"Nitre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the extent to which this ancient naturalist and philosopher has carried his researches on the above subject; as, in some editions, the Index of the article DENTES occupies several closely-printed columns. He recommends tooth-powder (dentifricia) of hartshorn, pumice-stone, burnt nitre, Lapis Arabus, the ashes of shells, as well as several ludicrous substances, in accordance with the mystic prejudices of the age. Amongst the remedies for fixing (firmare) teeth, he mentions Inula, Acetum Scillinum, Radix ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... number of bats had harbored and died here from time immemorial, that more than a hundred acres of the earthy floor of the cave had, from their decomposing remains, become impregnated with nitre; and during the years 1812 to 1814, a party of saltpetre-makers took up their residence here. They made great vats in the cave, in which they lixiviated the impregnated earth, and by wooden pipes conveyed it to a place where they boiled the water drawn from the vats. Their rude mechanical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... attention to the circumstance at that time, the flame of the candle, besides being larger, burned with more splendour and heat than in that species of nitrous air; and a piece of red-hot wood sparkled in it, exactly like paper dipped in a solution of nitre, and it consumed very fast—an experiment which I had never thought of trying ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... chemistry, when they learn that nitrogen is distinguished by the weakness of its affinities for other elements, and its consequent great inertness as a chemical agent, are often astonished to find that its compounds—such as nitric acid, nitre, which gives its explosive character to gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, gun-cotton, and various other explosive substances which it helps to form—are among the most remarkable in nature for the violence and intensity of their action, and for the extent to which the principle of vitality avails itself ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the improvement of human life." He had two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and fifty men at work. Some were condensing air into a dry tangible substance, by extracting the nitre, and letting the aqueous or fluid particles percolate; others softening marble, for pillows and pin-cushions; others petrifying the hoofs of a living horse, to preserve them from foundering. The artist ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... dregs—the bottle of old hair tonics, dead catsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of vanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental preparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water— with traces of ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... is white, and, though very sweet when new, develops, if kept for three or four years, a dry nutty flavour like sherry. This, however, does not last long, but gives place in a few months to a taste unpleasantly like sweet spirits of nitre, which renders the wine undrinkable. With proper appliances the country would no doubt produce excellent vintages, but at present the production of wine in Persia is a ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... but they were driven off with great loss, though the King of Bambarra was afterwards obliged to give up this, and all the other towns as far as Goomba, in order to obtain a peace. Here I lodged at the house of a Negro who practised the art of making gunpowder. He showed me a bag of nitre, very white, but the crystals were much smaller than common. They procure it in considerable quantities from the ponds which are filled in the rainy season, and to which the cattle resort for coolness during the heat of the day. When the water is evaporated, a white efflorescence ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... at Timbuctoo; the muskets, which are matchlocks, are made in the country. They are very dexterous in throwing the lance. Gunpowder is also manufactured there; the brimstone is brought from Fas; the charcoal they make; and he believes they prepare the nitre.[83] Their arrows are feathered and barbed; the bows are all cross-bows, with triggers; the arrows, 20 to 40 in a quiver, are made of hides, and hang on the left side. The king never goes to war in person. The soldiers ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... which was largely used by the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire in their wars with the Mohammedans. Its nature was kept a profound secret for centuries, but the material is now believed to have been a mixture of nitre, sulphur, and naphtha. It burned with terrible fury wherever it fell, and it possessed the property of being inextinguishable by water. Even when poured upon the sea it would float upon the surface and still burn. It was used in warfare for a considerable time after the discovery ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... Beatty and Martin have just received from Philadelphia and Baltimore: Opium, Mercury, Jolap, Ipecacoanha, Nitre, Glanker Salts, Gum Kino, Columbo root, assorted vials, carts, etc. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... copper in Putula or Rios and in Guadalupe. In these mineral districts we also encounter lead. Amianto (incombustible crystal) also abounds in Niezca and in the vicinity of Monclova, as also nitre in San Blas, jurisdiction of San Buonaventura. In the hills of Gizedo, correspondent to the district of Santa Rosa, are extracted ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... almost tantamount, in the moral world, to the destruction of the apparently active properties of bodies in the material. It would be like the attempt to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the expansive force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of steam, or of electricity, or of magnetism. These energies always existed in nature, and they were always discernible. They seemed, some of them unserviceable, some noxious, some no better than a sport to children; until contemplative ability, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... after the appearance of the 'kite-carriage,' on the helicopter principle, W. H. Phillips constructed a model machine which weighed two pounds; this was fitted with revolving fans, driven by the combustion of charcoal, nitre, and gypsum, producing steam which, discharging into the air, caused the fans to revolve. The inventor stated that 