"Saltpetre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them, and secretly working at their destruction. Its waters, filtering through the soil, were perpetually in contact with the lower courses of these buildings, and kept the foundations of the walls and the bases of the columns constantly damp: the saltpetre which the waters had dissolved in their passage, crystallising on the limestone, would corrode and undermine everything, if precautions were not taken. When the inundation was over, the subsidence of the water which impregnated the subsoil caused in course of time settlements in the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... your humbugging; yer worth a dozen dead niggers anyhow," said he, taking up the pail of water and throwing nearly half of it over him; then passing the bucket to the black man and ordering him to get more water and wash him down; then to get some saltpetre and a sponge to sop ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... muskets and supplies at the enemy's camps, and found evidence of a hasty flight of the Confederates. By a detour we came into a valley flanked to the east by Raccoon Mountain, and we visited a large saltpetre works at Nick-a-Jack Cave. These works we destroyed by breaking the large iron kettles and by burning all combustible structures. A portion of the detachment was sent under cover of the thick woods to the railroad east ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... choice ragout concocted of Truffles. But delicate and weak stomachs find them difficult to digest. Pliny said, "Those kinds which remain hard after cooking are injurious; whilst others, naturally harmful if they admit of being cooked thoroughly well, and if eaten with saltpetre, or, still better, dressed with meat, or with pear stalks, are ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... waking one morning and finding himself famous, and it is quite an ordinary fact, that a blaze may be made with a little saltpetre that will be stared at by thousands who would have thought the sunrise tedious. If we may believe his biographer, Wordsworth might have said that he awoke and found himself in-famous, for the publication of the "Lyrical Ballads" undoubtedly ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... to no foreign power. We are using the utmost industry in endeavoring to make saltpetre, and with daily increasing success. Our artificers are also everywhere busy in fabricating small arms, casting cannon, &c. Yet both arms and ammunition are much wanted. Any merchants, who would venture to send ships ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... "saltpetre," is the general term for that saline dust which accumulates wherever there are mounds of brick or limestone ruins. This dust is much valued as a manure, or "top-dressing," and is so constantly dug out and carried away by the natives, ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... poor, underfed, sapless thing, scorched in an oven; and as for the round of beef, it has as good as disappeared—probably because it asks too much skill in the salting. Then again one's breakfast bacon; what intolerable stuff, smelling of saltpetre, has been set before me when I paid the price of the best smoked Wiltshire! It would be mere indulgence of the spirit of grumbling to talk about poisonous tea and washy coffee; every one knows that these drinks ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... Volga, near Zarewpod, where many traces of a large town, still exist. Sumerkent is unknown, but may have been near Astrachan, formerly named Hadschi-Aidar-Khan. But there are ruins of a town still existing on both sides of the Volga, which are now used for the purpose of making saltpetre.—Forst. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... voluntary that they become complicity Despotism natural to puissant personalities Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre Have never known in the morning what I would do in the evening I no longer love you Imagine what it would be never to have been born Melancholy problem of the birth and death of love Only one thing infamous in love, and that is a falsehood Words are nothing; ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... a comfortable home and kind treatment in their old age that the Ladies of Charity determined to found an institution on the same lines for all the beggars of Paris. A large piece of ground that had been used for the manufacture of saltpetre was accordingly obtained from the King, who also gave a large contribution of money toward the undertaking. The hospital, known as "La Salpetriere" from the use to which the ground had formerly been put, was soon in course of building, but the beggars who were destined to 1711 it, many ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... Bombay are handsomely appointed, though not with the same degree of splendour that prevails in Bengal, where the quantity of plate makes so striking a display. The large silver vases, in which butter and milk are enclosed in a vessel filled with saltpetre, which give to the breakfast-tables of Calcutta an air of such princely grandeur, are ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... development of the Haber process by the I.G. The story is too well known to repeat at length. The basic element of explosives is nitrogen, which is introduced by nitric acid. This was produced from imported Chili saltpetre, but the blockade cut short these imports, and but for the Haber method, the vital step in producing nitric acid from the air, Germany would have been compelled to abandon ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... or radical of the acid which is extracted from nitre or saltpetre be better known, we have judged proper only to modify its name in the same manner with that of the muriatic acid. It is drawn from nitre, by the intervention of sulphuric acid, by a process similar to that described for extracting the muriatic acid, and by means of the same apparatus (Pl. ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the match. I saw suddenly before me a nondescript shape on all fours like a beast, but with a man's head drooping below a tubular projection over the nape of the neck, and the gleam of a rounded mass of bronze ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... house. We will give everybody time to pack up. We will make up a little purse for any specially hard case which the removal may show. But stay and be plague-stricken we will no longer; nor are we disposed to spend our whole income in burning sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal to keep out infection. And certainly, when by neglect to pay ground-rent, or other illegality, the owner of our nuisance has forfeited his right to stay, no mortal can blame us for taking the strictest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... it thoroughly with a great weight for four days. Take ginger and every sort of spice that is used to meat, and half a pound of brown sugar, a good quantity of saltpetre, and a pound of juniper-berries. Rub the whole in thoroughly, and let it lie six weeks in the