"Torpedo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her periscope for a minute as she took her observations. Then she launched a torpedo at a big German supply-ship not more than a ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... France held Tunis, France held Bizerta. Tunis and Bizerta would shield temporarily the remains of Serbia. From the end of November, 1915, the smaller French ships, torpedo boats, trawlers and transports made the trip from Durazzo to San Giovanni di Medua to embark the Serbian Army. Great steamers, such as the Natal, Sinai, and Armenie, and a flotilla of armored cruisers followed ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... 1. 581—Admiral Knowles, 25 Jan. 1805.] One of these was decidedly ingenious. It aimed at destroying the French flotilla by means of logs of wood bored hollow and charged with gunpowder and ball. These were to be launched against the invaders somewhat after the manner of the modern torpedo, of which they were, in fact, the primitive type and original. [Footnote: Admiralty Records 1. 580—Rear-Admiral Young, 14 Aug. 1803, and secret enclosure, as in the Appendix. The Admiral's "machine," ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... German submarine; an American invented the German torpedo; an American invented the German machine-gun; an American invented the Murphy button, the yellow fever antitoxin, the ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... alternating-current magnetism that repelled it. It did not come nearer than half a mile to the ship. The third they turned their deflecting beam on—and something went strangely wrong with the beam. It pulled that torpedo toward the ship with a sickening acceleration—and the torpedo exploded in ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... done with for me: and yet I too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... danger, the vagueness hung heavily. As Dan cast his eyes gloomily into the wake of the tug, he saw a dark object shoot out of the foam and dart down upon them like a torpedo; in fact a torpedo could not have worked more serious effect upon the boat than did that ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... estimated that between ten and a hundred million meteorites enter our atmosphere and are cremated, every day. Most of them weigh only an ounce or two, and are invisible. Some of them weigh a ton or more, but even against these large masses the air acts as a kind of "torpedo-net." They generally burst into fragments and fall without ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... to Newport with me at five-thirty," were his first words. "Katy's all ready, and means to sit up till the boat gets in at two-thirty, keeping a little supper hot and hot for you. The Torpedo Station is in its glory just now, and there's going to be a great explosion on Thursday, which ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... British merchantmen in the West India track. Her commander was Captain Jacob Jones, a name revived in modern days by a destroyer of the Queenstown fleet in the arduous warfare against the German submarines. Shattered by a torpedo, the Jacob Jones sank in seven minutes, and sixty-four of the officers and crew perished, doing their duty to the last, disciplined, unafraid, so proving themselves worthy of the American naval service and of the memory of ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... better have saved their powder and let us run into the fields and be blown to bits, you will say. Not at all. They would consider that a waste of good mines. Nobody wants to waste a whole mine on a poor little torpedo boat destroyer — and twenty to forty men. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... added, "We don't know what we've got here, but it's not a natural body. Could be anything from a torpedo on up." ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... the greatest of wars, yet fighting, so it seemed at the time, with its top hat on and its smile still undisturbed. Across the English Channel three days later the Dutch steam packet Princess Juliana carried us safely through mine fields and between lanes of British torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers. We landed on the Continent at Flushing. Thence we headed for The Hague, Holland, the neutral gateway of northern Europe, where we found the American Minister, Dr. Henry van Dyke, and his first secretary, Marshall ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... or the poor man would have shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a smooth front to it,—which happily, though difficult, was not impossible to do. I began again at the beginning, to such a wretched, paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, and possess, in addition to the author's surpassing knack of story-telling, a great educational value ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... originality. "The Socratic dialectics, clearing away," says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch. 68; Maurice, Ancient Philosophy, p. 119.] "from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly created consciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it was combined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... cultivated chiefly by the human race, and that in its practice explosives are largely used. To "blow-up" effectively, whether in a literal or figurative sense, is difficult. To improve this power in war, and in the literal sense, I set myself to work. I invented a torpedo, which seemed to me better than any that had yet been brought out. To test its powers, I made a miniature fortification, and blew it up. I also blew up ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... disqualify a man for killing pigs. He was, as I have said, a good fellow, but his methods of using a razor were mediaeval. However we were not long for one another, and, as the R.N.V.R. tolerate such things, I grew a beard, an equable, regulation torpedo beard. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... "If the crew gets hurt it ain't my fault. If they're in the ship, that's tough. If not, then that's O.K. with me. I ain't sending them any letter telling them I'm going to blast their ship and then have them come up after me with a space torpedo!" ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... there came news of the explosion at Bemerhaven, and people began to talk about coal torpedoes. Then I knew as in all probability I'd carried the man who managed the business, and I gave word to the police, but they never could make anything of it. You know what a coal torpedo is, don't you? Well, you see, a cove insures his ship for more than its value, and then off he goes and makes a box like a bit o'coal, and fills it chock full with dynamite, or some other cowardly stuff of the sort. He drops this box among the other ...
