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Contour   /kˈɑntˌʊr/   Listen
Contour

noun
1.
A line drawn on a map connecting points of equal height.  Synonym: contour line.
2.
Any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline).  Synonyms: configuration, conformation, form, shape.
3.
A feature (or the order or arrangement of features) of anything having a complex structure.  "It defines a major contour of this administration"



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"Contour" Quotes from Famous Books



... becoming more and more convinced that all the important elements of the Globigerina ooze lived on the surface, and it seemed evident that, so long as the condition on the surface remained the same, no alteration of contour at the bottom could possibly prevent its accumulation; and the surface conditions in the Mid-Atlantic were very uniform, a moderate current of a very equal temperature passing continuously over elevations and depressions, and everywhere ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... or the cliche—no doubt it is better known for what it is to good French writers—is the word or the phrase which has lost the original contour of its mintage and become a mere featureless coin, having still, as it were, its metallic meaning but no longer its fresh beauty and expressiveness. The young novelist whose hero "wends his way," and the journalist for whom a party of fifteen ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... a lovely little dwelling. It was built of stone, and then painted white, but the roof and gables were tiled with great pink tiles, giving an odd little foreign look to it, something like Anne Hathaway's cottage in general contour, Leslie declared. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... matter of dress she was admitted in society to be one of the leaders of fashion. Her hair was of that rare copper-gold tint, her features regular, with a slightly protruding chin, soft eyes, and cheeks perfect in their contour. Society knew her as a gay, reckless, giddy woman, who, regardless of the terrible affliction which had fallen upon the brilliant man who was her husband, surrounded herself with a circle of friends of the same type as herself, and who thoroughly ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... lines which trace the design or form of these images. This indicates the extreme importance of the melodic idea in music form. Without such "tone-lines" the effect would be similar to that of daubs or masses of color without a drawing, without the evidence of contour and shape. ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... barely distinguishable in the golden hue of her tresses. Her dress was without a plait or a wrinkle, and fitted the form with an exactitude that might lead one to imagine the arch girl more than suspected the beauties it displayed. A tucker of rich Dresden lace softened the contour of the figure. Her head was without ornament; but around her throat was a necklace of gold clasped in front with ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... the pit). I was looking leisurely round the house when I caught sight of a woman, in a box close by, whose head was turned from me, and who presented the somewhat unusual spectacle of a young neck and shoulders of the most exquisite contour—and perfectly gray hair; and not dull gray, but rather of a pleasing tint like frosted silver. This aroused my curiosity. I brought my glasses to a focus on her and waited patiently till she turned round. Then I recognized the Baroness Kassowski, and I no longer ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... that cover the feet, gives them a coleopterous, cockchafer look, which is not a little undignified; the colors of their plumes are somewhat coarse and dark—one is covered with silky hair, instead of feathers. The souls they contend for are indeed of sweet expression; but exceedingly earthly in contour, the painter being unable to deal with the nude form. On the whole, he seems to have reserved his highest powers for the fresco which follows next in order, the scene of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... Johnson relished this talk is shewn by his letter to Mrs. Thrale of May 1, 1780, and by her answer. He wrote:—'The Exhibition, how will you do, either to see or not to see? The Exhibition is eminently splendid. There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression, and all the varieties of artificial excellence.' Piozzi Letters, ii. III. She answered:—'When did I ever plague about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne when you teased ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... reflectively, her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee. She looked at his wavy hair, his kindly, humorous gray eyes, the straight line of his fine-cut nose, his firm lips with the quaint upward twist of the corners, the fine contour of his jaw. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... was a place accursed, and to purify the air, as a safeguard against pestilence, the offal was consumed by bonfires that were constantly renewed and never extinguished. At its extremity was an elevation, a hilly contour which to the popular fancy suggested a skull. To the west it fell steeply away. It was ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... again. Her cheeks were taking on their old rounded contour and occasionally dimples of delight flashed into them. She was a young person who lived in the present. Already the marks of her six-weeks misery among the submerged derelicts of the city was beginning to be wiped from her mind like the memory of a bad dream from ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... to all. As her mind became inert, sleeping on a downy couch of forgetfulness, closely curtained, the silent forces of physical life, in her deep tranquillity, were doing an artist's work. The hollow cheeks were gradually rounded and given the faintest possible bloom. Her form was gaining a contour that might ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... fingers, and packed it afresh in the pocket where it least affected his personal contour, its angles softened by a big bandanna handkerchief, only to take it out yet again with a resolution that opened a fresh sluice in every pore. The blanket that had been lent to him, and Howie's blanket, both lay at his feet; he threw one over either arm, ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... the fierce heat outside, saluted us as we entered a vast hall, whose roof rose to a minimum height of forty feet, but in places could not be seen at all. A sort of diffused light, weak, but sufficient to reveal the general contour of the place, existed, let in, I supposed, through some unseen crevices in the roof or walls. At first, of course, to our eyes, fresh from the fierce glare outside, the place seemed wrapped in impenetrable gloom, and we dared not stir lest we should run into some hidden danger. ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... Continent (geog.) kontinento. Contingent (milit.) kontingento. Contiguity apudeco. Contiguous apuda. Continue (to last) dauxri. Continue (go on) dauxrigi. Contortion (of face) grimaco. Contour konturo. Contraband kontrabando. Contract kontrakto. Contract, make a kontrakti. Contract kuntirigxi. Contractor entreprenisto. Contradict kontrauxdiri. Contrariwise kontrauxe. Contrary kontrauxa. Contrary, on the male, kontrauxe. Contrast ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... fastened under her white inner waist with short sleeves, composed thus a costume much less severe than the first, and harmonized wonderfully with the scarlet stockings, and the Madras scarf so capriciously twisted around the head of the Creole. Nothing could be more pure, more beautiful, than the contour of her arms and shoulders, to which little dimples ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... feet away to the left—"I shall be able to get an uninterrupted view of the quebrada from top to bottom, and, by taking a series of vertical and horizontal angles from the top edge, can measure the contour of the two sides, at the point crossed by the survey line, with the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... the whole field, and enfeeble the colour at all points before absolutely extinguishing it anywhere; his nose was of the knotty shape in the gristle and earthward tendency in the flesh which is commonly said to carry sound judgment above it, his eyes were thoughtful, and his face was thin—a contour which, if it at once abstracted from his features that cheerful assurance of single-minded honesty which adorns the exteriors of so many of his brethren, might have raised a presumption in the minds of some beholders that perhaps ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... insufficient observations, even if erroneous, were slow to die. Thus it used to be stated that an upper cloud floor adapted itself to the contour of the land over which it rested, giving what Mr. Monck Mason has called a "phrenological estimate" of the character of the earth below; the clouds, "even when under the influence of rapid motion, seeming ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... general contour of the coast, to Cape Charles at the northern entrance of Chesapeake Bay, is a distance of one hundred and thirty-six miles; from Cape Charles across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to Cape Henry is thirteen miles; from Henlopen south, the state of Delaware occupies about twenty miles ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... particular, how can the Word be free to do what it likes? The answer to this is contained in another maxim: "Every creation carries its own mathematics along with it." You cannot create anything without at the same time creating its relation to everything else, just as in painting a landscape, the contour you give to the trees will determine that of the sky. Therefore, whenever you create anything, you thereby start a train of causation, which will work out in strict accordance with the sort of thought that started it. The stream ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... cultivated later. The direct microscopic study of the pus, both internal and external, was of extreme interest. It was seen that both contained large numbers of the organism similar to that of furuncles, arranged in pairs, in fours and in packets, some with sharp clear contour, others only faintly visible and with very pale outlines. The external pus contained many pus corpuscles, the internal had none at all. It was like a fatty paste of the furuncular organism. Also, it may be noted, that growth of the small organism had begun in less than ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... Besides the contour of the coast, involving easy access to the sea, there are other physical conditions which lead people to the sea or turn them from it. Although France was deficient in military ports on the Channel, she had both there ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... she rose and took before a long mirror a series of other exercises, some to strengthen her waist, others to keep her back straight and supple, others to make firm the contour of her face and throat. A half-hour of this, then came her bath. This was no hurried plunge, drying and away, but a long and elaborate function at which Selina assisted. There had to be water of three temperatures; a dozen different kinds of brushes, soaps, towels and other apparatus participated. ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... barometers, and their reaction to passing showers was invariable. The clay surface held water, and after each downfall the pools would be higher, and the contour of the little region altered. At the first few drops, all the ants would hasten, the throbbing corpuscles speeding up. Then, as the rain came down heavier, the column melted away, those near each end hurrying to shelter and those in the center crawling beneath ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... depends upon the contour and nature of the island, that it is hard to say. If it were low and heavily covered with their green-blue vegetation, we might not be able to see even a rather large one, whereas if it were hilly and bare, we could probably see one only ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... while his partner was the very reverse, by constitution weak and ailing, but withal a woman of whom any man might and ought to have been proud. Her elegant form, her fair transparent skin, the classical contour of her refined and expressive face, might have led a Canova to have selected her as a model of feminine beauty. But alas! she was weak; she could not work like other women; her husband could not boast among his shopmates how much she contributed to the maintenance of the family, and how largely ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous

... representation of Vergil.[8] It is the so-called "Brutus." The argument for its attribution deserves serious consideration. The bust, while it shows a far younger man than the African mosaic, reveals the same contour of countenance, of brow, nose, cheeks and chin. Furthermore it is difficult to think of any other Roman in private life who attained to such fame that six marble replicas of his portrait should have survived the omnivorous lime-kilns of the dark ages. The Barrocco museum of Rome ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... marked out in dark contrasting outline upon her pure forehead. On her upper lip, beneath the Grecian nose with its sensitively perfect curve of nostril, there lay a faint, swarthy shadow, the sign-manual of courage; but the enchanting roundness of contour, the frankly innocent expression of her other features, the transparence of the delicate carnations, the voluptuous softness of the lips, the flawless oval of the outline of the face, and with these, and more than all these, the saintlike ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... the eyes, and some of the fastidiousness of earlier days caused him to shrug his shoulders. Yet underneath the tan there was the glow of perfect young health; the eyes were frank, brave, unflinching; while the rounded chin held a world of character in its firm contour. Somehow the sight of this brought back to him that abiding faith in her "dead gameness" which had first awakened his admiration. "She's got it in her," he thought, silently, "and, by thunder! I 'm here to help ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... carefully study the contour of her head from every side; the modelling of her face; the length and inclination of her nose; the setting of her eyes; and the breadth and form of her brow, and adopt a becoming coiffure that will give artistic balance to her face, and never ...
— What Dress Makes of Us • Dorothy Quigley

... are more, indeed, than this. For if we look closer we shall perceive, as in a glass, darkly, the contour of a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... the distances that I could see, as if I had it under my eyes, infinitely enlarged, every contour of the rock which Violante had shown me through the window with the ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... in a low coil in her neck, making the general appearance and contour of her head much as it had been three years before. She wore no jewelry, save the unobtrusive gold buckle at her belt and the plain gold hatpin which fastened her hat. There was nothing about her which marked her as one of the "four hundred." ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... only another woman could have appreciated the remarkable fact that she could wear at thirty-five such a small hat and yet look fresh. Certainly a brim was more flattering to most women of her age, but the contour of Edith's face was still as youthful as ever; she had one of those clearly shaped oval faces that are not disposed to growing thick and broad, or to haggardness. The oval might be a shade wider than it was three years ago; that was all the ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... trench is simple and rectangular in profile. Concealment is indispensable. It is generally concealed by the contour of the ground or by natural features, but to guard against hostile searching fire overhead cover is ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department

... as a matter of protection or as a means of adding warmth to the body. There was no thought given to the necessity for covering the body, for every part of the human anatomy was as commonplace as nose, fingers and toes. But now clothing is commanded as a means of hiding our bodily contour. Prudery has come in and branded the human anatomy as indecent and consequently ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... bosom covered with a fine lace half-body, which came, like the wimple of old mediaeval portraits, up round her throat, and seemed to belong in material and fashion to the clear chin-stay which followed the noble contour of her face, and the picturesque cap which covered, without concealing, her auburn hair and the beautiful ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... no central home to turn to, except what we carry in ourselves. It was a windy day, and, judging by the look of the trees, on the way to Southport, it must be almost always windy, and with the blast in one prevailing direction; for invariably their branches, and the whole contour and attitude of the tree, turn from seaward, with a strangely forlorn aspect. Reaching Southport, we took an omnibus, and under the driver's guidance came to our tall stone house, fronting on the sands, and styled "Brunswick Terrace." . . ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... thinner than he had ever seen her, and her face had grown pale. But the fixed gravity and mournfulness of her expression struck him even more than the sharpened contour of her features or the dark lines beneath her eyes. She looked as if she suffered: as ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... bases of the primaries), the "greater coverts," the "middle coverts," and the "lesser coverts." Forming a vast expansion of the bony and fleshy framework are the quills, or flight-feathers, called collectively the "remiges." These plumes mainly determine the contour of the wing, and constitute a thin, elastic surface for striking the air—one that is sufficiently resilient to give the proper rebound and yet firm enough to support the bird's weight. The longest quills are those that grow on the hand or outer extremity of the wing and ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... nicely set into the shoulders tapering to the head without any loose skin, as found in the Bulldog. SHOULDERS—The shoulders should be strong, muscular, and slanting; the chest wide and deep, with ribs well rounded. BACK—The back short and muscular, but not out of proportion to the general contour of the animal. LEGS—The fore-legs should be perfectly straight, with well-developed muscles; not out at shoulder, but set on the racing lines, and very strong at the pastern joints. The hind-legs are long and, in proportion to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... divided into the Eolithic, Lower Paleolithic, and the Upper Paleolithic. In considering these divisions of relative time cultures, it must be remembered that the only way we have of measuring prehistoric time is through the geological method, based upon the Ice Ages and changes in the physical contour of the earth. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... from his cigar, Wolfe caught with a quick pleasure the contour of the white hand, the blood-glow of a red ring he wore. His voice, too, and that of Kirby's, touched him like music,—low, even, with chording cadences. About this man Mitchell hung the impalpable atmosphere belonging ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... allowance for the address, if not the flattery, of a skilful painter, it were hardly possible for the observer, aware of the blemish, not to detect in the short and close-curled fell of hair, the wild, staring eyes, the contour of the visage,—which, expanding from the narrow and wrinkled forehead into cheek-bones of more than Scottish amplitude, suddenly contracts to a pointed chin, rendered still more acute by a short, peaked beard, —not to detect in this lozenge-shaped visnomy and its air, at once haggard ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... house takes 83 feet and the operating section 117 feet. The operating room occupies the northerly side of the structure and the boiler house the southerly side. The designers were enabled to employ a contour of roof and wall section for the northerly side that was identical with the roof and wall contour of the southerly side, so that the building, when viewed from either end, presents a symmetrical appearance with both sides of the building alike in form and ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous

... despair to joy that a faintness came upon her, and she almost swooned. She saw who the intruder was. For when he stepped into the recess he turned towards her, and the dim light struck upon him and showed her the contour of his face. It was her lover, Harry Wethermill. Why he had come at this hour, and in this strange way, she did not consider. Now she must attract his eyes, now her fear was lest he should not ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason

... body and depresses him. Not so with a Bermuda house. There is something exhilarating, even hilarious, about its vivid whiteness when the sun plays upon it. If it be of picturesque shape and graceful contour—and many of the Bermudian dwellings are—it will so fascinate you that you will keep your eyes on it until they ache. One of those clean-cut, fanciful chimneys—too pure and white for this world —with one side glowing in the sun and the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... would not suffer him to own that he had been so. Mr. Tyson, in a letter to Dr. Glynn,[2] well observed, that he could as soon believe that Hogarth painted the cartoons, as that Chatterton wrote Rowley's poems: yet (he adds) they are as unlike any thing ancient, as Sir Joshua's flowing contour is unlike the squares ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... Squire Western, nourished with beef and ale, and roughly hewn out of the most robust and least refined variety of human clay. Looking at him more narrowly, however, you would have reconsidered this judgment. Though his general contour and aspect were massive and sturdy, the lines of his features were delicately cut; his complexion was remarkably pure and fine, and his face was susceptible of very subtle and sensitive changes of expression. Here was a man of abundant physical ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... at intervals for a distance of a mile or so in order to lower the water. When this section was left behind, he advanced rapidly along the line, for the surface of the gentle crescent swell was smooth, its grade fairly regular, and its contour fixed by nature. Essential points he marked by stones, with merely their surfaces exposed, so that if noticed they would be considered scattered pieces of rock from the hills. At the proper time they would ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... were of heavy physique, but as they sat facing each other an observer would have remarked that Elton's visage possessed a clean-cut compactness of expression despite its rotund contour. His closely trimmed whiskers, his small, clear, penetrating eyes, and the effect of neatness conveyed by his personal appearance were so many external indications of his mental lucidity ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... you about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne, when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity perhaps, and so now you begin again: ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... subsequently in New York—the images coming out, after the long voyage, in all their proper forms and in all their proper contrast of light and shade. The photograph had forgotten nothing. It had equally preserved the contour of the everlasting mountains and the passing ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... in the practice of her profession. Well-developed, feminine in contour, but boyish in manner and movements; strong, though muscles small, and healthy, with sound nervous system; never had anaemia. Thick brown hair; pubic hair thick, and hair on toes and legs up to umbilicus; it began to appear at the age of 10 (before pubic hair) and continued ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and, as an instant protest, twin dimples peeped into life at the left corner of her bonny mouth. In regarding that attractive ripple the down-drawn eyebrows were forgotten until they rose again into their natural arches. A sweet, childish contour of face chimed with her expression; her full lips were bright as the bunch of ripe wood-strawberries at the breast of her cotton gown; her eyes as grey as Dartmoor mists; while, for the rest, a little round chin, a small, straight ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... us (and yet after all we are at it pretty late) are making maps for the hike in imitation of those which the officers have posted for us to study. At the Exchange can be bought contour maps of all this region, covering the whole area of the hike. These we are cutting out in squares and pasting on linen, cheese-cloth, or even mosquito netting. Then we mark on them the camps, the route, and all along the ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French

... appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted (without reference to the question of habiliment at all) in forming an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in addition to the point of general size and contour, he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have been in the ratio of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... minstrelsy is one of the exceptions, and the night-watchman's crying of the hour is another; but these, as Lamb said of Coleridge's philosophic preaching, are "only his fun." The melodies are often quite Weberesque in contour; the harmonies are either plain work-a-day ones or modern—so modern that no one had used them before. Nor it is by the sadness of the music alone that he gains his end: some of the merriest scenes belong, by reason ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... blossom stalk, not holding any constant blue, but paling and purpling to guide the friendly bee to virginal honey sips, or away from the perfected and depleted flower. The length of the blossom stalk conforms to the rounded contour of the plant, and of these there will be a million moving indescribably in the airy current that flows down the swale of ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... Man, without producing a suitable Revolution in his Exteriors, which will easily discover it self to an Adept in the Theory of the Phiz. Hence it is, that the intrinsick Worth and Merit of a Son of Alma Mater is ordinarily calculated from the Cast of his Visage, the Contour of his Person, the Mechanism of his Dress, the Disposition of his Limbs, the Manner of his Gate and Air, with a number of Circumstances of equal Consequence and Information: The Practitioners in this ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... from the Coptic sheune, which is the old-Egyptian shenet. The identity of sheune or shuna with the German "Scheune" is a quaint and curious coincidence. In the illustration of the Shunet ez-Zebib the curved line of crenelated wall, following the contour of the hill, should be noted, as it is a remarkable example of the building of this ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... therefore be that the red colour excites their fury only when wounded or hotly pursued. Herds of lechee or lechwe now enliven the meadows; and they and their younger brother, the graceful poku, smaller, and of a rounder contour, race together towards the grassy fens. We venture to call the poku after the late Major Vardon, a noble-hearted African traveller; but fully anticipate that some aspiring Nimrod will prefer that his own name should go down ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... rift came when Zanetti let Jackson have for a few weeks a drawing by Parmigianino, the Venus and Cupid with a Bow, to be executed in four blocks. The print was done "intirely in Hugo's [da Carpi's] manner, with this Difference, that no Oscuro block has a Contour to resemble the original Drawing it was done from, which is seldom seen in Hugo's works...." Zanetti, surprised by the fine quality of the first proof, proposed to pass it off on Mariette in Paris as an original da Carpi print. He even stained it and cut holes in it to give the impression of aged ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen

... haze. The path by which we had turned our backs on Monty and Kagig went winding away and away below, here and there an infinitesimal thin line of slightly lighter color, but more often suggested by the contour of the hills. Our Zeitoonli in their zeal to return to their leader had been evidently cutting corners. If the smudge of smoke to the right front overhung Marash, then we were probably already nearer Zeitoon than when we ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... the winding, dipping country road presented new beauties to the eyes at every stage. Wade, fresh from the mountains of Colorado, revelled in the softer and gentler loveliness about him. The lush, level meadow, the soft contour of the distant hills, the ever-present murmur and sparkle of running water delighted him even while they brought homesick memories of his own native Virginia. It was a relief to get away from the towering ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour

... four miles it has had. Might be called a perceptibly pot-bellied plain, with more propriety; flat country, slightly puffed up;—in shape not steeper than the mould of an immense tea-saucer would be. Tea-saucer 6 miles in diameter, 100 feet in depth, and of irregular contour, which indeed will sufficiently represent ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... upon his mind a strange conviction—that the man who addressed him was what might only be described as a rational maniac. As the thought came to the ape-man he could not but smile, so paradoxical the description seemed. Yet a closer study of the man's features, carriage, and the contour of his head carried almost incontrovertibly the assurance that he was insane, while the tones of his voice and his gestures resembled those of ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... is not the case," declared the professor, pointing again to the rolling planet they had so strangely left. "The earth is not overbalanced. She still rolls on her proper course, I have no doubt. The breaking away of this island is not a serious matter to the earth as a whole. The contour of the hemispheres is not changed. I showed you how I had traced the outlines of the continent before, even, that I was confident we had ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... corners unchanged for the last thirty years. On that morning in the early days of May, the square, with its sinuous edge, was indeed charming with bustle and light, with the houses which gave it a proper contour, with the double staircase of La Trinite-des-Monts lined with idlers, with the water which gushed from a large fountain in the form of a bark placed in the centre-one of the innumerable caprices in which the fancy of Bernin, that illusive decorator, delighted to indulge. Indeed, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... low in available magnesium and potassium. Tree crops, including peaches, pears, and apples, have shown deficiencies of one or both of these elements. The trees were planted 20 feet apart on the contour in pairs, one of each variety in a plot, with six plots in a row. The 36 two-tree plots were in six rows. Thus, the experiment was arranged in a 6 by 6 Latin square and six fertilizer treatments were used. After planting, the trees ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... summarise the conclusions of a technical but masterly discussion. "The broad general features of the distribution of continent and ocean can be regarded as the consequences of simple causes of a dynamical character," and finally, "As regards the contour of the great ocean basins, we seem to be justified in saying that the earth is approximately an oblate spheroid, but more nearly an ellipsoid with three unequal axes, having its surface furrowed according to the formula for a certain spherical harmonic of the third degree" ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... of geological changes affected neither by shock nor convulsion, nor yet by infinitesimally slow degrees. A few centuries have sufficed to alter the entire contour of the coast and reverse the once brilliant destinies of maritime cities. With the recorded experience of mediaeval writers at hand, we can localize lagoons and inland seas where to-day we find belts of luxuriant cultivation. In a lifetime falling short of the Psalmist's threescore years and ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... a pleasure to me than otherwise. They settled right down to the heart-softening business in such matter-of-fact fashion that their hearts must have lost contour before the voyage was half over. Polly dismissed them from her mind with a sigh of satisfaction, and I then hoped that she would find some time to devote to me, but I was disappointed. She assured me that those two ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... well. It was very dark and we could not see where we were going, as the sand had covered up the track. We were among a lot of confused sand hills, and the high mountains stood directly in front like a formidable black barrier, their contour line ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... even when it expressed perplexed irritation her face was most interesting and agreeable. Neither was she in her first youth; yet, though slender, with a great deal of extremely well-fashioned roundness of contour—a suggestion both of maturity and flexibility—she carried her three and thirty years as a light-wristed Hebe might have carried a brimming wine-cup. Her complexion was fatigued, as the French say; her mouth was large, her ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... slightest effort. Yet the prognosis of a curb can not be considered to be serious, as it generally yields to treatment, or at least the lameness it may occasion is generally easily relieved, though the loss of contour caused by the bulging will always ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... hand." In Op. 10 there are three studies especially noteworthy for their musical beauty. The third (Lento ma non troppo, in E major) and the sixth (Andante, in E flat minor) may be reckoned among Chopin's loveliest compositions. They combine classical chasteness of contour with the fragrance of romanticism. And the twelfth study (Allegro con fuoco, in C minor), the one composed at Stuttgart after the fall of Warsaw, how superbly grand! The composer seems to be fuming with rage: the left hand ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... two met, and Joan saw a worn, kindly face, endowed with a quiet charm of expression and delicacy of contour that offered a marked contrast to the man's unprepossessing features. Both women were too well bred to stare, and Joan instantly brought her wits to bear on Poluski's quip; but that fleeting glimpse had thrilled her with subtle recognition of something grasped ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... human frame offers a finer subject for the display of decorative taste and elegance than the hair:—the countenance, the contour of the head, and even the whole person, may be said to be greatly affected by its arrangement and dress. As the possession of fine hair is peculiarly prized, so ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady

... little wife's face a great rushing, flushing wave of tenderness blocked out for a second all trace of the cruel, slim scar that marred the perfect contour ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... number of germs that were present in the milk drop. If the plate is not too thickly sown with these germs, the colonies will continue to grow and increase in size, and as they do, minute differences will begin to appear. These differences may be in the color, the contour and the texture of the colony, or the manner in which it acts toward gelatin. In order to make sure that the seeding in not too copious so as to interfere with continued study, an attenuation is usually made. This consists ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell

... girl and took his first look at this latest victim of mental or moral aberration. So young! so innocent! so fair! A schoolgirl, or little more, of a class certainly above the average, whether judged from the contour of her features or the niceties of her dress. With no evidences of great wealth about her, there was yet something in the cut of her garments and the careful attention to each detail which bespoke not only ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... general contour of the surrounding region, that if the ice were all melted away it would be seen that a cape projected from the American continent eastward at the point where they had entered the polar sea, and that it was in ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton

... rise. He felt that the task would be difficult of accomplishment—that he must be not only the architect, but the builder of his own fortunes; and, as the statue grows beneath the sculptor's hand to perfect contour from the unshapely block of marble, so prosperity came to Captain Glazier only after he had cut and chiseled away at the hard surface of inexorable circumstance, and moulded therefrom the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... herself of her upper garment, she put on a thin, but strong, and admirably formed corselet, made so as to fit the precise contour of her ample bust, and completely to cover her bosom. Then she assumed a black velvet robe, which reached up to her throat, and entirely concealed the armor beneath. Her long flexible dagger was next thrust carefully into a sheath formed by the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... Bay contains a submerged territory is widely known, and strangely enough seems to be corroborated by the shape of the coast-line, the contour of which suggests the subsidence of a large body of land. Like their brothers of Ireland, the fishermen of Wales assert that at low tide they can see the ruins of ancient edifices far down beneath the ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... The first English translator curiously gives "a tourene of bouilli that weighed two hundred pounds," as the equivalent of "un contour bouilli qui pesait deux cent livres." The French editor of the 1869 reprint points out that the South American vulture, or condor, is meant; the name of this bird, it may be added, is taken from "cuntur," that given ...
— Candide • Voltaire

... as likely to be occupied by sea as uninhabited land. The object of the geographer is to describe known countries. Those which are unknown he passes over equally with those beyond the limits of the inhabited earth. It will, therefore, be sufficient for describing the contour of the island we have been speaking of, if we join by a right line the outmost points which, up to this time, have been explored by voyagers along the coast ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... reply, but sat looking at her, drinking in her beauty in a long, full draught. How can I describe her? Her form was graceful in every line; her face perfect in its contour, open, finely-moulded, and with a marvellous complexion—a calm, sweet countenance that reminded one of Raphael's "Madonna" in Florence, indeed almost its counterpart. Her beauty had been remarked everywhere. She had sat to a well-known R.A. for his Academy picture two ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... young child; but in the main he lay like a giant, bound by invisible and invincible bonds; speechless, motionless, seeking through his large, pathetic eyes the help and comfort of those who bent over him. He had quite lost the fine, firm contour of his face, his ruddy color was all gone; indeed, the country expression of "face of clay," best of all words described the colorless, still countenance amid the white pillows ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... though it was. In spite of her embarrassment she let none of his features escape her quickening interest. She saw that he was tall, erect, alert; handsome in some strange and half-repellent way, with his pale dark face, rather long in contour, and with his black, curly hair matted on the broad forehead. But she almost recoiled when, on his drawing nearer, she saw for the first time—it had been hidden by the shadow of his slouched hat—an ugly scar that ran from the outer corner of his left eye ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham

... sleeping Venus, sir? Nothing can be more delicate than the entire contour of the figure, the flow of the hair on the shoulders and neck, the form of the feet and fingers. It is altogether ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... ebony and ivory, for use over the face and neck, for preventing and removing wrinkles, and restoring its contour and form. ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... Oriental paused. He put up his hand and passed his fingers over his face. The gaunt hand contrasted with the full contour. ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... a stone of a given spread the deeper the color will be. The color may also be deepened by giving to the stone a rounded contour, both above and below the girdle, and facetting it in steps instead of in the brilliant form. Increasing the number of steps also serves to slightly deepen the color, as a larger number of reflections is thus obtained within the material, the light thus has to travel a greater distance ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade

... could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey: the width and flatness of frontal—the tapering elegance of contour disguising the strength of the deadly jaw—the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the emerald—and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the consciousness ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner

... over a foot higher than halfway up. Look at your own writing desk; your own door. Furthermore, he was nine feet and eleven inches in a straight line from nose to end of tail, or over eleven feet along the contour of the back. If he were to rise on his hind feet to strike a man down, he would stand somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, depending on how nearly he straightened up. He weighed just under six hundred pounds, or as much as four well-grown specimens of our own "mountain lion." ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... of the wall were then replaced by an open viaduct, with the piers placed edgeways to the sea, the openings between them being spanned by ten cast-iron girders each 42 feet long. This accident induced the engineer to alter the contour of the sea wall, so that it should present a diminished resistance to the force of the waves. But the sea repeated its assaults, and made further havoc with the work; entailing heavy expenses and a complete reorganisation of the contract. Increased solidity was ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... much-bedaubed, long-sleeved aprons, and working away at a portrait head, they had little thought for anything but the task in hand. The one vital matter for the moment was the mixing and applying of their colours, and, in their eagerness to reproduce the exact contour of a cheek, or the precise shadow of an unbeautiful nose, they would hardly have transferred their attention from the most ill-favoured model to the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... contour. Small and delicately fair, soft bands of light-brown hair shaded the low, smooth brow and large gray eyes, and the full red lips were tremulous with varying expression. Her hands and figure were of the same delicate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... I do not know anything about my expression, although I observe it is this that is particularly dwelt upon if one is sufficiently plain; but I hope, when you feel as kindly towards your fellow-creatures as I do, that some of that warmth may modify an otherwise bright and rather knifey CONTOUR. ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... attack must be made from the rear. Backward, like a crab he wriggled free of the golden-rod, and hidden by the contour of the hill, raced down it and into the woods on the hill opposite. When he came to within twenty feet of the oak beneath which he had seen the stranger, he stood erect, and as though avoiding a live wire, stepped ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... way through the path-fields to the cowshed; she was gathering, in the fading light of an October evening, the belated stars of the grass of Parnassus, and strapped to her shoulders was the "budget," shaped to the contour of the back, and into which the milk was poured from the pails. It was a heavy load for a girl of twelve, but she was used to it, and did not grumble. Her father was dead, all the day-tale men had been called up, and ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman

... employed the very little while we were awake between bed and dinner in poring upon maps. I have always been fond of maps, and can voyage in an atlas with the greatest enjoyment. The names of places are singularly inviting; the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to the eye; and to hit, in a map, upon some place you have heard of before makes history a new possession. But we thumbed our charts on these evenings with the blankest unconcern. We ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... string like a child's toy, with dun-coloured hair lying thin and soft at the back and sides of his head; his forehead was so large it seemed to overbalance the rest of his face, which had, indeed, lost its natural contour by the absence of all the teeth. The eyes absolutely gleamed with intelligence; so keen, so observant, you felt as if they were almost wizard-like. Indeed, the whole room looked not unlike a wizard's dwelling. Instead of pictures were hung rude wooden ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... moon had found its way through a filigree of boughs. Faintly its exploring ray lighted the contour of that shrouded head, touched the lovely curves of her arched brows and the tender pallor of the skin about those great wells of dark eyes.... From his own eyes a flame seemed to pass into hers.... Breathlessly they gazed at each other ... like dim shadows in a ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... latter days, when all strong-mindedness is presumed to be foreshadowed in a stiff beard. Time was when something could be inferred from a lip, a mouth, a chin,—when character could be found in the contour and color of a cheek; but that time has passed. The time was, when, among a homogeneous people, a few time-honored characteristics were both relied on and insisted on: for example, good parentage, good moral character, a thorough ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... suddenly upon the gray stone. It startled her, for its rude contour, standing up in the pale moonlight, put on the appearance of a woman. She thought she was discovered, and she heard a noise; but another glance reassured her. She recognized the stone, and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... is game. It isn't so, unless he is a mere animated stomach; the many think they have come into their own as they go to sea, the vibration of the triple-screws singing along the keel.... They pass an iceberg or a derelict, some contour of tropical shore, a fishing fleet, or an old fore-and-after, and the steamer is a stifling modern metropolis after that—galley and stoke-hole its slums. Then and there, they vow some time really to go ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... eye—an eye sharp and severe with pecuniary speculation; that looks at an oak or elm with no artist's reverence; that darts a hard, dry, timber-estimating glance at the trunk and branches; that looks at the circumference of its cold shadow on the earth beneath, not at the grand contour and glorious leafage of its boughs above. The farmer who was taking us over his large and highly-cultivated fields, was a man of wide intelligence, of excellent tastes, and the means wherewithal to give them free scope and play. His ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... the northerly cottonwoods two miles away we found other men with scrapers throwing up the irrigation checks along the predetermined contour lines. By means of these irregular meandering earthworks the water, admitted from the ditch to the upper end of the field, would work its way slowly from level to level instead of running off or making channels for itself. This job, too, was a dusty one. We could see the smoke of it rising from ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... his shoulder, her face is upturned to his; her naked arm is almost around his neck; her swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his; face to face they whirl, his limbs interwoven with her limbs; with strong right arm about her yielding waist, he presses her to him till every curve in the contour of her lovely body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears nothing; swiftly he whirls her from the floor or bends her frail body to ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... Our everydav aesthetic judgments are wont to leave the attributes thus vaguely referred to the concrete object. Yet it is equally certain that we not infrequently speak of the beauty of some definable aspect to, or quality of an object, as when we pronounce the contour of a mountain or of a vase to be beautiful. And it may be asked whether, in thus localizing beauty, so to speak, in one of the constituent qualities of an object, we always place it in the same quality. A mere glance at the facts ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... was sad—a quiet sadness, as of regret which held no bitterness. The cheek, upon which the dark fringe of lashes rested, was white and thin having lost the tint and contour of perfect health. But, every now and then, during those hours of retrospection, the wistful droop of the sweet expressive mouth curved into a smile, and a dimple peeped out unexpectedly, giving a look of youthfulness ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... the present buildings, which were erected from the designs of Mr. J.A. Cossins, who chose the 13th century style, with elaborations of a French character, its stone balconies, lofty gables, oriel and dormer windows, picturesque turrets, and numberless architectural enrichments, forming a contour quite unique in the Birmingham district, though much of its beauty is lost through the narrowness of the thoroughfare. The College is built in two blocks communicating by corridors, and contains several lecture and other large rooms, laboratories, class-rooms, &c., so ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... end is artificial, including part of the roof over the well. Take a look. It's mortarless stonework. No wonder the face was so seamed on the outside. Whoever did this was a terrific mason, because he selected rocks—probably from the mine itself—that duplicated the contour of the hill. But why go to all the trouble? That's ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... the mould, painting and finishing as before when completely dry. By this means the contour of large fish is absolutely reproduced and the finished work is extremely ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... sweet coquetry was expended in trying to look her best for her father; and her best was very well, for though the brilliant bloom of health was gone, her cheeks had not lost their pretty rounded contour, and still had some rosiness, while her large bright blue eyes smiled and sparkled. A screen shut out the rest of the room, making a sort of little parlour round the fire, where sundry of the family were visiting her after coming home from church in the afternoon. Ethel was in a vehement ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... "and—How dy, Dick! is that you?" The interruption was caused by her recognition of the ostler, and she lounged into the room. In spite of a skimp, slatternly gown, whose straight skirt clung to her lower limbs, there was a quaint, nymph-like contour to her figure. Whether from languor, ill-health, or more probably from a morbid consciousness of her own height, she moved with a slightly affected stoop that had become a habit. It did not seem ungraceful to Hale, already attracted by her delicate profile, her large dark ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... the Mississippi washes for the last time the base of the high and steep bluffs that for so many hundreds of miles have followed the coasts of the great river and formed the contour of its left bank, overlooking its swift yellow waters and the vast lowlands of the western shore. The bluff is lower at Baton Rouge than it is above and slopes more gently to the water's edge; and here the highland ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... solid in shading stitch in blue with brown satin stitch edge, the veining is brown as is also the contour of the upper point. ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands

... handsome woman. Yet she wore that peculiar long, limp, formless house-shawl which in certain phases of Anglo-Saxon spinster and widowhood assumes the functions of the recluse's veil and announces the renunciation of worldly vanities and a resigned indifference to external feminine contour. The most audacious masculine arm would shrink from clasping that shapeless void in which the flatness of asceticism or the heavings of passion might alike lie buried. She had also in some mysterious way imported into the fresh and pleasant room a certain bombaziny shadow of the past, and a suggestion ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the height of our eyes. Great waves of glitter blew lightly along the pitted dark surface, as swift as feathers chased by the breeze. A chain of islands sat broken and massive facing the wide estuary, displayed in a sheet of pale glassy water reflecting faithfully the contour of the shore. High in the colourless sunshine a solitary bird, all black, hovered, dropping and soaring above the same spot with a slight rocking motion of the wings. A ragged, sooty bunch of flimsy mat hovels ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy's persistent presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... rains in each district from the region of the Sadds to the Little Borillos; there was not a canal, from the small Bahr Shebin to the big Rayeh Menoufieh or the majestic Ibrahimieh, whose slope, mean velocity and discharge he did not know; and he carried in his mind every drainage cut and contour from Tamis to Damanhur, from Cairo to Beltim. He knew neither amusement nor society, for every waking hour was spent in the study of the Nile and what the Nile ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... was fixed horizontally (by the aid of a spirit- level) across a third fallen stone, which was 7 feet 9 inches long; and the contour of the projecting parts and of the adjoining ground, which was not quite level, was thus ascertained, as shown in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 7) on a scale of 0.5 inch to a foot. The turf-covered border sloped up to the ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin

... to a lope, and with the subdued rhythm of the pony's feet came Euterpe with a song. Recitation of verse at a lope is apt to be punctuated according to the physical contour ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs

... of this melee one woman, whose eyes and facial contour betrayed Chinese blood, but who was very comely and neat, pushed forward and pointing to the glittering center of attraction repeated ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... mother. The younger son had scarcely told his ninth year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending half-way down the shoulders; the rich and delicate bloom that exhibits at once the hardy health and the gentle fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features; altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as yet, has her darling all to herself—her toy, her plaything—were visible in the large falling collar of finest ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... well remembers how the great sand dunes used to shine in the sunlight, when he first saw them a third of a century ago. In coming from Fort Leavenworth up the Smoky Hill route to the Santa Fe Trail, where the former joined the latter at Pawnee Rock, the contour of the Arkansas could be easily traced by the white sand hills referred to, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... horse of the old dispensation that have actually come into operation, are the suburban railways, which render possible an average door to office hour's journey of ten or a dozen miles—further only in the case of some specially favoured localities. The star-shaped contour of the modern great city, thrusting out arms along every available railway line, knotted arms of which every knot marks a station, testify sufficiently to the relief of pressure thus afforded. Great ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells



Words linked to "Contour" :   crooked, thalweg, feature, isometric line, dullness, stratification, isometric, bluntness, delineate, concaveness, convexity, concavity, curvature, spatiality, outline, keenness, straightness, limn, roundness, sharpness, spatial property, angularity, characteristic, lobularity, straight, curve, contour sheet, streamline, contour language, crookedness, topography, narrowing, convexness



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