liquor, boiling and skimming every three days, for an hour or two, till the liver becomes as hard as a board. Then steep it in the smoke liquor that is used ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... in the thirteenth, and Berthold Schwartz in the fourteenth century, are reputed to have carried out experiments by mixing physical salt (in the form of the chemically labile saltpetre) with physical sulphur and - after some initial attempts with various metals - with charcoal, and then exposing the mixture to the heat of physical fire. The outcome of this purely materialistic interpretation of the three alchemical ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... four gallons of water a pound and a half of sugar or molasses, and two ounces of saltpetre. If it is to last a month or two, use six pounds of salt. If you wish to keep it through the summer, use nine pounds of salt. Boil all together; skim and let cool. Put meat in the vessel in which it is to stand; pour the pickle over the meat until it is covered. Once in two months, boil and skim ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... seventy in one half galley, seventy in another, and eighteen in the galley of the Kiahya, who likewise had along with him the Venetian consul. The rest of these men were distributed in two galleons which carried the powder, saltpetre, brimstone, ball, meal, biscuit, and other necessaries for the fleet. The Pacha likewise sent his treasure on board the gallies, which was contained in forty-two chests, covered with ox hides and oil-cloth. On the 20th, he issued orders for every one to embark in two ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... purpose, at once set to work at the cannon. These were filled nearly to the muzzle with powder, and the plugs were driven with mallets tight into the muzzles. Slow matches, composed of strips of calico dipped in saltpetre, were placed in the touch holes. Then the word was given, and the whole party fell back to the gate just as the Dahomans in great numbers came running up. In less than a minute after leaving the battery ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... future, or sought to appease the ceaseless thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer. Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought, saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies of activity ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... to be pickled it should be dusted lightly with saltpetre sprinkled with salt, and allowed to drain twenty-four hours; then plunge it into pickle, and keep under with a weight. It is good policy to pickle a portion of the sides. They, after soaking, are sweeter to cook with vegetables, and the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... of Potassa, Saltpetre (KO, NO^{5}).—Saturate boiling water with commercial saltpetre, filter while hot in a beaker glass, which is to be placed in cold water, and stir while the solution is cooling. The greater part of the saltpetre will crystallize in very fine crystals. Place these crystals upon a filter, and wash them with a little cold water, until a solution of nitrate ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... that hitherto things "had not yet been properly and in a revolutionary manner explored,"—"The strong chateaus, those feudal fortresses, that were ordered to be demolished attracted next the attention of your committee. Nature there had secretly regained her rights, and had produced saltpetre, for the purpose, as it should seem, of facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of destruction. From these ruins, which still frown on the liberties of the Republic, we have extracted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... one of the oldest methods of preserving food. The addition of a little saltpetre helps to preserve the color of the meat. Brine is frequently used to temporarily preserve meat and other substances. Corned beef is a popular form of salt preservation. All salted meats require long, slow cooking. They should ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... middle of October, after the following manner: get a thirty gallon cask, take out one head, drive in the bung, and put some pitch on it, to prevent leaking. See that the cask is quite tight and clean. Put into it one pound of saltpetre powdered, fifteen quarts of salt, and fifteen gallons of cold water; stir it frequently, until dissolved, throw over the cask a thick cloth, to keep out the dust; look at it often and take off the scum. These proportions have been accurately ascertained—fifteen ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... like the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with foretelling the reader that choicer flowers are preparing to appear." Upon the foreign supply of gunpowder being prohibited, he proposed a plan, in the Pennsylvanian Journal, of a saltpetre association for the voluntary supply ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... chest inflammations will 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 with easy breathing, especially in cases ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... is easily made to yield work in the physical sense, but because a good deal of work in the economical sense has contributed to its production. Labour was necessary to collect, transport, and purify the raw sulphur and saltpetre; to cut wood and convert it into powdered charcoal; to mix these ingredients in the right proportions; to give the mixture the proper grain, and so on. The powder [149] once formed part of the stock, or capital, of a powder-maker: and it ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... formed anti-tea leagues, proclaimed inherent rights, and demanded an independency in advance of the men; those of New York, who tilled the fields, and, removing their hearth-stones, manufactured saltpetre from the earth beneath, to make powder for the army; those of New Jersey, who rebuked traitors; those of Pennsylvania, who saved the army; those of Virginia, who protested against taxation without representation; those of South Carolina, who at Charleston established a paper in opposition ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... owe their escape to the height or depth of their first ideas, and any interruption of their plans rather favors their execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... light paper are to be steeped in a solution of saltpetre, in the proportions of two ounces of the salt to one pint of water, ...
— The Art of Perfumery - And Methods of Obtaining the Odors of Plants • G. W. Septimus Piesse
