats to the wharf of a Southern city. Like many others, he had doubted the practicability of this new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, however, came and went with ease and dispatch. The old negro was converted. "By golly," he shouted, waving his cap, "the Mississippi's got ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... first of all, in the name of myself and of those of my colleagues who entertained doubts of the practicability of the work of social reform, formally declare that we are now thoroughly convinced, not only of the practicability, but also of the inevitable accomplishment of that reform. Moreover, what has already been advanced has matured our hope that the other side will succeed in removing ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... the 73d Congress, the Administration has been studying from every angle the possibility and the practicability of new forms of employment. As a result of these studies I have arrived at certain very definite convictions as to the amount of money that will be necessary for the sort of public projects that I have described. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... counteract the disappointment which would ensue in Chili from our want of success before Callao. The enterprise was a desperate one; nevertheless, I was not about to do anything desperate, having resolved that, unless fully satisfied as to its practicability, I would not attempt it. Rashness, though often imputed to me, forms no part of my composition. There is a rashness without calculation of consequences; but with that calculation, well-founded, it is no longer rashness. And thus, now that I was unfettered by people who did ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... is nothing but a preacher of Christ; and the first articulate utterance in his message is therefore that of boundless faith in the practicability of living according to Christ; that of insistence upon the literal following of the words of Christ as ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... was; and he had only learned it a few days before the battle, when he had, by accident, a few moments' conversation with Dr. Richards, whom he had purposely avoided. He was talking of Adah, and the practicability of sending for her, when she arrived at the private boarding house to which he ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... difficulty of lightening an air-ship after a long flight can be surmounted. During a voyage of several hours a dirigible naturally loses gas, and without some means of relieving her of weight she might have to descend in a hostile country. Major Maitland has proved the practicability of members of an air-ship's crew dropping to the ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... I treated of the practicability of guarding our country against the now European and Continental disease, malignant Cholera Morbus, by quarantine regulations. In the present one, it is my intention still in a popular manner to scrutinise ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... him first and the convention second." Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (N. Y.) spoke on the Duties of Today, outlining her address by saying: "The strongest feeling of most women is the sense of duty. The reason they do not see the practicability and immediate need of suffrage is because they do not see the duty of it. There is a gradual development of the sense of duty. The first duty that we recognize is that of self-preservation—our duty to ourselves. Then comes duty to our own, to our family, to those dear to us, before ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... narrative concerning the practicability of the route he had taken, said: "Undoubtedly the fine bottomland of the Colorado, if not of the Gila, will soon be settled; then all ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... they would then remove them." But in truth these gentlemen had given proofs that they were under the influence of prejudice. Some of them had declared the abolition would ruin the West Indies; but this, it was obvious, must depend upon the practicability of keeping up the stock without African supplies; and yet, when they were questioned upon this point, they knew nothing about it; hence they had formed a conclusion without premises. Their evidence, too, extended through a long series of years; they had never seen one instance of ill-treatment ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... the future, had stung me when awake, and cradled me to my repose. Many times I had delivered myself up to the tyranny of anguish— many times I resolved a speedy end to my woes; and death by my own hands was a remedy, whose practicability was even cheering to me. What could I fear in the other world? If there were an hell, and I were doomed to it, I should come an adept to the sufferance of its tortures—the act were easy, the speedy and certain end of my deplorable tragedy. But now these thoughts faded before the new ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... certain scientific practicability even in his love-making, and it here came out excellently. But she sat on with suspended breath, her heart wildly beating, while he waited in open-mouthed expectation. Each was swayed by the emotion within them, much as the candle-flame was swayed by ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... whole, therefore, we cannot consider any of the mechanical arrangements which have been proposed for obviating the inconvenience of a meeting of different gauges (even if we could assume their practicability, which in the present state of experience we should not be warranted in doing,) as anything better than partial and imperfect palliatives of a ...
— Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the • Samuel Laing

... with the determination of prices by "natural forces,"[185] the majority was content to note that the "due process clause makes no mention of prices" and that "the courts are both incompetent and unauthorized to deal with the wisdom of the policy adopted or the practicability of the law ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... against the Germans in East Africa proved the practicability of aeroplanes in the tropics. The Congo is the first of the Central African countries to dedicate aviation to commercial uses and this precedent is likely to be extensively followed. Fifteen hydroplanes have been ordered for the Congo River service which will eventually ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... some ways, an even more convincing evidence of the reliability and practicability of the observational method may be found in the results obtainable by analysis from photographs. A photograph is, in a sense, a purely mechanical product. It is, in graphic form, a record of the subject's physical ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... from them; and I cannot but see in this proposal a most unhappy tendency—an unhappy tendency, which I have more than once remarked—to recommend to others to do some vague and impossible thing—to call upon Government, or Parliament to do something, the practicability of which is not considered; to confer some benefit that may be visionary or impossible, whilst the plain practical duty of paying the rates, for the sustenance of starving men, women and children in the neighbourhood, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... further to demonstrate the capacity of airships for commercial long-distance flights, a few months ago the Department of Civil Aviation took over all airship material surplus to service requirements. The main object was to test the practicability and value of mooring airships to a mast. Up to the present, a principal factor militating against the economic operation of airships has been the large and expensive personnel required for handling them on the ground, especially in stormy weather. The mooring-mast experiments ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... on the other side of the globe was represented in such striking language as to interest the honour and pride of the colonists in renouncing the government of Great Britain. The necessity, the advantage and practicability of independence ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... his influence with princes, and by travelling and intercourse with men. The second period was that in which he was recalled from his travels to become a minister in his native country, the kingdom of Loo. Here he applied his theories of government, and tested their practicability. He was then fifty years old. His success was soon apparent in the growing prosperity of the whole people. Instead of the tyranny which before prevailed, they were now ruled according to his idea of good government,—that ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... The practicability of a sudden and complete reform of every drunkard in the land calls for it. This, science has denied. Religion has only said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible." But science yields ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... the genius and zeal of Pastor Fliedner who established the first motherhouse at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine in 1833. In America there are eight motherhouses with an enrollment of 378 sisters.* *In 1885 the author was appointed chairman of a committee of the General Synod to report on the practicability of establishing the office of deaconess in the parish work of our American churches. In pursuit of information he visited the principal Deaconess Houses of Europe. His reports were published in the Minutes of the Synod from 1887 to 1897 and contributed to the introduction of the office into ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner

... old practicability! Anyhow, that's what we'll do—and if Tex don't like her I'll invite someone else, and keep on inviting until I find someone he does like—and as for her—no one could help loving the country, and no one could help loving ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... a pretty tactical scheme, with much of the War-Game about it, and it depended for its success upon the practicability of using Vaalkrantz as an artillery position, and upon the correctness of the assumption that the enemy was not in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... tenaciously clung to, in spite of discouraging report through the years that followed, until, at length, the success of subsequent experiments, and the invention of incandescent electric lighting, revealed the complete practicability of carrying out the grand design of the ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... rate, clear from Amerigo's discovery that the westward route to the Spice Islands would have to be through or round this New World discovered by him, and a Portuguese noble, named Fernao Magelhaens, was destined to discover the practicability of this route. He had served his native country under Almeida and Albuquerque in the East Indies, and was present at the capture of Malacca in 1511, and from that port was despatched by Albuquerque with three ships to visit the ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs

... men, working in the Central Park Aug^st 17^th 1858 Present this tankard to Cyrus W. Field, as an expression of their respect, for the untiring labor which on that Day resulted in proving the practicability of Trans-Atlantic ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor

... with scrofula of the left breast, and in a state of ulceration, applied to me two years since. The ulcer was then the size of a half-dollar, and discharged a considerable quantity of imperfect pus. The axillary glands were much enlarged, and, doubting the practicability of operating with the knife in such cases, I told her the danger of her disease, and ordered her to subsist upon bread and milk and some fruit, drink water, and keep the body of as uniform temperature as possible. ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... question was the practicability of the new idea and how much further it could safely be carried in a loyal Dominion which was just getting on its industrial legs. It was debated with anxiety at Ottawa, and made the subject of special instruction to South Fox, where the by-election would have all the ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... though out of it he amazed Frank and Charlie by his dash, fire, and daring, and witched all the stable-world with noble horsemanship. Hunting was prevented, however, by a frost, which filled every one with excitement as to the practicability of skating. ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Dominion Government for co-operation. In each province the whole subject had been dealt with exhaustively in the text prepared by the Grain Growers—the conditions making a government system of elevators necessary, how it could be created and the practicability of its operation, the question of financing and the beneficial results that would follow. It was the idea of the farmers that the provinces would purchase existing storage houses at a fair valuation, issuing government bonds to finance the undertaking ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... upon her bluntness and practicability. As she spoke she took her cheque-book out of her reticule, and, opening it, dipped her pen into the ink. I am inclined to think that the flutter of that cheque-book was her ladyship's mistake. The girl had common ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome

... man of the world is apt to consider the practicability of a scheme. And yours seems to me eminently practical. If you can only get the Mohamedans and the Brahmins to come in! The Roman Catholics might of course be easily won, though it would involve doing away with the Pope. There was a prophecy, by-the-way, that after ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... day Field, Ballantyne, and I, from a discussion of the general value of art criticism in a daily newspaper, were led to question whether it conveyed an intelligible impression of the subject, and more particularly of the paintings commented on, to the ordinary reader. The point was raised as to the practicability of artists themselves reproducing any recognizable approach to the original paintings by following Mr. Larned's verbal descriptions. Thereupon we deliberately set about, in a spirit of frolic to be sure, to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... sense by insisting on the doctrine of the natural equality of man. The question is not concerning its desirableness, but its practicability: so far as it is practicable, it is desirable. That state of human society which approaches nearer to an equal partition of its benefits and evils should, caeteris paribus, be preferred: but so long as we ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... laughed and cried, all in one bewildering breath. Her plan was simple; it was to slip out of Matocton at dawn, and walk to the near-by station. There they would take the train, and snap their fingers at convention. The scheme sounded preposterous in outline, but she demonstrated its practicability in performance. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... the Republicans of to-day and of yesterday; I am a Republican of twenty years' standing. Entertaining such hopes for Italy, when many excellent, many sincere men held them as Utopian, shall I denounce these men because they are now convinced of their practicability?" ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... exactly right," said Clementine; "now, let's get it down to practicability. As Mona says, we needn't necessarily choose a shop girl,—but suppose we do, many of them ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... United States, to take possession of all those countries and islands, and become the ruling race in the empires to be formed out of those wide and fruitful realms. The Committee expresses full confidence in the practicability of this great undertaking; and that nothing is wanting to its success at no distant day but unanimity of sentiment and action among the masses of the colored people. The climate of those regions is represented as entirely ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... The Lady of the Lake was "a labor of love, and no less so to recall the manners and incidents introduced."[107] It was starting from the same house, when the poem itself had made some progress, that he put to the test the practicability of riding from the banks of Loch Vennachar to the Castle of Stirling within the brief space which he had assigned to Fitz-James's Grey Bayard, after the duel with Roderick Dim; and the principal landmarks ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... shiver ran through me. Yet I controlled myself; I even resolved to put a good face upon it. Scientific arguments alone could have any weight with Professor Liedenbrock. Now there were good ones against the practicability of such a journey. Penetrate to the centre of the earth! What nonsense! But I kept my dialectic battery in reserve for a suitable opportunity, and I interested myself in the prospect of my dinner, which ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... possible to bring down to ordinary capacities even the truths of pure mathematics, by the substitution of a less general and precise species of evidence. We have ourselves made the attempt, and hence we are satisfied of its entire practicability. Into what a small space would the useful and practical truths of geometry be reduced, were we to dispense with the auxiliary propositions which are required merely to complete the rigid process of demonstration. How simple, for example, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... that she was, Emma took as much pains with her model as with the skirt itself. She chose a girl whose demure prettiness and quiet charm would enhance the possibilities of the skirt's practicability in the eye of the shrewd buyer. Gertrude, the model, developed a real interest in the success of the petticoat. Emma knew enough about the psychology of crowds to realize how this ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... postal and mercantile steam marine that floats the seas. Several large companies, authorized to transport the mails to all parts of the world, were immediately organized, and paid liberal allowances for their peculiar duties. Where the practicability of the service was considered doubtful, larger sums were paid, and a greater length of time granted for making the experiment. The contracts were generally made for twelve years; and when their terms expired they were renewed for another ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey

... down to its mouth, where their countryman, Gray, had anchored about twelve years previously. Here they passed the winter, and returned across the mountains in the following spring. The reports published by them of their expedition demonstrated the practicability of establishing a line of communication across the continent, from the Atlantic to ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... revive the African slave trade, and especially was there fierce opposition to the "piracy act." Jefferson Davis, at a convention in Mississippi, July, 1858, advocated the repeal of the latter act, but doubted the practicability then of abrogating ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... to help Russia. They have labored in an enterprise which is a forecast of a new order in the world's affairs and have made of it a prophecy of success. Here within this restricted northern area there has been an acid test of the practicability of co-operation among nations for the attainment of common ends. Nowhere could material and moral conditions have been more difficult than we have seen them these past months; under no circumstances could differences ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... a plan appears almost magical: Ireland is transformed at one stroke from a nation of landlords into a nation of peasant proprietors—apparently without loss to any one, and with gain to everybody concerned, except the British Government, who neither gain nor lose in the matter. The practicability, however, of such a scheme depends altogether on the security against loss afforded to the British tax-payer, for he is industrious and heavily burdened, and cannot be expected to assent to any plan which will land him in any appreciable loss. Here it is that the plan of ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... of immortality is not over the innate reasonableness of it: the universe is immeasurably more reasonable with it than without it; but over its practicability after the body is gone. We, in our immeasurable wisdom, don't see how it can work—we don't see how a universe that we don't begin to know, which already has given us genius and beauty and love, and which seems to like to give us all it can—birds, flowers, sunsets, ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... delivered was, that the Prince promised me his protection, the King's favour, and a release from my chains, should I prove my assertion. I required they would appoint a time; they ridiculed the thing as impossible, and said that it would be sufficient could I prove the practicability of such a scheme; but should I refuse, they would break up the flooring, and place sentinels in my dungeon, adding, the governor would not admit of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... Means of Establishing a Ship Navigation between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, with a Map. By Captain Veitch, R.E., F.R.S. Communications with India, China, &c.; Observations on the Practicability and Utility of Opening a Communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, by a Ship Canal through the Isthmus of Suez, with Two Maps. By ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... public water supplies, many cities have reforested considerable areas, which will be maintained as public forests and will be cut as the timber becomes merchantable. This movement has called attention to the practicability of establishing town or community forests on cheap land unsuitable for tillage, as a source of income to the community. Communal forests have existed in Europe for many centuries, and at the present time form 22 percent of the forests in France. ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... remarked, "had already reached this ideal state of affairs; but it could not possibly be brought about in our world until a far distant future: for it must be the result of slow development and gradual education of the people to see its necessity and practicability. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... much delighted with what I have seen and heard. I confess I entertained doubts of the practicability of the Infant School System, but these doubts have this day been removed. If in one month so much can be done, what might not be expected from further training? I now doubt no longer, and anticipate ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... good and independent citizens, and that at an all-round cost of about one-fifth of the price of the guardians' method for converting them into human wrecks and permanent charges upon the State. The wise practicability of this lady's system was admitted by independent experts, and denied by nobody. But it was swept aside and crushed, beaten down with vicious, angry thoroughness, in one quarter—the quarter of vested interest and authority; quietly, passively ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... the enemy, who was strongly posted astride the railway near Belfast; in conjunction with a central infantry advance to be made by Buller and Pole-Carew, whose Division was within reach, was discountenanced by Buller, and a simple frontal movement was substituted for it. Its practicability was doubtful owing to the marshy character of ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... the point of seeing the solution of the vast problem of the practicability of descents in great force, if it is true that Napoleon seriously contemplated the transportation of one hundred and sixty thousand veterans from Boulogne to the British Isles: unfortunately, his failure to execute this gigantic undertaking has left us entirely in the dark as to ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini

... from that moment to the present the prospect which was thus opened up has remained a vision and nothing more. There are—as those who visited the Crystal Palace two years ago have reason to know—not a few men who still believe in the practicability of journeying by air. But, with hardly an exception, those few have abandoned all idea of utilising the balloon for this purpose. The graceful "machine" which astonished the world at its birth remains to this day as beautiful, and as useless ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... them and other influential men and women the founding of a people's college. Unhesitatingly she joined forces with Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone to insist that the people's college be opened to women on the same terms as men. Lucy had proved the practicability of this as a student at Oberlin, the first college to admit women, and was one of the first women to receive a college degree. However, to suggest coeducation in those days was enough to jeopardize the founding of a college, and Horace Greeley stood out against them, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... Confederate service. Lieutenant Hood was in command of the personal mounted escort of Lieutenant R. S. Williamson, who was charged with the duty of making such explorations and surveys as would determine the practicability of connecting, by railroad, the Sacramento Valley in California with the Columbia River in Oregon Territory, either through the Willamette Valley, or (if this route should prove to be impracticable) ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... for instance, those of turnip, cabbage, beet, lettuce, are planted widely apart, to guard against possible admixture; but the chances of that result must be much less than is popularly supposed, efforts having been used experimentally to test its practicability, and that between kindred closely allied, without success. Although the extent of the grounds would appear to be formidable, even for a farm conducted in the usual mode, it is insufficient for the demands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... the automobile tourist has confined his trip to France, as properly he might, but, if he would go further afield, the European Circuit, as it has become classically known, is an itinerary vouched for as to its practicability and interest by the allied automobile and ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... therefore, invite you to go to Calcutta with a united will and a united purpose, sanctified by a spirit of sacrifice, with a will of your own to convert those who are still undecided about the spirituality or the practicability of ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi

... plating, however, has been to transfer a large share of the Sheffield plate business to Birmingham. It is a curious fact that a veterinary surgeon (of the name of Askew) invented the first German silver manufactured in England, and that a Dr. Wright, of the same town, discovered the practicability of electro-plating about the same time that several other persons had discovered that metal could be deposited by a galvanic current, but had not thought of ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... do that, Miss Gladden," said Jack, slowly, "I can see nothing in the way of its practicability except to gain the consent of Mr. and Mrs. Maverick, and that ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... full independence; but as one journeys down the beautiful and fertile valley of the Morava, where improvements would naturally be seen, if anywhere, one falls to wondering where they can possibly have come in. Some of their methods would, indeed, seem to indicate a most deplorable lack of practicability; one of the most ridiculous, to the writer's mind, is the erection of small, long sheds substantially built of heavy hewn timber supports, and thick, home-made tiles, over ordinary plank fences and gates to protect them from the weather, when a good coating of tar ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... 1820 and 1830, revealed the sources of the Platte, the Green, the Yellowstone, and the Snake rivers, and the characteristics of the Great Salt Lake region; they pioneered the way to South Pass, descended Green River by boat, carried cannon into the interior basin; showed the practicability of a wagon route through the Rockies, reached California from Salt Lake, crossed the Sierras and the deserts of Utah and Nevada, and became intimately acquainted with the activity of the British traders of the ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... stealthy stalking, we see that flight implies an enormous increase of safety. (2) The power of flight also opened up new possibilities of following the prey, of exploring new territories, of prospecting for water. (3) Of great importance too was the practicability of placing the eggs and the young, perhaps in a nest, in some place inaccessible to most enemies. When one thinks of it, the rooks' nests swaying on the tree-tops express the climax of a brilliant experiment. (4) The ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... attend the worship of the Kirk, as often as a visit from their Minister, or the practicability of travelling gives them opportunity; nor have they any reason to complain of insufficient pastors; for I saw not one in the Islands, whom I had reason to think either deficient in learning, or irregular in life: but found several with whom I could not ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... should otherwise have written with fulness, especially in the Anthropometric part. My general object has been to take note of the varied hereditary faculties of different men, and of the great differences in different families and races, to learn how far history may have shown the practicability of supplanting inefficient human stock by better strains, and to consider whether it might not be our duty to do so by such efforts as may be reasonable, thus exerting ourselves to further the ends of evolution more rapidly and with less ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... probable that the accurate sounding of the depth of water in the Camotal, at stated intervals, would furnish the best means of ascertaining the rising and sinking of the coast. A variety of circumstances combine to favor the practicability of calculation by this method. For example, no river flows into that part of the bay in which the Camotal is situated. The Rimac, whose mouth lies further to the north, is not sufficiently large to carry any considerable ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... perfect even though the steps toward embodying or approximating it will be many and arduous, perhaps discouragingly hard. They betoken the likelihood of appearing before men as the victims of ultimately unworkable dreams. In refreshing contrast is the seeming practicability of encouraging present tendencies. Your tendency is no far-off projection of mere thought; it is something solid and "real," here and now, respected at the bank, in the newspaper office, and other meeting places of those whose ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... language and occupation, and similarity of political and social institutions indicate the practicability and obvious wisdom of maintaining mutually beneficial and friendly relations. Whilst I am unfeignedly desirous that such relations should exist between us and the inhabitants of Canada, yet the action of their officials during ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... features and lines of development bear eloquent testimony to the practicability of human improvement, ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... The practicability of spending the night in security in the very teeth of Stramen Castle had not occurred to Gilbert; he hesitated a second or two, and then, as if all his plans and ideas had undergone a thorough ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... town on one side, with the Rhine and the Main beyond, and on the other side the woods. The two Americans were captivated by it, and nothing would do but that MacDowell should purchase it for a home. There was some question of its practicability by his cooler-headed wife; but eventually the cottage was bought, with half an acre of ground, and the MacDowells ensconced themselves. There was a small garden, in which MacDowell delighted to dig; the woods were within a stone's throw; and he and Strong, who were inseparable ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... of ballooning had reached quite an advanced stage by the middle of the eighteenth century, but the construction of an airship was at that time beyond the range of possibility. Discussions had taken place at various times as to the practicability of rendering a balloon navigable, but no attempts had been made to put these points of argument to ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale

... been issued in Wakefield announcing that, on a given day, a man would fly from the Tower of the Parish Church to the Bowling- green in Southgate. Much local interest had been roused by this statement and wagers had been made upon the practicability or impracticability of the attempt. The Stanhopes had no thought of attending this performance, but they happened to be driving in the neighbourhood with Esther Acklom on the day appointed, and their lively guest, with her usual wilfulness, insisted that they ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... the next morning the camp was encircled by their carcasses, coated with a film of ice. It was a scene which could be paralleled only in the retreat of the French from Moscow. Had there been any doubt before concerning the practicability of an immediate advance beyond Fort Bridger, none existed any longer. It was the 16th of November when the vanguard reached that post, which the Mormons had abandoned the week before. Nearly a fortnight had been consumed in accomplishing less than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... to the practicability and the effects of direct legislation is afforded by Switzerland, especially in its history during the past twenty-five years. To this evidence ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... small learning but great insight. Originating almost nothing, he set forth the ideas of others with incisive distinctness, often modifying them to their hurt, but giving to the form in which he wrote them an air of seductive practicability and reality which alone threw them into the sphere of action. Examining Europe at large, he found its social and political institutions so hardened and so unresponsive that he declared it incapable of movement without an antecedent general crash and breaking ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... twenty, cars running on one line, and that line runs through a suburb or a part of a city where there are not many houses, that system is to be preferred. The objection to the overhead system is not so much the want of beauty, but the want of practicability. You have to put your posts very high indeed, so as to let great wagon loads of hay and all sorts of things pass underneath. Most of the trouble comes in winter, and when it is snowing hard a great many difficulties arise. As regards the loss, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm which accidents of light and shade, moonlight or sunset, diffuse over a familiar landscape appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... in fairly large classes. The work done during the past few years in such institutions as the Boston Trade School for Girls and the Manhattan Trade School for Girls in New York City gives evidence of the practicability of this plan. ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz

... should be carried out, and also what variations should be introduced into its application. That such cases are not infrequent is borne out by the Australasian experience of which Mr. Collier writes, "In regard to the practicability of the common rule, opinion differs. In some staple industries such as coal mining, it has been said to operate fairly. But its application to small industries and retail stores, where conditions vary more widely, is fraught with considerable risk and is proceeded with slowly.... ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... Alas! I understand nothing useful. My head is as un-mechanic as it is un-arithmetic, un-geometric, un-metaphysic, uncommercial; but will not some one of those superior heads to whom you have talked on my indigested hint reduce it to practicability'! How a feasible scheme would stun those who call humanity romantic, and show, from the books of the Custom-house, that murder is a great improvement of the revenue! Even the present situation of France is favourable. Could not Mr. Wilberforce ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... "No! for the relief of the Soudan garrisons;" and he extracted another statement to the following effect, "An official telegram received here from Wady Halfa states that, owing to the unprecedented lowness of the Nile, no confidence is felt in the practicability of hauling boats over the cataracts till the end of September." General Gordon pasted this into the Journal, and wrote opposite to it, "It was not a low Nile, it was an average Nile, only you were too late"—a verdict which events only too completely justified. It will be of interest to give ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... circular in which he announced his candidacy he made no reference to national politics, but confined himself mainly to a discussion of the practicability of improving the navigation of the Sangamon, the favorite hobby of the place and time. He had no monopoly of this "issue." It formed the burden of nearly every candidate's appeal to the people in that year. The excitement occasioned by the trip of the Talisman had not yet died away, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... America. English mechanics were making machines for cutting metal at least a generation before Whitney. One of the earliest of these English pioneers was John Wilkinson, inventor and maker of the boring machine which enabled Boulton and Watt in 1776 to bring their steam engine to the point of practicability. Without this machine Watt found it impossible to bore his cylinders with the necessary degree of accuracy.* From this one fact, that the success of the steam engine depended upon the invention of a new tool, ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... vegetation in a muddled, tangled state, Sasu says, "No good, path done got stopped up," so we turn and retrace our steps all the way, cross the river, and horrify Herr Liebert by invading his house again. We explain the situation. Grave headshaking between him and Sasu about the practicability of any other route, because there is no other path. I do not like to say "so much the better," because it would have sounded ungrateful, but I knew from my Ogowe experiences that a forest that looks from afar a dense black mat is all right underneath, and there is a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... soon as the breakfast-things were removed, and the coast clear, he took a peep into the pantry, and, after throwing his eye over its contents, sat down at the fire, making Phaddhy take a seat beside him, for the especial purpose of sounding him as to the practicability of effecting a certain design, which was then snugly latent in his Reverence's fancy. The fact was, that on taking the survey of the premises aforesaid, he discovered that, although there was abundance of fowl, and fish, and bacon, and hung-beef—yet, by some unaccountable and disastrous omission, ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... evil, the one advising clemency and the other murder. M. de Villars not being able to make up his mind, on reaching Nimes, d'Aygaliers assembled the principal Protestants of the town, told them of his plan, showing them its practicability, so that also joined in the good work, and drew up a document in which they asked the marechal to allow them to take up arms and march against the rebels, as they were determined either to bring them back into the ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Railroad and was subsequently studied and adopted by railroads in Europe, made it possible to avoid the difficulty of ventilation connected with steam traction in tunnels, and permitted the use of grades practically prohibitive with the steam locomotive. The practicability of the tunnel extension project ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond

... answer that question," replied his father promptly. "After the river boats had demonstrated their practicability steamships were built for traffic along short distances of the coast. Owing to the War of 1812 and the danger to our shipping from the British, however, the launching of these new lines did not take place immediately; but in time the routes were established. The first of these was from ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett

... highnesses; and after all who had heard an account of my proposed undertaking had rejected it with scorn and contempt as visionary and impracticable; in your highnesses alone I found judgment to believe in the practicability of my proposal, and constancy and spirit to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... therefore, that the successful farmer must be a specialist. He must devote his time to special more than to general farm work. You ask me to outline in detail the idea thus advanced. You somewhat question its practicability. To attempt it might lead to endless discussion, but let us reduce to example. Farmer A. raises cattle, hogs, and sheep for breeding purposes, devotes some attention to fine horses, and keeps thirty-six ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... century, when we may place our national efforts side by side with uninterrupted Continental series from the middle of the fifteenth. We are also poorly provided with books of reference enabling amateurs to form an idea of the extent of the field and of the relative practicability and costliness of given classes or lines, whereas the foreign collector enjoys the advantage of many excellent and fairly trustworthy manuals. We want a General Guide to English Illustrated Literature, which should exhibit its sources and inspiration, and the epochs and schools ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... ingenuity of the brothers Rider, he spent a year in New York in the most patient endeavors to overcome the difficulties in heating his compound. Before he had succeeded, their resources failed. But he had made such progress in demonstrating the practicability of his process, that his brother-in-law, William De Forrest, a noted woollen manufacturer, took hold of the project in earnest, and aided him to bring it to perfection. Once more, however, he was imprisoned for debt. This event conquered his scruples against availing himself ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton



Words linked to "Practicability" :   usefulness, feasibleness, feasibility, impracticableness, practicable, practicableness



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