— The Cabman's Story - The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sent in word to the admiral that I was leaving the ship and would like to pay my respects. Sampson is a thin man with a gray beard. He looks like a college professor and has very fine, gentle eyes. He asked me why I meant to leave the ship, and I said I had heard one of the torpedo boats was going to Key West, and I thought I would go with her if he would allow it. He asked if I had seen the cable from Long, and I said I had heard of it, and that I was really going so as not to embarrass him with my presence. He said, "I have received three ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... in effect, a claim to torpedo at sight, without regard to the safety of the crew or passengers, any merchant vessel under any flag. As it is not in the power of the German Admiralty to maintain any surface craft in these waters, the attack can only ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... thereafter a gentleman coming up the dim corridor without heard a sound that resembled the loud crack of a toy torpedo, followed by the reverberant bang of a door, and, a moment later, encountered an oddly familiar figure hurrying out and hanging on to its left jowl as though afflicted with a violent ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... for she leaned steeply to port with a forward crank, her two starboard screws, now free, spinning asleep like humming-tops. A six-inch shell, beautifully aimed, had shattered her engines, killing two stokers, and a torpedo-mine had knocked a hole nine feet across in her ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... form of vessel, to which the above odd name has been given by its inventor, M. Donato Tommasi, of Paris, France, is a combination of a boat wholly submerged with a raft: a connecting link, to borrow the naturalist's expression, between the submerged torpedo boat and the monitor. The advantages which are expected to be realized from this hybrid craft, the inventor describes as follows: "It is evident that a vessel, plunged several yards below the surface of the sea, is no longer influenced by wind or wave. Let the sea be agitated, let ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... a man back with a flag or put a torpedo on the track?" he demanded of the freight ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... admit anything, yet universally suspected of being the cause of all the trouble. He, too, wishes to cancel his engagements for the graduating ball, and thinks something ought to be done to those young idiots of yearlings who set off the torpedo. "Nothing could have gone wrong but for them," says he; but the wise heads of the class promptly snub him into silence. "You've simply got to do as we say in this matter, Billy. You've done enough mischief already." And ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... place we had to hold the Black Sea, with its extensive sea-board. We defended Sulina and Batoum against Russian attack by land, and by torpedo on the sea. We had to watch the little swift packet-boats equipped as men-of-war, which constantly made a rush from Sebastopol and Odessa (as they did, by the way, in the Crimean War, when twenty to thirty ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... sons of the sea, All the vast deep, your home, Holds no terror so dread As this novel and unseen foe, Lurking under the foam Of some dangerous channel— As the torpedo, the scourge ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... latter half of 1803 he repaired to England, and later on to the United States, and after the year 1803 he seems to have had neither the will nor the opportunity to serve Napoleon. In England he offered his torpedo patent to the English Admiralty, expressing his hatred of the French Emperor as a "wild beast who ought to be hunted down." Little was done with the torpedo in England, except to blow up a vessel off Walmer as a proof of what it could do. It is curious also that ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... she hears the talk Of mine, torpedo, bomb and gun— She shudders, but her thoughts are all Encradled ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... his weight and muscle on the left rein. The team and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the pillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The driver's strap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fell on the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, while Erebus—beautiful, raven-black, best-loved Erebus—lay whickering in ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... course! There's a torpedo-boat at the Havre at this moment. A telegram from me will bring her to the Needle ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... likewise possess the power of accumulating this influence in a great degree; for instanc the torpedo, and electrical eel, which will both give strong shocks; and if the circuit have a small interruption a spark may be seen, as was shown by Mr. Walsh. On dissecting these fish, Mr. Hunter found an organ very similar to the pile of ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... curb in front of his door he found a long gray torpedo touring car throbbing with impatience, and at the wheel sat a plump young lady in a vivid green bonnet and driving coat. In the tonneau sat a more slender young lady all in gray, except for the brown of her ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... taken rather too limited a view of the subject. Dulness has other avatars besides the literary. In the last and finest book, Pope attempts to complete his plan by exhibiting the influence of dulness upon theology and science. The huge torpedo benumbs every faculty of the human mind, and paralyses all the Muses, except 'mad Mathesis,' which, indeed, does not carry on so internecine a war with the general enemy. The design is commendable, and executed, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... ten yards off and they were in the middle of the canal. The Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan's head. Oh Heavens! a sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down between two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman laugh and a weight upon his back. Down went Alan, down ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... one of which was larger than the rest. The smaller ones were about eight inches long. All were torpedo-shaped, but had flattened bottoms, which enabled them to stand upright. Two of the smaller ones were empty and unstoppered, the others contained a colourless liquid, and possessed queer-looking, nozzle-like stoppers that were connected by a thin metal rod with ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... issue, on page 9948, we give illustrations of two torpedo boats, the Azor and Halcon, which have lately been constructed by Messrs Yarrow & Co., of Poplar, for the Spanish government. They are 135 ft. in length by 14 ft. beam, being of the same dimensions as No. 80 torpedo boat, lately completed by the above firm ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 623, December 10, 1887 • Various
... Observing every precaution when he left The Chancery Agency, he spent the intervening time at one of his clubs, from which, having made an early dinner, he set off for Pall Mall at ten minutes to seven. A rakish-looking gray car resembling a giant torpedo was approaching slowly from the direction of Buckingham Palace. The driver pulled up as Paul Harley stepped into the road, and following a brief conversation Harley set out westward, performing a detour before heading south for ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... sufficient coal for the voyage of 3,000 miles. These enormous vessels being out of the question, the designer must reduce the size. But now the City of Paris will no longer serve as a model, he must look elsewhere for a vessel of high speed, and smaller scale, and naturally he picks out a torpedo boat at the other end of the scale. A speed of 24 knots—and it is claimed even of 25, 26, and 27 knots—has been attained on the mile by a torpedo boat. But such a performance is useless for our mode of comparison, as sufficient fuel at this high speed for ten or twelve hours only ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... certain point on the border, the order is known in Mexico before it is executed. It is the same with coded communications to Foreign Powers. The movements of our fleet are known to foreign naval attaches even before the maneuvers are carried out. The whereabouts of the smallest torpedo boat and submarine is no secret—to any but the ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... now an eighty-ton gun, to cost sixty thousand pounds, is getting ready to perforate that. There must be a stopping-point for all this somewhere. Perhaps the fate of armor afloat may soon be settled finally by the torpedo, as its efficiency on land was disposed of by the bullet, and the men-at-arms of the sea no longer lord it over hosts of wooden yeomanry. Happy the nation that can look on with its hands firmly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... torpedo-boat with a City of Paris siren went mad and broke her moorings and hired a friend to help her, it's just conceivable that we might be carried as we are now. Otherwise this ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... The torpedo boat was found after the war lying on the bottom of the harbor, about one hundred feet from the wreck of the Housatonic, with her bow pointing toward the sloop of war and with every man of her crew dead at his post,—just as ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... branching nerve-cell, or "soul-cell," from the brain of an electric fish (Torpedo), magnified 600 times. In the middle of the cell is the large transparent round nucleus, one nucleolus, and, within the latter again, a nucleolinus. The protoplasm of the cell is split into innumerable fine ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... British Admiralty circles as to whether the "Audacious" came in contact with a mine or torpedo from a German submarine. Two of her crew report that they saw the wake of a torpedo. Reports that the periscope of a submarine showed above the water I have ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... steel armor with a hood of 21/2 in. to protect the men against machine gun fire. As a further means of insuring the life of the ship in combat and also against accidents at sea, the Marceau is divided into 102 water-tight compartments and is fitted with torpedo defense netting. There are two masts, each carrying double military tops; and a conning tower is mounted on each mast, from either of which the ship may be worked in time of action, and both of which are in telegraphic communication with the engine ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... the Russians made an attempt to cross the Dvina near Deveten, a few miles northwest of Dvinsk, but were repulsed. Another similar undertaking, attempted August 8, 1916, east of Friedrichstadt, met the same fate. On that day German batteries successfully bombarded Russian torpedo boats and other vessels lying off the coast of Kurland and forced them ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... with the care and use of land and coast fortifications, including submarine mines and torpedo defenses. ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... trouble was correct, because I had another one that had a showy point or two about it for a miracle. I remembered that in America, many centuries later, when an oil well ceased to flow, they used to blast it out with a dynamite torpedo. If I should find this well dry and no explanation of it, I could astonish these people most nobly by having a person of no especial value drop a dynamite bomb into it. It was my idea to appoint Merlin. However, it was plain that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... seem to realise," he said, "that I have just come from a cruise on a torpedo-boat. There was such a sea on as a rule that cooking operations were entirely suspended, and we lived ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... no conception of its import. They did not even realize that war had actually burst upon the serenity of their peaceful lives. Each transport vessel was placed in command of a naval officer, and guarded in its passage across the channel by light cruisers and torpedo destroyers. The transport of the whole Expeditionary Army was completed within ten days, without the loss of a man and with a precision worthy of all military commendation. But such secrecy was maintained ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... shower, its shady, pleasant waters were as balm to hot bare legs and burning feet. Flowers of many kinds grew along its banks, while below the bridge where it crossed the road there was always a school of minnows eager to be fed, and now and then one saw something larger dart by—something dark, torpedo-shaped, swift, touched with white along its propellers—a trout. There is no end of entertainment in such things. Summer-time, the country, and childhood—that is a happy combination, and a bit of running water ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... increased, the Anglo-German element, pale-faced and dejected, assembled amidships, and forming a small, huddled group, hastily commenced to put on their cork jackets and life-belts, evidently preparing for the expected impact of the dreaded torpedo. Just then, as the look-out, attracted by some specks of foam emerging from the grey, misty horizon, signalled that a number of ships were fast approaching, they could stand the strain no longer, so, breaking into a weird ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... consisting of four battleships, one armored cruiser and two converted yachts, one of them the "Gloucester," under the command of the intrepid Richard Wainwright—of the entire Spanish fleet, consisting of four powerful armored cruisers of the highest class and two torpedo boat destroyers, under ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... then and there attacked by a submarine. Germany admits that it was a German submarine. The submarine deliberately fired a torpedo at the GREER, followed later by another torpedo attack. In spite of what Hitler's propaganda bureau has invented, and in spite of what any American obstructionist organization may prefer to believe, I tell you the blunt fact that the German submarine fired first upon this American ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... to tired to wright ennything. i never had so much fun in my life. i only got burned 5 times. 