... doctrine of hatred to kings, and the unity of the republic. National buildings shall be converted into barracks, public squares into workshops; the ground of the cellars will serve for the preparation of saltpetre; all saddle horses shall be placed in requisition for the cavalry; all draught horses for the artillery; fowling-pieces, pistols, swords and pikes, belonging to individuals, shall be employed in the service of the interior. ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... afternoon when sitting at his table preparing some villainous compound for the Queen, "go down to the laboratory, boy, and fetch me some gunpowder, sulphur, saltpetre, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... savages of their cane brakes, they left their families, and generously marched to the assistance of their friends. Nine hundred of them mounted, under the command of Col. Campbell, poured down from the Allegany, like the torrents from its summit. Gunpowder they had already learnt to prepare from the saltpetre in their caves, and lead they dug out of their mines. Dried venison satisfied their hunger, pure water slaked their thirst, and at the side of a rock they enjoyed comfortable repose. Armed with rifles, sure to the white speck on the target, at the distance of one hundred paces, or to ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... like smiths at their forges Worked the red St. George's Cannoneers, And the villainous saltpetre Rung a fierce, discordant meter Round their ears; As the swift Storm drift, With hot sweeping anger, came the horseguards' clangor On our flanks; Then higher, higher, higher, burned the ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... especially a fine quality for use in the government offices. In the Island of Roda there is a sugar-refinery of considerable extent, founded in 1859, and principally managed by Englishmen. Silk goods, saltpetre, gunpowder, leather, &c., are also manufactured. An octroi duty of 9% ad valorem formerly levied on all food stuffs entering the city was abolished in 1903. It used to produce about ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... and March. The Germans place them in deep tubs, which they cover with layers of salt and saltpetre, and with a few laurel leaves. They are left four or five days in this state, and are then completely covered with strong brine. At the end of three weeks they are taken out, and left to soak for twelve hours in clear well-water; they are then exposed, during three weeks, to a smoke produced ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... month of February, the nights, and especially the early hours of the morning before sun-rise, are so cold, that small quantities of water are covered with a thin sheet of ice. For this purpose, either shallow pits are dug in earth rich in saltpetre, {212b} and small shallow dishes of burnt porous clay are filled with water, and placed in these pits, or when the soil does not contain any saltpetre, the highest terraces on the houses are covered with straw, and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... not think the young gentlemen meant any harm, for they provided plenty of food, and took them to bed with them. They set my daughter at liberty next day, and she spoke very handsomely of the young gentlemen, and said they had cured the skins with saltpetre, and were stuffing them when she left. But the subject was always ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... principal arsenal of Edward III., who in 1347 had a manufactory of gunpowder there, when various entries in the Records mention purchases of sulphur and saltpetre "pro gunnis Regis."[54] ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... this denomination of contraband and merchandizes prohibited, shall be comprehended only warlike stores and arms, as mortars, artillery, with their artifices and appurtenances, fusils, pistols, bombs, grenades, gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur, match, bullets and balls, pikes, sabres, lances, halberts, casques, cuirasses, and other sorts of arms, as also soldiers, horses, saddles, and furniture for horses; all other effects and merchandizes, not before specified expressly, and even all sorts of naval matters, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... those run in moulds. For this purpose, melt together one quarter of a pound of white wax, one quarter of an ounce of camphor, two ounces of alum, and ten ounces of suet or mutton-tallow. Soak the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and when dry, fix them in the moulds and pour in the melted tallow. Let them remain one night to cool; then warm them a little to loosen them, draw them out, and when they are hard, put them in a box in a dry and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a scoop net made of bark thread; a mockasin made of the like materials; a mat of the same materials, enveloping human bones, were found in saltpetre dirt, six feet below the surface. The net and other things mouldered on ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... to be done," responded the bravo. "This is the last night I shall come to Orbajosa—the last. I have to look up some boys who remained in the town, and we are going to see how we can get possession of the saltpetre and the sulphur that are ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... These were the pre-lucifer days. The fire to light the powder at the touch-hole was obtained by the use of a flint, a steel, and a tinder-box. The flint was struck sharply on the steel; a spark of fire fell into the tinderbox, and the match of hemp string, soaked in saltpetre, was readily lit, and fired ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... high, so as to form a tank. Below this is a sunken cistern—say eight feet square—into which the drainage would be conducted from the upper platform. In this cistern a force-pump is fitted, and the cistern is half filled with a solution of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... spongy substance, consisting of slices of certain fungi beaten together, used as a styptic, and, after being steeped in saltpetre, used as tinder. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of iodine and bromine, two substances hitherto undecompounded, were both amongst the class of manufacturers, one being a maker of saltpetre at Paris, the other a manufacturing chemist at Marseilles; and the inventor of balloons filled with rarefied air, was a paper manufacturer near Lyons. The descendants of Mongolfier, the first aerial traveller, still ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... had passed thus over our heads there ensued disgust and mournful silence, followed by a terrible convulsion. For to formulate general ideas is to change saltpetre into powder, and the Homeric brain of the great Goethe had sucked up, as an alembic, all the juice of the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him, did not believe it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The explosion ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a good man and true, who was employed in the Hotel de Saltpetre, in the Ruee Saleratus," replied Mr. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... carpets, which are admirable in appearance, and, save in durability, equal to the English. Indigo seed from Bundelkund is also a most extensive article of commerce, the best coming from the Doab. For cotton, lac, sugar, and saltpetre, it is one of the greatest marts in India. The articles of native manufacture are brass washing and cooking utensils, and stone deities worked out of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... children groping under the black cloak of our Maker?