"Explosive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He fixed in the window of his room a glass tube, in the centre of which he had placed a ball of gun-cotton, which, as you all know, is ordinary cotton-wool, which, from having been steeped in strong acid, is converted into a substance of great explosive power. It is also soluble in alcohol and ether. One end of the glass tube was, of course, open to the external air; and at the other end of it he placed an aspirator, a contrivance for causing a current of the external air to pass through the tube. He kept ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... our return to the battery the Turkish advance began to waver. They had been sprayed by an incessant hail of shrapnel and high explosive for over three hours, and even their fatalistic courage could not stand the strain. The Light Horse were now holding their own, and soon a monotonous voice from the O.P. chanting over the wire, told that the Turks were retreating. Slowly the range increased—2400—2600—2800—until the enemy ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... swimming bath, with a massive table of solid clay, and benches of the same simple design and material round the walls. Though, of course, roofless, it afforded a measure of safety from shells, but one shudders to think what would have been the effect had a high explosive landed on the table while a meal ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... of Bill's words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. They crashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosive shell. She had resented this golden young man's presence at the farm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to his becoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking and washing-up. But now her whole attitude ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... highly eccentric hat, a small green velvet, outrageously tilted off the rear of its bandeau, and a wide black streamer flowing down over one shoulder. It was the match to the explosive effect of the trotteur gown. She was Fashion's humoresque, except that Fashion has no sense of humor. Very presently Minneapolis would appraise her at two hundred and seventy-five as is. Miss Delehanty herself ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... the epithet "sparrow-like," and which was noted by others as characteristic of Goethe at this period, could not fail to irritate one like Herder, naturally grave, sobered by hard experience, and then suffering from a painful and serious ailment. Equally distasteful to Herder were Goethe's explosive outbursts in general conversation and his liking for practical jokes at the expense of his friends. To Herder as to everyone else Goethe aired his opinions with the "frank confidingness" which he notes as a trait of his ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... "An explosive bullet," Carl said grimly. "I thought I would make certain of the beast, even at the risk of hurting you; and, mein Gott! it was a near shave! You have lost some of your hair, but nothing more. When I saw you go away with the woman, I guessed something was up. I did not like ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... even from a distance of 3,000 yards may act as an explosive, scattering the contents in all directions; but the bullet from a revolver will usually be ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... the Germans had seamed the western slopes with trenches, a network of tunnels and of concrete redoubts. Behind the ridge lay the German batteries. For months this ridge had been mined and countermined by both sides, until the English had placed 500 tons of high explosive, that is approximately 1,000,000 pounds of amminol, beneath nineteen strategic points which were to be taken. At the foot of the ridge, along a front of nine miles, the British had concentrated their batteries, heavy guns, and vast supplies of ammunition. Day and night ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... the incarnation of those qualities we love to call American, I should turn to a familiar gallery of my memory and point to the living portrait that hangs there of Walter Page. A sort of foursquareness, bluntness, it seemed to some; an uneasy, often explosive energy; a disposition to underrate fine drawn nicenesses of all sorts; ingrained Yankee common sense, checking his vaulting enthusiasm; enormous self-confidence, impatience of failure—all of these were in him; and he was besides affectionate to a fault, devoted to his country, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... government. By the "business at hand" they meant a new explosive and slow-burning powder that was to be used in the new type of fourteen-inch turret guns being made in Glasgow. Some of that explosive was in my possession. The fact that it was not discovered in my effects, nor was anything ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... hear that that house was levelled to the ground next morning—a shrapnel shell on each side of it to get the range—a high explosive into it to burst it up—and an incendiary shell to burn the rubbish; and one ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... what I mean—love boiled down and sugared off is mighty apt to get an explosive flavor, and one had better be careful with that kind if one is timid; which I'm not. As I said, also, I am ready for a little taste of life, so I read on without fear. And, to be fair, Alfred had well boiled his own last paragraph. It snapped; and I jumped and gasped ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the College have been secured in the heart of Mayfair and a competent staff of instructors has already been appointed, who, with the aid of gramophones, will be able to train the students to perfection in the requisite command of the most explosive gutturals, labials and sibilants. Doctor Prtnkeivitchsvtnshchitzky will be the director of the College; Dr. SETON WATSON and Mr. WICKHAM STEED have kindly undertaken to supervise the Yugo-Slav section, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various
... makes you hold your breath before you enter the inner nature of some one who has extraordinary depth. You feel as if you were going to find something different and interesting, and possibly difficult or explosive. It is dark, too, yet you feel impelled to enter. It is like ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... circulation of the Scriptures, the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable works, which, by the industry of the monkish copyist, had been preserved from the ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used on the field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of war and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. The polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ages, and not ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... find my doubts confirmed. A short time after this I made a more unexpected and astonishing discovery. I found that this complex and hitherto misunderstood gas could, under the influence of certain high-frequency electrical discharges, be made to combine with explosive violence with the nitrogen of the atmosphere, leaving only a harmless residue. We wired the surrounding region for the electrical discharge and, with a vast explosion of weird purple flame, cleared ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... where the cooper could not barrel his aspiring soul? It was the French-horn at the butcher's, the fife at the grocer's, the cornet in the chief saloon on the main street; while at the edge of the town, from the soot and grime of the smithy, I heard at intervals the boom of the explosive drum. It was thus they responded to one another on that melodious shore, and with an ambitious diligence worthy of ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... 3: On the 14th of January, the assassination of the French Emperor, which had been planned in England by Felice Orsini and other refugees, was attempted. On the arrival of the Imperial carriage at the Opera House in the Rue Lepelletier, explosive hand-grenades were thrown at it, and though the Emperor and Empress were unhurt, ten people were either killed outright or died of their wounds, and over one hundred and fifty were injured. Notwithstanding the scene ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... amount of power can be concentrated in the machine, but at present we can do little more than float with the wind. It is probable that an engine sufficiently strong, built of the best steel, and propelled by the explosive power of gun cotton, or some similar explosive, would overcome the difficulty. If I were to construct such an engine I would substitute for the lifting power of a balloon that of a sail acting as ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... creation, I could understand it; but if that's his game, a speck of radium beats him in a common canter. I read in a scientific paper last week, in a signed article which bore every impress of truth, that there's a high explosive that will run a spark from here to Paris while you are pronouncing its name. Yet extend that run, and run it far and fast as you will, it can only come back to your hand. . . . Which," continued Brother Copas, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... human race if it goes too far. He is trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... to the sand, with the knowledge that the swing will end there, for a follow-through is not desired and would in many cases be impossible. When the heavy blade goes crash into the sand and blows it, and the ball with it, up into the air as if the electric touch had been given to an explosive mine, the club has finished its work, and when the golfer is at rest again and is surveying the results of his labours—with his eyes, let us hope, directed to the further side of the hazard—the blade will still remain in the cavity that it has made in the floor ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... necessarily creates the desire for improper conduct. The policy of silence showed an instinctive understanding of this fundamental situation. Even if that traditional policy had had no positive purpose, its negative function, its leaving at rest the explosive sexual system of the youth, must be acknowledged as one of those wonderful instinctive procedures by ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... stunned by the unexpectedly-heavy explosion. But he recovers directly, and determines to try the experiment over again. There is one immense rocket among the collection he has brought out—one almost as long as himself and apparently capable of holding half a barrel of explosive material. He shakes his head knowingly to the audience, indicative of the fact that this is something immense and that he is going to be very careful about it. He sticks it up in the very middle of the stage, secures a light at the end of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Kukor's grandson, the lady was Mrs. Kukor's daughter, for "Mama!" cried the young mother; and as they met just in front of Johnnie there was an explosive outburst of talk in a strange tongue, and much of what Johnnie afterwards described to Cis as "double kissin'," that is, a kissing on both cheeks, the baby coming in for his share and weeping over ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Sary vented an explosive "Humph!" and grabbed the meat-platter. As she left the kitchen, she sent an insulted glance at her mistress, but the recent correction in speech made her forget the hornet. The watchful insect had been ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... leaders judged rightly and acted virtuously: but, beyond a doubt, it condemns the previous order which brought it about. What a horrid thing is the explosion! Why, is the obvious answer, did you allow the explosive materials to accumulate, till the first match must fire the train? The greatest blot upon Burke, I need hardly say, is that his passions blinded him in his age, to this, as ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... lashed out again, spread on the air as if it were flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again, inconceivably powerful and explosive. The man's body, strung to its efforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath came up in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... No, my dear, you shan't." He let himself sink back again and joining the tips of his fingers contemplated the ceiling. But Margaret was in the mind to try. She shot out her words at him like so many explosive bullets. ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... Bell explained that the explosive stuff was packed in such a manner that even the most violent shock would ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... engines having proved extravagant in fuel. There were both a high and a low pressure turbine on the same shaft, which also drove the dynamo for the searchlight and the lamp illuminating the compass, and for igniting the explosive mixture. By means of an eccentric, moreover, the shaft worked a pump for compressing the mixture of hot air and petrol before ignition, the air being heated by passing through jackets round the high-pressure turbines. The framework of the planes consisted of hollow rods made of ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... the steady jingle of the splendid team. Anon, the intermittent funnel roar of protest at every violent roll, becomes the regular blast of a high pressure engine, and I recognise the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I ascended the Mississippi when the American civil war was not, and when only its causes were. A fragment of mast on which the light of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so, become ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... began at 4:25 o'clock, just as the first hint of dawn was appearing. All night the British big guns had been pouring a steady stream of high explosive shells into the German positions, great detonations overlapping one another like the rapid crackling of machine-gun fire and swelling into a mighty volume of thunder that shook the earth and stunned the senses. Then, a short time before the hour set for the attack arrived, the batteries ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... August of the previous year I had such a broad view that if a shell were to explode anywhere along the front of five miles it would have been visible to me, and I saw not a single burst of smoke from high explosive or shrapnel. Apparently the Germans never expected to undertake any offensive here. All their energy was devoted to defensive preparations, without even an occasional attack over a few hundred yards to keep in their hand. Tranquillity, which amounted to the simulation ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... that explosive is in double vacuum containers, and it will be safe for some time yet. Besides, it's in the cellar. It's the carbide I'm most worried about. ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... the savages to catch sight of the King who, besides, was screened by the underwood. Stas, sitting on his neck, quietly issued the final orders, after which he gave Kali the signal to light one of the sky-rockets. A red ribbon flew up, hissing, high in the dark sky, after which, with an explosive sound, it scattered into a bouquet of red, blue, and golden stars. All voices became hushed and a moment of gloomy silence ensued. A few seconds later two more fiery snakes flew out, as though with an infernal hiss, but this ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... eighty hours in the jacket; I, whom even the stupid guards could see was too weak to work in the loom-room; I, who had been given the day off to recuperate—from too terrible punishment—I was named as the one who had helped hide the non-existent thirty-five pounds of high explosive! ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... time to use this expression: "I assure you, Mr. Pinkerton, that there are not many who can say so much"—from which I gathered that my friend had tempered his self-accusations with at least one legitimate boast. From this ghostly counselling, Jim turned to me; and though he never got beyond the explosive utterance of my name and one fierce handgrip, communicated some of his own emotion, like a charge of electricity, to his best man. We stood up to the ceremony at last, in a general and kindly discomposure. Jim was all abroad; and the divine himself betrayed his sympathy in voice and demeanour, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gradually broken, crushed under a weight of Barthops—father-in-law, wife and children—moulded into a thin semblance of a Marquis of Ipswich, a bastard Marquis. No one but himself knew the weakness of his character—explosive, audacious in alarums or excursions, but without the something, call it strength or hardness or stupidity, which enables the man or woman possessing it to resist constant domestic pressure—the unconscious pressure of radically opposed character. The crowd applauds ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... to flattery, to importunity, to the ordinary variety of masculine solicitation; to the revelation of genuine feeling, too, in its various modes of expression—sentimental, explosive, insinuating—the entire gamut. ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... am sick at heart when I hear the first question put in these days to each inventor: 'Can you enable us to kill more of our fellowmen than we can kill with existing appliances?' Is it a new engine, a new amalgam of metals, a new explosive, a new field of electrical energy, one hears the same vulture's cry— 'How many, how far, how safely can we slay?' I regard this lust for destruction as contemptible. It is a strange and ignominious ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... not think a general, or even a very extensive, slave insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be obtained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the ...
— Lincoln's Inaugurals, Addresses and Letters (Selections) • Abraham Lincoln
... words left his lips there was a wild series of explosive thrumming as the old quail arose from all about Wolf, while the young ones scuttled for safety and disappeared miraculously before the spectators' ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the lower." He repeats in new phrase his warning] "that every man of high natural ability, who is both ignorant and miserable, is as great a danger to society as a rocket without a stick is to people who fire it. Misery is a match that never goes out; genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow: and if knowledge, which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small that the rocket will simply run amuck ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the next morning finding "cissers," crackers that had failed to burn out entirely, and still had a little explosive merit when touched by a piece of lighted punk. There was no school that day, and Steve took them up to West Farms to expend the rest of their hilarity. The little girl was pale and languid. Mrs. Underhill was quite troubled at ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and constantly recurring interjections. This trait in the man of the Midi is one that Daudet has brought out humorously in the Tartarin books. It is often difficult in serious situations to take these explosive monosyllables seriously. ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... gun being lifted above the water, after each shot, by shears and suitable tackle. The present projectile of the Destroyer is the result of the extended trials referred to; its length is 25 feet 6 inches, diameter 16 inches, and its weight 1,500 pounds, including 250 pounds of explosive materials. We are not at liberty at present to describe its form, but we may mention that the great length of the body and the absence of all internal machinery enable the constructor to carry the stated enormous quantity of explosive matter. With minimum charge ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... appealed to his emotions. Under glass were ranged minutiae such as bullets, fragments of shells, bits of gore-drenched cloth or linen, a splinter of human bone—all ticketed with neat inscription. A bookcase contained volumes of military history, works on firearms, treatises on (chiefly explosive) chemistry; several great portfolios were packed with maps and diagrams of warfare. Upstairs, a long garret served as laboratory, and here were ranged less valuable possessions; weapons to which some doubt attached, unbloody scraps of accoutrements, also a few models ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... he stared, his irritation speedily overcame his amazement. The curious-looking creature over there on the knoll was defying him, was challenging him. At this time of year his blood was hot and quick for any challenge. He gave vent to a short, harsh, explosive cry, more like a grumbling bleat than a bellow, and as unlike the buffalo's challenge as could well be imagined. Then he fell to thrashing the nearest bushes violently with his antlers. This, for some reason unknown to the mere human chronicler, seemed to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... packed contents of the last shed atop Crestline; then roared and sang, while the hills sent back their outbursts with echoes that rolled, one into another, until at last the whole world was one terrific out-pouring of explosive sounds and shrill, shrieking blasts, as though the mountains were bellowing their anger, their remonstrance at defeat. Eight feet, then eight feet more; steadily eight feet onward. Nor did the men curse at the sulphur fumes, nor rail at the steel-blue ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... sudden explosive sound, and, with a crunch and a jerk which almost threw them from their seats, the machine came to a standstill. Brockton and his chauffeur were out in an instant, the one peering beneath, the other examining more closely. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... writers of the social-conscience school. They are in a rage over wicked, wasteful man. Their novels are bursted notebooks—sometimes neat and orderly notebooks, like Mr. Galsworthy's or our own Ernest Poole's, sometimes haphazard ones, like those of Mr. Wells, but always explosive with reform. These gentlemen know very well what they are about, especially Mr. Wells, the lesser artist, perhaps, as compared with Galsworthy, but the shrewder and possibly the greater man. The very sentimentalists, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... agreeing on the whole with Scrope and Lyell, as to the explosive origin of ordinary volcanic craters, Darwin clearly saw that, in some cases, great craters might be formed or enlarged, by the subsidence of the floors after eruptions. The importance of this agency, to which too little attention has been directed by geologists, ...
— Volcanic Islands • Charles Darwin
... suddenly released from a tension of many millions of pounds can be dangerous in the extreme, forming a writhing whip that can lash through a spacesuit as though it did not exist. What damage it did to flesh and bone after that was of minor importance; a man who loses all his air in explosive decompression certainly has very little use ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... exclaimed, "black gunpowder. Our absintheur was a bomb- maker, an expert perhaps. Let me see. I imagine he was making an explosive bomb, ingeniously contrived of five glass tubes. The centre one, I venture, contained sulphuric acid and chlorate of potash separated by a close-packed wad of cotton wool. Then the two tubes on each side probably contained the powder, ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... rushed out of Lysander's soul like a rocket, culminated in a loud, explosive oath, and was followed by a shower of fiery curses falling harmless on the heads of the ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... The women, indeed, whom he loved, whom he proposed to, always awoke with a shock to the risk of joining for life a man of such explosive whims, of such absorption in his own self and art, of such utter deafness, untidiness, and morose habit ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... superficial. Diplomats may formulate leagues of nations and nations may pledge their utmost strength to maintain them, statesmen may dream of reconstructing the world out of alliances, hegemonies and spheres of influence, but woman, continuing to produce explosive populations, will convert these pledges into the proverbial scraps of paper; or she may, by controlling birth, lift motherhood to the plane of a voluntary, intelligent function, and remake the world. When the world is thus remade, it will exceed the ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... affectionate and devoted of friends in my trouble, we returned to Canterbury: I mean my aunt, Agnes, and I. We proceeded by appointment straight to Mr. Micawber's house; where, and at Mr. Wickfield's, my friend had been labouring ever since our explosive meeting. When poor Mrs. Micawber saw me come in, in my black clothes, she was sensibly affected. There was a great deal of good in Mrs. Micawber's heart, which had not been dunned out of it in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... resumed the King. "I thought them as united amongst themselves as they are in my heart. Vermandois is quick, and as explosive as saltpetre; but he has the best nature in the world. I will reconcile ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Explosive shells of melinite are the leading idea in France. It is manufactured at Bourges and is said to be a hundred times as powerful as gunpowder, or ten times nitroglycerine, and reduces what it strikes to a fine powder. They ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... hundred yards of her. This is, unfortunately, very far indeed from being the case; it is, on the contrary, necessary to explode the charge near the submarine in order to effect destruction. Taking the depth charge with 300 lb. weight of explosive, ordinarily supplied to destroyers in 1917, it was necessary to explode it within fourteen feet of a submarine to ensure destruction; at distances up to about twenty-eight feet from the hull the depth charge might be expected to disable a submarine ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... only bought a week or two previously, warranted to be perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common objects of the roadside. The animal lived up to its reputation, and passed the most explosive of motor-bikes with an indifference that almost amounted to apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere, and this particular cob drew it at travelling wild beast shows. Of course my sister didn't know that, but she knew it very distinctly ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... have spotted the vindictive crash of "75's," the deep-toned bellowing of "heavies," or, nearer by—had they been in action—the banging of trench mortars. In the sky he could have told from white or greenish-orange flashes, from lace-like wreaths or fixed-star blasts, where shrapnel or high explosive shells had burst; from the ringing of a gas gong he could tell where "green cross" shells were falling; he could, and gladly would, have explained—to his own satisfaction, at least—the many freak phenomena: a solitary light spirally ascending upward ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... On the whole, no explosive has ever been invented that is so noisy in its effect, so furiously expansive in its action, as the fumes of cheap whiskey. The great dock-shed soon began to reverberate to the wildest clamor, which added ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... but go in the tan at once after being scraped. I use common stove gasoline for benzine; it is as good for the purpose of cleaning and deodorizing, and cheaper. It must never be used in the vicinity of fire or a lighted lamp, as its evaporation produces a very explosive gas. For this reason I do the cleaning and beating of furs out of doors if practicable. Gasoline wrung out of skins may be saved and, after allowing to settle, used again and again. It will not do for the final cleaning of white furs, but for removing grease before tanning, it is as ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... and partly, if not mainly, because our naval guns fire common shell with bursting charges of black powder, the effect of which—though not so violent locally as that of the Boer shells, charged with melinite explosive—is spread over a much wider area. It is not much satisfaction, however, for the losses and worry we endure here to know that the investing force suffers even more severely so long as it continues to harass us while ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... The explosive sounds issuing from under the shimmering veil of Queen Vashti certainly sounded more masculine than feminine, and that Persian princess confessed presently to the ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... him! He never upset no tar; I was there!" shouted somebody. The two Norwegians sat on a chest side by side, alike and placid, resembling a pair of love-birds on a perch, and with round eyes stared innocently; but the Russian Finn, in the racket of explosive shouts and rolling laughter, remained motionless, limp and dull, like a deaf man without a backbone. Near him Archie smiled at his needle. A broad-chested, slow-eyed newcomer spoke deliberately to Belfast during an exhausted lull in the noise:—"I wonder any of the mates here are alive yet ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... doubt whether this is possible for young people, though I know it is the fashion nowadays to behave as though it were. And especially is it difficult—or impossible—where there has been any thought of love—on either side. For love is the great, unmanageable, explosive thing, which cannot be tamed down, at a word, into friendship—not in youth at any rate. The attempt to treat it as a negligible quantity can ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... derived, although the few rounds that were fired proved their destructive effect on the opposing trenches. The Turkish weapon was known as the "broomstick bomb" and was also propelled from a mortar. It consisted of a 4-inch cartridge case filled with a high explosive and also containing metal such as boiler punchings, nails, etc. (in one case gramophone needles were discovered), and provided with a percussion cap. It was fitted to a stick about two inches thick and five feet long. Its descent ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... content with his sign in town, the grocer had a large brass plate on his door, with Appleditch engraved upon it in capitals: it saved them always looking at the numbers. The boy ran on before, and assailed this door with a succession of explosive knocks. ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... Conference Hall, adding: "While arguing or appealing to my country's arbiters I felt I was addressing only a minority of the distinguished judges, while the thoughts of the others were far away. And when the interpreter was rendering, quickly, mechanically, and summarily, my ideas without any of the explosive passion that shot them from my heart, I felt discouraged. But suddenly it dawned on me that no judgment would be uttered on the strength of anything that I had said or left unsaid. I remembered that everything would be referred to a commission, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... of the harpoon-gun was followed by a swirl as the whale sounded for a long dive, but a moment later there came a dull, muffled report from the water, the explosive head of the harpoon, known as the 'bomb,' having burst. For a minute or two there was no sound but the swish of the line and the clank of the big winch as it ran out, while the animal sank to the bottom. There was a moment's wait, and then Hank, seeing ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... excuse for declaring war. This came in 1858 from an attempt at assassination. Felice Orsini, a fanatical Italian patriot, incensed at Napoleon from his failing to come to the aid of Italy, launched three explosive bombs against his carriage. The effect was fatal to many of the people in the street, though the intended victim escaped. Orsini while in prison expressed patriotic sentiments and a loud-voiced love for his country. "Remember that ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... peacefully up the trail in the moonlight, wondering how thoroughly he was lost and how much farther it was to Debbleby's. Then, at a sudden sharp turn in the canyon bridle-path, he had stumbled upon the camp-fire, had heard an explosive "Hands up!" and had found himself confronted by three men, with one of the three covering him with a sawed-off Winchester. From that to the unhorsing and the binding had been merely a rough-and-tumble half-minute, inasmuch as he was unarmed and the surprise ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... hope for, which they both could summon, was luck and the deadening hands of time. He told himself, here, that it was more than probable that he was exaggerating the proportions of the whole situation—Fanny had been angry before; her resentment faded the sooner for its swift explosive character. But this assurance was unconvincing; his presentiment, which didn't rest on reason, was not amenable to a reasonable conclusion. Of this he was certain, that Fanny never had harbored the suspicion of what, for her, would be the very worst. Did she know? If she ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the side door unfastened, and she made her way rapidly to the foot of the back stairway. When she opened the door to ascend, a thick, black smoke rushed down, almost overpowering her. The opening of the door seemed to aid the fire, too, and there was a sort of explosive eagerness in the new start it took as it now crackled and roared above her. Then she recognized in the sickening smoke a smell of burning feathers, and she felt faint and weak as she thought that it might be his bed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ordered General Lozier. The plane wavered in signal to the others and swung sharply to the left. Each man knew the flaming death that was theirs if the fire of their exhaust touched that explosive mixture of hydrogen and air. The great bubble turned with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... saltpetre as a source of power is seen in the adaptation of its explosive force to special purposes. It performs that work well which we cannot carry on so perfectly by means of any other agent, and the great mining and engineering works of a country are dependent on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... crude oil is placed in an iron retort connected with a coil of pipe in a vessel of cold water. Heat is then applied to the retort, when the process of distillation commences. The first product is a light-colored, volatile substance, sometimes called naphtha, that is very explosive. This substance is used in the place of spirits of turpentine in the preparation of paints and varnishes, and, after further treatment, in removing paints and grease from clothing. The next product from the retort is the refined fluid for illumination. This is ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... generation are rather more phlegmatic than their explosive neighbors across the channel, and neither the injustice of black slavery abroad, nor the starvation of white slaves at home, can shake them from their lop-sided neutrality, so long as money goes into their pocket. The excitable French, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... explosive shells. They fired the guns backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... adopted into the Wyoming Gang, or clan, descendants of the original populations of Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania; how quite by accident I stumbled upon a method of destroying Han aircraft by shooting explosive rockets, not directly at the heavily armored ships, but at the repeller ray columns, which automatically drew the rockets upward where they exploded in the generators of the aircraft; how the Wyomings threw the first thrill of terror into the Airlords by bringing an entire ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... come to the sea. To-morrow once more the flat, dusty country with the heat haze shimmering over it and every now and then the dull drone of some bursting crump, or the vicious crack of high explosive. Behind, the same old row of balloons; in front, the same old holes in the ground. . . . But to-day—peace. . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... I'll use a new kind of explosive electric bullet Mr. Roumann told me about," declared Andy. "It has a charge of electricity in it, and he says it will kill the biggest animal that ever lived, with ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... does not remember." At this I remarked guardedly to the doctor, "I asked Alfred when he last saw Harvey, and he replies that he doesn't remember, but he must have seen him on board the boat." To this she instantly replied, with an explosive laugh, "He says that if he did it was all blown out of him!" I will only comment on this reply, that it was quite in accordance with the character of my brother to joke on the most serious ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the change of scene was rather bewildering. His eyes were still full of the light from gasolene-burners, his ears still rang with the confusion of tent-noise into which entered the prolonged monotones of inarticulate groanings, and the explosive suddenness of seemingly irrelevant Amens. Above all, he tingled from the electric atmosphere of intense religious excitement; he was charged with currents at a pressure so high that his nerves were unresponsive to dull ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... dugouts. On the contrary, the last long mile had been covered in a final desperate spurt, the paddles swinging in swift unison to the accompaniment of a ferocious chant of one syllable: "Hough! Hough! Hough!" This explosive cadence had echoed down the stream ahead of them; and now, as the panting crews emerged from the jungle, they found themselves flanked by a long line of their fellow-warriors, bristling with drawn arrows and ready spear points. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... had escaped, the explosive blast rising upward; and the danger being apparently at an end, the principal actors in the catastrophe roused to find officers hurrying to meet them, and men coming forward armed with pails of water to dash and scatter here and there ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... away if, on the 30th of November, Neb, strolling on the beach, had not found a piece of a thick iron cylinder, bearing traces of explosion. The edges of this cylinder were twisted and broken, as if they had been subjected to the action of some explosive substance. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... all right," he shouted, as they neared the bank above the danger spot. He was a few yards in advance of Jack's father and "Old Mack." Then suddenly he stood stock still, gave vent to a long, explosive whistle, and yelled, "Well, I'll be gin-busted! Look a' there, boys!" And following his astounded gaze, they saw, on the brink of the river, an old grey horse, with down-hanging head, his back to the gale, and about his neck a boy's coat, from the knotted sleeves ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... the thing was just where I left it, among the white-hot coals. The explosive hadn't burst the case. And then I had a problem to face. You know time is an important element in crystallisation. If you hurry the process the crystals are small—it is only by prolonged standing that they grow to any size. I resolved to let this apparatus cool for two years, ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... course prepared for any amount of explosive gas you may shower down upon their uncombed crowns, as the cool and perfectly-at-home manner they descend your steps to mount those of your next-door neighbor plainly ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... not think it right," he said, "that there should be evening worship in the family?" Old William had not idea enough for conversation: he either signified acquiescence in whatever was said that pleased him, by an ever-recurring ay, ay, ay; or he grumbled out his dissent in a few explosive sounds, that conveyed his meaning rather in their character as tones than as vocables. But there now mingled with the ordinary explosions the distinct enunciation, given with, for him, unwonted emphasis, that he "wasna for that." I struck in, however, on the other side, and appealed to Peggy. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... dyestuffs and related chemicals. Our complete dependence upon German supplies before the war made the interruption of trade a cause of exceptional economic disturbance. The close relation between the manufacture of dyestuffs, on the one hand, and of explosive and poisonous gases, on the other, moreover, has given the industry an exceptional significance and value. Although the United States will gladly and unhesitatingly join in the programme of international disarmament, it will, nevertheless, be a policy of obvious ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... investigation. A letter from M. Lobry de Bruyn appears in the number of the Chemiker Zeitung for October 31, warning those who may attempt to prepare free hydroxylamine by the above method that it is a dangerously explosive substance when warmed to a temperature of 80 deg.-100 deg.. Upon warming a flask containing the free solid base upon a water bath a most violent explosion occurs. A spontaneous decomposition appears to set in about 80 deg., and even ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... is the equivalent of our "Ger-rreat Caesar!" but spoken with the proper Australian unction and fervency, it is worth six of it for grace and charm and expressiveness. Our form is rude and explosive; it is not suited to the drawing-room or the heifer-paddock; but "M-y word!" is, and is music to the ear, too, when the utterer knows how to say it. I saw it in print several times on the Pacific Ocean, but it struck me coldly, it aroused no sympathy. That was because it was the dead ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... steel shrapnel cases, but they were empty. There was no explosive of any sort aboard. As to the report that the Lusitania had guns aboard, I cannot assert too strongly that it is positively untrue. There were no guns whatever aboard. The Lusitania was an unarmed passenger steamer. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... years old when my uncle presented me with a flint-lock gun. The possession of the "mysterious iron," and the explosive dirt, or "pulverized coal," as it is called, filled me with new thoughts. All the war-songs that I had ever heard from childhood came back to me with their heroes. It seemed as if I were an entirely new being—the boy had ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... St. Chassepot, who once, it will not be forgotten, "wrought miracles"; but he has his doubts as to the morality of explosive bullets. The nymph of modern warfare is addressed as she ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... was possible. Some one, for instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch—to secure the maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in fancy shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then there was a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and then—horror of horrors—a great steaming plum-pudding. It ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... than had been done by any one before I dug my hole. Our volcanoes, it is now proved, are situated over the market-places of various provincial towns in Skitzland. When a revolution happens, the rebels are shot up—discharged from mortars by means of an explosive material evidently far more powerful than our gun-powder or gun-cotton; and they are pulverized by the friction in grinding their way through the earth. How simple and easy truth appears, when we have once ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... suggested, tentatively, as a solution of the puzzle, that "he had forgotten to put the powder in." Another argued that he did not know how; while there were a few who doubted whether "the Boer" considered powder in any sense explosive. There was a garrulous "bore" (from somewhere over-sea, not Holland) who advanced a still clearer elucidation of the mystery. "What was Rhodes doing in Germany for twelve months," he cried, "tell me that?" The relevancy of this rather ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... salt, and distil the resulting liquid with dilute sulphuric acid. The pure acid may be obtained by fractional distillation as a colourless liquid of very unpleasant smell, boiling at 30deg C., and extremely explosive. It is soluble in water, and the solution dissolves many metals (zinc, iron, &c.) with liberation of hydrogen and formation of salts (azoimides, azides or hydrazoates). All the salts are explosive and readily interact with the alkyl iodides. In its properties it ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... different wreaths and depths of smoke, and the explosive look of the flash on the right, are, however, very wonderful and peculiarly Turneresque; the sky is also beautiful in form, and the foreground, in which we find his old regard for washerwomen has not quite deserted him, singularly skillful. It is curious how formal the ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... influence of luxury and excitement and refinement in attracting the girl of the people, as the flame attracts the moth, is indicated by the fact that it is the country dwellers who chiefly succumb to the fascination. The girls whose adolescent explosive and orgiastic impulses, sometimes increased by a slight congenital lack of nervous balance, have been latent in the dull monotony of country life and heightened by the spectacle of luxury acting on the unrelieved drudgery of town life, find at last their complete gratification in the ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... London was very trying on account of the cold, fog, and snow. The train ploughed its way slowly and cautiously amidst the explosive signals, which did not add to our comfort. We felt very sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Seeley, who were sitting up for us so ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... had jumped up and come to his senses, crying out: "It is treachery! It is Chamber No. 6 blowing up!" As a matter of fact, that was where the cartridges were. It was said that at Meudon traces had been found of the same explosive as had been used in bombs against the Emperor during the first days of May (a plot that had probably been hatched by the police). The perpetrator, however,—doubtless for good ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... they were for a few minutes, listening to the firing. For the first time the note of real hand-to-hand fighting came into the battle din. They could hear the crashing volleys of rifle fire, and the explosive crackling of machine guns coming into play for the first time. That was confirmation enough of their guess that a regular assault on the line of ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... to drop this holiness stuff, for there is nothing in it—all bunk. Living above sin are you? Ha! ha! ha!" and the old man gave poor Robert an explosive horse-laugh. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... the world over. It's like the regions in Iceland that are full of geysers. I don't know whether it is the inheritance from those people who broke away from the old countries, and who ought to be matched to tremendous circumstances of life, but now and then there comes an amazingly explosive and uncontrollable temperament that goes all to pieces from its own conservation and accumulation of force. By and by you will have all blown up,—you quiet descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... my firm had any competitors in our line of business,' said Merton. 'But perhaps you have come here under some misapprehension. There is a firm of family solicitors on the floor above, and next them are the offices of a company interested in a patent explosive. If your affairs, or your political ideas, demand a legal opinion, or an outlet in an explosive which is widely recommended ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... through fear and anxiety. His ministers were killed by the revolutionists. Some of the guards placed about his person became victims of the secret band. Letters bordered with black and threatening the emperor's life were found among his papers or his clothes. An explosive powder placed in his handkerchief injured his sight for a time; a box of asthma pills sent him proved to contain a small but dangerous infernal machine. He grew haggard through this constant peril; his hair whitened, his form shrank, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... action—then, the mystery of Miss Minerva's inner nature might possibly have been revealed. As it was, nothing more remarkable exposed itself to view than an irritable temper; serving perhaps as safety-valve to an underlying explosive force, which (with strong enough temptation and sufficient opportunity) might yet ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... and a previous one stirred Florence, who had been sitting quietly, according to request, and "resting", but not resting her curiosity. "Who's disappointed in love, papa?" she inquired with an explosive eagerness that slightly startled her preoccupied parents. "What is all this about Aunt Julia, and grandpa goin' to live alone, and people committing suicide and prohibition and everything? ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... heavier than the others. He did not stop to knead his paste, for already he could hear the crash of glass and the sound of sledges on the door at the rear of the cigar-shop. Catching up a strand of what he knew to be the most explosive of all guncottons—it was cellulose-hexanitrate—he worked it gently into the open keyhole and again scuttled back to safety ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... his head, and "No!" closing his lips abruptly, and opening them again to emit a final "No!" with an explosive force which alone seemed to save him. "Not at all, Mrs. Munger; not on any account! I am surprised at Mr. Peck, or rather I am not surprised. He is not a practical man—not a man of the world; and I should have much preferred to hear that he objected to the dancing and the play; I could ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... scene is the great volcano Vesuvius, which rises a vast green cone from the midst of the plain, and emits from its summit a constant stream of smoke. In times of eruption this smoke becomes very dense and voluminous, and alternates from time to time with bursts of what seems to be flame, and with explosive ejections of red-hot stones or molten lava. Besides the cities and towns that are now to be seen along the shore at the foot of the slopes of the mountain, there are many others buried deep beneath the ground, having been overwhelmed by currents ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... in this matter of negro slavery, has undertaken to apply his explosive pitch and rosin, not to the affectation of humanity, but to humanity itself. He mocks at pity, scoffs at all who seek to lessen the amount of pain and suffering, sneers at and denies the most sacred ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... no accident of nature but a piously planned and methodically executed human deed. From the opposite heights the poor little garden-girt town was shelled like a steel fortress; then, when the Germans entered, a fire was built in every house, and at the nicely-timed right moment one of the explosive tabloids which the fearless Teuton carries about for his land-Lusitanias was tossed on each hearth. It was all so well done that one wonders—almost apologetically for German thoroughness—that any of the human rats escaped ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... took the hatchet he had brought with him at his girdle, flung over one of the barrels on its side, knocked in the head of it, allowing the dull black powder to pour on the cobblestones. Then filling his hat with the explosive, he came out towards us, leaving a thick trail behind him. By this time we were sorely beset, and one of our men had gone down under the fire of the enemy, who shot wildly, being baffled by the darkness, otherwise all of us had been slaughtered. I seized ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... to their personal plans have resigned, and others have taken their places of whom we need not fear this. I believe, therefore that I may state that our outlook toward France is more peaceful and less explosive today than it was a year ago and I am glad to do this, because I wish to quiet, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... religion, men possessing enormous power over the forces of nature are like children to whom powder or explosive gas has been given as a plaything. Considering this power which men of our time possess, and the way they use it, one feels that considering the degree of their moral development men have no right, not only to the ...
— "Bethink Yourselves" • Leo Tolstoy
... back in the chair and rocked back and forth with the sleeping baby in her arms, showing that she was enjoying the little explosive she had dropped in the midst of her family circle. There was silence for a few moments; then Mr. Thornton ...
— Drusilla with a Million • Elizabeth Cooper
... indefinable fabric of traditional home training in restraint that is very hard to separate in analysis from mental heredity. People who have dwelt for many generations in towns are not only more temperate and less explosive in the grosser indulgences, but more urbane altogether. The drunken people are also the "uncivil" peoples and the individualistic peoples. The great prevalence of drunkenness among the upper classes two ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... at the great centre of Rome; the insurrectionary temper of Jewish society, as indicated by the continual rise of robber leaders, that drew off multitudes into the neighboring deserts; and, universally, the unsettled mind of the Jewish nation. These explosive materials had long been accumulated; they needed only a kindling spark. Heavenly citations to war had long been felt in the insults and aggressions of paganism; there wanted only a leader. And such a leader, if he would but ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... follow Edison. Even in the educational world there are few inventors and many followers. This is evidence of the large power of imitation and adaptation and of the universal habit of borrowing. On the other hand, if one chemical laboratory should discover a high explosive which may be used in blasting rock for making the foundations for buildings, a nation might borrow the idea and use it in warfare for ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... shoulder and hears a voice in her ear saying, "Taste it!" On examination, she finds she has got a morphine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in this quasi-explosive way. A like explanation offers itself as most plausible for the following case: A lady, with little time to catch the train, and the expressman about to call, is excitedly looking for the lost key of ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... recklessness of life is proverbial among foreigners, we may be thankful that India-rubber bags of explosive gases are not carried by ignorant boys through our streets, as in Newcastle, England. The practice resulted by a singular chain of mishaps in a violent explosion. The first error was in using a bag for conveying an explosive gas; the second ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Eisberg is a long way from red hot, but normal sealing still won't keep out hydrogen. Add to that the fact that hydrogen and methane are both colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and you have the beginnings of an explosive situation. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... she told the story of how she had written the verses in the infirmary. On her witty tongue the stubby pencil, the dull knife, and the teasing midget of an impudent freshman made a delightfully humorous tale. Even the explosive "Lila!" and its accompanying side glance of terrified joy in the daring developed into a picture that sent the seniors into tempests of laughter. Somehow she did not care to mention the letter which Ellen had ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... word, Billy let out an explosive "BOO!" and Saxon giggled involuntarily at the startle ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... weapons. The most that we could do was to check their progress by distracting their attention with the flash and roar of our guns, and so to give both the natives and ourselves time to reach the steps which led to safety. But where the conical explosive bullets of the twentieth century were of no avail, the poisoned arrows of the natives, dipped in the juice of strophanthus and steeped afterwards in decayed carrion, could succeed. Such arrows were of little avail to the hunter who attacked the beast, because their action ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and was about two hundred yards away when the canopy of the other vehicle popped open and a sheet of automatic weapons fire raked the patrol car. Only the low angle of the sedan and the nearness of the bulky patrol car saved the troopers. Explosive bullets smashed into the patrol car canopy and sent shards of plastiglass ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... momentum) combines with least resistance from the atmosphere. In the pursuit of this result every experimenter since the fifteenth century has worked. Lautmann, writing in 1729, recommends an elliptical missile, hollow behind, from a notion that the hollow gathered the explosive force, Robins recommends elongated balls; and they were used in many varieties of form. Theory would assign, as the shape of highest rapidity, one like that which would be made by the revolution of the waterline section of a fast ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various |
