Cone

“ A portico, Albeit it stands well propped from end to end On equal columns, parallel and big, Contracts by stages in a narrow cone, When from one end the long, long whole is seen,— Until, conjoining ceiling with the floor, And the whole right side with the left, it draws Together to a cone's nigh-viewless point. To sailors on the main the sun he seems From out the waves to rise, and in the waves To set and bury his light—because indeed They gaze on naught but water and the sky. ”

“ On each side a towering cone rose to heaven, while in front the mountain slope swept down into the broad valley, and beyond, stern red mountains ranged away, ridge over ridge, to the eastern horizon, all bare and parched, with every peak and gully standing sharp out through the clear air, yet softened by distance into the most delicately rich and tender hues. ”

“ As the sun rises over the Calabrian coast, a perfect and distinct image of the cone is reflected—as on the sheet of a magic-lantern—on the horizon below, gradually sinking lower and lower as the sun becomes brighter, and finally disappearing altogether. ”

“ Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine pointing downward, as if to protect its seeds from squirrels and birds. That hard, closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it, and could only be cut open, has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season. ”

“ If possible, the inside of the cone is more beautiful than the outside; the scales, bracts, and seed wings are tinted with the loveliest rosy purple with a bright lustrous iridescence; the seeds, three fourths of an inch long, are dark brown. When the cones are ripe the scales and bracts fall off, setting the seeds free to fly to their predestined places, while the dead spike-like axes are left on the branches for many years to mark the positions of the vanished cones, excepting those cut off when green by the Douglas squirrel. ”

“ At the foot of that cone is a stretching slope of ground, covered with lofty trees, and which is so high and steep that it appears like a forest in air, surrounded by tremendous precipices. The clouds, which are attracted round the summit of those rocks, supply innumerable rivulets, which rush from so immense a height into that deep valley situated behind the mountain, that from this elevated point we do not hear the sound of their fall. ”

“ I expected to see a white cone covered with the eternal snow of ages rising from the midst of the barren deserts of the icy north, faintly lighted with the pale rays of the arctic sun, far away in the highest latitudes known; but contrary to all our expectations, my uncle, the Icelander, and myself were sitting half-way down a mountain baked under the burning rays of a southern sun, which was blistering us with the heat, and blinding us with the fierce light of his nearly vertical rays. ”

“ The cone is made to revolve on its axis slowly over an orifice under which there is a powerful fan, which maintains a strong inward draught of air through the holes in the cone. At the side of the cone, and with an opening towards it, is a trunk or box from which the fur to be made into a hat is thrown out by the rapid revolution of a brushlike cylinder, and as the cloud of separate hairs is expelled from the trunk, the current of air being sucked through the cone carries the fibres to it and causes them to cling closely to its surface. ”

“ This plucking and stripping of a pine cone is a business which he [the squirrel] and his family understand perfectly. . . . He does not prick his fingers, nor pitch his whiskers, nor gnaw the solid cone any more than he needs to. Having sheared off the twigs and needles that may be in his way (for, like a skillful wood-chopper, he first secures room and verge enough) , he neatly cuts off the stout stem of the cone with a few strokes of his chisels, and it is his. ”

“ Imagine an upright cone of black flesh, several feet in diameter and three or more in height, supported by a dozen or more smooth long tentacles which branched from its lower end—supple, boneless octopus-arms which held the cone-body upright and which served both as arms and legs. ”

“ Each cone ordinarily constitutes a year's growth, and therefore there is a greater number of them at the base of a tree than higher up. These cones vary greatly in thickness, or, looking at a cross-section, the rings vary in width; in general, those at the center being thicker than those toward the bark. ”

“ Professor Dickson concludes from the examination of these structures that the male cone, consisting of simple stamens developed on one common axis, must be regarded as a simple male flower, while the axillary scales of the female cone are by him compared with the flattened shoots of Ruscus. ”

“ From the Observatory, those who would spare any unnecessary fatigue may take mules a mile farther to the foot of the cone, but our party preferred the excitement of the walk after our long ride. In ascending the cone, no four-footed beast is of any service; one must depend on his own strong limbs, unless he chooses to accept the aid of some of the fierce looking attendants who offer their services as porters. ”

“ In youth, say up to the age of seventy or eighty years, no other tree forms so strictly tapered a cone from top to bottom. The branches swoop outward and downward in bold curves, excepting the younger ones near the top, which aspire, while the lowest droop to the ground, and all spread out in flat, ferny plumes, beautifully fronded, and imbricated upon one another. ”

“ Each with its Cone of Ether, its desire to control the breath of his life, its determination to do his breathing for him, to push the Cone down over him, looms above him and above all in sight, before he speaks—before he is able to speak. ”

“ The first pulled me up the path, the other Tischbein [9] —pulled I say, for these guides are girded round the waist with a leathern belt, which the traveler takes hold of, and being drawn up by his guide, makes his way the easier with foot and staff. In this manner we reached the flat from which [Pg 27] the cone rises; toward the north lay the ruins of the summit.
A glance westward over the country beneath us, removed, as well as a bath could, all feeling of exhaustion and fatigue, and we now went round the ever-smoking cone, as it threw out its stones and ashes. ”

“ Each scale of which the cone is formed is hollow at the base and contains a seed much larger than that of any other species. When the cone is ripe, it is gathered by the owners of the forest; and when thoroughly dried on the roof or thrown for a few minutes into the fire, it separates into many compartments, from each of which drops a smooth white nut in shape like the seed of the date. ”

“ A cone is, in fact, a pyramid whose base is a circle, and not a pol- ygon. Sugar loaves are canes.
The height of a cone is a perpendicular let fall from the top or apex to the base. If this perpendicular fall exactly upon the centre of the base, the cone is upright. ”

“ I watched the bird closely until it flew away to its companions in the branches above, and then I went and picked up the small cone upon which it had been working so intently, and found that the scale-like processes of the cone had merely been torn asunder (not severed from the central "core," as a Squirrel does its work) , so that the immature seeds could be extracted by the scissors-like beak. ”

“ The little, tender balls which you found near the young bud at the end of the branchlet is a new cone just started this year. The harder, darker growth farther down among the needles is a last year’s cone.
“My home is not in this country. I was brought from a country of highlands and mountains where the Scottish people live. I am called a Scotch pine. I do not choose to live in a graveyard, but I am willing to serve man and God by doing my best wherever I chance to be. ”

“ A huge cone, above 500 feet high, with five smaller conical mounds, suddenly appeared, and thousands of lesser cones (called by the natives hornitos, or ovens,) issued forth from the upraised plain. These consisted of clay intermingled with decomposed basalt, each cone being a fumarolle, or gaseous vent, from which issued thick vapour. The central cone of Jorullo is still burning, and on [Pg 165] one side has thrown up an immense quantity of scoriaceous and basaltic lavas, containing fragments of primitive rocks. ”

“ Robert Brown was the first to give a clear description of the morphology of the Abietineous cone in which carpels bear naked ovules; he recognized gymnospermy as an important distinguishing feature in conifers as well as in cycads. Another view is to regard the cone as an inflorescence, each carpellary scale being a bract bearing in its axil a shoot the axis of which has not been developed; the seminiferous scale is believed to represent either a single leaf or a fused pair of leaves belonging to the partially suppressed axillary shoot. ”

“ An “oblique cone” is the solid or surface traced out by a line which passes through a fixed point and through the circumference of a circle, the fixed point not being on the line through the centre of the circle perpendicular to its plane. A “quadric cone” is a cone having any conic for its base. The plane containing the vertex, centre of the base, and perpendicular to the base is called the principal section; and the section of a cone by a plane containing the vertex is a triangle if the solid be considered, and two intersecting lines if the surface be considered. ”

“ Sometimes it will bite off the cone and carry it to a neighbouring bough, or fly with great difficulty some ten or twenty paces to another tree where it can be opened, for a suitable spot is not to be found on every branch. If the cone is large, the little creature tears its way through the [90] middle of the outside with its upper mandible, inserts its half-opened beak, and forces an opening by a sideway motion of the jaws; it is then easy for it to pick out the seeds, which are soon swallowed. The breaking up of the husks produces a cracking sound, that is heard very distinctly from below. ”

“ Fruit an ovoid-oblong acute pendulous cone maturing in one season, with rounded concave rigid scales persistent on the axis of the cone after the escape of the seeds, and becoming dark red-brown, much shorter than the 2-lobed bracts with midribs ending in rigid woody linear awns, those at the base of the cone without scales and becoming linear-lanceolate by the gradual suppression of their lobes. ”

“ An examination of these pieces discovers adhesion only on a narrow ventral border under the apophysis and on a corresponding dorsal border back of the apophysis. The rest of the scale is not adherent, so that the seed is free to fall at the opening of the cone.
The serotinous cone is a gradual development, wanting in most species, rare in a few, less or more frequent in others. A similar evolution of the persistent cone, of the oblique cone and of the cone-tissues has been already discussed. ”

“ To the inhabitants of Quebec, the cone is a source of endless amusement. When the weather is temperate, parties in single-horse curricles and tandems are seen hurrying to the spot, to enjoy the beauty of the scene, and to make descents, upon small sleighs, from the top of the cone to the plain below. ”

“ Sometimes the Italians roast the barely ripe cone, dashing it on the ground to break it open, but the ripe seeds of the older cone when it naturally opens are better worth eating. They are soft and rich, and have a slightly resinous flavor. ”

“ A pine cone looks like a single piece of carved solid wood until it opens, and then each hard scale shows a thick, square head; but the fir cones are made of broad, papery scales, with thin edges laid neatly one over the other. ”

“ Should there be a falling of the cone, even a small slip down its side, it is a sign not to be disregarded, and the oracle, after propitiatory sacrifice, must once more be consulted. The flour cone is now abandoned. The magician takes a pot of beer which he pours out upon the ground. If it sinks in one spot the gods are propitious, but should it run along the ground their faces are averted in anger or grief. ”

“ In general a cone consists of one or more single or twin-pair sheets, and if we consider the section of the cone by a plane, the curve consists of one or more complete branches, or say circuits, each of them the section of one sheet of the cone ”

“ It is dark, when after winding, for some time, over the broken ground, we arrive at the foot of the cone: which is extremely steep, and seems to rise, almost perpendicularly, from the spot where we dismount. The only light is reflected from the snow, deep, hard, and white, with which the cone is covered. It is now intensely cold, and the air is piercing. The thirty-one have brought no torches, knowing that the moon will rise before we reach the top. ”

“ It gave me then, for the first time, the feeling which has since meant such varied enjoyment, of the peopling of the woods.
"See here," he said, "how different the character of these individuals. They are all of the same species. They all grow along this fence within two or three rods; but observe the difference not only in size but in colouring, in the shape of the petals, in the proportions of the cone. What does it all mean? Why, nature trying one of her endless experiments. She sows here broadly, trying to produce better cone-flowers. ”

“ He now returns to the first stand, covers the pot, and by slipping off the hook holding the rosebush in position, and removing the cone, or cones, properly, from the pot, shows the second rosebush. He now turns the large cone so the audience can see through it, and as the upper and lower edge of each cone is blackened, there is no danger of the inside cones being seen. The rear of the stand tops are something of a crescent shape, to facilitate the passing of the large cone down behind the stand in a graceful manner. ”

“ Of course the beauty of the cone hanging-basket does not last a great while, but a new one can be so quickly and easily prepared that, with a store of half a dozen cones, you may have one fresh and green in your window all winter. Almost any kind of small cereal will sprout if treated in this way, and each time you can plant different seeds. ”