—who will not blind us with his light. Did he not give us also these lusts, the keen knife and the sweetness, these sensations that are like pineapple smeared with saltpetre, like salted olives from heaven, like being flayed with delight.... And did he not give us dreams fantastic beyond any lust whatever? What is the good of talking? Speak to your own kind. I have gone, Benham. I am lost already. There is no resisting any more, since ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... few foreign merchants were settled here, but they found the hot seasons fatal, and no wonder, with 130deg. (F.) in the shade! The trade from the upper river, especially from the Presidio das Pedras Negras de Pungo Andongo,[FN2] consists of hides, cattle tame and wild (cefos); saltpetre washed from earth in sieves, mucocote or gum anime (copal), said by Lopes de Lima to be found in all the forests of Pungo Andongo; wax, white and yellow; oil of the dendem (Elais Guineensis) and mandobim, here called ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... said he. "That Seigneur Duvarney, I know him; and I know his son the ensign—whung, what saltpetre is he! And the ma'm'selle—excellent, excellent; and a face, such a face, and a seat like leeches in the saddle. And you a British officer mewed up to kick your heels till gallows day! So ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the experienced playwright puts all the fiddles, the French-horns, the kettle drums, and trumpets of his orchestra, in requisition, to usher in one of those horrible and brimstone uproars called melodrames; and it is thus he discharges his thunder, his lightning, his rosin, and saltpetre, preparatory to the rising of a ghost, or the murdering of a hero. We will now ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... more." Eagerly she lifted from the ground, which was covered with rugs, a large green earthern jar. "It is full of rosewater to bathe thy face, for the water of the desert here is brackish, and harsh to the skin, because of saltpetre. The Sidi ordered enough rosewater to last till Ghardaia, in the M'Zab country. Then he will ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for rheumatic gout or acute rheumatism, commonly called in England the "Chelsea Pensioner." Half an ounce of nitre (saltpetre), half an ounce of sulphur, half an ounce of flour of mustard, half an ounce of Turkey rhubarb, quarter of an ounce of powdered guaicum. Mix, and take a teaspoonful every other night for three nights, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Encyclopaedia would be hard to beat. Owing to our shortage of matches we have been driven to use it for purposes other than the purely literary ones though; and one genius having discovered that the paper, used for its pages had been impregnated with saltpetre, we can now thoroughly recommend it ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of coffee, cotton, and sugar; in all of which ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... when some wiseacres asserted that the devil had appeared to him, and given him the knowledge which he turned to such account, no one was bold enough to assert that it was improbable. His hint that saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, mixed in certain proportions, would produce effects similar to thunder and lightning, was disregarded or disbelieved; but the legend of the brazen head which delivered oracles, was credited ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connexion with the former at all. Its connexion with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one-half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... needed for the protection of the public and for the guidance of manufacturers and officers, has yet to be created. While from time immemorial certain articles of food have been preserved by salting, smoking, drying, or by the addition of sugar and in some cases of saltpetre, during the last quarter of the 10th century the use of chemicals acting more powerfully as antiseptics or preservatives extended enormously, particularly in England. A very large fraction of the British food supply being obtained from abroad, a proportionately great ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and let the committee reassure him—that was the business of the committee; and so the Congress authorized the several colonies to export as much "produce, except horned cattle, sheep, hogs, and poultry, as they may deem necessary for the importation of arms, ammunition, sulphur, and saltpetre." ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... and climate exceedingly dry, soil very light and stony, extremes in temperature; the other chiefly from the dry sandy Traversia of Mendoza 3,000 feet more or less. If some of the bushes should grow but not be healthy, try a slight sprinkling of salt and saltpetre. The plain is saliferous. All the flowers in the Cordilleras appear to be autumnal flowerers—they were all in blow and seed, many of them very pretty. I gathered them as I rode along on the hill sides. If they will but choose to come up, I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... separate the province of Suse from that of Draha, abound in iron, copper, and lead. Ketiwa, a district on the declivity of Atlas, east of Terodant, contains also mines of lead and brimstone; and saltpetre also, of a superior quality, abounds in the neighbourhood of Terodant. In the same mountains, about fifty or sixty miles south-west of Terodant, there are mines of iron of a very malleable quality, equal to that of Biscay in Spain, from which the people of Tagrasert manufacture gun-barrels, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... to sever the tie which binds us to the mother country? That was not so very difficult to answer; but there was another question: Can we? Britain is mighty, and what are we? Thirteen colonies of farmers, with little money, no allies, no saltpetre even, and all the Indians open to British gold and British rum. Then there was another question: Will the people ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... it that makes common salt crystallize in the form of cubes, and saltpetre in the shape of six-sided prisms? We see no reason why it should not have been just the other way, salt in prisms and saltpetre in cubes, or why either should take an exact geometrical outline, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and found the Secretary of the Committee within; he was writing at a large table loaded with books, papers, steel ingots, cartridges and samples of saltpetre-bearing soils. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... getting nitre is extremely interesting, extended and elaborate, giving the reader a full view of pioneer conditions and endeavor. The scheme of purification of nitre for gunpowder use is illuminating and attractive. Attention is directed to the saltpetre rock and caves of the western portion of ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... commercial sources are the salt deposits at Stassfurt in Prussian Saxony, in which magnesium bromide is found associated with various chlorides, and the brines of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, U.S.A.; small quantities are obtained from the mother liquors of Chile saltpetre and kelp. In combination with silver it is found as the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... of the earth are saltpetre, which is found in the Elburz, and in Azerbijan; sulphur, which abounds in the same regions, and likewise on the high plateau; alum, which is quarried near Tabriz; naphtha and gypsum, which are found in Kurdistan; ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... finest thing of the kind in the whole world, and were shown not only the fleet of a hundred ships in port, but the galleys in course of construction, the men making the oars, the women and children at work on the sails and ropes, the sulphur and saltpetre mills, and the splendid armoury, all enclosed within lofty walls, and guarded by twin towers crowned with the winged lion. And they saw what was indeed one of the wonders of the world—the glorious front of St. Mark's just as we ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... veneration. On that day they threw down the gauntlet before astonished Europe; and William the Conqueror, when he burnt his fleet, did not place himself with more audaciousness between victory and death. Without money, without credit, without arms, artillery, saltpetre, and armies; betrayed by Dumorier; Valenciennes being taken by the Austrians; Toulon in the hands of the English; the king of Prussia under the walls of Landau, and a country of ninety leagues extent devoured by one hundred and fifty thousand Vendeans, they published ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... vessels or gharas used for storing and collecting water, larger ones for keeping grain, flour and vegetables, and surahis or amphoras for drinking-water. In the manufacture of these last salt and saltpetre are mixed with the clay to make them more porous and so increase their cooling capacity. A very useful thing is the small saucer which serves as a lamp, being filled with oil on which a lighted wick is floated. These saucers resemble those found in the excavations of Roman remains. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of water, quite new, stood on silver stands, with percolators attached, and covered with lids. Further on, on a platform, were placed spoons and cups, with salvers and covers; kulfis [147] of ice were arranged, and the goglets [148] were being agitated in saltpetre. ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... temperate zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... America, Captain Barry, by orders of Franklin, directed Captain Gallatheau, of the ship "Marquis La Fayette," to proceed to the United States under convoy of the "Alliance," as the vessel was laden with one hundred tons of saltpetre, twenty-six iron eighteen-pounders, fifteen thousand gunbarrels, leather, uniforms for ten thousand men and cloth for five or six thousand. After being under convoy for three weeks in a gale of wind which split the sails of the "Alliance," ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... barrels of wine, casks of brandy, quantities of chestnuts and potatoes; and besides all this, chests containing ointments, drugs and lint, and lastly a complete arsenal of muskets, swords, and bayonets, a quantity of powder ready-made, and sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal-in short, everything necessary for the manufacture of more, down to small mills to be turned by hand. Lalande kept his word: the life of an old woman was not too much to give in ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... connection with prisoners and the Mint he was shortly afterwards nominated one of the Commissioners for regulating the farming and making of saltpetre and gunpowder throughout Britain, an appointment which was all the more appropriate from the fact that his grandfather, George Evelyn of Long Ditton and Wotton (1530-1603), had been the first to introduce the manufacture of ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... South Midian, the region lying below the parallel of El-Muwaylah. It is, indeed, still my conviction that "tailings" have been washed for gold, even by men still living. We also brought notices and specimens of three several deposits of sulphur; of a turquoise-mine behind Ziba; of salt and saltpetre, and of vast deposits of gypsum. These are sources of wealth which the nineteenth century is not likely to leave ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... 24 Bales than we have since got in the Sloop), That Kidd had left behind him a great Ship near the Coast of Hispaniola that nobody but himselfe could find out, on board whereof there were in bale goods, Saltpetre, and other things to the Value of at least 30,000 L.: That if I would give him a pardon, he would bring in the Sloop and goods hither, and would go and fetch the great Ship and goods afterwards. Mr. Emot delivered me that Night Two French Passes, which Kidd ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... help of farthings. And as respects aliquot parts, four shares among three persons are as incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt at giving change in half-crowns. However, this was all the preservation that the horse found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had: but the frost was antiseptic. And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever apricots were ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... mixture of three cwt. of guano, one of salt, one and a half of saltpetre, and one of gypsum, for each acre; sow broadcast and plow in about four inches deep, and you will find your manure well paid for, and no exhaustion of the soil, as is usually the case wherever this crop is cultivated, as it is a very gross feeder, and requires ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... from Alton there are three other caves worthy of attention. Two of these are known only as The Saltpetre Caves, and the ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... detracting from its once romantic appearance. Visitors first descend a well-like pit, into which a stream falls, by a flight of steps, and then passing under a high archway, proceed along a level road, to what are called the vats, where saltpetre was once manufactured. Their blazing torches, numerous as they may be, hardly light up the vast subterranean region. From the large hall they make their way through a low narrow passage, known as the "Vale of Humility," into another hall ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... week agone, Cammet was sent on a swift horse to Chateau Thierry. The good town craved of Pothon de Xaintrailles, who commands there, to send them what saltpetre he could spare for making gunpowder. The saltpetre came in this day by the Pierrefonds Gate, and Cammet with it, but on another horse, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... better, perhaps, than any soldier or sailor that ever lived, knew how to strike at his foes through their own imagination, calculated that when these three huge explosion vessels, with twenty fire-ships behind them, went off in a sort of saltpetre earthquake, the astonished Frenchmen would imagine every fire-ship to be a floating mine, and, instead of trying to board them and divert them from their fleet, would be simply anxious to get out of their way with the utmost possible despatch. The French, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... I glad! For if I do look grim and rough, I've got some feelin'— People think A soldier's heart is mighty tough; But, Harry, when the bullets fly, And hot saltpetre flames and smokes, While whole battalions lie afield, One's apt ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... the length of the room very slowly, for what I had come for had completely gone out of my head. Fortunately the man never heard me until I had recollected it. Then he got up, and I asked him for some stone-blue, saltpetre, tea, pickles, salt, etc. He was very civil. I bought some things and asked for a note of them. He went to his desk again; I looked at some newspapers lying near. On the top was a circular from Smith & Elder containing notices of the most important new works. The first and longest was given ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... and I. We used some of your cartridges for gunpowder. He got saltpetre and one or two other things from the chemist. They were quite a success," said Chris, with a touch of her ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... walad (children). We shall see what we shall see. Yusuf even thinks he can be persuaded to sign the treaty. All the Kailouees are very fond of powder, and also very much alarmed at it. They say they could themselves make plenty of powder if saltpetre were ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... bit of it,' responded Harry, also grinning at the thought of these well-known specifics. 'I would rather it should turn out saltpetre and sulphur. Then we could ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Miss Kingsnorth. Faith, it's a blessin' ye brought the boy here. There's no tellin' What the prison-surgeon would have done to him. It is saltpetre, they tell me, the English doctors rub into the Irish wounds, to kape them smartin'. And, by the like token, they do the same too in the English House of Commons. Saltpetre in Ireland's wounds is what ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... worst nigger that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... children, an orphan boy of their people, Epraim's uncle Jackrael Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest and Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, and Ephraim's sons held ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... half drachms of camphor, and eleven drachms of spirit of wine; when the camphor is dissolved, which it will readily do by slight agitation, add the following mixture:—Take water, nine drachms; nitrate of potash (saltpetre), thirty-eight grains; and muriate of ammonia (sal ammoniae), thirty-eight grains. Dissolve these salts in the water prior to mixing with the camphorated spirit; then shake the whole well together. Cork the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... artillery, armor and timber for oars, though, as a memorandum of 1580 says, "if the Spaniards catch you trading with them, you shall die for it." Probably what they objected to most was the sale of arms to the infidel. From Barbary came sugar, saltpetre, dates, molasses and carpets. Andalusia demanded fine cloth and cambric in return for wines called "seckes," sweet oil, raisins, salt, cochineal, indigo, sumac, silk and soap. Portugal took butter, cheese, fine cloth "light green or sad blue," lead, tin and hides in exchange for salt, oil, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... like smiths at their forges Worked the red St. George's Cannoneers; And the "villainous saltpetre" Rung a fierce, discordant metre Round their ears; As the swift Storm-drift, With hot sweeping anger, came the horse-guards' clangor On our flanks. Then higher, higher, higher burned the old-fashioned fire Through ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... for incendiary purposes, filled with a very fiercely flaming composition of saltpetre, sulphur, resin, turpentine, antimony, and tallow. It has three vents for the flame, and sometimes is equipped with pistol barrels, so fitted in its interior as to discharge their bullets ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... beef or pale-board, which you can get, bone them and take off the inner skin; nick your beef about an inch distance, but mind you don't cut thro' the skin of the outside; then take two ounces of saltpetre, and beat it small, and take a large handful of common salt and mix them together, first sprinkling your beef over with a little water, and lay it in an earthen dish, then strinkle over your salt, so let it stand, four or five days, then take a pretty ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... Saltpetre the natives procure by a process of their own from the earth which is found impregnated with it; chiefly in extensive caves that have been, from the beginning of time, the haunt of a certain species of birds, of whose dung the soil ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... of gunpowder was manufactured in the whole of the Southern States. The Augusta powder-mills and arsenal were then commenced, and no less than 7000 lb. of powder are now made every day in the powder manufactory. The cost to the Government of making the powder is only four cents a pound. The saltpetre (nine-tenths of which runs the blockade from England) cost formerly seventy-five cents, but has latterly been more expensive. In the construction of the powder-mills, Colonel Rains told me he had been much indebted to a pamphlet by ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... authority I learned the existence of gold and copper mines, the metals being combined; and I saw specimens of coal taken from two or three different points, but I do not know what the indications were as to quality. Brimstone, saltpetre, muriate and carbonate of soda, and bitumen, are abundant. There is little doubt that California is as rich in minerals of all kinds ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... spoonful of salt, a table-spoonful of powdered white-sugar, and one of saltpetre. Work this quantity into six pounds of fresh-made butter. Put the butter into a stone pot, that is thoroughly cleansed. When you have finished putting down your butter, cover it with a layer of salt, and let it remain ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... of stramonium leaves and strip from the stems, rubbing between the hands to partly pulverize. To this add one ounce of saltpetre, finely powdered. Dose.—Place a half teaspoonful upon a very hot shovel. Inhale the rising smoke. If the first few inspirations cause coughing, the smoke should not be evaded as the coughing incites ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Romanist counter-reformation; and by the clashing of the two, is one of the great causes of the Thirty Years' War, one of the most disastrous checks which European progress ever suffered. Gunpowder, again, not content with killing men, becomes unexpectedly a political agent; 'the villanous saltpetre,' as Ariosto and Shakespeare's fop complain, 'does to death many a goodly gentleman,' and enables the masses to cope, for the first time, with knights in armour; thus forming a most important agent in the rise ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... was thick and stifling, the saltpetre fumes filling the throat and lungs, until breathing was difficult. The dense bank of vapor enveloping the ship also rendered it almost impossible to aim with any accuracy. We of Number Eight gun were early impressed with this fact, and "Hay," the second captain, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... saltpetre, is an extremely expensive manure, and not a desirable one, because the nitrogen in it is in a too quickly assimilable form, and is very liable to be lost in drainage. But it might be used with effect, and in small quantities, for bringing forward supplies, and I am informed that ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... in war, and the efforts made to render them more effective, went on augmenting till the introduction of the still more "villanous saltpetre," even then, however, coming to no sudden halt. Several of the instances that we have cited of machines of extraordinary power belong to a time when the use of cannon had made some progress. The old engines were employed by Timur; in the wars of the Hussites ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... linstock (lont, a match, and stok, a stick), 'a gunner's forked staff to hold a match of lint dipped in saltpetre.' ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... thought he'd yell my head off. 'I found your father'd bought the business, my business, 'n' I was left out in the freezin', icy cold! Susan Clegg, I smashed a table,' he says, ''n' two chairs,' he says, ''n' I went to see the girl 'n' ask her to wait a little longer,—'n', Fire 'n' Brimstone 'n' Saltpetre, 'f your father hadn't gone 'n' married ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... hypogea, finally some are covered uniformly with a brilliant pottery glaze which renders, it is true, the forms rather blurred and not easy to see, but which resembles in a surprising manner, antiquities which the action of fire or of earth, impregnated with saltpetre, have slightly damaged. The feigned hieroglyphs therein are mistaken for those as to which the work has been neglected. Their statuettes recall the figurines of poor ware, which the Ancient Egyptians placed in so great ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... "Gold is the most abundant; but saltpetre and naphtha are among the products. Quantities of rice are grown here, and a singular method is adopted for separating the grain from the ear. The bunches of paddy are spread on mats, and the Sumatrans rub out the grain under their feet, supporting ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... and country it had absorbed the circulation of the other local journals, which resisted feebly at times, but in the matter of the Cory murder had not dared to do anything except follow the Tocsin's lead. The Tocsin, having lit the fire, fed it—fed it saltpetre and sulphur—for now Martin ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... pounds of common salt, add four ounces of saltpetre, eight ounces of treacle, two ounces of salprunella, winter savory, bay-leaves, thyme, marjoram, and a good table-spoonful of allspice, bruise all these things well together, and thoroughly rub them over ...
— A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes • Charles Elme Francatelli
... quickly through this gallery, where there is not much to see, although, to be sure, they used to manufacture saltpetre here. Think of that! A manufactory in the bowels of the earth! Then we enter a large, roundish room called the "Rotunda," and from this there are a great many passages, leading off in various directions. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... have seen that worms eagerly devour raw meat, fat, and dead worms; and ordinary mould can hardly fail to contain many ova, larvae, and small living or dead creatures, spores of cryptogamic plants, and micrococci, such as those which give rise to saltpetre. These various organisms, together with some cellulose from any leaves and roots not utterly decayed, might well account for such large quantities of mould being swallowed by worms. It may be worth while here to recall the fact that certain species of Utricularia, which grow in damp places in ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... Liverpool, and filled at that time with invalids and pleasure-seekers. Hipp, who was a sort of American Crichton, managed the business details with consummate tact. I was announced as the eye-witness and participator of a hundred actions, fresh from the bloodiest fields and still smelling of saltpetre. My horse had been shot as I carried a General's orders under the fire of a score of batteries, and I was connected with journals whose reputations were world-wide. Disease had compelled me to forsake the scenes of my heroism, and I had consented to enlighten the Lancashire public, through the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... strange merit in a partisan or statesman, always and scrupulously to tell the truth. Lies are part of the regular ammunition of all campaigns and controversies, valued according as they are profitable and effective; and are stored up and have a market price, like saltpetre and sulphur; being even more deadly ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... order of the day; that the guineas of Pitt had been vainly lavished to hire machines six feet high, carrying guns; that the flight of the English leopard deserved to be celebrated by Tyrtaeus; and that the saltpetre dug out of the cellars of Paris had been turned into thunder, which would crush the Titan ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed oil with ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... his to the surgeon for fifty cents, the magnificence of which bargain the latter learns from the captain, who says his share will be about seven and a half cents! We steam alongside, and learn that our prize is the schooner St. George, bound for Wilmington, via the Bermudas, with a cargo of salt, saltpetre, etc., and worth perhaps four thousand dollars. We send our prize list on board the flagship, and have a nice chat over the capture. It puts us in good humor, and our vessels chassee around each other till afternoon, when we separate, to hear shortly that the schooner, on being ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... many have failed, no doubt; it is only stubborn, reckless perseverance that can hope to succeed; it is well that we recognise this. How many ages did men try to make gunpowder and never succeeded? They would put saltpetre to charcoal, or charcoal to sulphur, or saltpetre to sulphur, and so were ever unable to make the compound