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noun
Shaft  n.  
1.
The slender, smooth stem of an arrow; hence, an arrow. "His sleep, his meat, his drink, is him bereft, That lean he wax, and dry as is a shaft." "A shaft hath three principal parts, the stele (stale), the feathers, and the head."
2.
The long handle of a spear or similar weapon; hence, the weapon itself; (Fig.) anything regarded as a shaft to be thrown or darted; as, shafts of light. "And the thunder, Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts." "Some kinds of literary pursuits... have been attacked with all the shafts of ridicule."
3.
That which resembles in some degree the stem or handle of an arrow or a spear; a long, slender part, especially when cylindrical. Specifically:
(a)
(Bot.) The trunk, stem, or stalk of a plant.
(b)
(Zool.) The stem or midrib of a feather.
(c)
The pole, or tongue, of a vehicle; also, a thill.
(d)
The part of a candlestick which supports its branches. "Thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold... his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same."
(e)
The handle or helve of certain tools, instruments, etc., as a hammer, a whip, etc.
(f)
A pole, especially a Maypole. (Obs.)
(g)
(Arch.) The body of a column; the cylindrical pillar between the capital and base. Also, the part of a chimney above the roof. Also, the spire of a steeple. (Obs. or R.)
(h)
A column, an obelisk, or other spire-shaped or columnar monument. "Bid time and nature gently spare The shaft we raise to thee."
(i)
(Weaving) A rod at the end of a heddle.
(j)
(Mach.) A solid or hollow cylinder or bar, having one or more journals on which it rests and revolves, and intended to carry one or more wheels or other revolving parts and to transmit power or motion; as, the shaft of a steam engine.
4.
(Zool.) A humming bird (Thaumastura cora) having two of the tail feathers next to the middle ones very long in the male; called also cora humming bird.
5.
(Mining) A well-like excavation in the earth, perpendicular or nearly so, made for reaching and raising ore, for raising water, etc.
6.
A long passage for the admission or outlet of air; an air shaft.
7.
The chamber of a blast furnace.
Line shaft (Mach.), a main shaft of considerable length, in a shop or factory, usually bearing a number of pulleys by which machines are driven, commonly by means of countershafts; called also line, or main line.
Shaft alley (Naut.), a passage extending from the engine room to the stern, and containing the propeller shaft.
Shaft furnace (Metal.), a furnace, in the form of a chimney, which is charged at the top and tapped at the bottom.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shaft" Quotes from Famous Books



... over these old stories reminds me that I have something that may interest architects and perhaps some other persons. I once ascended the spire of Strasburg Cathedral, which is the highest, I think, in Europe. It is a shaft of stone filigree-work, frightfully open, so that the guide puts his arms behind you to keep you from falling. To climb it is a noon-day nightmare, and to think of having climbed it crisps all the fifty-six ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... he broke out, sotto voce, "she's a born natural! Did ye never hear of a shaft? or millions o' gallons a day? It's better nor a California ranch, I tell ye. Mebbe," charitably, "ye didn't ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... of date! The good old cross-bow bends to Fate, 'Tis gone—the archer's craft! No tough arm bends the springing yew. And jolly draymen ride, in lieu Of Death, upon the shaft.— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... some minutes on the balcony, disconcerted, enraged. With what consummate art had this practised diplomatist wound herself into my secret! That she had read my heart better than myself was evident from that Parthian shaft, barbed with Dr. Jones, which she had shot over her shoulder in retreat. That from the first moment in which she had decoyed me to her side, she had detected "the something" on my mind, was perhaps but the ordinary quickness of female penetration. But ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... reader will learn in time, was not the only shaft by which my tranquillity was to be assaulted. My mother though she was, there was yet another death infinitely more heart-rending hanging over my head. The recollection is anguish that cannot end! Cannot did ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... sea-shaft to its base, as a telescope conducts the mortal gaze to revel in the stars. Merman and mermaid, nereid and triton, were there, rejoicing in the sunbeams thus poured upon them through this subtle conduit of ocean, as do the motes of summer in ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... drove in front, in the carriage, with Ada and Justine; he came behind, in his tarantas. The pretty little girl never quitted the carriage-window during the whole journey; she was surprised at everything: at the peasants, the peasant women, the wells, the shaft-arches, the carriage-bells, at the multitude of jackdaws; Justine shared her surprise. Varvara Pavlovna laughed at their comments and exclamations.... She was in high spirits; before their departure from the town of O * * * she had had an explanation ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... him. All was darkness except an open doorway, from which a shaft of light poured out, dimly illuminating cranes and carts and piles of iron girders. The gate-keeper was hurriedly bolting the gate. Cartoner led his horse towards the open door, but before he reached it a number of men ran out and fell on him like hounds ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... unknown authorship and uncertain date, which contains these three facts, (though the name of the bishop is not given). Still another remarkable coincidence has been pointed out by Zupitza.[2] In line 1189 of the Andreas, Satan is addressed as d[e]ofles str[ae]l ("shaft of the devil"), and in the homily also the same word (str[ae]l) is found. But in the corresponding passage of the Greek we find [Greek: O Belia echthrotate] ("O most hateful Belial"). From this correspondence between the poem and the homily, Zupitza argues the existence of a Latin translation ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown

... his place, his cap thrust under his arm, at the foot of the bier, giving his tribute of silence to the boy who had died for his country. But James Thorold went aside to stand beside an elevator-shaft. Had his son watched him as he was watching Peter, he would have seen the swift emotions that took their way across his father's face. He would have seen the older man's look dilate with the strained horror of one who gazed back through the dimming years to see ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... IV, Chap. I (Gwilt's translation), quoted by Hart: "They measured a man's foot, and finding its length the sixth part of his height, they gave the column a similar proportion, that is, they made its height six times the thickness of the shaft measured at the base. Thus the Doric order obtained its proportion, its strength, and its beauty from the human figure. With a similar feeling they afterward built the Temple of Diana. But in that, seeking a new proportion, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... it would cost a good deal to get them. You want an iron rod, or auger-shaft, long enough to bore half-way through your longest log; then a bit,—an inch bore would be large enough, but I suppose it would be just as easy, perhaps easier, to make a two-inch bore,—the auger would be more ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... artificers immediately flew in every direction to get out of its way; but Michael Wishart, the principal builder, having unluckily stumbled upon one of the uncut trenails, fell upon his back. His body fortunately got between the movable beam and the upright shaft of the crane, and was thus saved; but his feet got entangled with the wheels of the crane and were severely injured. Wishart, being a robust young man, endured his misfortune with wonderful firmness; he was laid upon one of the narrow framed beds of the beacon and despatched ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... battered; and the headgear of the "Kimberley Mine" was hit by a passing missile, which occasioned not a little consternation among the families who, finding no room at the bottom, were quartered at the top of the shaft. The Opera House was again struck; and at the Presbyterian Church a dextrous effort was made to discover the "lost chord," which resulted in the organ's being for ever incapacitated to shed the soul of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... farms have sunk again to rest; When Tom no more across the horse-lot calls To sleepy Dick, nor Dick husk-voiced upbraids The sway-back'd roan for stamping on his foot With sulphurous oath and kick in flank, what time The cart-chain clinks across the slanting shaft, And, kitchenward, the rattling bucket plumps Souse down the well, where quivering ducks quack loud, And Susan Cook is singing. Up the sky The hesitating moon slow trembles on, Faint as a new-washed soul but lately up From out a buried body. Far about, A hundred slopes in hundred fantasies ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... never harmed anyone but himself. He was capable of astonishing generosity, and those acquainted with the inner tragedy of his life know that it was a long act of self-denial. He was also extremely modest but not utterly devoid of indignation; and if he could not denounce bitterly, he could speed a shaft of satire into the breast of wickedness or cruelty. On one occasion, in the days of his youth, he was justly annoyed by his friend Coleridge, whose character was very inferior to his own, though he always assumed a tone of moral superiority. Lamb was so ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... for the sun has driven in equal flight The stars before him from the Tee of Night, And holed them every one without a miss, Swinging at ease his gold-shod Shaft of Light. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... side: the beds are spaced between the windows so that only one bed comes in a corner, and not more than two between any two windows: inlet ventilators are fixed high up in the side walls, and an extract shaft warmed by the chimney flue keeps up a circulation of air through the room: the door is usually at one end of the room and the fireplace at the opposite end: over each man's bed is a locker and shelf where he keeps his kit, and his rifle stands near the head of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... it is rare, consisting simply of a brittleness and an uneven and irregular formation of the hair-shaft, with a tendency to split up into filaments (fragilitas crinium); or there may be localized swelling and bursting of the hair-shaft, the nodes thus produced having a shining, semi-transparent appearance (trichorrhexis nodosa). ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon

... Indian long before the time of Quill, or it may have been Quill himself,—had chiselled hand and toe niches in the sides of this well and had used the strange shaft as means of getting into and out of the cave. Windom's father had closed this shaft when David was a small boy, after the venturesome youngster had gone down into the cave and, unable to climb out again, had been the cause of an all-day search by his distracted parent and every neighbour ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... which I had given you, you might steal a march on me, and set out for El Dorado by yourself. Whether that was your purpose I do not know; but, for doubting you, you can scarcely blame me. So, day by day, as I descended the shaft to the bed-rock, and piled up billets of wood, and kindled them, throwing out the muck, drifting with the streak, sending up nuggets to the surface, and dirt which often averaged ten dollars to the pan, I said to myself, 'Every shovelful you dig out, and every fire you light, and every billet you ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... moment, quite suddenly, when nobody was thinking about the frost or the danger, down came the poor horse on his side, his feet having gone quite from under him, and a dreadful cracking sound of broken timber gave notice that a shaft was smashed. A shaft at least was smashed; if only no ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... death came in a shaft from the bow of Paris. By a poisoned arrow driven at venture and at dark midnight from the bow of an outcast leper was fair Paris slain. While winter snow lay white on Ida, in Helen's arms did ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... heavy, broad shaft, quite unlike the slender, tapering arrows of Norman workmanship, adapted for a long flight, in days when a furlong was considered a ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... two shakes we're shootin' down a one hundred and fifty foot shaft with no stops until the ground floor. Not until we gets outside and Mr. Ellins jumps into his cab does Mr. Pepper say ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... hard day's labor. Their tenure here bears out the popular verdict of his partiality for a good joke; and, through the window, from the seat of Mr. Lincoln, I see across the grassy grounds of the capitol, the broken shaft of the Washington Monument, the long bridge and the fort-tipped Heights of Arlington, reaching down to the shining river side. These scenes he looked at often to catch some freshness of leaf and water, and often raised the sash to let the world rush in where only the nation abided, and hence ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... mine was not the usual vertical shaft; as Fetters had told us, it was a great ramp, of less than forty-five degrees, leading underground, illuminated by jets of greenish flame from metal brackets set into the wall at regular intervals, and fed by a never-failing ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... sacrificed. A melancholy example of the effects of this negligence is presented by the now ruined mine of Matagente (literally Kill People), in which three hundred laborers were killed by the falling in of a shaft. I descended into several of the mines, among others into the Descubridora, which is one of the deepest, and I always felt that I had good reason to congratulate myself on returning to the surface of the earth ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... and on each side of the doorway the edges show the rebate which served to receive a wooden door-frame. Two small holes on the right and left were used for fixing bars across to hold the door fast. A good many of these caves are provided with a ventilating shaft, and some skilful contrivances were had recourse to for keeping out water. Inside are shelves, recesses cut in the chalk, for lamps, and to serve as cupboards. But probably these are due to later occupants. The ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... along the street With her little 'plates of meat,' [1] And the summer sunshine falling On her golden 'Barnet Fair,' [2] Bright as angels from the skies Were her dark blue 'mutton pies.' [3] In my 'East and West' Dan Cupid [4] Shot a shaft ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... stoat standpoint, the stump was unsurpassable. There were three exits from the hollow base. Up the shaft there was yet another. Thick brambles fringed it on every side, and in those brambles were many birds' nests. The stump was an ideal nursery; as such the stoat had employed it. He had left to its friendly protection his family of six, with a young rabbit to keep ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... was, to utter such a falsehood, saying that he had not done that which he had done, Messer Guido began to praise him in such glowing words as would have made another man happy. But for Dante happiness lay only in the kind thoughts of his lady, and the very shaft of his ambition was only to please her. He listened very quietly while Messer Guido praised him so highly, and I, for my part, set about performing the task with which he had ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... not necessary that what we do or say of a defamatory nature result, as a matter of fact, in bringing one's name into disfavor or disrepute; it is sufficient that it be of such a nature and have such a tendency. If by accident the venomous shaft spend itself before attaining the intended mark, no credit is due therefore to him who shot it; his guilt remains what it was when he sped it on its way. Nor is there justification in the plea that no harm was meant, that the ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... took up her bow and arrow, and with unerring aim compassed the death of her victim. No sooner, however, had the hawk fallen, carrying the arrow with it, than she remembered that her name was inscribed on the shaft, and fearing lest it should be found by either Wei or Tu, she hurried round in the hope of recovering it. But she was too late. On approaching the study, she found Tu in the garden in front, examining the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various

... to May thro' the flowers that attend her, Slowly, on tip-toe, down the ravine Fair as the sun-god, poising a slender Spear like a moon-shaft silver and green, Stole he! Ah, did the oak-wood ponder Youth's glad dream in its heart of gloom? Dryad or fawn was it started yonder? Ah, what ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... ways. The principal method was to send a letter by means of an arrow. An arrow frequently came down in some part of the allied camp, which, on being examined, was found to have a letter wound about the shaft. The letter was addressed to Richard, and was, of course, immediately carried to his tent. It was always found to contain very important information in respect to the condition or plans of the besieged. If a sortie ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... life, and which, had he lived, he would have forgotten, as the changing times brought new issues to be met as he met this old one. He was too great, too brave, to ever stand still and let the world go by. He was always on the firing line. This thing—" he rapped the hollow iron shaft again contemptuously, and the hollow sound seemed to add emphasis to his words—"this is a dead monument to a dead issue. Instead of speaking of his life, it cries aloud in hideous emphasis ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... is a flash of intuition, an epitome of all the fables. Before leaving the Spaniards we must look at the most pleasing of all Ribera's works,—the Ladder-Dream of Jacob. The patriarch lies stretched on the open plain in the deep sleep of the weary. To the right in a broad shaft of cloudy gold the angels are ascending and descending. The picture is remarkable for its mingling the merits of Ribera's first and second manner. It is a Caravaggio in its strength and breadth of light and shade, and a Correggio in its delicacy of sentiment and refined beauty ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... aperture for light or air. Through it I saw one bright star shining down upon me, and the sight filled me with comfort and with hope. I have never been a man of religion, though I have always had a respect for those who were, but I remember that night that the star shining down the shaft seemed to be an all-seeing eye which was upon me, and I felt as a young and frightened recruit might feel in battle when he saw the calm gaze of his ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... had lamented the want of, but he could make her history speak an unintelligible, an unmistakeable tongue in every monument of the past, from the Etruscan wall at Fiesole to the cheap, plain, and tasteless shaft raised to commemorate Italian Unity in the next piazza. With sketches from his own pencil, illustrative of points which he could not otherwise enforce, he could make such a book on Florence as did not ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... scene, such as the slum writers are so fond of describin' with the agony pedal down hard, only there ain't quite so much dirt and rags in evidence as they'd like. There's plenty, though. Also there's a lot of industry on view. Over by the light shaft window is Mrs. Tiscott, pumpin' a sewin' machine like she was entered in a twenty-four-hour endurance race, with a big bundle of raw materials at one side. In front of her is the oldest girl, sewin' buttons onto white goods; while the three younger kids, includin' the four-year-old boy, are spread ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... random shaft, but it caught her breath. Then—"He didn't," she said gallantly. "I simply rubbed my ring and wished for him, and ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... head and hands; and endeavoured to calculate his horoscope. I reckon him the remarkablest Pontiff that has darkened God's daylight, or painted himself in the human retina, for these several thousand years. Nay, since Chaos first shivered, and 'sneezed,' as the Arabs say, with the first shaft of sunlight shot through it, what stranger product was there of Nature and Art working together? Here is a Supreme Priest who believes God to be—What, in the name of God, does he believe God to be?—and discerns that ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... The little people are represented in every attitude of frolic enjoyment. Some escalade the great arm-chair, and look down from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc; some climb about the bellows; some scale the shaft of the shovel; while some, forming in magic ring, dance festively on the yet glowing hearth. Tiny troops promenade the writing-table. One perches himself quaintly on the top of the inkstand, and holds colloquy with another who sits cross-legged on a paper-weight, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... the roof, on which is a large cast iron reservoir, capable of holding some thousand gallons of water, for the use of the prison. This reservoir is filled by means of forcing pump machinery below, connected with the principal axis which works the machinery of the mill; this axis or shaft passes under the pavement of the several yards, and working by means of universal joints, at every turn communicates with the tread wheel of ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks

... that he was Caolte, one of Fin's famous warriors, that the king whose place of death was in dispute was killed where Mongan had said, that if they dug down into the earth they would find the spear-head, that it would fit the shaft he held in his hand, that it was the spear-head that ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... at once to tread The grass-grown mansions of the dead! Awful to feeling, where, immense, Rose ruin'd, gray magnificence; The fair-wrought shaft all ivy-bound, The tow'ring arch with foliage crown'd, That trembles on its brow sublime, Triumphant o'er the spoils of time. Here, grasping all the eye beheld, Thought into mingling anguish swell'd. And check'd the wild excursive ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield

... screened by a slowly swaying curtain of broidered linen, which was tied at its upper corners to brass rings sunk in the stone frame of the door. This frame attracted the attention of the young sculptor. It consisted of two caryatides standing out from the square shaft from which they were carved, their erect heads barely touching the ceiling. The figures were of heroic size and wore the repose and dignity of countenance characteristic of Egyptian statues. The sculptor had been ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... time I say (but thou couldst not) Flying betweene the cold Moone and the earth, Cupid all arm'd; a certaine aime he tooke At a faire Vestall, throned by the West, And loos'd his loue-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts, But I might see young Cupids fiery shaft Quencht in the chaste beames of the watry Moone; And the imperiall Votresse passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy free. Yet markt I where ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... when the ship was at sea and I was stumping the deck in charge, I observed, in glancing through the skylight, that the captain had put Miss Le Grand upon the right of his chair, at the head of the table, a little before the fluted and emblazoned shaft of mizzenmast. I don't think above five sat down to dinner; a long heave of swell had sickened the hunger out of most of them. But it was a glorious evening, and the red sunshine, flashing fair upon the wide open skylights, ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... are not two George Whitstables;—thank God.' She had meant to be humble and supplicating, but she could not restrain herself from the use of that one shaft. 'I don't mean but what Sophy may be very happy, and I am sure that I hope she will. But that won't do me any good. I should be very ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... as he pointed, clutching the recovered papers in my hands, and forgetful of Henley. The sun had discovered an opening in the cloud bank, and a long shaft of golden light played across the water, gleaming with white caps. Into its radiance the revenue cutter was gliding, outlined against the leafy shade of Cosmos Island, her flag standing out like a board in the fresh breeze, her cutwater churning up a mass of foam. ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... stood in the old library against the shafts of the roof, for one of the ends has been hollowed out in each to receive the shaft; and the finial, which is left plain on that side, is bent over slightly, to admit it under ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... Meantime, the Prince of Wales had planted his army just where he would tempt John into that trap and had set his archers in good position. These men were clad in green, like Robin Hood's men, and carried bows seven feet long and so thick that few men of modern days could bend them. A cloth-yard shaft from one of these would fly with tremendous force. Edward had placed these archers in ambush, behind green hedges, and crouching in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... of Moorish archer's craft To guard the pure and stainless liver; He wants not, Fuscus, poison'd shaft To store his quiver, Whether he traverse Libyan shoals, Or Caucasus, forlorn and horrent, Or lands where far Hydaspes rolls His fabled torrent. A wolf, while roaming trouble-free In Sabine wood, as fancy led me, Unarm'd I sang my Lalage, Beheld, and fled ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... at that time were something wonderful; as a proof of which it has been stated that on one occasion Mr. Geach took orders for 30,000 tons at L12, the cost to him not being more than half that sum! The Patent Shaft Works may be said to have owed its origin also to this gentleman. Mr. Geach was chosen mayor for 1847, and in 1851 was returned to Parliament for Coventry. His death occurred Nov. 1, 1854. A full-length portrait hangs in the board-room of the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... me!" continued he examining the shaft in his hand. "See you, John, 't is pointed with naught but a bird's talon, curiously bound on with its own sinews. To be scratched to death by a fowl were but a poor ending for a man ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... often had she seen it in the hands of Odysseus, when he went forth at sunrise to hunt the hare and the deer! How often had she taken it from him when he came back at evening loaded with the spoils of the chase! And now a keen shaft from this very bow was to cut the last tender chord of memory, and make her another ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... steed, and conspired together to kill Iliya and seize the horse. So they fell upon Iliya of Murom, five-and-twenty men. But Iliya of Murom reined in his steed, drew an arrow from his quiver, laid it on his bow, and shot the shaft deep into the ground till it scattered the earth far and wide over three acres. When the robbers saw this, they were struck dumb with terror, fell on their knees, and said: "Our lord and father, dear good youth, we have done you wrong: in punishment for our crime, take all our treasures ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various

... hard as he had used to. Still earliest of all and latest of all, he would sometimes leave his iron cooling on the board now and stand for minutes of the precious day, dreaming out of the harbor window. When the sun was sinking, the shaft through the window bathed his head and his lean neck with a quality almost barbaric, and for a moment in the gloom made by the bright pencil, the new, raw things of Urkey faded out, leaving him alone in his ancient and ordered civilization, a little wistful, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... seemed slapping at the window, threatening to break it. The spruce boughs moaned and twisted overhead, and a volley of wind and snow shot suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door, so that a shaft of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Billy's dreams. In all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl—his wife—was present. Once they had gone for wild flowers and had been caught ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... upon roots than slips: so the delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots. Of which kind of delivery the method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath some shadow: but generally I see it neither put in use nor put in inquisition, and therefore ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon

... you for your goodness, but one—a return which I am persuaded will not be unacceptable—the honest warm wishes of a grateful heart for your happiness, and every one of that lovely flock who stand to you in a filial relation. If ever Calumny aims the poisoned shaft at them, may friendship be by to ward the ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... shaft of moonlight drew down toward the notch, silvering its ragged edges. Lower the light slid until it revealed the opening and in it the figure of a horseman. In the white light Overland could see the quirt dangling from the other's wrist. The ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... sight, And sniffed the crystal air with keen delight. Upon the morning breeze the piercing twang Of taut-drawn bowstring ominously rang, While with a moan the noble creature sank In pain and terror on the reedy bank. Beneath a haughty hemlock's spicy shade The hero stanched the wound his shaft had made; With leathern thong the stag's slight limbs he bound, And striding swiftly o'er the ferny ground, His precious burden on his shoulders wide, Toward fair Mycenae with her walls of pride ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... lady shall he never mo. And shortly to concluden all his wo, So mochel sorwe hadde never creature, That is or shall be, while the world may dure. His slepe, his mete, his drinke is him byraft. That lene he wex, and drie as is a shaft. His eyen holwe, and grisly to behold, His hewe salwe, and pale as ashen cold, And solitary he was, and ever alone, And wailing all the night, making his mone. And if he herde song or instrument, Than wold he wepe, he mighte not be stent. So feble were his spirites, and so low, And changed ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... pursuit. He had brought his father's blow-pipe instead of his own, which he had lost. It was too heavy, however, for him to manage. I thought we should have lost the deer; but kneeling down, he raised it on a hanging sipo, and let fly an arrow, which struck the animal. He had time to send another shaft before the deer got out of sight. Then calling to me, he urged me to pursue it. Away we went through the forest, True at the heels of the deer, and I following Duppo as closely as I could. Still, notwithstanding its wounded condition, there seemed every probability of its escaping. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... her way to the drawing-room, and she could see now the half-open shutter and the rich light of the autumn sun turning all the dust of the air to gold in one big shaft of light. The child had never seen the house when the family was away before, and with awestruck, mysterious joy, she had lifted corners of covers and peered under chairs and recognised legs of tables ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... obey orders, but it was too late. He endeavored to touch bottom with his forelegs, but could not; tried to swim with his hind ones, but found that impossible; then wallowed wildly to one side and snapped a shaft and the rotten whiffletree short off. The carryall tipped ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... fellows as a white shaft under a starless midnight. He rises above the passions of men as an unshaken rock in the midst of a wild, lashed sea. He is to man's best character as harmony is to discord, as a smile is to a frown, as love is to hate, as blessing is to cursing, as a garden of lilies to ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... this, so exquisite and evanescent is the rhythm, and the intonations come as sweetly and suddenly as a gust of perfume; it is as the vibration of a fairy orchestra, flute and violin disappearing in a silver mist; but the clouds break, and all the enchantment of a spring garden appears in a shaft of ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... a narrow crevice, not far from the funnel-shaped opening they had originally entered, they saw him standing beside the open door of the sphere as if waiting. The searchlight inside was still on, and in its shaft of light they could see that he was smiling thinly, once more his old, confident self. It would only take him a second to jump in, slam the door and lock it. He could ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... pierce John Hathaway's armor at that period of his life would have had to use a very sharp and pointed arrow, for he was well wadded with the belief that a man has a right to do what he likes. Susanna's shaft was tipped with truth and dipped in the blood of her outraged heart. The stored-up force of silent years went into the speeding of it. She had never shot an arrow before, and her skill was instinctive rather than ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of the most sheltered channels in the world, and more like a lake or lagoon than an arm of the sea—leaving a broad wake of creamy green foam behind her like a mill- race, and quivering from stem to stern with every revolution of her shaft, with every throb ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... for the rest. He acknowledged Sir Henry seldom or ever used his machine, and that he was the landlord in Kent who gave most to the poor; but they must do as they were ordered; they would, however, do as little as they could, and they only sawed off a shaft. ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... of the celebrated Deal lifeboat, Richard Roberts. Intently he gazed at the projecting anchor fluke—shaft and chain had long been sucked down into the Goodwins—and then, after a good long look all round, taking the bearings of the deadly thing, at last he said, 'What a dangerous thing on a ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor

... awoke the host to demand shelter. There they slept no longer than until matins, so that the grey light of dawn saw them once more upon their way, and by the time the sun had struck with its first golden shaft the grey crest of the old hills, they drew rein on the brink of the roaring torrent at the foot of the mighty crag that was crowned by the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... seem to have in view, and on account of which you took some specimens away, when I met you at Percerin's." D'Artagnan paused. The shaft was discharged, and all he had to do was to wait ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... has answer made them none, But turned upon the axe-shaft, wha Was with the stroke broken ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and beauty of man." The Gothic architecture had its birthplace among a people who had lived and worshipped for ages amidst the dense forests of the north, and was no doubt an imitation of the interlacing of the overshadowing trees. The clustered shaft, and lancet arch, and flowing tracery, reflect the impression which the surrounding scenery had woven into the texture ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... her cottage door; O sweetly my love sings! Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth, My soul to meet it springs As the shining water leaped of old, When stirred by angel wings. Aye longing to list anew, Awake and in my dream, But never a song she sang like this, ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... Dragoness, on him would she bring the day of destiny, before the Prince, far-darting Apollo, loosed at her the destroying shaft; then writhing in strong anguish, and mightily panting she lay, rolling about the land. Dread and dire was the din, as she writhed hither and thither through the wood, and gave up the ghost, and ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... Principia Ethica or to spoil the pleasure of those who will be wise enough to run out this very minute and order a masterpiece with which they happen to be unacquainted. For my immediate purpose it is necessary only to borrow one shaft from that ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... detailed to follow Ned and see that he made no attempt to escape. The boy was yet so deeply absorbed in the Alamo that no room was left in his mind for anything else. Nor did he care to talk further with Urrea, who he knew was not above aiming a shaft or two at an enemy in his power. He remained in the crowd until Santa Anna ordered that all but the troops be cleared ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... fled; Her eyes were fire, fresh blood her forehead dy'd, Around she whirl'd her flaming torch, and cry'd: 75 "Why sleeps my brother o'er the poison'd dart? His pow'r forgetting o'er the human heart? Did ever Love the flames of Discord waft, Or Discord's venom tinge Love's deadly shaft? Did I for Love, bid madd'ning worlds engage? 80 Rise then—avenge my insult, serve my rage; Behold a conqu'ring king my pow'r defy! Crush'd by his hand, behold my serpents die! See dove-ey'd Mercy smiling by his side, Thro' ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... fountain, and above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our friend mounted the steps of the cross in the alert way he had (like a little bird, the story says) and the wolf, after lapping apologetically in the basin, followed him up three steps at a time. Then with one arm around the shaft to steady himself, he made a fine sermon to the neighbours crowding in the Square, and the wolf stood with his fore-paws on the edge of the fountain and helped him. The sermon was all about wolves (naturally) and the best way of treating them. I fancy the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... ready laugh was but the first of a chorus, and Quisante, sitting down, knew that his shaft had sped home when somebody cried, "Three cheers for Lady May Quisante!" and they gave them again and again, all standing on their feet. Alas for the Dean! For some men there are many ways out of ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... entered the antigrav shaft, and floated downward; at the end of a hallway, below, Vall opened the door of Tortha Karf's office and ushered ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... you had each, at the back of your houses, a garden, large enough for your children to play in, with just as much lawn as would give them room to run,—no more—and that you could not change your abode; but that, if you chose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it? I hope not. I can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... a lathe or other convenient revolving shaft is available, a buffer made of many thicknesses of cotton cloth is very valuable for polishing tools. The addition of a little tripoli greatly ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... sake; Those early seeds by Venus sown, In spite of Pallas now were grown; And Cupid hoped they would improve By time, and ripen into love. The boy made use of all his craft, In vain discharging many a shaft, Pointed at colonels, lords, and beaux: Cadenus warded off the blows; For, placing still some book betwixt, The darts were in the cover fix'd, Or, often blunted and recoil'd, On Plutarch's Moral struck, were spoil'd. The Queen of Wisdom could ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... see. His departure from Oxford was characteristic. He and Anderson of Oriel, one of the other offenders, hired a tandem in which they placed their luggage, and then with "a cantering leader and a high-trotting shaft horse" they rode through the High Street, and so on to London, Burton artistically performing upon a yard of tin trumpet, waving adieux to his friends and kissing his hands to the shop girls. About the same time Edward, also for insubordination, had to leave Cambridge. Thus ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... still to hover over it. He drove on to the mine. The winding-engine was turning, the pulley at the top of the head-gear whizzing round; nothing looked unusual. 'Some mistake!' he thought. He drove to the mine buildings, alighted, and climbed to the shaft head. Instead of the usual rumbling of the trolleys, the rattle of coal discharged over the screens, there was silence. Close by, Pippin himself was standing, smirched with dirt. The cage, coming swift ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... timbers are difficult to get, and costly. The hull must also be strengthened to a large extra extent by heavy iron strapping and bracing, which, unlike the rest, cost in the ratio of the material used. So with the engines. The shaft, which weighs twice as much, does not cost only twice as much, but frequently three or four or five times as much. This arises not from the weight of the metal, as is evident; but from the difficulty of forging pieces that are so large. The persons engaged in the forging and finishing of the immense ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey

... forgetting his companion, his eyes fixed on the great cathedral, on the slender shaft of the Sainte Chapelle, on the sky ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... came about. First one long shaft of dazzling light rushed back and forth; then others joined in the hunt, until presently they focussed on the progressing ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach

... followers in the first place, and having embroiled myself with the soldiers in the second; I was beginning to contemplate the wisdom of seeking some outhouse of this mansion wherein to lie until morning, when of a sudden a broad shaft of light, coming from one of the windows on the first floor, fell athwart the courtyard. Instinctively I crouched back into the shadow of my friendly ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... simple beam 16. Three common forms of beams—(1) simple, (2) cantilever, (3) continuous 17. Characteristic failures of simple beams 18. Failure of a large beam by horizontal shear 19. Torsion of a shaft 20. Effect of torsion on different grades of hickory 21. Cleavage of highly elastic wood 22. Cross-sections of white ash, red gum, and eastern hemlock 23. Cross-section of longleaf pine 24. Relation of the moisture content ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... Indians use sharp flint arrow heads for war and for big game, but for birds and small game they make arrow heads with a knob of hard wood or the knuckle bone of some small animal. The best arrow heads for our purpose are like the ferrule of an umbrella top; they receive the end of the shaft into them and keep it ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... Stake, when he saw that King Adils rode near him, took the ring Sviagriss and threw it to him, and bade him accept the gift. King Adils rode to the ring, and lifting it on his lowered spear-point slid it up along the shaft. Then did Rolf Stake turn him back, and, seeing how he louted low, cried: 'Now have I ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... which one secured by patent to Mr. M. Wilson, in 1826, and thus described by Dr. Ure, may be regarded as a fair specimen:—It consists of an oblong hollow cylinder, laid in an inclined position, having a great many teeth stuck in its internal surface, and a central shaft, also furnished with teeth. By the rapid revolution of the shaft, its teeth are carried across the intervals of those of the cylinder, with the effect of parting the grains of rice, and detaching whatever husks or impurities may adhere to them. ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... parted like a curtain at a given signal, and rolled away, leaving the vault of night high and bare and blue above them, with here and there a diamond star or two sparsely sprinkled from horizon to zenith, radiant at first, but presently paling before a slender shaft of light that shot up in the east, and then, opening fan-like was quickly followed by the great golden rim of the moon herself. She rose from behind a hill crested with fir trees, which appeared for a moment as if photographed ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... than the entrance to a mine. There was some virtue in work which lavished its sentiment and artistic skill upon the surroundings of a purely industrial enterprise. Churches and chapels, in many instances, surmount the hills whose bowels are pierced by shaft and gallery, and upon the walls of these hang strange pictures, depicting, in some places, incidents of mining life and accidents, placed there perchance by some devout one who had escaped from danger. In some cases these churches were ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... (Mygale henzii, Girard), which is widely diffused in California, forms a simple shaft-like burrow, but, like the European Trap-door Spider, it is very skilful in forming an entrance and in concealing its presence. Its habits have lately been described by D. Cleveland of San Diego.[84] In the adobe land hillocks ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... appeared in as wretched a condition as the team and its driver. Sometimes a couple of horses, mules, or cows, &c., would be dragging a hogshead of tobacco, with a pivot, or axle, driven into each end of the hogshead, and something like a shaft attached, by which it was drawn, or rolled along the road. I have seen two oxen and two slaves pretty fully employed in getting along a single hogshead; and some of these come from a ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... driven to the subterfuge of wearing a greatcoat this hot weather to conceal the poverty of my dress beneath, if it were not that I wish to give you the advantage of such instruction as you are now neglecting."' The shaft went home, and the music-mistress had no occasion to complain again. After three years the headmistress retired on her fortune, the school was given up, and the two girls were placed at what they considered a very inferior establishment ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... that city and certain pictures I had seen. You made your beasts—which were all the ark lot really, provisionally conceived as pigs—go up elaborate approaches to a central pen, from which they went down a cardboard slide four at a time, and dropped most satisfyingly down a brick shaft, and pitter-litter over some steep steps to where a head slaughterman (ne Noah) strung a cotton loop round their legs and sent them by pin hooks along a wire to a second slaughterman with a chipped foot (formerly Mrs. Noah) ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... dominates the northern walls of the older city. Kublai Khan, by building the Tartar city on the northern edge of the Chinese city and fortifying it with immense strength, may be said to have fitted the spear-head on to the Chinese shaft, and to have given the key-note to the policy which exists to this day—the policy of the North of China dominating the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... of the young noble slanted into a frown. Alwin met it with a black scowl. Suddenly, while they faced each other, glowering, an arrow sped out of the thicket a little way down the road, and whizzed between them. A second shaft just grazed Alwin's head; a third carried away a tress of Sigurd's fair hair. Instantly after, a man crashed out of the underbrush and came running toward them, throwing down a bow and drawing a sword ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... consciousness of myself again, the first thing of which I laid hold with my mind as a means whereby to pull my recollections back to my former cognisance of matters was a broad shaft of sunlight streaming in through the west window of the prison in Jamestown. And all this sunbeam was horribly barred like the body of a wasp by the iron grating of the window, and had a fierce sting of heat in it, for ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... made brave pretense of lighting by virtue of the new gas works; at certain intervals flickering and wholly incompetent lights serving to make the gloom more visible. None the less, as I passed for the last time, I plainly saw a shaft of light fall upon the half darkness from a little side door. There emerged upon the street the figure of a woman. I do not know what led me to cast a second glance, for certainly my business was not with ladies, any more than I would have supposed ladies had ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... at the gate, which, one hinge being gone, opened reluctantly to let him pass. He stalked away, a tall, awkward figure in the brilliant shaft of light from the lamps, walking with a fierce, determined dignity up the path that disappeared into the dark. Oliver felt a sudden rush of pity for him and of shame that he ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... came down on my family feature with such a noise that I thought the woman downstairs would be rattling the dumb-waiter ropes again long before this!" She stepped to the dumb-waiter, and put her head into the shaft. "What is it, darling?" ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris

... consists of a plain Doric column, surmounted with a colossal statue of the Duke of York. The pedestal and shaft are of fine granite. The plinth, or base of the pedestal, is 22 feet square, and the pedestal 18 feet; the circumference of the shaft is 11 feet 6 inches, decreasing to 10 feet 2 inches at the top; the abacus ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various

... hollow of this back fall is sunk the so-called plate, furnished with a number of sharp steel cutters or knives, lying alongside of each other. A roller of solid oakwood, the circumference of which is also furnished with sharp steel cutters or knives, is fastened upon a shaft and revolves within the hollow. The journal bearings of the shaft are let into and fastened in movable wooden carriers. The carriers of the bearings may be raised and lowered by turning suitable thumbscrews, whereby the distance between the roller and the back fall is increased or decreased. The ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various

... gentlemen, a servant-girl threw a handful of oats before the hens. The shaft of the press appeared to them enormously big. Next they went up to the pigeon-house. The dairy especially astonished them. By turning cocks in the corners, you could get enough water to flood the flagstones, and, as you entered, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... woodman's axe and proceeded to fell a tree, but he destroyed the edge and broke the shaft at the first blow. He therefore laid down the axe, put his arms round the tree, and pulled it up by the roots. This he threw upon his cart, and then another and another, and thus he went on while all the others forgot their work, and stood with ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various

... men,—for all go armed with some weapon,—are a dagger under the left arm, a sword slung on the back, and a spear in the right hand. The spear-shaft is wood, whilst those of the Ghat Tuaricks and Haghars are frequently metal, of the same substance as the point of the weapon. These iron spears are said to be manufactured by the Tibboos. They are much more formidable weapons than the spears with wooden shafts. When mounted on ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... close covered, as well as the spout leading into it from the stones; trifling as this precaution may seem, it is well worth the brewer's attention. Here it may not be improper to observe, that in all cases of horse, or cattle mills, where the shaft of the main wheel is perpendicular, no better ingredient can be placed in the chamber of the lower box than quick silver, which is far superior to oil or grease, and will not require renewing for a long time. The ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... from the walls of his own castle, the boy knight led the assault upon the outworks, and proved in this, his first deed of arms, the truth of his biographer that he was one who "knew when to strike and how to strike." Catapult and balista, battering-ram and arbalast, cloth-yard shaft and javelin did their work, a breach was made in the walls, and only the darkness put a stop ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... architecture, connected with the preference for enormous blocks over stones of a moderate size, is the frequent combination in a single mass of distinct architectural members; for instance, of the shaft and capital of pillars, of entire pediments with a portion of the wall below them, and of the walls of monuments with the cornice and architrave. M. Renan has made some strong remarks on this idiosyncrasy. "In the Grecian style," he says, "the beauty of the wall is a main object with the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... flowing of the great tides and streams of ocean stamped on its delicate rounding. He leaves it when all is done, without a boast. It is simple work, but it will keep out water. And every plank thence-forward is a Fate, and has men's lives wreathed in the knots of it, as the cloth-yard shaft had their ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... the tinker. "If they came together on to this waste, one couldn't fall down a shaft without the other knowing it, eh? And it's scarcely likely they'd ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher

... lower drumhead of a capstern, when it is double, and worked on one shaft both on an ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... responded to the labour of the fireman and the touch of the engineer almost as if it could think and feel. Its pace quickened without a jar; its great eye pierced the silvery space of moonlight with a shaft of blazing yellow; the rails sang before it and trembled behind it; it was an obedient and joyful monster, ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... Douglas was a thick-set, rotund man, whose florid gills revealed that he was a host for boon companions. Lincoln was his antithesis, as tall, long-drawn, and somber as the cold-water man he was rated. He rose, and at once shot his shaft: ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams

... starting down the incline to the mine below, when through the carelessness of the operator the brake of the great drum slipped, and on being applied again with reckless force, broke, and the car was off, bringing destruction to half a dozen men at the bottom of the shaft. Quick as a flash of light, Kalman sprang to the racing cog wheels, threw in a heavy coat that happened to be lying near, and then, as the machinery slowed, thrust in a handspike and checked the descent of the runaway car. It took less than two seconds ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... the meaning of which he began vaguely to understand, he stood listening to a "solemn wind" that began to blow—"the saddest that ear ever heard." What followed should appear in De Quincey's own words: "A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky, a shaft which ran up forever. I, in spirit, rose as if on billows that also ran up the shaft forever; and the billows seemed to pursue the throne of God; but that also ran on before us and fled away continually. The flight and the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... inward at a touch. He prepared instinctively for battle against any foe who might present himself. For a moment he held himself taut; then, nothing of an alarming nature having happened, he drew a swift breath of relief and flashed on his light. He gave vent to a low exclamation. The swiftly darting shaft from the torch had revealed the figure of a girl, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... This arrangement commenced on the 19th June and continued till the 20th. On the 26th we packed the lower instruments, intending to compare the pendulum directly with the upper one, and sent them up the shaft: when an inexplicable occurrence stopped all proceedings. The basket containing all the important instruments was brought up to the surface (in my presence) on fire; some of the instruments had fallen out with their cases burning. Whether ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... large, and sombre with dark woods and hangings like the hall; but through the west window the sun threw a long shaft of gold across the floor, gleamed dully on the tarnished brass andirons in the fireplace, and touched the nickel of the telephone on the great desk in the middle of the room. It was toward this desk that Pollyanna ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter

... murder,(36) perhaps also for bribery at elections and other crimes, in the course of the seventh century; and lastly, the two courts of the "Ten-men" for processes affecting freedom, and the "Hundred and five," or more briefly, the "Hundred-men," for processes affecting inheritance, also called, from the shaft of a spear employed in all disputes as to property, the "spear-court" (-hasta-). The court of Ten-men (-decemviri litibus iudicandis-) was a very ancient institution for the protection of the plebeians against their masters.(37) The period and circumstances in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... made these heroes dare To die, or leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... door, which was opening slowly to admit the nameless horror. I seemed to feel a hot breath on my cheek, and with a wild shriek I woke, to find the moonlight streaming in through the broad diamond-paned window, falling in a white shaft across the floor, while the last embers of the fire were smoldering ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... with. Two bulls, snorting fire, with feet of brass, Jason was required to yoke, and with them plow a field and sow the land with dragon's teeth. Here the heavenly powers came to the hero's aid, and Hera and Athena prayed Aphrodite to send the shaft of Cupid upon Medea, the youthful daughter of the king. Thus it came about that Medea conceived a great passion for the young hero, and with the magic which she knew she made for him a salve. The salve rendered ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... of the lodge sloped somewhat toward the south, thus permitting the sun's warmth to penetrate the one loose place in the mass, the muskrat's ventilating shaft. In a snug room about a foot down from the roof of the dome, and well above the water line, he had made his bed of leaves and grass, where he could sleep snugly even when the winter gales shrieked overhead and the snow ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... the soil is best determined by the use of an auger. A simple soil auger is made from the ordinary carpenter's auger, 1-1/2 to 2 inches in diameter, by lengthening its shaft to 3 feet or more. Where it is not desirable to carry sectional augers, it is often advisable to have three augers made: one 3 feet, the other 6, and the third 9 or 10 feet in length. The short auger is used first and the others afterwards as the depth of the boring increases. The boring should ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... wooded, there running off in long sweeps of rubbly waste, again starting sharply upward from the water. Close by the path, a tongue of rock runs out into the lake, and on this still stands the little shaft, enclosed ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... their play, And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around! Of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked His lightnings,—as if he did understand, That in such gaps as desolation worked, There, the hot shaft should ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... look straight up to the sky through the great stone chimney, and where still hung a rusty gigantic crane, once used for the roasting of meats and boiling of pots; but, most curious of all, a perpendicular shaft leading to a "secret chamber" beneath the sloping roof. To ascend this shaft one climbed upon small triangular steps fitted alternately in the rear corners of it; and it was entered through a sliding, spring-secured panel of the "keeping-room." No stranger would have discovered ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... was the weapon which had replaced the stone axe in the stone age. It was a throwing stick consisting of two parts. One was the lance, a feathered shaft up to four feet long, tipped with a stone point. The two-foot flat stick that went with this had a slot in one end and two rawhide finger loops. The lance end was fitted in the slot to be thrown. The stick was an extension of the human ...
— The Hohokam Dig • Theodore Pratt

... ask—your brow tells the story. Ever I hoped that if any man could or would track her, it must be you. All's over and lost now. But if ever I have that Varney within reach of a flight-shot, I will bestow a forked shaft on him; and that I swear by salt ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... rubbish that has accumulated. If a man wishes to build a house in Rome or in Jerusalem he has to go fifty or sixty feet down, through potsherds and broken tiles and triturated marbles, and the dust of ancient palaces and temples. We have to drive a shaft clear down through all the superficial strata, and to lay the first stones on the Rock of Ages. Do not build on that which quivers and shakes beneath you. Do not try to make your life's path across the weeds, or as they call it in Egypt, the 'sudd,' that floats ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... through which he had come, a broad shaft of tempered luminance fell across the fountain and laid a zone of soft light athwart the low stone benches surrounding it. Then it caught, and faintly edged with its glow, the granite balustrade at the shoulder of the cliff. Elsewhere the little garden was enveloped in the velvet blackness ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... dough ingredients, it has a deep pan a, and instead of one kneading prong it has several prongs, which are attached to two arms b, as shown. These arms are revolved by gear-wheels c that fit in a large gearwheel d attached to a shaft e, which is turned by means of a handle f. The large number of mixing prongs in a cake mixer are necessary, because cake dough must be thoroughly stirred and beaten, whereas in bread making the dough must be made to form a ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... against the tide in the Bay. He realized that in that short time the tide had turned, either about some point of land, or in the River. He began to tread water while he tried to lift his head and gaze across the waves. Then a broad shaft of dazzling light shot across the Bay from a nearby reflector. At the same time Tom heard the tolling of a ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy



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