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Fissure   /fˈɪʃər/   Listen
Fissure

verb
1.
Break into fissures or fine cracks.



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"Fissure" Quotes from Famous Books



... under the spell of Parson Dorrance's recent words to sympathize in this; but she had already learned to avoid dissent from Stephen's opinions, and she made no reply. They were sitting on the edge of a great fissure in the mountain. Some terrible convulsion must have shaken the huge mass to its centre, to have made such a rift. At the bottom ran a stream, looking from this height like little more than a silver thread. Shrubs and low flowering ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

... towards one of the dens formerly occupied by the wild beasts, and disclosed to us a set of beings scarcely less savage. The sombre walls of the gloomy abode were illumined by a fire the smoke from which escaped through a deep fissure in the mossy roof; whilst the flickering flames threw a blood-red glare on the bronzed features of a group of children, of two men, and a decrepit old hag, who appeared busily engaged ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... Warrangilla are haunted by two women, who tradition says were buried alive. Their spirits have never rested, but come out at all times from the huge fissure in the ridges where their bodies were put. Their anguished cries as the stones and earth fell on them are still to be heard echoing through the scrub there; and sometimes it is said one, keener sighted than ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... Teutonic stamp of civilization which these districts have received, would greatly facilitate the eastward extension of the German Empire; while their common religions, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, would help obliterate the old political fissure. Thus the borderland of a country, so markedly differentiated from its interior, performs a certain historical function, and becomes, as it were, an organ of the living, growing race ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... described than in Southey's verses, though it is worthy of better poetry than that. After all, I do not know that the cascade is anything more than a beautiful fringe to the grandeur of the scene; for it is very grand,—this fissure through the cliff,—with a steep, lofty precipice on the right hand, sheer up and down, and on the other hand, too, another lofty precipice, with a slope of its own ruin on which trees and shrubbery have grown. The right-hand precipice, ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... twisted together. Again it might be seen in the semblance of a collection of organ-pipes, or accumulated into mounds and cones of various dimensions. As our travellers moved forward, they felt that the lava grew hotter and hotter, and from every fissure issued gaseous fumes, which seriously affected their noses and throats; till, at last, when passed to leeward of the lava-river rolling from the lake, they were almost suffocated by the vapour, and it was with difficulty they pursued their advance. The lava was more glassy and ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... manner, more than half way along the stick, without encountering anything but the edges of the rocks. An inch or two further on, however, my patience was rewarded. In a narrow little fissure, just within reach of my forefinger, I felt the chain. Attempting, next, to follow it, by touch, in the direction of the quicksand, I found my progress stopped by a thick growth of seaweed—which had fastened itself into the fissure, no doubt, in the time that had elapsed since Rosanna Spearman ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... difficulty would not occur again they pushed on, but had not gone far when another, and still more impassable, fissure presented itself. ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... pronounced themselves in the most unmistakable manner. As an example we may take the lines of cleavage which have shown themselves in the two great churches, the Congregational and the Presbyterian, and the very distinct fissure which is manifest in the transplanted Anglican church of this country. Recent circumstances have brought out the fact of the great change in the dogmatic communities which has been going on silently but surely. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... failed to convert one another to each other's views. When he became a member of 'The Disciples,' a mystic Oxbridge society, the fissure between us widened to a gulf. We nodded when we met, but that was all. With Girdelstone I was not on speaking terms. So when I found Monteagle on my threshold ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... fissure, breach, rent, split, rift, crack, slit, incision. dissection anatomy; decomposition &c. 49; cutting instrument &c (sharpness) 253; buzzsaw, circular saw, rip saw. separatist. V. be disjoined &c.; come off, fall off, come ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... of December, about the warmest period of the year, during my rambles through the forest in search of insects, I met with this manna in the above-mentioned state, but could never find in any part of the bark a fissure or break whence such a substance could flow. Wherever it appeared, moreover, the red-eyed cicadae were in abundance. I was inclined to think that the puncture produced by these suctorial insects into the tender ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... have adopted into their respective languages. Though a certain resemblance exists among all these fiords, each has its own characteristics. The sea has everywhere forced its way as through a breach, yet the rocks about each fissure are diversely rent, and their tumultuous precipices defy the rules of geometric law. Here the scarp is dentelled like a saw; there the narrow ledges barely allow the snow to lodge or the noble crests of the Northern pines to spread themselves; farther on, some convulsion ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac

... away," he cried out. Jerry did as he was told, and was dragged on to firm ground. The ground had given way just as if it had been a piece of egg-shell. Probably it had been formed by a sheet of lava flowing rapidly over some fissure without filling it up. Jerry was most thankful for his preservation, but he had too much spirit to wish to go back, and insisted on proceeding on to the borders of the liquid fiery lake. Before us, amidst the burning expanse, rose two lofty cones, one of them insulated, the other joined ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston

... pretty little village of Evanton, and pursued the course of the river Auldgrande, first through intermingled fields and patches of copsewood, and then through a thick fir wood, to where the bed of the stream contracts from a boulder-strewed bottom of ample breadth, to a gloomy fissure, so deep and dark, that in many places the water cannot be seen, and so narrow, that the trees which shoot out from the opposite sides interlace their branches atop. Large banks of the gray boulder-clay, laid open by the river, and charged with fragments of dingy sandstone ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... the sudden jagged flash of an explosion lit up the black smoke of burning buildings and fields in the valley, or showed the white puff-like low clouds of the bursting shrapnel. Not for an instant did the roar diminish, not for a second was the kindly veil of night left unrent by a fissure of vengeful flame. Yet, all night long, as ceaselessly as the great guns poured out their angry fury, so did men pour out their indomitable will, and in that hell light of battle flame engineers labored to construct bridges, small bodies of troops ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... is the division in the middle line of the frog. In healthy feet, it consists of only a slight depression. In a disease, called "thrush," of the sensitive part which secretes the frog, the cleft forms a deep, damp and foul-smelling fissure, and the frog becomes more or less shrivelled up. The frog similar to the skin of the palms of our hands, requires frequent pressure to make it thick and strong. The horn of the hoof is merely a modification ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... from a favorite among the men; they teased, and played practical jokes upon him. Sunday was his only day of rest and relaxation. Then, with one of Dr. Rivals' books, Jack sought a quiet nook on the bank of the river. He had found a deep fissure in the rocks, where he sat quite concealed from view, his book open on his knee, the rush, the magic, and the extent of the water before him. The distant church-bells rang out praises to the Lord, and all ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... suggests more than even a free translation can express. War['e] means "I," or "mine," or "one's own," etc., according to circumstances; and war['e] m['e] (written separately) might be rendered "its own eyes." But war['e]m['e] (one word) means a crack, rent, split, or fissure. The reader should remember that the term saka-bashira means not only "upside-down post," but also the goblin or ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... and pout, by carpenter's measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more. A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped. The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... fear that the cliff might cave in. Indeed, the cliffs all around were cracked off, and in some places leaning over, apparently ready to fall; and even at the spot where the spectators stood looking into the crater, there was a fissure running along parallel to the cliff, some feet behind them. At first Mr. George was afraid ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott

... through ore-bodies of fissure origin with most regularity on lines parallel to the strike and dip, an equal portion of ore from every point along cross-sections at right angles to the strike will represent fairly well the average ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... dead when they rolled him over. The gun, an old-fashioned, heavy-weighted muzzle-loader, lay near him. Steel and wood had parted company. Near the butt of the right-hand barrel, with lips pressed outward, gaped a fissure several inches in length. The sailor picked it up, curiously. A glittering stream of yellow dust ran out through the crack. The facts of the case ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... the bottom of a rock-walled fissure, about six feet wide by twenty feet in length. There was no way to climb out of this natural prison, for its granite sides, fifteen feet in height, were without crack, projection, or other foothold; ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... certain township, in which the minerals occur. And if they do succeed in finding this, it is seldom that the portion in which the mineral occurs, which is generally some small inconspicuous vein or fissure, is found; and even in this it is generally difficult to recognize and isolate the mineral from the extraneous matter holding it. As an instance of this I might cite thus: Dana, in his text book on mineralogy, will mention the locality for a certain species, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... noticing that there was a fissure similar to that which formed the pass on the other side, and, being curious to see what was down there, he made his ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout

... the bulwark of the vessel. The alley from the gate ran on between houses abutting the towers. A ball from one of Mahommed's largest guns had passed through the right-hand building, leaving a ragged fissure. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... you come hither, Jack with the Bear's Ear, and why dost thou thus waste my property?" Whereupon she began to lick with her tongue about the post, and no sooner did her tongue arrive at the fissure than Jack snatched the wedge from out of the post, and having entrapped her tongue he leaped up from the perch, and scourged her with the iron rods until she begged that he would let her go, promising that he should be in peace from her ...
— The Story of Yvashka with the Bear's Ear • Anonymous

... above, that told that its day of fall was decreed at last, rose high from the abyss of the hollow, high and far-seen amidst the trees that stood on the vantage-ground above,—even as a great name soars the loftier when it springs from the grave. A dark and irregular fissure gave entrance to the heart of the oak. The boy glided in and looked round; he saw nothing, yet something there must be. The rays of the early sun did not penetrate into the hollow, it was as dim as a cave. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... spoke I lit the lamp again and held it just above a tiny fissure in the rock. It was ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... an hour's search, they found a point where the descent seemed practicable. A little stream had worn a deep fissure in the face of the rock. Shrubs and bushes had grown up in the crevices and afforded a hold for the hands, and there appeared no great difficulty in getting down. Before starting they cut three stiff slender rods twelve feet in length. They then set to work to make the descent. It ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty

... placed as to penetrate small holes made in little sticks, one of which was cut into the shape here exactly copied (Fig. 55). The short end of the stick beyond the hole was purposely split, but not the opposite [page 75] end. As the wood was highly elastic, the split or fissure closed immediately after being made. After six days the stick and bean were dug out of the damp sand, and the radicle was found to be much enlarged above and beneath the hole. The fissure which was at first quite closed, was now open to a width of 4 ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin

... the dull scarlet light that filtered through the lowered blinds; and through the fissure between the last blind and the sash a shaft of wan light entered like a spear and touched the embossed brasses of the candlesticks upon the altar that gleamed like the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... territory, which they named Crown Prince Rudolf Land, the habitation of millions of sea-birds, and thousands of bears, seals, and foxes. A great glacier was crossed, but as it was quitted an immense fissure engulfed the sleigh with the stores, while the others only narrowly escaped by cutting the traces. Lieutenant Payer hurried back for assistance, and at length dogs, men, and sleigh were pulled up, safe and nearly sound. Rounding Auk Cape, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... two of these may, with great probability, be regarded as coats of the nucleus; while in Podocarpus and Dacrydium, the outer cupula, as I formerly termed it,* may also, perhaps, be viewed as the testa of the ovulum. To this view, as far as relates to Dacrydium, the longitudinal fissure of the outer coat in the early stage, and its state in the ripe fruit, in which it forms only a partial covering, may be objected.** But these objections are, in a great measure, removed by the analogous structure already ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... but not the table's. However, it is not a bad illustration, Dora. When beds of rock are only interrupted by a fissure, but remain at the same level, like the two halves of the table, it is not called a fault, but only a fissure; but if one half of the table be either tilted higher than the other, or pushed to the side, so that ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... ground-plan of the house and the inclosures round it. It frightened him to see how the huge masses of rock and old forest-growths hung over the home below. As he descended a little and drew near the ledge of evil name, he was struck with the appearance of a long narrow fissure that ran parallel with it and above it for many rods, not seemingly of very old standing,—for there were many fibres of roots which had evidently been snapped asunder when the rent took place, and some of which were still succulent in ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... darkness Punctured by needle lights Through a fissure of brick canyon shutting out stars, And a sliver of moon Spigoting two high ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill

... ranged from the washtub size made by the 75's to the great fissure-torn holes made by the big naval guns, and which would make an ample cellar for an ordinary dwelling house. I have seen horses which had fallen into these great holes shot and covered over because they could not be gotten ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West

... extremity of this great fissure, or opening in the cliff, a small stream of water enters by a cascade, flows through the bottom, winding in a varied course of about a quarter of a mile in length; and then runs into the sea across a smooth expanse of firm, hard sand, at the lower extremity of the chasm. At this point, the sides ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... ignited. Herr M. then threw in a cigar, which also burst into a flame. The heat proceeding from these clefts was so great, that we could not bear to hold our hands there for an instant. At one place, near a fissure, we laid our ears to the ground, and could hear a rushing bubbling sound as though water was boiling beneath us. There was really much to see in this hell, without the discomfort of being enveloped in the offensive sulphurous ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... subterranean passage—in the time of Trajan, he has informed me, a public conduit, but long since much choked and dry—by which one may pass from the city under and beyond the lines of the Roman intrenchments, emerging into a deep ravine or fissure, grown thickly over with vines and olives. Once it was of size sufficient to admit an elephant with his rider; now, he says, has it become so obstructed, and in some places so fallen in, that it is with difficulty that a dromedary of but the common size can force ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... disassociated itself from the noises in his head; and he eagerly raised his head. His eyes swept over a far and wide expanse of snow, a dish-like plateau among the hills. His heart leaped; for through the centre of the plateau ran a black fissure, like a crack in the dish; and off to the left a fleecy cloud rose lazily from the gorge, blushing pinkly in the light of the setting sun. This must mark the falls; the Death River lay ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... on, and at length, hand in hand, even where no steep step or wide fissure gave reason for the clasp. But she seemed unconscious. They were nearing the last height, a bare eminence, when she broke from him and ran up the smooth stone. When he surmounted it she was standing on the very summit, her arms wide, her full breast heaving, her slender body straight as an Indian's, ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... interesting monastic establishment: ascending from our camp along the ridge by a narrow path, cut here and there into steps, and passing many rocks covered with inscriptions, broken walls of mendongs, and other remains of the via sacra between the village and temple. At one spot we found a fissure emitting hot vapour of the temperature of 65.5 degrees, that of the air being about 50 degrees. It was simply a hole amongst the rocks; and near the Rungeet a similar one is said to occur, whose temperature fluctuates considerably with the season. It ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... thing for us to do is to find some way of climbing up to that same fissure," the leader explained, showing that he meant to lose no time in trying to open negotiations with the unknown denizens of the quarry, whose actions were becoming more and more mysterious ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson

... dungeon; but whether the smooth and sloping surface of this particular portion of the rock was natural or artificial, that is, whether it had been expressly made so to form a bed for the poor condemned criminal, or whether the rock had accidentally broken into that form by means of some natural fissure, and so had been appropriated by the governor of the castle to that use, the ...
— Rollo in Geneva • Jacob Abbott

... age, paralysis, lead poisoning and some troubles of local origin, like fissure of the rectum, ulceration, stricture ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Note.) left for the final cotton plug. Certainly no foe will break in through the double rampart; but he will make an insidious attack from the rear. The Leucopsis will come and, with her long probe, thanks to some imperceptible fissure in the tube, will insert her dread eggs and destroy every single inhabitant of the fortress. Thus are the Manicate Anthidium's anxious ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... threw their white foam over my coat as they sprang to seize me, and their teeth clashed together like the spring of a fox-trap. Had my skates failed for one instant, had I tripped on a stick, or had my foot been caught in a fissure, the story I am now telling ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... was occupied by Europeans. Hot springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires. This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in consequence we find a number of these vents—as volcanic mountains may be styled—in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you came along. But there is supposed ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... a red and bare appearance, owing to the alternate action of summer sun and winter frost. As the slopes approach the valley they become clothed with a garb of wild vegetation, which bursts forth from every fissure, and finds a foothold on every projecting rock: the base of the mountain is hidden in a tangled mass of glowing green, which the moist yet sunny Spring calls forth in abundance whenever the slopes are not too steep to retain a shallow layer of nourishing mould. It would be hard to find, even ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... and almost throwing him from his feet! Before he could recover himself, the surface again heaved up, and a loud report was heard, like the explosion of some terrible engine. Then another upheaval—another report—the ground opened into a long fissure—the staging of palms, and the half-burned cinders, and the charred monkey, were flung in all directions, and Guapo himself ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... bears the same name. At a point on the river about forty miles from the sea, where the first houses come into view, there can be seen rising above the level of the forests the summits of two steep hills very close together, and separated by what looks like a deep fissure, the cleavage of some mighty stroke. As a matter of fact, the valley between is nothing but a narrow ravine; the appearance from the settlement is of one irregularly conical hill split in two, and with the two halves leaning slightly apart. On the third day after the full, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... was light enough for them to see what changes the night had brought, they found that all the creeks and channels were open far out to sea, but in the bay where they were frozen in not a fissure could be seen in the ice, which lay ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof

... itself down in the end merely to this—how long is it credible that a cold-blooded creature might sustain life in a torpid or hibernating condition, without food, and with a very small quantity of fresh air, supplied (let us say) from time to time through an almost imperceptible fissure? It is well known that reptiles and amphibians are particularly tenacious of life, and that some turtles in particular will live for months, or even for years, without tasting food. The common Greek tortoise, hawked on barrows about the streets of London ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... at first sight, an ideal method of drawing patterns, and it has for years been the only method practiced on machines. It has two disadvantages. The patterns are separated from the stripping plate by the necessary joint fissure between the two. Fine sand continually falls into this and, adhering to the joint surfaces more or less, grinds the fissure wider. This leads to a gradual reduction of size of patterns on vertical surfaces and a widening of the joint fissure often to such an ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various

... and pushed the river boldly into a curve, as abrupt almost as the one it took in an opposite direction a quarter of a mile below. Here the shore was bold and beautiful. The sheer rock sprang up two hundred feet from the very bosom of the river, a smooth perpendicular wall; sometimes broken with a fissure and an out-jutting ledge, in other parts only roughened with lichens; then breaking away into a more irregular and wood-lined shore; but with this variety keeping its bold front to the river for many an oar's length. Probably as bold and more deep below the surface, for in this place was the strength ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... the fissure, lean over the brink of the precipice, and look downward, a little to the left, on the belt of woods which covers the strand between the water and the base of the cliffs. Here a gang of axe-men are at work, and Point Levi ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... The feathery white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, fantastic shapes, no longer capped the crater; its place had been usurped by thick, dark fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In the fading light I marked the red, malignant glow of a fissure newly broken out in the side of the ragged cone, from which came a thin, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... if he be wise, he will not choose To find the doubtful way alone, lest night O'ertake him wandering, and her icy breath Chill him to marble; not alone will risk His foot unwonted on the glassy bed Of rifted glacier, lest a step amiss Should hurl him headlong down some fissure dark, That yawns unseen—thence to arise no more. But, furnished with a trusty guide, he mounts From peak to peak in safety, though with toil. Once on the lofty summit, he beholds A glory in earth's kingdom all ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various

... seeing them gathering up the glittering scales with great eagerness, came forward, and with his hatchet struck a few heavy blows against a fragment that projected from a fissure in the rock, when it split from the solid mass, and revealed the precious ore, intermixed with quartz rock; then turning away with disdain, left them to amuse themselves, and took up his ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... park; now paralleling its convolutions, and now cutting diagonals. Late in the afternoon we came to the end of the park land. A more or less precipitous formation of glistening quartz marked its boundary, and into a fissure of this the stream, now a small river, plunged with accelerated speed. The going became difficult. The walls of the fissure through which the river rushed were smooth and water-worn, impossible to ascend; and between the brink of the river and the base of the walls ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... swiftly into obscurity. I found that she had turned towards me then, and, as I laid one hand across her arm, I felt her relax to a relieved trembling. Before us the night crowded down over the countryside, masking its ugliness like a film, through which our lights cut a white fissure ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Killingworth mine. The pitmen used to expostulate with him on these occasions, believing his experiments to be fraught with danger. One of the sinkers, observing him holding up lighted candles to the windward of the "blower" or fissure from which the inflammable gas escaped, entreated him to desist; but Stephenson's answer was, that "he was busy with a plan by which he hoped to make his experiments useful for preserving men's lives." On ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... when her quick, rustic ear caught the tinkling of water. Yet it was not so easy to discover, and she was getting footsore and tired again before she found it, some distance away, in a gully coming from a fissure in a dislocated piece of outcrop. It was beautifully clear, cold, and sparkling, with a slightly sweetish taste, yet unlike the brackish "alkali" of the plains. It refreshed and soothed her greatly, so much that, reclining against ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... station, who had come off to us on our first arrival in the bay. They received us with the utmost confidence and civility, shewing us every part of their habitations, which were commodious and neat. The island or rock on which this town is situated, is divided from the main by a breach or fissure so narrow, that a man might almost leap from one to the other: The sides of it are every where so steep as to render the artificial fortification of these people almost unnecessary: There was, however, one slight pallisade, and one small ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... probability of discovering water. There might be some trifling rivulet formed by the melting snow, but hitherto not a trace of moisture had been seen on the hard dry rock. They were climbing the rocks when, having passed a deep fissure, they saw before them a vast array of strange-looking birds perched on the ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... of the Zambezi. Eocene. N. Africa, along east and } west coasts; Madagascar. } Cretaceous Extensively developed in } Diamond pipes of S. N. Africa; along coast } Africa; Kaptian and foot-plateaus in east } fissure eruptions; and west; Madagascar. } Ashangi traps of } Abyssinia {Jurassic N. Africa; E. Africa; K{ Madagascar; Stormberg } Chief volcanic period a{ period (Rhaeric) in S. } in S. Africa r{ Africa } r{Trias. Beaufort Series in S. } o{ Africa; Congo basin; } o{ Central Africa; Algeria; ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... cerebro-spinal centre, includes the spinal cord, passing upward through the vertebrae of the spinal column and the brain. The brain consists of three parts: The cerebrum, or great brain, consisting of two hemispheres, which, though connected, are divided in great part by a longitudinal fissure; the cerebellum, or little brain; and the medulla oblongata, or bulb. The spinal nerves consist of thirty-one pairs, which branch out from the spinal cord. Each pair of nerves contains a right and left member, distributed to the right and the left side of the body ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... I say to you that there are openings in the box. Find a fissure in the rough wall. Then, look! This isn't life—only the smallest bit of it. The rest is outside. It is not a question of God—it is not a question of punishment. It is this—what are you going to ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray

... cranny, fissure, rift, rime, rent, cleft, interstice; rupture, breach, flaw; report, clap, pop, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... The next morning we left our camp, which was on the south side, opposite to a large island in the middle of the river, and at five miles reached a creek on the north side, of about twenty yards wide, called Split Rock creek, from a fissure in the point of a neighbouring rock. Three miles beyond this, on the south is Saline river, it is about thirty yards wide, and has its name from the number of salt licks, and springs, which render its water brackish; the river is very rapid and the banks falling in. ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... to exclaim in mournful accents, Eurydice, Eurydice! [29] At length it was carried ashore on the island of Lesbos. [30] Here, by some extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, it found a resting-place in a fissure of a rock over-arched by a cave, and, thus domiciliated, is said to have retained the power of speech, and to have uttered oracles. Not only the people of Lesbos resorted to it for guidance in difficult questions, ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... to the suspicion of twins, such as being unusually large, and the fact that the increase in size has been more than ordinarily rapid. Sometimes also the abdomen is divided into two distinct portions by a perpendicular fissure. In other cases the movements of a child can be felt on each side at the same time. And in twin pregnancies the morning sickness is apt to be more distressing, and all the other discomforts incident to this condition ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... And since if these sharp flakes broke straight across the masses of mountain, when once the fissure took place, all hold would be lost between flake and flake, it is ordered (and herein is the most notable thing in the whole matter) that they shall not break straight, but in curves, round the body of the aiguilles, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... son stepped into their fighting place, and fierce was the combat that arose between them, as when two roaring surges of the sea dash against each other in a fissure of the rocks, and the spray-cloud bursts from them high into the air. Long they fought, and many red wounds did each of them give and receive, till at last Oscar beat the Greek prince to the earth and smote off his head. Then one host groaned for woe and discouragement, ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... and are smitten on the head with a blow from her inverted wand; and charms are repeated, the converse of the charms that had been uttered. The longer she chaunts them, the more erect are we raised from the ground; and the bristles fall off, and the fissure leaves our cloven feet; our shoulders return; our arms become attached[27] to their upper parts. In tears, we embrace him {also} in tears; and we cling to the neck of our chief; nor do we utter any words before those that testify that ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... thrilling farewell which is never erased from the tablet of memory. In the farewell of the emigrant, torn by cruel fate from country and friends, hope smiles in his tears; the fortune that drives away can bring back; but the farewell of death leaves no fissure in its cloud for the gleam of hope—it is final, terrible, and, on this ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... a landing, and these lying on the west and south. There the mighty storm-waves had battered the granite crags for centuries, undermining them in soft veins till huge masses had fallen again and again, making openings which had been enlarged till there was one long cove; the fissure where they had taken boat with old Daygo; and another spot farther to ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... the cortex we now know to be situated in the convolutions bordering the fissure of Rolando. Vision is evidently excited from the occipital lobes, though not yet conclusively proved. Smell, presumably, is located in the temporal lobes. Considered action is directed from the upper hemispheres only. It is significant that the hemispheres of the ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... marble, and higher than King Rene's tower at Tarascon. From below, the winking light of the guides going up, looked like a glow-worm on the march. He was forced to follow, however, for the snow beneath his feet was not solid, and gurgling sounds of circulating water heard round a fissure told of more than could be seen at the foot of that wall of ice, of depths that were sending upward the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... usually occur along the line of an old fissure previously formed, and the depth below the surface of the earth varies from one to twelve miles. Thus places situated near these old internal fissures are more likely to experience earthquakes than those farther away. It is a well known geological ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... a never-ending roar. It has been threatening rain for the last two hours, and now the first peal of thunder I have heard on the whole journey awakens the echoing voices of the caon and rolls and rumbles along the great jagged fissure like an angry monster muttering his mighty wrath. Peal after peal follow each other in quick succession, the vigorous, newborn echoes of one peal seeming angrily to chase the receding voices of its predecessor from cliff to cliff, and from recess to projection, along its ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... falling into the holes. After dealing with the precipice, he must deal with the pitfalls. Everything on the sea-shore is a trap—the rock is slippery, the strand is quicksand. Resting-places are but snares. It is walking on ice which may suddenly crack and yawn with a fissure, through which you disappear. The ocean has false stages below, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... the foot of the lake, and extending across it from shore to shore, a large fissure in the ice usually appears during the winter. This fissure is sometimes so wide that a team cannot cross it, and many years ago a span of horses was accidentally driven into it. The crevice in the ice has caused much speculation. The lake is narrow at the place where ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... of October. The season being still propitious, I was led to suppose that the young larvae must at once make a start and disperse, in order that each might seek to gain access, through some imperceptible fissure, to an Anthophora-cell. This presumption turned out to be entirely at fault. In the boxes in which I had placed the eggs laid by my captives, the young larvae, little black creatures at most a twenty-fifth ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... sprang toward it, but found the light too feeble for him to distinguish surrounding objects by. It entered the cell through a small fissure in one of the walls, and after a few minutes was suddenly withdrawn. Frederick-Christian stumbled forward in the darkness and, after taking a few steps, his feet struck some object lying on the ground. Stooping down, he groped with his hands until they touched ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre

... and there was a sort of icy wave cast up near the land, over which it was indispensable to pass, in order to get fairly on the river. As the top of this ridge, or wave, was broken, it exposed a fissure that enabled us to see the thickness of the ice, and this Guert pointed out in proof of its strength. There was nothing unusual in a small movement of the covering of the river, which the current often produces; but, unless the vast fields below got in motion, it was impossible for those ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... exceeds it in striking effect. A dreary whiteness, unrelieved by hardly a single blade of vegetation, covers the whole, as if it had been recently cleft by a volcanic eruption, and had as yet had no time to smooth down the sharpness of its original fissure; and nothing occurs to break the silence, except the trickling of a narrow brook, which just finds room to creep along the side of the road, the distant bleating of numberless adventurous goats, climbing over head from the mere love of peril, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes

... material from fissure deposits of early Permian age collected from a limestone quarry near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the author recovered several tooth-bearing fragments of small pelycosaurs. The fragments were examined, compared with descriptions ...
— Two New Pelycosaurs from the Lower Permian of Oklahoma • Richard C. Fox

... two stupendous sides raise their gigantic masses in rocky precipices, upwards of two thousand feet high; which seem to frown upon the bold traveller who ventures within their cavernous precincts; one cannot contemplate the vast fissure other than as the work of a beneficent providence, as a gateway in the otherwise ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... instant, the frightened woman's strength suddenly gave way; her knees received the fall of the limp body. For a second she seemed huddled in a posture of prayer, then toppled over, slipped easily forward through a fissure in the wall and plunged headforemost into the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... Equally striking is the fact that I, though now only sixty-seven years old, heard the Professor, in a field lecture at Salisbury Craigs, discoursing on a trapdyke, with amygdaloidal margins and the strata indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all around us, say that it was a fissure filled with sediment from above, adding with a sneer that there were men who maintained that it had been injected from beneath in a molten condition. When I think of this lecture, I do not wonder that I determined ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin

... half-hour before we neared the island, yet neither of us spoke during that time; then, as the "grey gull" shaped itself into rock and tree and crag, I noticed in the very centre a stupendous pile of stone lifting itself skyward, without fissure or cleft; but a peculiar haziness about the base made me peer narrowly to catch ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... great walls of the canyon were too precipitous to scale. Daw and Linday had to keep on; and they kept on till the disaster happened. With a loud explosion, the ice broke asunder midway under the team. The two animals in the middle of the string went into the fissure, and the grip of the current on their bodies dragged the lead-dog backward and in. Swept downstream under the ice, these three bodies began to drag to the edge the two whining dogs that remained. The men held back frantically on the sled, but were slowly drawn along with it. It was all over in ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

... The fissure down the front of the Pink Lady's Slipper is not so wide but that a bee must use some force to push against its elastic sloping sides and enter the large banquet chamber where he finds generous entertainment secreted among the fine white hairs in the upper part. Presently he has feasted enough. Now ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... absently, still staring at the interweaving crowd beyond them, trying to figure out what made them different from last trip. "Creativity fuel. Cranky. Explodes through the parietal fissure if you look ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... placing strong iron wedges at equal distances along this line; these wedges are struck in succession with heavy hammers, till the mass splits down. Another method of detaching masses of rock, is by driving wooden wedges into a deep artificial or natural crack, or fissure; the wedges are then wet, and, in consequence of ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... inclination, and the aid offered by the broken stumps of branches, made this comparatively easy, and in a few moments he reached its top, and stood upon a little ledge in the wall. A swift glance around him revealed the whole waterway or fissure slanting upward along the mountain face. Then he turned quickly to look down the dizzy height. At first he could distinguish nothing but the top of the buckeyes and their white clustering blossoms. Then something fluttered,—the torn white handkerchief of his ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... several narrow channels into which the stream was divided by its rocky bed, and down one of these we passed in devious turns until our new-found guide rose again in the boat and pointed to a jagged fissure which faced us. Denviers seized a pair of the rude oars and pulled the boat towards it, then leaping out he secured our frail conveyance, after which the woman handed to him a fresh torch, and we all advanced into the cave before us, vaguely wondering ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... 3952, with nasals, maxillary teeth, and lower parts of braincase missing and zygomata broken; four rami (unnumbered), one of which is badly broken; and two isolated molariform teeth. The skull has a sphenoidal fissure, a feature typical of the umbrinus group of Thomomys. The fossil specimens closely approximate in size the living subspecies Thomomys umbrinus analogus Goldman. Thomomys is not known from the vicinity ...
— Pleistocene Pocket Gophers From San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico • Robert J. Russell

... it was sometimes, by a curious perversion, called, the "rock-in-spring," was a spring running out of a cave-like fissure in a high limestone cliff. Here the old man sheltered himself on that dreary Christmas evening, until Bud brought his roan colt to the top of the cliff above, and he and Ralph helped the old man up the cliff and into the saddle. Ralph ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... gaze leaps and lingers, and lingers and leaps for miles in front of you. You look downward and the ball of the earth has split at your feet and the huge fissure has widened and widened till a limitless valley lies there. You look down hundreds of feet and see like sprouting seedlings the tops of gum trees,—gum trees two ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... to join his faithful children in the small fissure of the rock, in which they lay prostrate at the voice of the Lord, said to them: "Rise up now, and fear nothing, but as true soldiers of Jesus Christ put on the armor of God, in order to be on your guard against the snares which the devil will not fail to throw in the way of your following Him." ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... are in the sandstones and limestones which constitute the platform of the great elevated region called the San Francisco Plateau. The escarpment is caused by a fault, the great block of the upper side being lifted several thousand feet above the valley region. Through the fissure lavas poured out, and in many places the escarpment is concealed by sheets of lava. The canyons in these lava beds ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell

... dangled in mid air, For from a fissure in the stone Which lined its sides, a bush had grown, To this he clung with all his might. ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Billie's breast. She might have reached the lava. If so, there was a chance that she might be alive. For though the wind had sweep enough here, the fine dust-sand of the alluvial plain could not be carried so densely into this rock-sea. Perhaps she had slipped into a fissure and ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... except a yet-to-be-invented air-ship, the Alwa-sahib owned a fortress still, high-perched on a crag that overlooked a glittering expanse of desert. More precious than its bulk in diamonds, a spring of clear, cold water from the rock-lined depths of mother earth gushed out through a fissure near the Summit, and round that spring had been built, in bygone centuries, a battlemented nest to breed and turn out warriors. Alwa's grandfather had come by it through complicated bargaining and dowry-contracts, and Alwa now held it as the rallying-point ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... flashing in the sunshine. To the right, between the largest rock and the main land, there is a chamber of about ten feet wide, and twenty feet long. The fragment, which forms one of its sides, leans towards the main rock, and touches it at top, forming a roof, with here and there a fissure, through which the light enters. At the bottom of the room there is a clear bed of water, which communicates with the sea by a small aperture under the rock. It is as placid as a summer pond, and is fitted with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... fissure between its walls was aflow with the evening current of promenaders, crowding its scant breadth, and sending up a medley of laughter and musical sibilants. Grandees strolled stiffly erect with long capes thrown back across their left shoulders to show the brave color of velvet ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... Dr. Livingston beheld it, the reports of others, and the inference drawn by himself, satisfied him that the spectacle was tame compared with what occurs during the rainy season, when the river flows between banks many miles apart, and still forces its augmented waters through the same fissure into the same trough. At these times the columns of spray may be seen, and the sound heard ten or ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... defective (incompatible?) unions can generally be spotted the first year. They develop with a transverse fissure into which the bark ingrows. Good unions show new tissue entirely around the closing wound; the final scar as healing approaches completion being vertical, i. e. longitudinal with the stock. This result can be ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various

... sprinkled with innocuous juice "Of better herbs; with the inverted wand "Our heads are touch'd; the charms, already spoke, "Strong charms of import opposite destroy. "The more she sings her incantations, we "Rise more from earth erect; the bristles fall; "And the wide fissure leaves our cloven feet; "Our shoulders form again; and arms beneath "Are shap'd. Him, weeping too, weeping we clasp, "And round our leader's neck embracing hang. "No words at first to utter have we power, "But such as testify our ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... hustled along it, like a train in a cutting, too tightly packed for the most vindictive kicker to injure his neighbour, too hampered by impeding rocks to make more speed than can be accomplished by a jog. The drain ended at a V-shaped fissure between two slants of rock, and, by the time the last horse had clattered and scrambled up it, the hounds were away again, steering up, across heathery fields, enclosed by fences and stone walls of all sorts and sizes, for a great double-headed hill on the sky-line, three ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... Mexico, a remarkable result of hydraulic action must be mentioned, found on the sea-coast of that region. It is known as the buffadero. At the termination of a long rugged point, the water of the ocean, forced by a current or the waves, is projected through a fissure or natural tube in the rock, forming a beautiful jet ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... important point — the connection between the sea-ice and the Barrier. This connection had always haunted our brains. What would it be like? A high, perpendicular face of ice, up which we should have to haul our things laboriously with the help of tackles? Or a great and dangerous fissure, which we should not be able to cross without going a long way round? We naturally expected something of the sort. This mighty and terrible monster would, of course, offer resistance in some ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... left hemisphere of the brain showing localised centres, of which the functions are known. It will be observed that the centres for the special senses, tactile, muscular, hearing, and vision, are all situated behind the central fissure. The tactile-motor kinaesthetic sense occupies the whole of the post-central convolution; the centre for hearing (and in the left hemisphere memory of words) is shown at the end of the first temporal convolution, but the ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott

... through all its robes of darkness, Rattled like a shore with pebbles, Answered wailing, answered weeping, "Take my balm, O Hiawatha!" And he took the tears of balsam, Took the resin of the Fir-tree, Smeared therewith each seam and fissure, Made each crevice safe from water. "Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog! All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog! I will make a necklace of them, Make a girdle for my beauty, And two stars to deck her bosom!" From a hollow tree the Hedgehog With his sleepy eyes looked ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... the innocence of childhood, but the fichu is disarranged, the rose at the corsage is dropping its leaves, the flowers are only half held in the fold of the gown and the jug allows the water to escape through its fissure. ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton

... growing plainer as I advanced, until in a little, I stood right above it. Even then, I could not perceive the cause, until I knelt down, and thrust my head over the cliff. Here, the noise came up to me, plainly; and I saw, below me, a torrent of clear water, issuing from a small fissure in the Pit side, and rushing down the rocks, into the lake beneath. A little further along the cliff, I saw another, and, beyond that again, two smaller ones. These, then, would help to account for the quantity of water in the Pit; and, if ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... at it steadily for a moment, then he said decidedly: "We must go and see what it is." Without another word he started toward the white, star-like spot, sliding his hand over the rocky wall, and springing over a fissure in the floor. ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben

... Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the people's heads! And how ashamed would the hero be if, owing to his unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack and show a great fissure quite ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... difficult matter. Here was a crevice that would hardly admit his eager fingers, and again a projection so narrow that it seemed to grudge him foothold. Some of the ledges, however, were wider, and occasionally a dwarfed huckleberry bush, nourished in a fissure, lifted him up like a helping hand. He quaked as he heard the roots strain and creak, for he was a pretty heavy fellow for sixteen years of age. They did not give way, however, and up and up he went, every moment increasing ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)

... your hat, was a sovereign remedy! Dried toads and snake skins are quite out of use around these settlements, and we think the Esculapius who would recommend such nostrums, would be looked upon as a poor devil with a fissure in his cranium, liable to cause his brains to become weather-beaten! We remember hearing of a learned old cuffy, who lived down "dar" near Tallahassee, who invariably recommended cayenne pepper in the eye ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... city's quarter once given over to the Spaniard. Here were still his forbidding abodes of concrete and adobe, standing cold and indomitable against the century. From the murky fissure, the eye saw, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of his Moorish balconies. Through stone archways breaths of dead, vault-chilled air coughed upon him; his feet struck jingling iron rings in staples ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... serow on the mountain just above our camp but the animal fell into a rock fissure more than a hundred feet deep and was recovered only after a day's hard work. The men wove a swinging ladder from tough vines, climbed down it, and drew the serow bodily up the cliff; as it weighed nearly three hundred pounds this was by no means an ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... unaccountably yet so obviously had been aroused, and also to the wholesome dread that they must have of us upon finding that every one of their companions had been slain. The bodies of our poor Otomis we placed in a deep fissure in the rock, and there heaped stones upon them, while Fray Antonio said over them the briefer office; but the body of Dennis we carried with us, that we might give him a more tender and reverent burial in gratitude for his brave struggle ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... sure that the ice was safe. She hurried to an upper window with a spy-glass to see if she could descry them anywhere. At the moment she caught sight of them, already far on their journey, Louis had laid himself down across a fissure in the ice, thus making a bridge for his little brother, who was creeping over his back. Their mother directed a workman, an excellent skater, to follow them as swiftly as possible. He overtook them just as they had gained the shore, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... lobes are less excavated by the upward protrusion of the roof of the orbits; that his gyri and sulci are, as a rule, less symmetrically disposed, and present a greater number of secondary plications. And it is admitted that, as a rule, in man, the temporo-occipital or "external perpendicular" fissure, which is usually so strongly marked a feature of the ape's brain is but faintly marked. But it is also clear, that none of these differences constitutes a sharp demarcation between the man's and the ape's brain. In respect to the external perpendicular fissure of ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... took the instrument in his hands—he devoured it with his eyes, and then, at the summit of his felicity, he clasped it to his bosom. The instrument was perfectly uninjured, without even a mark of the absurd injustice of its owner. Not a crack, not a fissure, only the two gracefully shaped Sec. Sec. to give vent to the double stream of sound. But is he not the victim of some trick—has no other fiddle been substituted for the broken Straduarius? No!—'tis his own well-known fiddle, outside and in—the same delicate proportions, the same elegant neck, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... half-way through a stone fell through a fissure of the cave, and Luliban, who watched for the signal, dived outwards with the line of cinnet, and came behind Red-Hair and put the noose over his left foot, and Harry, who followed close, cast the ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke

... pop. 5000. Inns: Cheval Blanc, La St. Marie. The vineyards in this neighbourhood produce a good white Macon. Afew miles distant is the Vallon de Vaux-Chignon, below cliffs 200 ft. high. In a deep fissure is the source of the Cusane. 3 m. E. are the ruins of the castle Rochepot, 15th cent. In the church of the village is a remarkable echo. 8 m. beyond is Epinac, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... that, it would have been necessary to suppose the roller channel placed beneath the level of the water, and it would consequently have been necessary to isolate this channel from the canal by a tight wall. The least fissure in the latter would have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... room of the down-town office. Across the littered, ink-stained desk a man and a woman faced each other. Threads of gray lightened the hair of each. Faint lines, delicate as pencillings, marked the forehead of the woman and radiated from the angles of her eyes. A deep fissure unequally separated the brows of the man, and on his shaven face another furrow added firmness to the mouth. Their eyes met squarely, without a motion from faces imperturbable in middle age ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... million degrees in the tiniest fraction of a second. The terrific recoil of the ray-pressure was taken by all space, for it was generated in space itself, but the direct pressure struck the planet, and that titanic planet reeled! A tremendous fissure opened, and the section that had been struck by the ray smashed its way suddenly far into the planet, and a geyser of fluid rock rolled over it, twenty miles deep in that world. The relux sphere had been struck by the ray, and had turned it, with the ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... listening to the bandit, he had wound up a considerable ascent, and now he was upon a broad ledge of rock covered with mosses and dwarf shrubs. Between this eminence and another of equal height, upon which the castle was built, there was a deep but narrow fissure, overgrown with the most profuse foliage, so that the eye could not penetrate many yards below the rugged surface of the abyss; but the profoundness might be well conjectured by the hoarse, low, monotonous roar of waters unseen that rolled below, and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton



Words linked to "Fissure" :   anatomy, hilum, rift, slit, volcano, chink, split, geological fault, sulcus, depression, vent, hilus, calcarine fissure, fault, fatigue crack, imprint, break, shift, fracture, impression, crevasse, general anatomy, faulting, groove, opening, gap, vallecula



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