explode. But it has only been discovered within the last few hundred years that all three were needed. Before that gunpowder was a mere imagination, a phantasy of the alchemists. How easy it ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... our exploring expedition, passing at the entry the remnants of old saltpetre works, which were established here during the struggle at New Orleans. The extent of this cave would render a detail tedious, as there are comparatively few objects of interest. The greatest marvel is a breed of small white fish without ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... go with the men to frighten Walsh, and burn the house. I promised to do so, and he then furnished us with powder and ball; we went down to the river side, and McCarthy gave his pistols and 7/6 in money to Anthony Ryan. He gave me some powder, flax, and something like saltpetre, and showed me, by putting some powder into the pan, and snapping it, how the flax was to be lighted. McCarthy then parted with us, and we, after eating the bread and meat, went to Walsh's. I lighted the tow, and Paddy Ryan put the fire into the roof. ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... gunpowder either to terrify the enemy or to serve for signals; but it is never used to throw a cannon-ball. It probably was known to the Chinese of that date, as the Arab speaks of gunpowder under the designation of "Chinese snow," meaning doubtless the saltpetre which forms a leading ingredient. The Chinese had been dabbling in alchemy for many centuries, and it is scarcely possible that they [Page 116] should have failed to hit on some such explosive. It is, however, believed on good authority that they never ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... will find it a great improvement to steep the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and dry them. The flame is clearer, and the tallow ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... then went to attend the four-ale bar. When he came back we exchanged courtesies, and bought, for ourselves and for him, some of the sixpenny cigars of the house. We lingered over our drink in silence, and, for a time, nothing could be heard except the crackling of the saltpetre in the Sunday-Afternoon Splendidos. Then Georgie inquired what was doing at my end, and told me of what he was writing and of how he was amusing himself, and I told him ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... began to consider it as a fit subject for taxation. The progress which was making in the art of war had created an unprecedented demand for the ingredients of which gunpowder is compounded. It was calculated that all Europe would hardly produce in a year saltpetre enough for the siege of one town fortified on the principles of Vauban. [157] But for the supplies from India, it was said, the English government would be unable to equip a fleet without digging up the cellars of London in order to collect the nitrous particles ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hair on, the skin should first be cleaned, every particle of loose fat or flesh, being removed, and the useless parts cut away. When this is done, it should be soaked for an hour or two in warm water. The following mixture should then be prepared: Take equal parts of borax, saltpetre, and sulphate of soda, and with them mix water sufficient to produce the consistency ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Lewis xv. told me that one day the king his master supping at Trianon with a small party, the talk happened to turn first upon the chase, and next on gunpowder. Some one said that the best powder was made of equal parts of saltpetre, of sulphur, and of charcoal. The Duke de la Valliere, better informed, maintained that to make good gunpowder you required one part of sulphur and one of charcoal ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... provided for each district, and, in addition, two regiments of regulars were ordered as the contingent of the province for the Continental army. Provision was also made for the purchase, anywhere and everywhere, of arms, powder, lead, salt and saltpetre; for the manufacture at home of salt, saltpetre, powder, and for the refining of sulphur; for the manufacture of brown and writing paper, cotton and woolen cards, linen and woolen cloths, pins and needles, and for the erection of furnaces for making iron and steel ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... completing his floor to receive the coming tea-chests. Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many hundred bundles of light flexible canes from Sumatra and Malacca; on these he had laid tons of rough 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 ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of those who have no idea of honor unless it will yield somewhat to eat, no use for patriotism unless it can be made to pay. When we concluded to protect our citizens from Weylerian savagery, instead of sending a warship to Havana to read the riot act if need be in villainous saltpetre we had our ambassador crawling about the European courts humbly begging permission of the powers, and as we got no permission we did no protecting. When the church people elect me president of this Republic I'll have ante-mortem investigations ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs—sleepy dogs blinking in the firelight, friendly dogs with wagging tails, young dogs in their first puppyhood ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... city, property to the amount of more than a million of dollars was destroyed, and over thirty lives were lost by the explosion of various materials in the buildings burned The occurrence has elicited from Prof. ROGERS, of the University of Pennsylvania, a letter stating that, in his opinion, saltpetre by itself is not explosive, but that the great quantity of oxygen which it contains greatly increases the combustion of ignited matter with which it may be brought in contact, and that this may evolve gases so rapidly as to cause an explosion.—The ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... of the simple chemical bodies which was discovered in 1812 by M. Courtois, of Paris, a manufacturer of saltpetre, who found it in the mother-water of that salt. Its properties were first studied into by M. Gay Lussac. It partakes much of the nature of chlorine and bromine. Its affinity for other substances is so ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connection with the former at all. Its connection with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre, which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, doubtless, of maintaining peace, and encouraging civilization among its ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... used as hiding-places for things of more or less value—generally less. Saltpetre Cave, in Georgia, for instance, was a factory and magazine for saltpetre, gunpowder, and other military stores during the Civil War. The Northern soldiers wrecked the potash works and broke away tons of rock, so as ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner |
