In testing the purity of air it is not difficult to ascertain the amount of carbon dioxid present, but it is no easy problem to measure the amount of organic matter.

We have already seen that the king and nobles in this play called in the aid of Friar Tuck to read the inscription on the stag's collar, though the king could ascertain that it was in Saxon characters.

As soon as this view presented itself, she determined to ascertain the truth directly, and to bring down the ambassadorial wrath on the offender.

At what period the change in her religious views took place I have been unable to ascertain,probably between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five, by which time she had become a remarkably well-educated woman, of great conversational powers, interesting because of her intelligence, brightness, and sensibility, but not for her personal beauty.

He was most anxious to ascertain the reason of my visit to his country.

All he had to do was to go to Mr. Outwood's housethe idea of searching a fellow master's house did not appear to him at all a delicate task; somehow one grew unconsciously to feel that Mr. Outwood did not really exist as a man capable of resenting libertiesfind the paint-splashed shoe, ascertain its owner, and denounce him to the headmaster.

Yet, on the other hand, the arguments in favor of falsehood, put forward by even such a man, ought to be scrutinized with care, in order to ascertain if they are anything more than the familiar arguments on the same side repeated in varying phrase in all the former centuries from Chrysostom to Jeremy Taylor.

To ascertain the margin of profitable expenditure in each direction, to go thus and no further, is the very essence of the business spirit, as the business man himself conceives it.

Prose writers were laying the foundations for the new science of political economy and endeavoring to ascertain how the condition of the masses could be improved.

It is true that no less a personage than the "Father of Medicine," Hippocrates, is reputed to have practised succussion as a means of diagnosis; that is, the shaking of a patient, as one would shake a cask, to ascertain by the occurrence or non-occurrence of a splashing sound if the person's pleural cavity was distended partly with water and partly with air.

XXI.Being on the same day informed by his scouts that the enemy had encamped at the foot of a mountain eight miles from his own camp, he sent persons to ascertain what the nature of the mountain was, and of what kind the ascent on every side.

That he would therefore instantly set about what he had intended to put off till a more distant day, and would break up his camp the next night, in the fourth watch, that he might ascertain, as soon as possible, whether a sense of honour and duty, or whether fear had more influence with them.

VIII.Caesar at first determined to decline a battle, as well on account of the great number of the enemy as their distinguished reputation for valour: daily, however, in cavalry actions, he strove to ascertain by frequent trials what the enemy could effect by their prowess and what our men would dare.

But as for traces of ice-action, none, as far as I can ascertain, have yet been met with.

He woke from brief slumber beside his bivouac-fire at about three o'clock in the morning, and calling an officer of his staff, Colonel Venable, sent him to General Gordon, commanding the front, to ascertain his opinion, at that moment, of the probable result of an attack upon the enemy.

To a committee of Virginians who had called on him to ascertain the truth, his reply was, that he felt bound to accept any post the duties of which his country believed him competent to perform.

Instead of giving an answer, he waited to ascertain the opinion of Ormond; and at last, though inclination prompted him to throw himself into the arms of his Irish adherents, he reluctantly submitted to the authority of that officer, who declared, that the only way to preserve Ireland was by provoking a war between England and Scotland.

I am not to be told that you called at the Horse-guards, in your way to your uncle's yesterday, to ascertain the correctness of the report of the vacancy which you had received from your friend Macgregor; or that you, elated by the prospect before you, were the person, in fact, to suggest the arrangement which has been made, and promise your uncle 'to smooth me over' for the present.

But, except by the Spirit, whence are we to ascertain this?

The lieutenant-governor announced his intention in that letter of sending a magistrate into the district where the proceedings complained of had taken place to ascertain the nature and extent of the alleged trespasses and afterwards to make a report to his excellency.

It is the unquestionable right of litigants in a court of justice to make explorations of land in dispute, and if either party declines a joint survey it may be made ex parte and surely the United States have never so far yielded the actual possession to Great Britain as to preclude the right on our part to ascertain for ourselves the absolute facts and to mark out the limits of our claim and our alleged right.

This task would have been impossible if the rock had been granite or a similar primitive foundation; unfortunately, I could not ascertain what the rock was, I only examined the pieces which were here and there chipped off, and which were very easily broken.

" "'Such are the facts, as far as we have been able to ascertain them, which have attended a rebellious demonstration among a portion of the laboring population, calculated to excite well-founded apprehension in the whole community.

In a subsequent paper we notice a report from the Chief of Police to the Lieutenant Governor, which speaks favorably of the general working of the negroes, as far as he had been able to ascertain by inquiry into a district comprising one-third of the laborers.

As one of the Representatives of a slave-holding constituency, and one of a committee raised by the Representatives of the slave-holding States, to ascertain the intentions and progress of your associations, I availed myself of the opportunity offered by your character and situation, to propose to you inquiries as to facts, which would make those developments so important to be known by our people.