1 snapcracker went off rite in my face and i coodent see ennything til mother washed my eyes out. Zee Smith fired a torpedo and a peace of it flew rite in the corner of my eye and made a blew spot there. i fired every one of my snapcrackers. it took ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... grew almost beside himself with despair; and determined on doing something, he seized the two Eds, and extracting from their pockets every torpedo he could find, flung the latter, in the heat of his passion, out of the window, which naturally resulted in a report much louder than the first one, and thus materially quickened the pace ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... torpedo, or an infernal machine, that you need be in such trepidation," she whispered. "It won't ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... general in the army of the famous Ten Thousand, attempts a definition of virtue itself, the principle that underlies specific kinds of virtues such as justice. After a cross-examination he confesses his helplessness in a famous simile: Socrates is like the torpedo-fish which benumbs all who touch it. Then the real business begins. How do we learn anything at all? Socrates says by Reminiscence, for the soul lived once in the presence of the ideal world; when it enters the flesh it loses its knowledge, but gradually regains ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... service in 1861, and was employed at first at Richmond and later as naval agent in Europe. When Lee surrendered, he was in the West Indies on his way to put in use against Federal vessels in Southern ports a method of arranging torpedo mines which he ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... camp, as all camps ever were, was full of strange yarns—"shaves" about what was going on at Omdurman, and the Khalifa's intentions. "Abdullah would fight? No, he would run away; he was laying down mines in the Nile to blow up our gunboats. A Tunisian had devised a torpedo, but as it was being lowered from a dervish boat, the machine exploded, and the engineer was hoisted with his own petard." Then there were stories of extraordinary discoveries of precious minerals—gold ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... that, and every spring would swim from whatever place he happened to be in—would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good place on the rocks, as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray fur seal ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... snake, viper, adder, snake in the grass; serpent, cobra, asp, rattlesnake, anaconda|!. canker-worm, wire-worm; locust, Colorado beetle; alacran[obs3], alligator, caymon[obs3], crocodile, mosquito, mugger, octopus; torpedo; bane &c. 663. cutthroat &c. (killer) 461. cannibal; anthropophagus|!, anthropophagist|!; bloodsucker, vampire, ogre, ghoul, gorilla, vulture; gyrfalcon|!, gerfalcon|!. wild beast, tiger, hyena, butcher, hangman; blood-hound, hell-hound, sleuth-hound; catamount ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Southland incident was duplicated in almost every particular on the Ballarat in April, 1917. This story was enacted in the waters of the English Channel, and there were no casualties, for the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made easy as each man calmly waited his turn and enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, and again and again did the strains of "Australia Will Be There!" ring out over the waters. As they sang "So Long, Letty," many substituted other Christian names, and ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... thin Italian Consular-clerk, speaking with a strong accent. "An English steam yacht ran aground on the Meloria about ten miles out, and was discovered by a fishing-boat who brought the news to harbor. The Admiral sent out two torpedo-boats, which managed after a lot of difficulty to bring in the yacht safely, but the Captain of the Port has a suspicion that the crew were trying to make ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... often misunderstood. It should be obvious by this time that her attitude to International Law has always been one of approximate reverence. The shells with which she bombarded Rheims Cathedral were contingent shells, and the Lusitania was sunk by a relative torpedo. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... particular spheres of work, just as warships are built in accordance with the special duty which they are expected to perform. In reconnaissance, speed is imperative, because such work in the air coincides with that of the torpedo-boat or scout upon the seas. It is designed to acquire information respecting the movements of the enemy, so as to assist the heavier arms in the plan of campaign. On the other hand, the fighting corsair of the skies might be likened to the cruiser or battleship. It ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... test of chemical action (336. 346.). It is a fact, too, that many philosophers are still drawing distinctions between the electricities from different sources; or at least doubting whether their identity is proved. Sir Humphry Davy, for instance, in his paper on the Torpedo[E], thought it probable that animal electricity would be found of a peculiar kind; and referring to it, to common electricity, voltaic electricity and magnetism, has said, "Distinctions might be established in pursuing the ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... many gallant men of the navy buried here is Acting-Master Charles W. Howard, of the ironclad steam-frigate New Ironsides, whom Lieutentant Glassell shot during his bold attempt to blow up the New Ironsides with the torpedo steamer David, October 5, 1863. Another is Thomas Jackson, coxswain of the Wabash, the beau ideal of an American sailor, who was killed in the battle of Port ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... jumped from fact to theory. The torpedo craft could be an atomic jet. All right, he had been in bad shape when he fell into it by chance and the bed machine had caught him as if it had been created for just such a duty. What kind of a small plane would ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... Order followed order, and soon the gig, with the captain, Trendon, and the torpedo expert, was driving for the point marked "Seal Cave" on the map ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... should hook itself to the cable of the vessel it was to destroy, and thus swing the catamaran alongside. It was, indeed, on a larger scale, though with less destructive power, something like Harvey's torpedo of the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the rear, the torpedo-boat destroyers were scouting vigilantly, with gunners standing by ready to fire promptly at any periscope or conning tower of an enemy craft ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... a breezy newspaper man from the West, observed. "What with boat drill three times a day, and lifebelt parade going on all the time on the deck, one doesn't get a chance to forget that we are liable to get a torpedo in our side ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... know not with what