Ascent from the gorge was impossible, because a wall of granite rose sheer for several hundred feet, and at the top indeed overhung the ravine, affording no foothold, even if it were possible to cut steps in the rock.
Even in broad daylight it formed a dark forbidding gully, the hills rising sheer precipices on either side, showing masses of granite too steep even to give lodgment to the snow.
Other types there may be, but certainly these two, whatever their racial origin, Children of the Granite and Children of the Mist.
Whenever I come down to Cornwall I realise the curious contradiction which lies in this region as at once a Land of Granite and a Land of Mist.
And what terrible faces they enfold--battered, shapeless, featureless faces that may have been tossed among granite rocks but seem never to have been moulded by human intercourse.
To the left of this doorway is a baptistere containing a number of granite columns, which, judging from their crudeness, must be of genuine antiquity.
Then their wonder was excited by the dry-dock, with its smooth granite walls, its massive gates, and its capacious area, sufficient to float the largest frigate.
The district is bleak, the soil does not lie deep over granite that peers through the surface on exposed spots, where the furious gales from the ocean sweep the land.
The organ gallery is supported on granite pillars, Classic, found among the ruins of the amphitheatre.
Blair and David made constant and furtive attempts to lift these spears, socketed in crumbling lead in the granite base, for of course there could be nothing better for fighting Indians than a real iron spear.
When they reached the gloomy granite columns of the old River House, Blair left his wife, saying briefly something about "walking for a while.
If when he got back to the hotel he found her wearing this piece of jewelry or that; if the grimy pigeon, teetering up and down on the granite coping across the street, flew away before he reached the next crossing.
It was a satisfaction to have a superintendent like him, whose granite principles, emphasized by his stately figure and bearing, made him a tower of strength in the church and in the community.
There was granite in their character and beliefs, but it was granite that could smile in the sunshine and clothe itself with flowers.
Two colossal statues of red granite discovered in the ruins of Hadrian's villa, at Tivoli, represent him in like manner with the usual Egyptian head-dress.
Rude hands break open the granite lids of their sepulchres, to find tresses of yellow hair and fragments of imperial mantles, embroidered with the hawks and stags the royal hunter loved.
Here, then, the elements have had their will unchecked by such sculptured granite as in Egypt resists the mounded sand of the desert, or by such marble colonnades as in Athens have calmly borne the insults of successive sieges.
There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petal from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass.
It is rather a mass than a mountain; it shows no accented, unified form; the wide crests rise irregularly from its wider shoulders of granite and glacier, and fairly blaze for the moment in the break of sunlight.
Huge masses of granite and gneiss are scattered everywhere in savage confusion, and the road barely twines a painful way through the labyrinth.
He bent his head, and a third granite mass sank between his shoulders.
This frightful shock seemed to restore Porthos the strength that he had lost; he arose, a giant among granite giants.
And amidst the noise of the third brigade, which continued to advance, the imprecations of the guards still left alive, the muffled groans of the dying, Aramis and Porthos glided unseen along the granite walls of the cavern.
He renewed the attempt; slung the rope further, aiming at the granite protuberance, in which he could perceive crevices and scratches.
The sounds, however, scarcely reached Gilliatt by reason of the mass of granite at his back.
Then he advanced as far as he could along the granite cornice, reached the rock immediately beneath the wreck, looked up, and examined it.
In this way, clinging to the granite on the one hand, and with the other to its human prey, it enchained him to the rock.
The points which the water had not touched presented those silver and golden hues communicated to marine granite by the white and yellow lichen.
There the beams were powerfully supported by the granite walls.
The blocks of graniteare hideous and enormous--everywhere perpendicular wall--the severe inhospitality of the abyss.
Its left angle, however, was broken away, and formed one of those natural staircases common to granite cliffs worn by the sea, the steps of which are somewhat inconvenient, requiring sometimes the strides of a giant or the leaps of an acrobat.
There was no foam around the Gild-Holm-'Ur; no wave beat against its granite sides.
From one extremity to the other of the defile, the two parallel granite walls confronted each other at a distance which the midship frame of the Durande measured exactly.
From top to bottom of the granite ran long red lines, which might have been compared to oozings from a funeral bier.
The demand for Guernsey granite has invaded these too.
The configuration of the hills is mainly conical and the geological formation consists of gneiss, granite (in the south) and red sandstone.
French topographical term applied to several regions of France, the commonest characteristics of which are a granite formation and an undulating or hilly surface, consisting largely of heath or reclaimed land, and dotted with clumps of trees.
That is the wonderful part of it all, granite is the basis, granite distinctly showing the progress of glaciers of a former period.
Never having seen the rite of baptism performed in a Greek church, we sat at the golden base of a colossal Finnish granite pillar waiting.
Out to sea are islands; skirting the coasts are splendid granite rocks, showing the glacial progress later than in other lands, for Finland remained cold longer than our own country.
Those vast pine forests, extending for miles and miles, actual mines of wealth, are a mere veneer to granite rocks.
We were shown over the works by a professor well known as a mathematician, and were much interested to see how Finlanders cut and polish granite for tombstones, pillars, etc.
Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees.
Then, staff and hat in hand, he paused on the margin of that granite cup, to him a cup of sorrow, and looked into its depths again.
And against the granite of her self-sufficiency the iron of the girl's proud anger broke until at length, baffled by the other's conceit, Noreen drifted back into the semblance of her former friendliness.
No marble or granite palace is it, but a rough wooden shed with one or two rooms built out in the forest far from human habitations, but in a spot as central and equi-distant to all the planters of the district as possible.
In the valley of the Marmaraya, a few miles south of the Tapas, a band of trappean and amygdaloidal rock is interposed between a hill of granite and an extensive surrounding formation of red conglomerate, which (like that at the foot of the S.
The marble and granite alternate repeatedly in apparently vertical masses: some miles northward of the Polanco, a wide district is said to be entirely composed of marble.
The central mountains rise to a height of 3,000 feet, and are said to be partly formed of granite and greenstone: there are two small volcanic districts.
The line of junction between the dark mica-slate and the coarse red granite was most clearly distinguishable from a vast distance: the granite sent many small veins into the mica-slate, and included some angular fragments of it.
The pavement is of granite and is perfectly smooth.
Near the Sphinx is a fine underground temple formed of immense granite blocks and polished alabaster.
In the harbour of Geneva two erratic boulders of granite project above the surface of the water, and are named Pierres du Niton (supposed to be altars to Neptune).
On the east are remains of a race-course, the corners marked bygranite shafts with Greek inscriptions on them.
The thermal springs, which issue from the granite mountains, have a temperature of 77 deg.
The material of which the obelisks are made is the granite of Syene.
The supply of this hard granite was and is still inexhaustible, being massed up in immense mountains in various parts of Egypt.
It is a shaft of granite from the quarry of Syene rising, with the pedestal, to the height of 104 ft.
The reddish amphibole-granite of Syêné, which was taken for all the Egyptian obelisks.
Most of the Egyptian granite was taken from its famous quarries.
Pete's hair was turning gray and his brown face was deeply lined, but he crossed the quaking moss with a young man's stride, and Foster thought his mouth could set hard as granite in spite of his twinkling smile.
Well, the colliery was not reopened, the shaft-head towers are falling down, but there's a granite fountain on the moor that will stand for ages to record the splendid sacrifice.
One afternoon they brought to light a red granite sarcophagus intact,--in it was a richly painted coffin which was opened in our presence, and was found to contain the elaborately adorned mummy of a woman.
Around your barren heads and granite steeps Tempestuous grey battalions of the rain Charge and recharge, across the plateaued floors, Drenching the serried pines; and the hail sweeps Your pitiless scaurs.
