Mantle

“ That magnificent refulgence came down from above, a glowing cascade of light. It overran the rocks like a beautiful gauze, clinging lovingly to their sinuousness, and wrapping their roughness in a tender, palpitating mantle of its own winsome brightness. It ran its nimble, fiery tendrils down the veins and crevices, and leaped in fierce playfulness from point to point, spinning its electric gossamers in that vacuum air like some enchanted tissue spread between the crags ”

“ A smooth mantle is scarcely yet thrown over the withered grass-plat, and the dry stalks of annuals still thrust themselves through the white surface in all parts of the garden. The leafless rose-bushes stand shivering in a shallow snow-drift, looking, poor things! ”

“ In the old woods she lays her hand upon the myriad branches, and on the softening ground beneath which lie the buried roots. From every bough she calleth forth the tender buds, and ere long she spreads with kindly hands a rich, green mantle over all the forests. ”

“ The surface mantle of the lithosphere.—The surface of the lithosphere is very generally mantled by a layer of loose material composed of soil, clay, sand, gravel, and broken rock. This loose material is sometimes known as mantle rock, and sometimes as rock waste. On the land, mantle rock is often composed of the disintegrated products of underlying rock formations. It represents the results of the recent action of the atmosphere, of water, of changes of temperature, and of other physical agencies acting on the outer part of the rock sphere. ”

“ The rain descends once more upon the dry and thirsty soil, and, from that very hour which seemed the date of cureless ruin, Nature puts forth her wondrous power with increased effort, and again her green and flower-embroidered mantle decks the earth with a new beauty. ”

“ Imagine its lowest branches, each far thicker than the trunks of eastern elms and oaks, pushing horizontally out at a height above ground of a hundred and fifty feet, which is higher than the tops of most of the full-grown trees of our eastern forests. Imagine these limbs bent horizontally at right angles, like huge elbows, as though holding its green mantle close about its form. ”

“ At their feet the rock wall dropped so sheer and smooth that no man might climb it, and then came the snow, sweeping steeply downward for miles apparently without a break. Far beyond lay the vast sea of forest, seeming to cover the whole earth with its green mantle. ”

“ As a result there is everywhere forming a mantle of rock waste which covers the land. It is well to imagine how the country would appear were this mantle with its soil and vegetation all scraped away or had it never been formed. The surface of the land would then be everywhere of bare rock as unbroken as a quarry floor. ”

“ If it were in the season of summer, you might further observe, that receding from its brow a dark-coloured declivity of the mountain rises still higher, terminating all around in peaks and ridges—which, being above the snow-line are continually covered with the pale white mantle that has fallen upon them from the heavens. ”

“ A black mantle, strewn over with golden stars, now enveloped the goddess from head to foot, leaving visible only her silvern feet, entwined by a serpent, as well as, over her head, a silvern disc, confined within the horns of a cow. ”

“ Each mountain, as if its firm and immutable form were flexible and varying, altered in appearance, like that of a shadowy apparition, as the position of the strangers relative to them changed with their motions, and as the mist, which continued slowly though constantly to descend, influenced the rugged aspect of the hills and valleys which it shrouded with its vapoury mantle. ”

“ The living animal buries itself in the sand with only the posterior extremity projecting into the water, so that the posterior aperture of the mantle cavity is both inhalant and exhalant.
The head is situated on the dorsal side of the body anteriorly within the anterior aperture of the mantle, from which it cannot be protruded. ”

“ Some of the lower mountains are covered with them, giving rise to remarkably beautiful masses of pale, translucent green in spring and summer, yellow and orange in autumn, while in winter, after every leaf has fallen, the white bark of the boles and branches seen in mass seems like a cloud of mist that has settled close down on the mountain, conforming to all its hollows and ridges like a mantle, yet roughened on the surface with innumerable ascending spires. ”

“ During life, this shelly plate is imbedded in the substance of the skin of the back, a thin layer of which clothes it; so thin that it can be very readily seen and felt notwithstanding. The mantle is much developed, forming two great irregular wing-like lobes, which stand up on each side of the body, and at pleasure either arch over the gill-shield, or are depressed, and widely expose it. ”

“ Water from the hydrosphere is continually rising in vapor into the atmosphere, the air of the atmosphere penetrates the hydrosphere,—for its gases are dissolved in all waters,—and both air and water enter and work upon the solid earth. By their action upon the lithosphere they have produced a third envelope,—the mantle of rock waste.
This envelope also is in movement, not indeed as a whole, but particle by particle. The causes which set its particles in motion, and the different forms which the mantle comes to assume, we will now proceed to study. ”

“ The surface is an ancient one, for the mantle of residual waste lies deep upon it, soils are reddened by long oxidation, and the rocks are rotted to a depth of scores of feet.
At present, however, the waste mantle is not forming so rapidly as it is being removed. The streams of the upland are actively engaged in its destruction. They flow swiftly in narrow, rock- walled valleys over rocky beds. ”

“ The mantle during life performs regular respiratory movements by which water is drawn into the cavity, passing between mantle and funnel, and is expelled through the funnel. In swimming the short arms are directed forwards, the fins undulate, and the motion is slow and deliberate; but if the animal is threatened or alarmed it swims suddenly and rapidly backwards by expelling water forcibly from the mantle cavity through the funnel, at the same time expelling a cloud of ink from its ink-sac. ”

“ Water beats upon the rocks of the sea-shore until it pounds them into sand, or rolls them into pebbles and boulders. It also sweeps the rich soil from the mountains into the valleys. In the form of snow it clothes the surface of the temperate and frigid zones with a warm mantle, which preserves vegetable life from the killing frosts of winter. ”

“ It is much to be regretted that the centre of the mantle is so tattered and discoloured that it is impossible to do more than ascertain that the design that is embroidered on it consists of figures on horseback or in chariots, in spirited attitudes. ”

“ It was found after many trials that a blend of these earths in certain proportions gives a mantle that yields a pure white light, while any preponderance of one or another would impart some tint to the light. ”

“ A lean, grey little man, clad in a quaintly barred and mottled mantle, woven by his own hands from some soft silky material, and a close-fitting brown peaked cap on his head with one barred feather in it for ornament, and a small wizened grey face with a thin sharp nose, puckered lips, and a pair of round, brilliant, startled eyes. ”

“ When the islands are first approached they present, it must be confessed, a somewhat forbidding aspect. Bare, bleak rocks, with a monotonous rounded outline, crowd along the shore, and seem to form all but the very highest portions of the land that meet our view, while such areas of low-ground as we can catch a glimpse of appear to be everywhere covered with a dusky mantle of heath and peat. ”

“ The mantle, which surrounds the core, is a rigid zone of materials rich in iron and magnesium. These materials are not as dense as those found in the core.
WHAT IS THE CRUST OF THE EARTH AND HOW IS IT DISTINGUISHED FROM THE MANTLE AND THE CORE?
The crust, the top part of which includes the ground we walk on, is the hard, outer surface layer of the earth. ”

“ By the secretive action of its mantle it gathers from the water in which it lives, material to build a shell with a rough and rugged exterior for its enemies, and adapted to resist the chemical activities by which it is surrounded, and a perfectly smooth lining suitable as an interposition for its own delicate organism. ”

“ On the dorsal side of the typical molluscan body, between the visceral sac and the shell, lies a duplicature of the integument, generally known as the mantle. The depending sides of the mantle, which are usually somewhat thickened, enclose between themselves and the body mass a chamber of varying size and shape, called the mantle cavity, which communicates freely with the external air or water, and encloses and furnishes a protection for the organ or organs of respiration. ”

“ Suppose again, Monsieur, if on examining the body of the mantle you should have found upon the taffeta the impression of a very pretty little foot, marked in gray dust, would you not have reflected as I did, that had any other woman stepped on the mantle since its fall, she would certainly have deprived me of the pleasure of picking it up? Therefore it would have been impossible that the impression of the shoe came from any other person than her who lost the mantle. ”

“ The two portions of the mantle touch one another along the whole line of the edge of the two valves, and, although thus in contact, may remain completely separate from one another, or [173] else become permanently united at one or more points. This fusion of the mantle edges corresponds to important changes in the organisation of the animal as a whole. The anal and branchial siphons are no more than prolongations of the mantle edges on the posterior side into a tubular form. ”

“ THE THICKNESS OF THE MANTLE. In any locality the thickness of the mantle of rock waste depends as much on the rate at which it is constantly being removed as on the rate at which it is forming. On the face of cliffs it is absent, for here waste is removed as fast as it is made. Where waste is carried away more slowly than it is produced, it accumulates in time to great depth. ”

“ The whole mantle, indeed, is a secreting organ, and its secretion is the shell-material: the fringes secrete the colouring matters of the shell, and enlarge its circumference; the rest of the mantle secretes the nacre, or mother-of-pearl, and increases the thickness of the shell. Now it is obvious that the formation of pearl nacre, and of pearls, depends on the healthy condition of the mantle, not on its diseases. If the mantle be injured the nacre is not secreted at all, or in less quantities. ”

“ This beautiful little creature, Cypræa Europæa, carrying its porcelain-like dwelling on its back, is enabled to move steadily along by the action of its single foot. When in action, the mantle, as it is termed, which is the general covering of the body, is greatly distended, and protrudes from the shell, which it perfectly encloses, folding up at the sides, and meeting at the top, the joining being scarcely perceptible, and the whole surface fitting so tightly to the shell, that the little ribbings are seen distinctly through it. ”

“ These two layers, therefore, when once formed cannot increase in thickness; as the mantle grows in extent its border passes beyond the formed parts of the two outer layers, and the latter are covered internally by a deposit of nacreous matter. Special deposits of the nacreous matter around foreign bodies form pearls, the foreign nucleus being usually of parasitic origin (see Pearl) .
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Let us now examine the organs which lie beneath the mantle-skirt of Anodonta, and are bathed by the current of water which circulates through it. ”

“ Then, as in placing a light pink shade over a Welsbach mantle, we act on the intimations of analysis greatly to the relief of the eye.
An incandescent bulb or mantle may be satisfactory both in brilliancy and color, but a further question is, How long will the filament or the mantle last, and at what point in deterioration should it be discarded? Tests during the first, the fiftieth, the hundredth, and other successive hours will tell us how much the intensity falls off. ”

“ The connective tissue of the mantle is chiefly a clear gelatinous matrix, containing cells of various shapes; it is frequently pigmented and is penetrated by numerous lacunæ, in which the blood flows. Inside the mantle, in all parts of the body, except along the ventral edge, there is a cavity,—the atrial or peribranchial cavity,—which opens to the exterior by the atrial aperture. This cavity is lined by a layer of cells derived originally from the ectoderm [3] and directly continuous with that layer through the atrial aperture (fig. 5) ”

“ Mantle. A flowing robe worn over the armour, as shown in the costume of the knights in the ivory mirror-case. (Fig. 463.)
Mantling or Lambrequin. A small mantle, of some rich materials, attached to the helmet, and worn hanging down, and ending in tassels. (See Fig. 177.) It is usually represented, in Heraldry, with jagged ends, to represent the cuts it would be exposed to in actual battle. ”

“ From a distance, the islands appear sometimes to be covered with a huge black mantle, which, on closer examination, proves to be the plumage of the birds that have congregated on its shores, huddling together in an immense company. ”

“ Most of the relics of life found in the stratified rocks belonged to animals or plants which lived in salt water. Because of their structure, their composition, their distinctive markings, and the remains of life which they contain, it is confidently inferred that most of the stratified rocks which lie beneath the mantle rock of the land were originally laid down in beds beneath the sea, and that the familiar processes of the present time furnish the key to their history. ”