authenticity, that Johnson considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said of him, 'Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties[465].' That the literature of this country is much indebted to Birch's activity and diligence must certainly be acknowledged. We have seen that Johnson honoured him ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... regulated by statute, as is also the term—twenty years—at the expiration of which old vessels must automatically be replaced by new ones. This fleet strength is set at forty-one line-of-battle ships, twenty armored cruisers and forty small cruisers, besides 144 torpedo boats and seventy-two submarine vessels. These figures, however, have not been reached. To offset this fact, however, almost the whole German fleet has been kept together in home waters. Great Britain's fleet ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... entire Spanish fleet, with much loss of life, in Manila Bay, May 1, 1898; seven Americans were wounded, none killed. Admiral Cervera, with the pride of the Spanish battle- ships, cruisers, and torpedo-boats, reached Cuban waters from Cape Verde Islands, and, May 19th, sailed into Santiago Harbor, where he was blockaded—"bottled up"—by Admirals Sampson and Schley's fleets. Cervera's fleet, in an attempt to escape, was totally destroyed, with a loss of above ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... stabbed in the dark. Thanks to her buoyancy, she was only sinking slowly, and there was ample time for the whole of her crew to escape. Very different would be the fate of an unarmed vessel, for the explosion of a torpedo would probably blow such a large hole in the thin steel plates that she would go to the bottom like a stone. To torpedo a merchantman simply means the cold-blooded murder of the crew, for their chances of ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... disaster-filled times, when men tax their ingenuity to build increasingly powerful aggressive weapons, it was possible that, unknown to the rest of the world, some nation could have been testing such a fearsome machine. The Chassepot rifle led to the torpedo, and the torpedo has led to this underwater battering ram, which in turn will lead to the world putting its foot down. At least ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... of the game was with the salmon. He suffered himself to be drawn, skip-ping with pretended delight at getting to the haven where I would fain bring him. Yet no sooner did he feel shoal water under his ponderous belly than he backed like a torpedo-boat, and the snarl of the reel told me that my labor was in vain. A dozen times, at least, this happened ere the line hinted he had given up the battle and would be towed in. He was towed. The ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... that natural and simple feelings shall be ignored, and that every chapter shall record something not less startling than murder or treason, are there not already means for gratifying their tastes? Do not the "Torpedo" and the "Blessing of the Boudoir" give enough of these delicate condiments with the intellectual viands they furnish? Let old-fashioned people enjoy their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... commanders of German vessels have for the past twelvemonth been conducting it. If this instance stood alone, some explanation, some disavowal by the German Government, some evidence of criminal mistake or wilful disobedience on the part of the commander of the vessel that fired the torpedo might be sought or entertained; but unhappily it does not stand alone. Recent events make the conclusion inevitable that it is only one instance, even though it be one of the most extreme and distressing instances, of the spirit and method of warfare ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... a former watch-keeper who aspired to the Flying Corps. The next was also a request for assistance from a young officer, who, having recently taken a wife to his bosom, apparently considered the achievement a qualification for the command of one of H.M. torpedo-boat destroyers. ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the lookout came a warning; came the cry all sailors fear, A torpedo was approaching, and the vessel's doom was near; Ingram saw the streak of danger, but he saw a little more, A greater menace faced them than that missile had in store; If those deep sea bombs beside him were not thrown beneath the wave, ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... in the shape of a high-piled truck came rolling down on them with a shout of, 'By your leave there, by your leave!' from the unseen porter behind. Mark drew Vincent sharply aside, and then saw Caffyn coming quickly towards them through the crowd, and forgot the torpedo his uncle was doing his best to launch: he felt that with Caffyn came safety. Caffyn, who had evidently been hurrying, gave a sharp glance at the clock: 'Sorry to be late,' he said, as he shook hands. 'Binny fetched me a hansom with a wobbling old animal in ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... here that, at the present moment, torpedoes hold such large charges of explosive that the cellular division of ships does not adequately protect them. This means that a contest has been going on between torpedo-makers and naval constructors like the contest between armor-makers and gunmakers, and that just now the torpedo-makers are in the lead. For this reason a battleship needs other protection than that imparted by its cellular subdivision. This is given by its ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... instance— and the head simply widens out as one passes back to the body. The high resistance offered by water necessitates this tendency to a cigar or ship outline, just as it has determined the cigar shape of the ordinary fish torpedo. ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... of International Airways stared foolishly when they saw Carr Parker and the giant Martian enter the mysterious ship which was a trespasser on their landing stage. They gazed incredulously as the gleaming torpedo-shaped vessel arose majestically from its position. There was no evidence of motive power other than a sudden radiation from its hull plates of faintly crackling streamers of silvery light. They fell back in alarm as it pointed its nose skyward and accelerated with incredible rapidity, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... nineteen volunteers, including two of Krsto's own relatives, had gone to Russia's aid. Otherwise "Portartur" would never have fallen. Krsto's cousin was engineer on one of Rozhdjestvcnski's ships. Every one believed England had tried to Sink them by concealing Japanese torpedo boats among the fishing fleet. They, however, kindly absolved me from complicity in the affair, mainly because I ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... Japanese authorities, between April, 1903, and the outbreak of the war, Russia increased her naval and military forces in the Far East by nineteen war vessels, aggregating 82,415 tons, and 40,000 soldiers. In addition to this, one battleship, three cruisers, seven torpedo destroyers, and four torpedo boats, aggregating about 37,040 tons, were on their way to the East, and preparations had been made for increasing the land forces by 200,000 men. For further details, see Asakawa, "The Russo-Japanese Conflict" ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... trifling thing after all. I was bicycling very pleasantly down a country road to-day, when one of those small pungent beetles, a tiny thing, in black plate-armour, for all the world like a minute torpedo, sailed straight into my eye. The eyelid, quicker even than my own thought, shut itself down, but too late. The little fellow was engulphed in what Walt Whitman would call the liquid rims. These small, hard creatures are tenacious of life, and they have, moreover, the power of exuding ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... me. The rest of the game was with the salmon. He suffered himself to be drawn, skipping with pretended delight at getting to the haven where I fain would have him. Yet no sooner did he feel shoal water under his ponderous belly than he backed like a torpedo boat, and the snarl of the reel told me that my labor was in vain. A dozen times at least this happened ere the line hinted that he had given up the battle and would be towed in. He was towed. The landing net was useless for one of his size, and I would not have him gaffed. I stepped ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... deliver it. It is in my pocket at this moment. But I reckon it better not stay there, to rise up in judgment against us," he added, sotto voce, as he arose, went to the fire, drew the white paper torpedo from his vest pocket and dropped it into the flames, where it was instantly burned ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... called from Cronstadt; cruisers and torpedo-boats came. An order was issued to the sailors and to the Red Guards who patrolled all the works of the Taurida, to make use of their arms if any one attempted to enter the palace. For that day unlimited powers were ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... all-sufficient simplicity of the One of great price. We have departed from Him in will, having reared up puny inclinations and fleeting passions against His calm and eternal purpose, and so bringing about the shock of a collision as destructive to us as when a torpedo-boat crashes in the dark against a battleship, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to allow a race between these and the French launches in Paris, else, no doubt, the superior speed of the French boats would have astonished John Bull. All this has lately changed, so that launches and torpedo boats in England can ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... on deck had given us some warning, but the sudden dash of the long, snaky torpedo boat from out the haze came as a decided shock. For one brief moment we of the after port stood as if turned to stone, then every man ran to his quarters and stood ready to do his duty. With a cry, our second captain ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... the navy consists of 4 battleships of the first class, 2 of the second, and 48 other vessels, ranging from armored cruisers to torpedo-boats. There are under construction 5 battleships of the first class, 16 torpedo-boats, and 1 submarine boat. No provision has yet been made for the armor for three of the five battleships, as it has been impossible to obtain it at ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... This ship, the Turbinia, after a considerable amount of trial and modification, attained the unprecedented speed of 341/2 knots an hour, and His Majesty's navy has possessed, in the Turbinia's younger and greater sister, the Viper, now unhappily lost, a torpedo-destroyer capable of 41 miles an hour. There can be little doubt that the sea speeds of 50 and even 60 miles an hour will be attained within the next few years. But I do not think that these developments will do more ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... appeared that dozens of men had seen the thing descend from the sky. They had not compared notes, however, and their descriptions varied from a black pear-shaped globe which had hovered for minutes before descending behind the mountains into the lake, to detailed word pictures of a silvery, torpedo-shaped vessel of space with portholes and flaming rockets and an unknown flag ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Rustchuk, and served with marked distinction in command of one of the corps in the army of the Lom. A younger brother, the Grand Duke Alexis, the nautical member of the imperial family, had charge of the torpedo and subaqueous mining operations on the Danube, and was held to have shown practical skill, assiduity, and vigour. Prince Serge of Leuchtenberg, younger brother of the Leuchtenbergs previously mentioned, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Japanese "Matsushima," the Chinese flagship "Tingyuen" was severely damaged, and only saved from sinking by the intervention of her sister ship, the "Chenyuen." These two ironclads, together with the torpedo boats, succeeded in making their escape, but five of the Chinese vessels were sunk or destroyed. In men, the Chinese lost 700 killed or drowned and 300 wounded, while the Japanese lost 115 killed ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... destruction; a hideous crash followed, a terrible rending, breaking, smashing, concatenation of noises, succeeded by frightful detonations, as through the gaping hole torn in the great battleship by the deadly torpedo, the water rushed upon the heated boilers, the explosion of which in turn ignited the magazines. By that deadly underwater thrust of the enemy the battleship was reduced in a few moments to a disjointed, disorganized, sinking mass of ...
— And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... man; but when the Italian had bowed himself out and his guests had sunk into their seats again, he said dryly to Fulkerson, "I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well, or the derrick wouldn't look quite so ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... forward turret she carried a battery of six 16-inch guns. Aft, the turret was similarly equipped. Also the Queen Mary mounted other big guns and rapid firers. She was equipped with an even half-dozen 12-inch torpedo tubes. She was one of the biggest ships of war that roved ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... of the second squadron has just sent out an order for its first division to prepare for an emergency signal drill. And the first division are to have a torpedo drill at the same time. Wait—in half a minute it ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... a wonderful place for boat sailing. It fairly bristles with the masts of schooners and yachts, and the guns of torpedo destroyers, and while the architect and the grown-ups did not have a naval base in mind when the sketch was made, I do appreciate the feelings ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... Her steaming radius is about 50,000 miles, depending upon the speed. She carries twelve 16-inch guns, twenty-two 6-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, eight 3-pounders, four rapid-fire