'all being arranged, the steam was up in a few seconds, when the whole apparatus spun around like any top, and mounted into the air faster than a bird; to what height ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... may be detected by the fact that they give a deep green bead when heated with borax, or that on fusion with sodium carbonate and nitre, a yellow mass of an alkaline chromate is obtained, which, on solution in water and acidification with acetic acid, gives a bright yellow precipitate on the addition of soluble lead salts. Sodium and potassium hydroxide ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... metal, and filling up the lines with fine plates of a different metal; the two were then united with the assistance of heat, and the whole burnished. Pliny has preserved a receipt for solder, which probably was used in these works. It is called santerna; and the principal ingredients are borax, nitre, and copperas, pounded, with a small quantity of gold and silver, in a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... gunpowder, uncle," cried Tom, "it couldn't be. I know what gunpowder's made of—nitre, brimstone, and charcoal; and besides, ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Bateson, her voice softening with pity; "that comes from eating French kickshaws, and having no mother to see that he takes a dose of soda and nitre now and then to keep his system ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... lime and the tincture of myrrh, and give a gentle aperient. He should endeavour to rouse and support the system by tonic medicines, as gentian and colomba with ginger, adding to two drachms of the first two, and one drachm of the last, half an ounce of nitre; but he should place most dependence on nourishing food. Until the mouth is tolerably sound, it is probable that the animal will not be induced to eat; but it will occasionally sip a little fluid, and, therefore, gruel should be always within its reach. More should occasionally be given, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... no use! besides, you'd get into a —— row if you went to him now. When I wos 'ome and like this my mother used to go to a chemist and git me some sweet spirits of nitre, and it always made me as right as a trivet. But there ain't ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in imitation of the natural sources and baths; as tincted upon vitriol, sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. And again we have little wells for infusions of many things, where the waters take the virtue quicker and better, than in vessels or basins. And amongst them we have a water which we call Water of Paradise, being, ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon
... knew every hour must lessen them, and I only waited for F——'s paroxysm of fever to subside about mid-day to send him off to Christchurch. I had exhausted my simple remedies, consisting of a spoonful of sweet spirits of nitre and a little weak brandy and water and did not think it right to let things go on in this way without advice: he was so weak he could hardly mount his horse; indeed he had to be fairly lifted on the old quiet station hack ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... preaching did fairly describe A bishop, who ruled all the rest of his tribe; And who is this bishop? and where does he dwell? Why truly 'tis Satan, Archbishop of Hell. And He was a primate, and He wore a mitre, Surrounded with jewels of sulphur and nitre. How nearly this bishop our bishops resembles! But he has the odds, who believes and who trembles, Could you see his grim grace, for a pound to a penny, You'd swear it must be the baboon of Kilkenny:[2] ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... ten o'clock. You may take another dose of the nitre, and gargle your throat well with a little of it. Are ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... passed a new Conscription Act, putting all residents between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five in the military service for the war. Those over forty-five to be detailed by the President as commissary quartermasters, Nitre Bureau agents, provost guards, clerks, etc. This would make up the enormous number of 1,500,000 men! The express companies are to have no detail of men fit for the field, but the President may exempt a certain ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... the Red fumes of Spirit of Nitre, and, the resembling Redness of the Horizontal ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... pharmacopceia we can select substances that if administered to a healthy person will produce almost any known form of disease thus: brandy, cayenne pepper and quinine, will induce inflammatory fever; scammony and ipecac will cause cholera morbus; nitre, calomel and opium, will provoke typhoid or typhus fever; digitalis will cause Asiatic, or spasmodic cholera; cod liver oil and sulphur promote scurvy, and all the cathartic family inevitably cause diarrhcea, the disease in each case being nothing more than the effort of Nature ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... at a loophole of the vault beneath his dwelling, and puffing his cigar into a bright coal, he carefully twitched the match-rope which led to the train, opened the loose strands, and placed the fire to it. Waiting an instant till he saw the nitre sparkle as it ignited, he moved away with long, swinging strides toward the sheds. There, glancing through the now deserted halls the crew had occupied, where quantities of fagots, and kindling-wood, and barrels of pitch ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... musketeers were still asleep, had gone down into the cellar, convinced by their silence that they were all in a deep slumber. Then he had run to the train, impetuous as a man who is excited by revenge, and full of confidence, as are those whom God blinds, he had set fire to the wick of nitre. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... For the rest, Mrs. Stiles described the manner in which the doctors had vainly endeavored to cure her injured ankle, told how she had passed sleepless night after night in spite of the morphia and sweet spirits of nitre, how she had been confined to her bed for three weeks and had only got up to be moved to a chair, how she suffered tortures and lost her appetite, how it was months before she could walk without crutches, and how every step she took gave her the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... water-bath. It continues to evolve gas, and after awhile, no longer yields a dark blue precipitate with ferrous salts, but a dark green or slate-colored precipitate. It is then removed from the fire, and left to crystallize, whereupon it yields a large quantity of crystals of nitre, and more or less oxamide. The strongly-colored mother liquid is then neutralized with carbonate of potash or soda, according to the salt to be prepared, and the solution is boiled, whereupon it generally deposits a green or brown precipitate, which ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... 1043. NITRE—Saltpetre.—This, in over-doses, produces violent poisonous symptoms. Vomiting should be immediately induced by large doses of mucilaginous, diluent drinks; but emetics which irritate the stomach ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... thy bonds, Saying, "I will not serve!" While upon every high hill, And under each rustling tree, Harlot thou sprawlest! Yet a noble vine did I plant thee, 21 Wholly true seed; How could'st thou change to a corrupt,(155) A wildling grape? Yea, though thou scour thee with nitre, 22 And heap to thee lye, Ingrained is thy guilt before Me, Rede of the Lord, thy God.(156) How sayest thou, "I'm not defiled, 23 Nor gone after the Baals." Look at thy ways in the Valley, And own thy deeds! A young camel, light o' heel,(157) Zig-zagging her ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... by staying such long stretches of time without breathing; and from dysentery caused by the frigidity. 40. Their hair, which is by nature black, changes to an ashen colour like the skin of seals, and nitre comes out from their shoulders so that they resemble human monsters of some species. 41. With this insupportable toil, or rather, infernal trade, the Spaniards completed the destruction of all the Indians of the Lucayan Islands who were there when they set themselves ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... saltpetre, in 200 lb. gunny-bags: and was now mashing it to music, bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in line, with huge wooden beetles called commanders, and lifted them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical power and unison, singing as follows, with a ponderous bump on the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... painting on porcelain, the gray, black specular nickel, etc.; native iron near the Bay of Samana, in the Mornes-du-Cap, and at Haut-and Bas-Moustique; other forms of that metal abound in numerous places, crystallized, spathic, micaceous, etc. Nitre can be procured in the Cibao, that great storehouse which has specimens of almost every metal, salt, and mineral; borax at Jacmel and Dondon, native alum at Dondon, and aluminous earth near Port-au-Prince; vitriol, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... attempts at intriguing with or bribing Athenians or Spartans, heretofore so often resorted to with success; the submission of Egypt; another winter spent in the political organization of that venerable country; the convergence of the whole army from the Black and Red Seas toward the nitre-covered plains of Mesopotamia in the ensuing spring; the passage of the Euphrates fringed with its weeping-willows at the broken bridge of Thapsacus; the crossing of the Tigris; the nocturnal reconnaissance before the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... but that flute of yours wants nitre, or a dose of physic, or something most dreadful!' at length exclaimed he, squeezing up his face as if in the greatest agony, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... even the simplest accident. A short, feverish attack of illness having seized Mrs. Morgan, the housekeeper, on the night of Fenton's removal, she persuaded one of the maids to sit up with her, in order to provide her with whey and nitre, which she took from time to time, for the purpose of relieving her by cooling the system. The attack though short was a sharp one, and the poor woman was really very ill. In the course of the night, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... gave oftener than any other, was nitre; which he ordered in doses of twenty or thirty grains to adults, and of three grains to infants. Measles, colics, sciatica, headache, giddiness, and many other ailments, all found themselves treated, and I trust bettered, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which stalagmites grow has been tested in this cavern by a lantern which was dropped in 1812 and found cemented to the floor in 1843, since which its upward progress has been carefully watched. The Mammoth Cave contains immense quantities of nitre. During the great American Civil War, most of that used was found here, and as gunpowder contains two-thirds of nitre to all its other ingredients, these caverns were of great value to the nation. The Mammoth Cave is now ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... It is my likeness if it be his glass. And a narrative that is true to the Varieties of Life is every Man's Novel, no matter from what shores, by what rivers, by what bays, in what pits, were extracted the sands and the silex, the pearlash, the nitre, and quicksilver which form its materials; no matter who the craftsman who fashioned its form; no matter who the vendor that sold, or the customer who bought: still, if I but recognize some trait of myself, 't is my likeness that ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... into the intent upturned faces into which had crept a look of blankness. There were those who thought vaguely that nitrogen was the scientific name for mosquito, while others confused it with nitre, an excellent emergency remedy ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... asks for information to No. 4. of his notes respecting the "salt-peter-man," so quaintly described by Lord Coke as a troublesome person. Before the discovery and importation of rough nitre from the East Indies, the supply of that very important ingredient in the manufactory of gunpowder was very inadequate to the quantity required; and this country having in the early part of the seventeenth ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various
... from what has been is a very dangerous deceit.—Were all the saltpetre in India monopolized, this would only make chemical researches more ardent and successful. The chalky earths would be searched for it, and nitre beds would be made in every cellar and every stable. Did not that prove sufficient the genius of chemistry would find in a new salt a substitute for nitre or a power superior to it.[3] It requires greater genius than Mr. Pitt seems to possess, ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... caverns, which have attracted much attention, and which are described as among the most extraordinary natural curiosities in the world. They are also of considerable importance in a commercial view, from the quantity of nitre they afford. The great cave, near Crooked Creek, is supposed to contain a million pounds of nitre. This cave has two mouths or entrances, about six hundred and fifty yards from each other, and one hundred and fifty ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... says the terrible effects of this destructive material, which inspired the native Americans with such awe, which raised in their winds such wonder, are to be ascribed to the junction of the apparently harmless substances of nitre, charcoal and sulpher, set in activity by the accession of trivial scintillations, produced from the collision of steel with flint, merely because some bigoted Priest of the Sun, who is ignorant ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... always illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings. And yet all this was done merely for mechanical amusement, and not for any personal pecuniary advantage. While Watt was making experiments as to the proper substances to be carved and drilled, he also desired Murdock to make similar experiments. "The nitre," he said in one note, "seems to do harm; the fluor composition seems the best and hardest. Query, what would some calcined pipe-clay do? If you will calcine some fire-clay by a red heat and pound it,—about a pound,—and send it to me, I shall ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... compose de ces debris, et cultive en vignes. Mais apres l'avoir depasse, j'ai trouve la coupe verticale d'une colline a couches pierreuses, si reguliers, que je les ai prises au premier coup d'oeil pour de la pierre a chaux. L'esprit de nitre m'a detrompe: c'est une pierre sableuse tres compacte, dont les couches, qui n'ont souvent que quelques pouces d'epaisseur, s'elevent par une pente insensible vers le cone volcanique qu'elle recouvrent de ce cote la sans aucune apparence de desordre. Ces couches qui sont visiblement ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... unknown and undeveloped territory. Besides gold, silver and copper, immense deposits of salt, borax, lime, platinum, sulphur, soda, potash-salts, cinnabar, arsenical ores, zinc, coal, antimony, cobalt, nickel, nitre, isinglass, manganese, alum, kaolin, iron, gypsum, mica and ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... give her some sweet spirits of nitre," said I, taking out a little vial. "Will you ask the servant for a glass of water ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... abound the more the farther you proceed. Their nests are formed about the upper parts of the cave, and it is thought to be their dung simply that forms the soil (in many places from four to six feet deep, and from fifteen to twenty broad) which affords the nitre. A cubic foot of this earth, measuring seven gallons, produced on boiling seven pounds fourteen ounces of saltpetre, and a second experiment gave a ninth part more. This I afterwards saw refined to a high degree of purity; but ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... stream. The swift volution, and the enormous train, Let sages versed in nature's lore explain. The horrid apparition still draws nigh, And white with foam the whirling billows fly. The guns were primed; the vessel northward veers, Till her black battery on the column bears: The nitre fired; and, while the dreadful sound, Convulsive shook the slumbering air around, 50 The watery volume, trembling to the sky, Burst down, a dreadful deluge, from on high! The expanding ocean trembled as it fell, And felt with swift ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... salpetre, has been of so slow a growth, that any reference to it is peculiarly unlucky. For several months the Convention has recommended, invited, intreated, and ordered the whole country to occupy themselves in the process necessary for obtaining nitre; but the republican enthusiasm was so tardy, that scarcely an ounce appeared, till a long list of sound penal laws, with fines and imprisonments in every line, roused the public spirit ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... to dip your clothes in a weak solution of nitre before they are worn; for that prevents their blazing, even if they should catch fire," said mamma. "But you must not let that keep you from taking ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... Southerners shot, in their present mood, they would remember various matters. They would remember the treasure he had wrung from their distress; the cotton bought for ten cents and sold abroad for a dollar; the nitre, the gunpowder, the clothing and medicines, rated so mercilessly dear; the profits boosted a thousand per cent., though ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... when subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but again become apparent ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... observe this tendency to run into definite forms, and nothing is easier than to give scope to this tendency by artificial arrangements. Dissolve nitre in water, and allow the water slowly to evaporate; the nitre remains and the solution soon becomes so concentrated that the liquid condition can no longer be preserved. The nitre-molecules approach each other, and come at length within the range of their polar forces. They ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... merchants,' says Pliny, 'were carrying nitre, they stopped near a river which issues from Mount Carmel. As they could not readily find stones to rest their kettles on, they used for this purpose some of these pieces of nitre. The fire, which gradually dissolved the nitre, and mixed ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... a very difficult thing to get clear of a cold if taken in time. Confinement to the house for a day, or even two, a lowered diet, a mixture of the solution of acetate of ammonia and spirits of sweet nitre the first day, some aperient medicine and an ordinary cough mixture the second or third day, warmer clothing and avoidance of exposure to high winds; this treatment will be found successful in ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... hogshead, take an ounce of salt of tartar, and two ounces of half sweet spirit of nitre, mix them in a gallon of lac, and whisk them well together; apply it to the hogshead, bung it up, and let it stand ten or fifteen days; then put a cock within two inches of the bottom of ...
