Fir cone

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Through the narrow, barred opening of one of them, gazing downward they could see vast masses of the gray, glistening protoplasm towering upward against the great cone's steep, smooth sides of rock, rolling upward and falling back in vain endeavor to flow up over the sides and summit of the cone as they had done over the rest of the island, in their blind, mindless search for food. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The first is Conus, a large and beautiful genus, including many rare and valuable species. Shell univalve, turbinate, aperture effuse, or having the lips separated by a sinus, linear, without teeth, pillar smooth. In their natural state the shells are usually covered with an epidermis; but will bear a brilliant polish. C. textilis, cloth of gold, is valuable. C. generalis is sometimes sold for twenty guineas. The example on the table is C. Ebræus, or Hebrew cone. (Plate 6.) Species one hundred and fifty-five; not one British. The greater number are brought from the Indian Ocean ”

“ And tell me this, Conan, son of Morna," he said, "who gets the best wages, a horseman or a man afoot?" "A horseman gets twice as much," said Conan. "Then I call you to witness, Conan," he said, "that I am a horseman, and that it was as a horseman I came to the Fianna. And give me your guarantee now, Finn, son of Cumhal, and the guarantee of the Fianna, and I will turn out my horse with your horses." ”

“ Upon lighting one of these cones with a match, you see something similar to a 4th of July exhibition of fireworks. Sparks fly in every direction, and as the cone burns down it throws out and is surrounded with what appears to be grass; at the same time a large snake uncoils himself from the burning cone, and lazily stretches out in the grass, which at last burns to ashes, but the snake remains as a curiosity unharmed. They are not at all dangerous, and can be set off in the parlor if placed on some metal surface that will not burn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cone slowed his ship that last morning—according to Redding—slowed her down to a few knots, made the passengers keep off the decks in order to have peace and quiet aboard. One old lady didn't like it at all. She insisted she had a right to go where she pleased aboard—told the skipper so to his face and dared him to put her below. Some of the other women folks followed her example—did Cone do it? ”

“ 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. ”

“ But grimly he hung on, the muscles starting out in lumps on his jaws. And the scavenger's neck-bones crunched between those powerful teeth. With a spasmodic flutter the bird hung limp. Conan let go, spat blood from his mouth. The other vultures, terrified by the fate of their companion, were in full flight to a distant tree, where they perched like black demons in conclave.
Ferocious triumph surged through Conan's numbed brain. Life beat strongly and savagely through his veins. He could still deal death; he still lived. Every twinge of sensation, even of agony, was a negation of death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Analytically, the equation to a right cone formed by the revolution of the line y = mx about the axis of x is z = m (x2+y2) . Obviously every tangent plane passes through the vertex; this is the characteristic property of conical surfaces. Conical surfaces are also “developable” surfaces, i.e. the surface can be applied to a plane without wrinkling or rending. Connected with quadric cones is the interesting curve termed the “spheroconic,” which is the curve of intersection of any quadric cone and a sphere having its centre at the vertex of the cone. ”

“ The diameter of this cone at bottom is about 60 yards, its height 70 feet; and the area on its top large enough to receive a battery of cannon, with which it is hereafter to be fortified. Its solid contents are 2500 French toises; which, in our measure (allowing the French foot to be to the English as 144 to 135) , will amount to 24,250 cubic yards nearly. Several other cones, of [47] equal dimensions, are sunk at convenient distances from each other, forming the line of the pier: their number, when complete, it is said, will be forty. ”

“ Shell smooth, fulvous-white, with broad dark chesnut bands and transverse lines of dots; spire obtuse, convex, striated, depressed. C. augur. Lamarck Annal. Mus. xv. 277. Encycl. Méth. 333. 6. Conus magus. Gmelin 3392. 57. Martini ii. 58. 641.
The Girdled Cone is conspicuous among the beautiful shells of this extensive family, by the broad and rich chesnut bands, which are either two or three in number, and more or less broken into spots; in high-coloured shells the minute lines of dots between them are also of the same colour. It is not a common species, and inhabits the Asiatic ocean. ”

“ But Conan said to him: "The Lad of the Skins will destroy ourselves and the whole of the Fianna of Ireland unless you will find some way to rid yourself of him." "I never had a good man with me yet, Conan," said Finn, "but you wanted me to put him away; and how could I put away a man like that?" he said. "The way to put him away," said Conan, "is to send him to the King of the Floods to take from him the great cauldron that is never without meat, but that has always enough in it to feed the whole world. And let him bring that cauldron back here with him to Almhuin," he said. ”