guns, six aerial torpedo tubes, and six bomb droppers, which can simultaneously discharge tons of explosives. She has a complement of 1400 officers and men. She required three years and eight months to build at a cost of $10,000,000. In action her entire ship's company is protected ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... of the strenuous life of men in cities. Go to a coral reef and see what the struggle for existence really means. The very bulwarks of limestone are honeycombed by tunnelling shells. A glossy black, torpedo-shaped creature cuts a tomb for itself in the hard lime. Though it may burrow inches deep with no readily visible inlet, cutting and grinding its cavity as it develops in size and strength, yet it is not safe. Fate follows in insignificant guise, drills a tiny hole ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... not tell in which way his beady, black buttons of eyes were looking—but apparently they were never off the body of the squid. The latter, pale and waxy in texture, looking very much like pork fat or jade, moved about in torpedo fashion; but his movements were apparently never out of the eyes of his enemy, for by degrees small portions of his body began to disappear, snapped off by the relentless claws of his pursuer. The lobster would leap like a catapult to where ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... just as he was, and then the worst happened. I think the hippo went under water when he found the sneeze was coming, for just as pa got to the tank the water flew into the air like a torpedo had exploded under a battle-ship, and the hippo had sneezed all right and pa and the audience which had followed him were drenched and deafened by the explosion. The hippo had blown the water all out of his tank, and he lay at the bottom, on his side, sneezing little sneezes not ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... it been taken from him, or had he himself passed it on into another's keeping? There were a few incidents that strengthened the possibility of the latter theory. After the torpedo struck the ship, in the few moments during the launching of the boats, Danvers was seen speaking to a young American girl. No one actually saw him pass anything to her, but he might have done so. It seems ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... complicated curricula, of which more anon. Lying in the still waters of the dock, alongside the comparatively big grey cruiser, were the trim little hulls of a numerous flotilla of 20-knot motor launches, newly arrived from Canada, with wicked-looking 13-pounder high-angle guns, stumpy torpedo-boat masts and brand-new White Ensigns and brass-bound decks. These were the advance guard of a fleet of over 500 similar craft, to the command of which many of the officers being trained would, after a period of practical experience at sea, ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... as it is printed by Ramusio, from a Portuguese version, contains a passage not found in Poggio, in which it is alleged that a river of Ceylon, called Arotan, has a fish somewhat like the torpedo, but whose touch, instead of electrifying, produces a fever so long as it is held in the hand, relief being ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... "Don't stop in long, will you," left her and swam out into the blue with her swift, over-hand stroke. Neville was the best swimmer in a swimming family. She clove the water like a torpedo destroyer, swift and untiring between the hot summer sun and the cool summer sea. She shouted to the others, caught them up, raced them and won, and then they began to duck each other. When the Hilary brothers and sisters were ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... the ocean; saw a big passenger liner the victim of torpedo fire; saw babies tossed into the water by distracted mothers who jumped in after them to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... square before the principal hotel—the incomparably named "Haute Mere-Dieu"—is as vivid a sight as any scene of modern war can be. Rows of grey motor-lorries and omnibuses do not lend themselves to as happy groupings as a detachment of cavalry, and spitting and spurting motor-cycles and "torpedo" racers are no substitute for the glitter of helmets and the curvetting of chargers; but once the eye has adapted itself to the ugly lines and the neutral tints of the new warfare, the scene in that crowded clattering square becomes positively brilliant. It is a vision of one of the central functions ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... the conversation of Socrates has the effect of a torpedo's shock upon him. When he talks with other persons he has plenty to say about virtue; in the presence of Socrates, his thoughts desert him. Socrates replies that he is only the cause of perplexity in others, because he is himself perplexed. He proposes to continue the enquiry. But how, asks ...
— Meno • Plato
... 1915, a Turkish seaplane attacked an ally submarine near Boulair. The Russian seaplanes were again successful on August 10, 1915, when they participated in the repulse of the Germans off the Gulf of Riga, where they attempted to land troops. The Russians had merely small sea craft such as torpedo boats and submarines in this engagement, but their seaplanes proved very effective, and the Germans retired with a cruiser and two torpedo ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the shores of Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would rather pry into people's private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent so much of its light on space, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom with indefatigable zeal. There were no lovers or torpedo-boats up there. Even the birds were ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... got a naval training station for boys over on the other side, and a torpedo-magazine. There 's jolly good fishing, too—rock-cod. We 'll pass to the lee of it, and make across, and anchor in the shelter of Angel Island. There 's a quarantine station there. Then when French Pete ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... he heard for the first time of a prospective Antarctic expedition, and on the following day he called upon Sir Clements and volunteered to command it. Of this eventful visit Sir Clements wrote: 'On June 5, 1899, there was a remarkable coincidence. Scott was then torpedo lieutenant of the Majestic. I was just sitting down to write to my old friend Captain Egerton[1] about him, when he was announced. He came to volunteer to command the expedition. I believed him to be the best man for so great a trust, either ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the most striking objections to such a revelation. From the little we know of the structure of the human understanding, we must be convinced that an overpowering conviction of this kind, instead of tending to the improvement and moral amelioration of man, would act like the touch of a torpedo on all intellectual exertion and would almost put an end to the existence of virtue. If the scriptural denunciations of eternal punishment were brought home with the same certainty to every man's