— The Cyder-Maker's Instructor, Sweet-Maker's Assistant, and Victualler's and Housekeeper's Director - In Three Parts • Thomas Chapman
... View of the several Cells) rise generally out of the very Clefts of the main Rock, with nothing, to Appearance, but a Soil or bed of Stone for their Nurture. But though some few Naturalists may assert, that the Nitre in the Stone may afford a due Proportion of Nourishment to Trees and Vegetables; these, in my Opinion, were all too beautiful, their Bark, Leaf, and Flowers, carry'd too fair a Face of Health, to allow them even to be the Foster-children ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... Chlorodyne, opium pill, chlorodyne, collapse, nitre, bricks to the feet, and then—the burning-ghat. The last seems to be the only thing that stops the trouble. It's black cholera, you know. Poor devils! But, I will say, little Bunsee Lal, my apothecary, works like a demon. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... attempts to find sulphur and nitre have been unavailing; and they have been forced to depend after all (much to Yeo's[182-6] disgust) upon their swords and arrows. Be it so: Drake[182-7] took Nombre de Dios and the gold-train there with no better weapons; and they may ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... wish to purify, in an equal measure of boiling water; a cupful of one to a cupful of the other. Strain this solution, and, letting it cool gradually, somewhat less than three-fourths of the nitre will separate in regular crystals. Saltpetre exists in the ashes of many plants, of which tobacco is one; it is also found copiously on the ground in many places, in saltpans, or simply as an effloresence. Rubbish, such as old mud huts, and mortar, generally ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... kind of salt, called by the ancients nitre, but more commonly among us saltpetre. It is composed of nitric acid and potassa.[11] It is found in earthy substances; sometimes native or pure, in the form of a shapeless salt. Vast quantities are found in several ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... mixture may be made by pulverizing Glauber's salts finely, and placing it level at the bottom of a glass vessel. Equal parts of sal ammoniac and nitre are then to be finely powdered, and mixed together, and subsequently added to the Glauber's salts, stirring the powders well together; after which adding water sufficient to dissolve the salts, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... method of producing smoke and sparks from the mouth has been still further improved. The fire can now be produced in various ways. One way is by the use of a piece of thick cotton string which has been soaked in a solution of nitre and then thoroughly dried. This string, when once lighted, burns very slowly and a piece one inch long is sufficient for the purpose. Some performers prefer a small piece of punk, as it requires ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... bark, eight drachms; gum benzoin, four drachms; yellow sanders, two drachms; styrax, two drachms; olibanum, two drachms; charcoal, six ounces; nitre, one drachm and a half; mucilage of tragacanth, sufficient quantity. Reduce the substances to a powder, and form into a paste with the mucilage, and divide into small cones; then put them into an oven, used ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Washed-out roses; Eaves dropping, Red noses; Pools, splashes, Spouts, spirts; Swollen sashes. Gutters, squirts; Limp curls, Splashed hose; Pretty girls, Damp shows; Piled grates, Cold shivers; Aching pates, Sluggish livers; Morn cruel, Eve a biter; Hot gruel, Sweet nitre; Voice a creaky Cracked cadenza, Face "peaky," INFLUENZA!!! Gloom growing, Glum, glummer Noses (and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... get it myself, as I want some drugs as well." I bought some nitre, mercury, flower of sulphur, and a small brush, and on my return said, "I must have a little of your——, this liquid is indispensable, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... meeting with the Salt of our Microcosm, shall immediately cast us into that Fermentation and Putrefaction, which will utterly dissolve All the Vital Tyes within us; Ev'n as an Aqua Fortis, made with a conjunction of Nitre and Vitriol, Corrodes what it Siezes upon. And when the Divel has raised those Arsenical Fumes, which become Venomous. Quivers full of Terrible Arrows, how easily can he shoot the deleterious Miasms into those Juices or Bowels of Men's Bodies, which will soon Enflame them with a Mortal ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... requiring only a few seconds for its performance, and which may even be done under chloroform. The painting tincture of iodine behind the angle of the jaw, or the touching the tonsils with caustic, iodine, alum, tannin, or sweet spirits of nitre are utterly futile proceedings. They diminish the unhealthy and often offensive secretion from the glands which beset the tonsils, and restore the surface to a more healthy condition, but they are absolutely without influence in ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... taketh off a garment in cold weather, And as vinegar upon nitre, So is he that singeth songs to ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... was "acid to the taste and contained two grains of nitre," but Cavendish, suspecting that this was due to impurities, tried another experiment that proved conclusively that his opinions were correct. "I therefore made another experiment," he says, "with some more of the same air from plants in which the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... with violent effervescence, or explosion of air, by the acids of vitriol, nitre, and of common salt, and by distilled vinegar; the neutral saline liquors thence produced ...
— Experiments upon magnesia alba, Quicklime, and some other Alcaline Substances • Joseph Black
... objection to the turnip is, that it taints the milk. This may be remedied—to a considerable extent, if not wholly—by the use of salt, or salt hay, and by feeding at the time of milking, or immediately after, or by steaming before feeding, or putting a small quantity of the solution of nitre into the pail, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... hot over the wood several times; then brush hot a solution of pearl ash, 2 oz. to a pint of water, until the wood becomes perfectly blue. The copper solution is prepared in this way:—"Take of the refiner's solution of copper made in the precipitation of silver from the spirit of nitre; or dissolve copper in spirit of nitre, or aqua fortis, by throwing in filings or putting in strips of copper gradually till all effervescence ceases. Add to it starch finely powdered, one-fifth or one-sixth of the weight of copper ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... and restless did he become, that the good Dr. Maddox, who had attended Mabel, was sent for without delay. His prescription, however, was not a very alarming one: namely, castor oil and some spirits of sweet nitre. ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... clouds now and again cast their deep shadows. Altogether this side of the picture was not inviting; it exhibited too plainly the true wilderness in its sternest aspect; but perhaps the knowledge that in the bosom of the vast plain before me there was not one drop of water but was bitter as nitre, and undrinkable as urine, prejudiced me against it, The hunter might consider it a paradise, for in its depths were all kinds of game to attract his keenest instincts; but to the mere traveller it had a stern outlook. Nearer, however, to the base of the Mpwapwa ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... than one season in twelve can you get a good crop of barley from late sowing in all the middle and western states. Barley is more favorably affected than any other grain, by soaking twenty-four hours before sowing, and mixing with dry ashes. A weak solution of nitre is best for soaking ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... Indian red. The Venetian red of the present day, however, is an artificial product, containing no earthy base, and therefore improperly classed among the ochres. It is prepared by calcining sulphate of iron, to which a little nitre may be advantageously added. The result is a peroxide of iron, resembling light red, but more powerful, and of a more scarlet hue. It is very permanent, but being a purely iron pigment, should be cautiously employed with colours affected by that metal. Though not bright, ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... Ceylon generally poor "Patenas," their phenomena obscure Rice lands between the hills Soil of the plains, "Talawas" IV. Metals.—Tin Gold, nickel, cobalt Quicksilver (note) Iron V. Minerals.—Anthracite, plumbago, kaolin, nitre caves List of Ceylon minerals (note) VI. Gems, ancient fame of Rose-coloured quartz (note) Mode of searching for gems Rubies Sapphire, topaz, garnet, and cinnamon stone, cat's-eye, amethyst, moonstone 37, Diamond not found in Ceylon (note) Gem-finders and lapidaries ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... the powder of this country is all bad, but that Haj Beshir and the Sheikh get English or American powder from Niffee. Leaden bullets are scarce; they use zinc bullets: but these will not go far, resisting the force of the powder; nor will they penetrate deep when they hit a person. Nitre is found at a place one ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... never-varied slaughter. The consumption of raw spirits among the rebel ranks must have been enormous during the day; for every rebel canteen found on the field had been filled with that maddening compound, with or without the fiendish addition of the sulphur and nitre of gunpowder. Their attacks were like the rolling of billows toward a beach: their waves of battle swept up with raging fierceness, but broke and receded at every dash; and, like the waves when the tide is fast ebbing, the surging lines broke farther off at each advance. The attack ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... forty smaller bombards (bombardelles) placed three, four, or even six on each waggon; twelve with ordinary pieces of artillery; as many more for the service of twelve big guns; thirty-seven carts of iron balls; three with gunpowder; and finally five laden with nitre, darts, and bullets. Splendid artillery of most excellent workmanship and great power escorted by two thousand men under arms, without mentioning the companies who marched before ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... their way from Wareville, their home, with horses hearing powder for Marlowe, the nearest settlement, nearly a hundred miles away. The secret of making powder from the nitre dust on the floors of the great caves of Kentucky had been discovered by the people of Wareville, and now they wished to share their unfailing supply with others, in order that the infant colony might be able to withstand ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... but there is a large European element in all the coast towns. Mining and agriculture are the chief industries; manufactures of various kinds are fostered with foreign capital. The chief trade is with Britain: exports nitre, wheat, copper, and iodine; imports, textiles, machinery, sugar, and cattle. Santiago (250) is the capital; Valparaiso (150) and Iquique the principal ports. The government is republican; Roman Catholicism the State religion; education ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... skins and flesh have been subjected to sodaic or saline products; for Boitard, in a work published at Paris in 1825, says that an injection is made with oil of cedar and common salt, also, that they wash the corpse with nitre and leave it to steep for seventy days, at the end of which time they remove the intestines, which the injection has corroded, and replace their loss by filling the cavity of the abdomen with nitre. This is also borne ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... long-drawn Interjections, of Woe is me and Cursed be ye. So soon as History can philosophically delineate the conflagration of a kindled Fireship, she may try this other task. Here lay the bitumen-stratum, there the brimstone one; so ran the vein of gunpowder, of nitre, terebinth and foul grease: this, were she inquisitive enough, History might partly know. But how they acted and reacted below decks, one fire-stratum playing into the other, by its nature and the art of man, now when all hands ran raging, and the flames lashed high over shrouds ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... consists of about twenty-five parts of oxygen, and nine of carbon, devested of the mucilage and yest that rises with it. It should be recollected, that the decomposition of pyrites, the formation of nitre, respiration, fermentation, &c. are low degrees of combustion, and though it is the property of combustion to form fixed and phlogisticated airs, both the modes of doing it, and the quantity of the products, depend on the manner of oxygenating them in the changes brought about ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... first become fluid, and then aeriform by appropriated degrees of heat. On the contrary, this elastic matter of heat, termed Calorique in the new nomenclature of the French Academicians, is liable to become consolidated itself in its combinations with some bodies, as perhaps in nitre, and probably in combustible bodies as sulphur and charcoal. See note on l. 232, of this Canto. Modern philosophers have not yet been able to decide whether light and heat be different fluids, or modifications of the same fluid, as ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... of mint, of cinnamon, of sweet fennel-seeds, of treacle, aqua vitae, spirits of ammoniacal volatile oil, of sal ammoniac, dulcified spirits of nitre and of sal ammoniac, rectified spirits ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... western extremity of the valley we came upon a small mound of earth, all white and glistening, covered with nitre in an efflorescent form, which shone so conspicuously in the sun, it could be seen at many miles' distance; from the base of it a clear spring of water trickled, so disagreeable in taste that no one, save ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... no conception of a sorrow which is past distraction by pleasance. 'Vinegar upon nitre!' You never tasted ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... Missouri, which we are now to cross. This river takes its rise at eight hundred leagues distance, as is alledged, from the place where it discharges itself into the Missisippi. Its waters are muddy, thick, and charged with nitre; and these are the waters that make the Missisippi muddy down to the sea, its waters being extremely clear above the confluence of the Missouri: the reason is, that the former rolls its waters over a sand and pretty firm soil; the latter, on the contrary, flows across ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... many discoveries are attributed to Democritus and Anaxagoras; and, connected with chemical arts, the narrative of the inventions of Archimedes alone, by Plutarch, would seem to show how great is the effect of science in creating power. In modern times, the refining of sugar, the preparation of nitre, the manufacturing of acids, salts, &c., are all results of pure chemistry. Take gunpowder as a specimen; no person but a man infinitely diversifying his processes and guided by analogy could have made such a discovery. Look into the books of the alchemists, and some idea may be formed of the ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... material in the store, and of labour spent in producing it. But the corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear sulphur and saltpetre, till at last the labourers who have consumed corn and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their currency to obtain materials for the feast, discover that no amount of currency will command anything Festive, except Fire. The supply of rockets is ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... are the words which Worcester and the English dictionaries spell re, while Webster, the Century, and the Standard prefer er:Calibre, centre, litre, lustre, maneuvre (I. maneuver), meagre, metre, mitre, nitre, ochre, ombre, piastre, sabre, sceptre, sepulchre, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... quite worn out with it before it is begun, or too far gone in the common duration of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never after greatly altered, unless it be ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... acknowledges, however, "rubedo, calor, dolor," among its symptoms. Cochlearia, theriaca and similar articles, according to him, are almost always injurious. If no foetor exist, (and, of coarse, no actual mortification,) he applies a solution of sal ammoniac or nitre, with some vinegar or lemon juice; sometimes as a lotion, sometimes by keeping a rag imbued with it always in the ulcer. Hard rubbing he reprobates. If the disease have made progress, and foetor exist, muriatic acid is used: in the less aggravated stages, diluted ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... To Expel Freckles.—Finely powdered nitre is excellent. Apply it to the face with the finger moistened with water and dipped in ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... clock shelf in the sitting-room there is a bottle of sweet spirits of nitre; it's the only bottle there, so you can't make any mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. I wonder you ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Powdered nitre moistened with water and applied to the face night and morning, is said to remove freckles without injury ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... must have recourse to artificial means. Nitre in broth, for instance,—about three grains to ten (cattle fed upon nitre grow fat); or earthy odors,—such as exist in cucumbers and cabbage. A certain great lord had a clod of fresh earth, laid in a napkin, put under his nose every morning ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and flame. The alarm became general; Mrs. Mumbles fainted; Mr. Mumbles roared out 'Fire, fire!' as loud as he was able. But now the indiscriminate ignition of rockets, crackers, squibs, Catherines, fiery fountains, flaming cascades, sparkling arbours, and gunpowder and nitre pillars, and suns, stars, and comets enveloped the whole throne and its appurtenances in a blaze of fiery splendour. Rockets shot out on every side, fiery squibs ran along the ground, Catherine ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... whence the houses that are built of it in the two cities, appear as hewn out of one solid rock, and become harder, the more they are exposed to the inclemencies of the weather. This hardness may, with good reason, be ascribed to the salt of nitre, which contracts a certain viscidity from the rain wherewith it is mixed, and which easily penetrates into these stones, because their substance is spongy and cretaceous, and adheres to the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... the couch. He struck flintsparks upon a rag steeped in nitre, and waved it to a flame, and kindled a lanthorn. He flung his own mantle upon the bed and went forth in his shirt. The storm raged terribly; the stars were dancing in high heaven. He came to the ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... compounds of nitric acid (which consists of nitrogen and oxygen), and alkaline substances. Thus nitrate of potash (saltpetre), is composed of nitric acid and potash: nitrate of soda (cubical nitre), of ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... cooled slowly build themselves into crystals, each of their own peculiar form, and we see that there is here a wonderful order, such as we should never have dreamt of, if we had not proved it. If you possess a microscope you may watch the growth of crystals yourself by melting some common powdered nitre in a little water till you find that no more will melt in it. Then put a few drops of this water on a warm glass slide and place it under the microscope. As the drops dry you will see the long transparent needles of nitre forming on the ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... in all appearance, black powder, and set it by for digestion. This menstruum (solvent) dissolved a quantity of luna cornua (horn silver), though some black powder remained undissolved. The powder having been washed was, for the greater part, dissolved by a pure acid of nitre (nitric acid), which, by the operation, acquired volatility. This solution I precipitated again by means of sal-ammoniac into horn silver. Hence it follows that the blackness which the luna cornua acquires from ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... from the the sea coast. When I mentioned this circumstance to colonel Gordon, at the Cape of Good Hope, he wondered at it; and owned, that, in his excursions into the interior parts of Africa, he had never experienced anything to match it: he attributed its production to large beds of nitre, which he said must ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... young verdure thus nourished soon showed the superior qualities of the marciti of Italy and the meadows of Switzerland. The system of irrigation, modelled on that of the farms in Lombardy, watered the earth evenly, and kept the surface as smooth as a carpet. The nitre of the snow dissolving in these channels no doubt added much to the quality of the herbage. The engineer hoped to find in the products of succeeding years some analogy with those of Switzerland, to which this nitrous substance is, as we know, a ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... mutiny had from her axle torn The stedfast earth. As last his sail-broad vans He spreads for flight; and in the surging smoke Uplifted spurns the ground— —Had not by ill chance The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft. That fury stay'd; Quench'd in a boggy syrtis, neither sea, Nor good dry land: night founder'd on he ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... he has felt indisposed, but is better, thanks to a draught "composed of laudanum, nitre and other savoury drugs." When their letters do not arrive promptly they are in despair. "Stage after stage without a line!" complains Theodosia the mother, in one feverishly incoherent note. And Theodosia the daughter, even at nine years old, had ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... this heat being expelled, it would return to its natural consistence. This being the case, nothing else is required for the freezing of water, than a certain degree of cold, which may be generated by the help of salt, or spirit of nitre, even under the line. I would propose, therefore, that an apparatus of this sort should be provided in every ship that goes to sea; and in case there should be a deficiency of fresh water on board, the seawater may be rendered potable, by being ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... pleased most with those Passages in this Description which carry in them a greater Measure of Probability, and are such as might possibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the Smoke that rises from the Infernal Pit, his falling into a Cloud of Nitre, and the like combustible Materials, that by their Explosion still hurried him forward in his Voyage; his springing upward like a Pyramid of Fire, with his laborious Passage through that Confusion of Elements which ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a mixture of two parts nitre, two parts neutral carbonate of potash, one part of sulphur, and six parts of common salt, all finely pulverized, makes a very powerful fulminating powder. M. Landgerbe adopts the extraordinary error of supposing that these preparations ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... group is seated at a long table eating; some feed the immense boiler with new supplies from a heap of dirty-looking earth-stained salt. Others test the quality from time to time of that which has been purged and crystallized. It was the native nitre of the country on which they were occupied, and the test was its deflagration. In passing out of the first of the line of quarried caverns to go to the Ear, which is the last, we are struck with the beauty of the garden into which it opens, which is found in possession ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... stepped out into the corridor, walked along the carpeted flagstones, and cast a practiced eye around him as he walked. These old castles were difficult to keep clean, and my lord the Count was fussy about nitre collecting in the seams between the stones of the walls. All appeared quite in order, which was a good thing. My lord the Count had been making a night of it last evening, and that always made him the more peevish in the morning. Though he always woke at the ...
— The Eyes Have It • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sin; nor can this stench and filth be by man purged out, when once from the body got into the soul; sooner may the blackamoor change his skin, or the leopard his spots, than the soul, were it willing, might purge itself of this pollution. 'Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... times every day, you bathe your face in distilled water, to which has been added three drops of the juice of the whortleberry, one drop of the juice of the mountain ash berry, 1 oz. of lavender water, 1 oz. of nitre, and 1/2 oz. of tincture of arnica; and that, just before going to sleep, you look for three minutes, without blinking, at an equilateral triangle, transcribed in blood, on white paper, and composed of these letters and figures." And he handed Hamar ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... found in these desert wastes, but borax, nitre, sulphur, silver, salt, soda, opals, garnets, turquoises, onyx, and marble form a part of its resources. Rich gold mines have built the towns of Randsburg and Johannesburg in the midst of the Mohave desert, while finds of rich ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... macerating three or four drachms of the lichen in cool spring water, assisting, perhaps, the solvent action of the water by minute quantities of common salt, nitre, quicklime, sulphate of copper or iron, or similar re-agents. If these means failed, after a sufficient length of time had been allowed for the development of color, he digested a fresh portion of the pulverised lichen in water, containing ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... that divelish yron Engin[*] wrought In deepest Hell, and framd by Furies skill, 105 With windy Nitre and quick Sulphur fraught, And ramd with bullet round, ordaind to kill, Conceiveth fire, the heavens it doth fill With thundring noyse, and all the ayre doth choke, That none can breath, nor see, nor heare at will, 110 Through smouldry cloud of duskish stincking smoke, ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... meantime they had set up armories, and were making guns as fast as they could. Their greatest trouble was about powder. They had chemists who knew how to make it, but they had no nitre to make it of, and did not know at first how to get any. At last one of their chemists said that there was some nitre—from a few ounces to a pound or two—in the earth of every cellar floor; and that if all the nitre in all the cellar floors of France could be collected, it would be enough ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... injection of a decoction of camomiles, betony, feverfew, mallows, linseed, juniper-berries, cumminseed, aniseed, melilot, and add to it half an ounce of diacatholicon; two drachms of hiera piera, an ounce each of honey and oil and a drachm and a half of sol. nitre. The patient must abstain from salt, acid ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... would give so much for your souls! And yet though ye give it, it will not do it,—ye must pay the uttermost farthing, or nothing. Your sorrow and reformations will not complete the sum, no, nor begin it. "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me,"—yet there is still condemnation for thee. Though all the world should convene about this matter, to find a ransom for man; suppose all the treasures of monarchs, the mines and bowels of the earth, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... manufacturing sulphuric acid or vitriol was by placing some burning sulphur in a closed vessel containing some water. The water absorbed the acid formed by the burning sulphur. It was next discovered that by mixing with the sulphur some nitre, much more sulphuric acid could be produced per given quantity of brimstone. At first large glass carboys were used, but in 1746 the carboys were replaced by chambers of lead containing water at the bottom, and in these lead chambers the mixture of sulphur ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... often fail to relieve a night cough, because the night cough in question is due to nervous irritation or indigestion. Narcotics are useless and hurtful. Great relief is frequently found from inhaling the smoke of burning nitre or saltpetre. Blotting paper may be soaked in a solution of saltpetre, dried and lighted. Place the burning substance near enough the patient for him to inhale the smoke, but not so near as to interfere ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk |
