The crystal in question consisted of ..., which, as those who manufactured it for me are aware, admits of being cast with a perfection and equality of structure throughout unattainable with ordinary glass, and wrought to a certainty and accuracy of curvature which the most patient and laborious polishing can hardly give to the lenses even of moderate-sized telescopes, whether made of glass or metal, and is singularly impervious to heat.

I had so calculated the curvature that several eye-pieces of different magnifying powers which I carried with me might be adapted equally to any of the window lenses, and throw a perfect image, magnified by 100, 1000, or 5000, upon mirrors properly placed.

The circumference did not appear to present an even curvature.

I mean that, apart from the polar compression, the shape seemed as if the spheroid were irregularly squeezed; so that though not broken by projection or indentation, the limb did not present the regular quasi-circular curvature exhibited in the focus of our telescopes.

The undulations of the surface of the country are nearly parallel to the meridian, gradually decreasing in height from the dividing range between the eastern and western waters till, instead of the waters of the rivers being confined to valleys, they occupy plains formed by a slight flattening of the curvature of the sphere.

And a curvature, thus given, may, and often does, deform children for life.

This opened a crack through which a small stream of water must constantly pour, each hour rendering the leak more dangerous by loosening the oakum, and raising the plank from its curvature.

All that Roswell aimed at was to get his schooner about a league from the cove, which would be taking her without a line drawn from cape to cape, the greatest danger of new ice being within the curvature of the crescent.

At the end of that most momentous hour, however, the craft had been hauled ahead a mile and a half, and had reached a curvature in the coast where the margin of open water was more than fifty fathoms wide, and the tracking of the vessel became easy and rapid.

The principle, that whenever a stream of water makes a curve, the outside bank (that which turns the water from its strait course) is always more precipitous than the other in proportion to the amount of curvature of the stream, is well illustrated at the confluence of the Mosel and the Rhine at Coblentz, by the course of the latter.

Were the dwellers on the pampas of Argentinawhere a railroad can go for 250 miles in a straight line, except for the curvature of the earthto see this little bit of flood-plain called Mandor Pampa, they would think some one had been joking or else grossly misusing a word which means to them illimitable space with not a hill in sight.

The wall followed the natural curvature of the rock and was keyed to it by one of the finest examples of masonry I have ever seen.

Another element, of which American engineers have freely availed themselves, is curvature.

In England the radius of curvature is limited to half a mile, or thereabouts.

The inflected and capricious edges of the rocks stood out in high relief against the back-ground of pearly sky, resembling so much ebony wrought into every fantastic curvature that a wild and vivid fancy could conceive.

The curvature of the earth requires that a light-house on a coast should have a considerable elevation, otherwise its summit would not appear above the horizon, unless the mariner were very near.

On an open plain it throws out its branches, with a gentle double curvature, to a distance on every side, and forms a broad, round head of great beauty.

The maximum curvature as first located was 10°, but for economy of time as well as money this was exceeded in a few instances as the work progressed, but is now being by degrees reduced.

On the forefinger glittered a ring; and the universe from which I had come was but a spot of light upon the ring's curvature.

In addition, the curvature of the thermal lines of the continent bear away to the northward of the surveyed route of this great enterprise, insuring almost entire freedom from snow obstructions other than is common to any of the principal railway lines in the States themselves.

It stands on the extremity of a low rocky promontory that forms the western ramparts of the deep, extensive bay, on the side of which, ensconced behind a very convenient curvature of the rocks, which here incline westward in the form of a hook, lies the small port, completely concealed from the sea, as if in dread of visits like those which might be expected from craft resembling the suspicious stranger.

He had once been tall, but latterly had lost much of his height, in consequence of a curvature of the spine, which bowed down his head almost upon his breast, and fixed it immoveably in that position.

As the natural course of the inlet was necessarily respected, the street had taken a curvature not unlike that of a new moon.

The brigantine turned in its course, and, gliding into the part of the Cove where the curvature of the shores offered most protection from the winds and waves, and perhaps from curious eyes, its motion ceased.

Another evil arising from mounting prints while expanded with moisture is, that in drying the contraction of the paper pulls round the card into a curved form and although by rolling this curvature may be temporarily got rid of, the fiber of the paper is in a strained condition, and the bent state of the mount is, sooner or later, renewed thereby.