mind as that the night will follow the day, this one vast and gloomy ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... represented an entirely new development, for the submarine is a vessel which can travel unseen beneath the water and, while still unseen, except for a possible momentary glimpse of a few inches of periscope, can launch a torpedo at long or short range and with deadly accuracy. In these circumstances it became imperative to organize the Admiralty administration to meet new needs, and to press into the service of the central administration a large number of officers ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... there has been repeated formation of distinct branches or 'schools,' such as the further specialised specialist gunnery and torpedo sections. It was not till 1860 that uniform watch bills, quarter bills, and station bills were introduced, and not till later that their general adoption was made compulsory. Up to that time the internal organisation and discipline ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... that we were hit seventeen times by heavy shell, though, in my position in the after torpedo control tower, I only realized one hit had taken place, which was when a shell plunged into the after turret and, blowing the roof off, killed every member of the ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... across the Mediterranean in good company, for the ship was shared by ourselves and the 8th Manchesters (the Gallant Ardwicks) commanded by Lt.-Col. Morrough. We had an opportunity of renewing our acquaintance with Malta, so vivid in its intense colouring, whilst our escort of torpedo boats was changed. Perhaps the following extract from an officer's diary will suffice to epitomise whatever incident there was ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... cheerful had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be extracted by any hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky over her head. Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she looked as if she would go off like a torpedo, at a touch; but through all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression in the glance she fixed on John. And Laura, once so silent, now sang like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song was always, "Philip, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ship-building experience. Dozens of apparently seaworthy boats have gone up the Yangtze-Kiang, not to return. After years of experiment a somewhat satisfactory river-boat has been evolved. It combines the sturdiness of a sea-going tug with the speed of a torpedo-boat destroyer. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... you, Gerald, she's a dandy," said Jim, after the boys had shaken hands and made a few formal inquiries about the interval which had elapsed since last they met. As Jim spoke, his eye roamed over the long torpedo body of the ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... Of course, it mayn't be intended to be a likeness of you, skipper, but it's got a pith helmet on, which the up-country nigger doesn't generally add to portraits of himself; and moreover, it's wearing a neat torpedo beard on the end of its chin, delicately ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... arrangements sailed in secret, and the news was known in American cities scarcely any sooner than it was in France, so careful had the military authorities been not to give the lurking German submarines a chance to torpedo the transports. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... the British torpedo boat destroyer "Mohawk" attained the record speed of a little over 39 ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... small torpedo-like boat, fitted in a groove along the top, so that it could be entered from the Nautilus by opening a panel, and, after that was closed, the boat could be detached from the submarine, and would then bob upwards to the surface like a cork. The importance of this and its bearing on my story ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of hull is extremely easy to produce and it is capable of carrying a considerable load. However, it is not a good type to use for all kinds of boats. It makes a splendid little pleasure yacht or submarine-chaser, but for a torpedo-boat destroyer or a freighter it would not ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... TORPEDO. A cartilaginous fish allied to the rays, furnished with electrical organs, by means of which it is able to give powerful shocks. Also, a contrivance for blowing up ships of war by ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the Captain, "the torpedo, even of the most improved type, can only keep up this speed of twenty knots for a distance of five hundred yards, within which range the boat discharging it would have to approach before sending it off at the vessel attacked, which of course would ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that is, excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the Gymnotus electricus that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can listen, too. If they will only note the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... the garrison was wavering. The Semionovsky regiment had already decided to submit to the orders of the Socialist Revolutionary party; the crews of the torpedo-boats on the Neva were shaky. Seven members were at once appointed to continue ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... of the latter phenomenon consists in the torpedo effect of what we may call, under the circumstances, the difference of ranks. The schoolmaster is a despot to his scholar; for every man is a despot, who delivers his judgment from the single impulse of his own will. The boy answers his questioner, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... held up there for three days, during which time I secured pictures of the steamer Dinorah, which limped into port after being torpedoed, of a sailing vessel which had struck a mine, and some interesting scenes on board French torpedo boat destroyers as they returned ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... the same time came news from Spain telling that the Spanish were making ready for hostilities. An exceptionally large number of artisans were at work preparing for sea battle-ships, cruisers, and torpedo-boat destroyers. The cruisers Oquendo and Vizcaya, with the torpedo-boat destroyers Furor and Terror, were already on their way to Cuba, where were stationed the Alphonso XII., the Infanta Isabel, and the Nueva Espana, together with twelve gunboats of about ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... showed that the officer on the bridge had seen it too. Simultaneously everyone seemed to become aware that something was wrong—and for a brief second almost a panic occurred. The ship was swinging to port, but Vane realised that it was hopeless: the torpedo must get them. And the sea-gulls circling round the boat shrieked discordantly at him. . . . He took a grip of the rail, and braced himself to meet the shock. Involuntarily he closed his eyes—the devil . . . it was ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile |
