When the slip of paper is not inserted the eccentric is in action; a pin attached to each of the external wires touches during the advancing and receding motions of the frame a different spring; and an arrangement is adopted, by means of insulation and contacts properly applied, by which, while one of the wires is elevated, the other remains depressed; the current passes to the telegraphic circuit in one direction, and passes in the other direction when the wire before elevated is depressed, and vice versâ ; but while both wires are simultaneously elevated or depressed the passing of the current is interrupted.
— from Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century by Robert Routledge

The poor Indian, now, in the extremity of his distress and peril, did what he ought to have done before: he threw down before his assailants a soiled and crumpled paper, which he implored them to read before his life was taken.
— from The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln, Complete by Abraham Lincoln

There were puzzling instances, notably in the early days of flying, when airmen began first to make cross-country flights, of engines being heard to fail suddenly, and machines seen to fall to destruction.
— from Learning to Fly: A Practical Manual for Beginners by Claude Grahame-White

The large picture is now in the Escurial.
— from Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, Vol. 2 (of 2) by William Howitt

(Fig. 64) 93 About 2 miles below the mouth of Millard Canyon, at Anderson Bottom, we reach one of the most interesting features on the river—the most recent rincon of a major river in the park, if not in the entire canyon country.
— from The Geologic Story of Canyonlands National Park by Stanley William Lohman

One mile up the left, or southeast, tributary is a parking area where we begin the ½-mile walk to Angel Arch, considered by many people to be the most beautiful and spectacular arch in the park if not in the entire canyon country.
— from The Geologic Story of Canyonlands National Park by Stanley William Lohman

“It doesn't sound very original, but I'm told that the propaganda is novel in the extreme.
— from The Shadow of the East by E. M. (Edith Maude) Hull

By omitting a comma (upon which the fate of empires may sometimes turn), our brother printers of 1587 (for this Scotch paragraph is not in the edition of 1577) have made pope Harrison bestow a mitre upon Hector Boece.
— from Elizabethan England From 'A Description of England,' by William Harrison by William Harrison

For my part, I never intend to endure the pain of it again; let my complexion take its natural course, and decay in its own due time.
— from Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e Written during Her Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa to Persons of Distinction, Men of Letters, &c. in Different Parts of Europe by Montagu, Mary Wortley, Lady

But the cable for this purpose is now in turn everywhere yielding to electricity, the great motor next to steam.
— from Inventions in the Century by William Henry Doolittle