However the water was calm; not a ripple disturbed its surface.
— from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

This river was narrow, and rather deep in some places; but in others it was broader, and very shallow.
— from Adventure of a Kite by Harriet Myrtle

It lay like a sheet of glass, so that never a ripple disturbed its surface.
— from The Captain of the Polestar, and Other Tales by Arthur Conan Doyle

The pool of water lay dark and silent within its stone steps; not a ripple disturbed its surface; not a dead leaf rested on its bosom.
— from Vera Nevill Or, Poor Wisdom's Chance by Cameron, H. Lovett, Mrs.

The surface of the stream was tranquil; not a ripple disturbed its slumbers; it was currentless; the mighty mass of the Mississippi was swollen, and, acting as a dam across the mouth of its tributary, caused a back-water of an hundred miles.
— from Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 1 by Edmund Flagg

Not a ripple disturbed its shining surface.
— from As It Was in the Beginning by Philip Verrill Mighels

This decrease in length of nasals and resultant decrease in size of the nasal chamber may be correlated with the decrease of humidity of the environment.
— from Subspeciation in the Kangaroo Rat, Dipodomys ordii KU. Vol 1 No 23 by Henry W. Setzer

I thanked the old lady for her kindness and rode back to the road again, went over hills, forded creeks, passed farm-houses, but not a rebel did I see.
— from The Dispatch Carrier and Memoirs of Andersonville Prison by William N. (William Nelson) Tyler

Even a dark lane down which they dived, hoping to double on him, proved of no avail; rather did it serve to make matters worse, for the keeper, knowing where they were bound to come out, had wasted neither time nor energy, but made straight for that point: a manoeuvre which brought him alarmingly close when he did emerge.
— from Haviland's Chum by Bertram Mitford