"Saltpetre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... appearance, stretched on the jaws of a shark, which he had brought from sea, and accommodated with a couple of broad glasses instead of eyes. On the inside of these he placed two rushlights, and, with a composition of sulphur and saltpetre, made a pretty large fusee, which he fixed between two rows of the teeth. This equipage being finished, he, one dark night chosen for the purpose, put it on, and, following the commodore into a long passage, in which he was preceded by Perry with a light in his hand, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the ears, with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... spirit; indeed, we see the dawn of the inevitable day of compromise, for we now have, instead of the old argument that the divine power by one miraculous act changed Lot's wife into a salt pillar, the suggestion that she was caught in a shower of sulphur and saltpetre, covered by it, and that the result was a lump, which in a general way IS CALLED in our sacred books "a ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and generously marched to the assistance of their friends. Nine hundred of them mounted, under the command of Col. Campbell, poured down from the Allegany, like the torrents from its summit. Gunpowder they had already learnt to prepare from the saltpetre in their caves, and lead they dug out of their mines. Dried venison satisfied their hunger, pure water slaked their thirst, and at the side of a rock they enjoyed comfortable repose. Armed with rifles, sure to the white speck on the target, at the distance of one hundred paces, or to ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... compound is dissipated into the air in the form of gas, much of it in the form of free nitrogen. The basis from which explosive compounds are made contains nitrogen in the form in which it can be used by plants. Saltpetre, for example, is equally good as a fertilizer and as a basis for gunpowder. The products of the explosion are gases no longer capable of use by plants, and thus every explosion of nitrogen compounds aids in this gradual dissipation of nitrogen products, taking them from ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... that with a sponge an' you c'n do that with a string. All you gotta do is to steep 'em good an' hard in saltpetre. An' you c'n light that with burning glasses. It c'n be done twenty steps away!—All that's been done before now. There ain't nothin' new in all that to me. I know ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the Byzantine Greeks in warfare, first against the Saracens at the siege of Constantinople in 673 A. D. Therefore an anachronism in this poem. Liquid fire was, however, known to the ancients, as Assyrian bas-reliefs testify. Greek fire was made possibly of naphtha, saltpetre, and sulphur, and was thrown upon the enemy from copper tubes; or pledgets of tow were dipped in it and ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... match, and stok, a stick), 'a gunner's forked staff to hold a match of lint dipped in saltpetre.' ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... from that living Word, which he must study who would have his vision of God fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the resisting ball,—not less real to his eye, because not apparent,—or in the villanous compound itself, while yet the spark is wanting,—'rules' for ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... development of the Haber process by the I.G. The story is too well known to repeat at length. The basic element of explosives is nitrogen, which is introduced by nitric acid. This was produced from imported Chili saltpetre, but the blockade cut short these imports, and but for the Haber method, the vital step in producing nitric acid from the air, Germany would have been compelled ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... to no foreign power. We are using the utmost industry in endeavoring to make saltpetre, and with daily increasing success. Our artificers are also everywhere busy in fabricating small arms, casting cannon, &c. Yet both arms and ammunition are much wanted. Any merchants, who would venture to send ships laden with those articles, might make great profit; such is the ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... coal, slate, and freestone; and in every shire of England, generally quarries of hard stone, chalk, and flint: these be commodities honorable and not feigned, being of such estimation that France, nor other realms, may well forbear; and as for saltpetre, there is sufficient made in England to furnish our turn for the wars. Also we have hot fountains or bathes, which you nor no other realms christened have."—Sign. L. v. rev. If ancient GILDAS speak the truth, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ask Miss Fortune about that; sugar and salt and saltpetre and molasses, and I don't ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... various forms of blasting gelatines, such as gelatine dynamite and gelignite, both of which substances consist of a mixture of gun-cotton dissolved in nitro-glycerine, with the addition of varying proportions of wood-pulp and saltpetre, the latter substances acting as absorbing materials for the viscid gelatine. Nitro-glycerine is also largely used in the manufacture of smokeless powders, such as cordite, ballistite, and ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... it thoroughly with a great weight for four days. Take ginger and every sort of spice that is used to meat, and half a pound of brown sugar, a good quantity of saltpetre, and a pound of juniper-berries. Rub the whole in thoroughly, and let it lie six weeks in the liquor, boiling and skimming every three days, for an hour or two, till the liver becomes as hard as a board. Then steep it in the smoke liquor that is used for hams, and afterwards hang ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... heavy cannon in order to oppose them. I represented, however, that vessels are not built in a day, and pointed out the difficulties in the way of naval warfare. I showed that the power of a cannon depends upon the strength of the powder, and the strength of the powder upon the sulphur and saltpetre; the latter determining the explosive force forwards and backwards, and the former, the same force towards either side. Therefore to ensure powder being powerful, there should be seven parts saltpetre out of ten. The English barbarians have got rattan ash which they can use instead of sulphur, ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... are the essentials, it is well to get ready, also, some tinder. I have tried a great many different kinds of lint and punk, including a number that were artificially prepared, soaked with saltpetre or other combustibles. But these are not really fair play. The true woodcrafter limits himself to the things that he can get in the woods, and in all my recent fire-making I have contented myself with the tinder used for ages by ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... hand and Captain Caulfield on the other, to follow those that were fled into the woods. And as I was creeping through the bushes, I saw an Indian basket hidden, which was the refiner's basket; for I found in it his quicksilver, saltpetre, and divers things for the trial of metals, and also the dust of such ore as he had refined; but in those canoas which escaped there was a good quantity of ore and gold. I then landed more men, and offered five hundred pound to what soldier ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... North American colonies, on the subject of the slave trade and slavery. It is not considered necessary to burden our pages with a repetition of the whole of the accompanying resolutions. They embraced every item of foreign commodities, excepting in a few instances where medicines, saltpetre, and other necessaries, were exempted from the prohibition. In a few counties, though they condemned the slave trade, they excepted negroes, and desired to retain the privilege of procuring them. This was in the early part of the movement. When the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... (KO, NO^{5}).—Saturate boiling water with commercial saltpetre, filter while hot in a beaker glass, which is to be placed in cold water, and stir while the solution is cooling. The greater part of the saltpetre will crystallize in very fine crystals. Place these crystals ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... among whom I dwelt. On several occasions, having all the ingredients at my disposal, I attempted to make gunpowder, but truth to tell, my experiments were not attended with very great success. I had charcoal, saltpetre, and sulphur ready to my hand,—all obtainable from natural sources close by; but the result of all my efforts (and I tried mixing the ingredients in every conceivable way) was a very coarse kind of powder with practically no explosive ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with foretelling the reader that choicer flowers are preparing to appear." Upon the foreign supply of gunpowder being prohibited, he proposed a plan, in the Pennsylvanian Journal, of a saltpetre association for the voluntary supply of ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... troops was called, was provided for each district, and, in addition, two regiments of regulars were ordered as the contingent of the province for the Continental army. Provision was also made for the purchase, anywhere and everywhere, of arms, powder, lead, salt and saltpetre; for the manufacture at home of salt, saltpetre, powder, and for the refining of sulphur; for the manufacture of brown and writing paper, cotton and woolen cards, linen and woolen cloths, pins and needles, and for the erection of furnaces for making iron and steel and iron ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... other such, if that me list to tarry; Our lampes burning bothe night and day, To bring about our craft if that we may; Our furnace eke of calcination, And of waters albification, Unslaked lime, chalk, and *glair of an ey,* *egg-white Powders diverse, ashes, dung, piss, and clay, Seared pokettes, saltpetre, and vitriol; And divers fires made of wood and coal; Sal-tartar, alkali, salt preparate, And combust matters, and coagulate; Clay made with horse and manne's hair, and oil Of tartar, alum, glass, barm, wort, argoil,* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... himself as waking one morning and finding himself famous, and it is quite an ordinary fact, that a blaze may be made with a little saltpetre that will be stared at by thousands who would have thought the sunrise tedious. If we may believe his biographer, Wordsworth might have said that he awoke and found himself infamous, for the publication of the Lyrical Ballads undoubtedly raised him to the distinction of being the least ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... taken from mines said to be inexhaustible. From good authority I learned the existence of gold and copper mines, the metals being combined; and I saw specimens of coal taken from two or three different points, but I do not know what the indications were as to quality. Brimstone, saltpetre, muriate and carbonate of soda, and bitumen, are abundant. There is little doubt that California is as rich in minerals of all kinds as ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... one million of livres, which I have accepted. I have in treaty another credit, which joined to this will purchase the articles directed in my instructions; the credit will be until May next, before which I hope remittances will be made. I have purchased of said M. Chaumont a quantity of saltpetre at ten sous, or five and one fourth per cent, in order that Captain Morgan ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... said o' her pork and 'ams when the pig wor killed and her hadn't salt nor saltpetre. She'd see to it some day. Meanwhile the maggots came ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... in connection with prisoners and the Mint he was shortly afterwards nominated one of the Commissioners for regulating the farming and making of saltpetre and gunpowder throughout Britain, an appointment which was all the more appropriate from the fact that his grandfather, George Evelyn of Long Ditton and Wotton (1530-1603), had been the first to introduce the manufacture of gunpowder into ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... interruption of their plans rather favors their execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... Kapit until seven the following morning, asked us to dine, the evening of our arrival, at his quarters; where we found that, although in the wilds of Borneo, he (an old Garibaldian) managed to make himself uncommonly comfortable. An excellent dinner, washed down by some champagne well cooled in saltpetre, is no mean fare for the jungle, and it was late ere we returned on board the Aline, which was ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... mixture of three cwt. of guano, one of salt, one and a half of saltpetre, and one of gypsum, for each acre; sow broadcast and plow in about four inches deep, and you will find your manure well paid for, and no exhaustion of the soil, as is usually the case wherever this ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... presently found himself close to the hole of the pit, a black pit open to the level of the soil, emitting the breath of ages, malarious and glacial. Frightened, he stopped short, and curled himself into a corner, his cap over his eyes. But the damp saltpetre of the walls affected him, and suddenly a stentorian sneeze, which made the tourists recoil, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... unknown, but may have been near Astrachan, formerly named Hadschi-Aidar-Khan. But there are ruins of a town still existing on both sides of the Volga, which are now used for the purpose of making saltpetre.—Forst. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... has ever been noted for the excellence and prolific yield of its sugar crops. From here, also, indigo and saltpetre are exported in large quantities. No tea-gardens were seen,—these were left behind in the hills,—nor had we met with coffee plantations since leaving Ceylon. All along the route we saw fruit trees in considerable ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... pleasure-seekers. Hipp, who was a sort of American Crichton, managed the business details with consummate tact. I was announced as the eye-witness and participator of a hundred actions, fresh from the bloodiest fields and still smelling of saltpetre. My horse had been shot as I carried a General's orders under the fire of a score of batteries, and I was connected with journals whose reputations were world-wide. Disease had compelled me to forsake the scenes of my heroism, and I had consented to enlighten the Lancashire public, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... trade, also, had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connection with the former at all. Its connection with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre, which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, doubtless, of maintaining ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... of metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... of me, Mr. Wilfrud, becas I'm a widde and just an abom'nation to garls, poor darlin's! And twenty shindies per dime we've been havin', and me such a placable body, if ye'll onnly let m' explode. I'm all powder, avery bit! and might ha' been christened Saltpetre, if born a boy. She hasn't so much as a shot to kill a goose, says Chump, poor fella! But he went, annyway. I must kiss somebody when I talk of 'm. Mr. Wilfrud, I'll take the girls, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pounds per annum spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!" And after—ask the Yusufzaies What ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... of alcohol; One and a half ounces of glycerine; One ounce of liverwort; Three hundred and twenty grains of saltpetre; Forty drops of wintergreen. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... timber for oars, though, as a memorandum of 1580 says, "if the Spaniards catch you trading with them, you shall die for it." Probably what they objected to most was the sale of arms to the infidel. From Barbary came sugar, saltpetre, dates, molasses and carpets. Andalusia demanded fine cloth and cambric in return for wines called "seckes," sweet oil, raisins, salt, cochineal, indigo, sumac, silk and soap. Portugal took butter, cheese, fine cloth ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... were empty. The administrators of the powder-mills were assembled to know what they could do. They declared that the annual produce amounted to three millions of pounds only, that the basis of it was saltpetre drawn from India, that extraordinary encouragements might raise them to five millions; but that no hopes ought to be entertained of exceeding that quantity. When the members of the Committee of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... told off specially for the purpose, at once set to work at the cannon. These were filled nearly to the muzzle with powder, and the plugs were driven with mallets tight into the muzzles. Slow matches, composed of strips of calico dipped in saltpetre, were placed in the touch holes. Then the word was given, and the whole party fell back to the gate just as the Dahomans in great numbers came running up. In less than a minute after leaving the battery twelve tremendous reports, following closely ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... is to be pickled it should be dusted lightly with saltpetre sprinkled with salt, and allowed to drain twenty-four hours; then plunge it into pickle, and keep under with a weight. It is good policy to pickle a portion of the sides. They, after soaking, are sweeter to cook with vegetables, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... "villanous saltpetre" was made by ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the shortest—that which places a man hand to hand with his opponent. Some of the Kafir tribes have discontinued throwing the Assegai, and ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... them, and secretly working at their destruction. Its waters, filtering through the soil, were perpetually in contact with the lower courses of these buildings, and kept the foundations of the walls and the bases of the columns constantly damp: the saltpetre which the waters had dissolved in their passage, crystallising on the limestone, would corrode and undermine everything, if precautions were not taken. When the inundation was over, the subsidence of the water which impregnated the subsoil caused in course ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... peripatetic 'patriots' of 1793 had contrived to do mischief enough, even in this small and quiet corner of France, to earn the detestation of its people. They desecrated its churches, turning Notre-Dame into a saltpetre factory, stealing the church bells to sell them, pulling down the steeples and ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... return home. He was at work in the smoke-house. The meat had been salted down long enough after the killing: it must be hung, and he was engaged in hanging it. Several pieces lay piled inside the door suitably for the hand. He stood with his back to these beside the meat bench, scraping the saltpetre off a large middling and rubbing it with red pepper. Suddenly the light of the small doorway failed; and turning he beheld his mother, and a few feet behind her—David said that he did not believe in miracles—but a few feet behind his mother ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... of Liberty, who formed anti-tea leagues, proclaimed inherent rights, and demanded an independency in advance of the men; those of New York, who tilled the fields, and, removing their hearth-stones, manufactured saltpetre from the earth beneath, to make powder for the army; those of New Jersey, who rebuked traitors; those of Pennsylvania, who saved the army; those of Virginia, who protested against taxation without representation; those of South Carolina, who at Charleston ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "When they cudgel a slave one can easily read in their faces the infernal joy it gives them to witness the tortures of their victims." He often saw women belaboring the naked back of a slave with branches of the cruel acacia delinens, and finally rub salt or saltpetre into the wounds. Napier (I., 59) says of the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... signifying "salt," or "saltpetre," is the general term for that saline dust which accumulates wherever there are mounds of brick or limestone ruins. This dust is much valued as a manure, or "top-dressing," and is so constantly dug out and carried ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... "Gold is the most abundant; but saltpetre and naphtha are among the products. Quantities of rice are grown here, and a singular method is adopted for separating the grain from the ear. The bunches of paddy are spread on mats, and the Sumatrans rub out the grain ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... week agone, Cammet was sent on a swift horse to Chateau Thierry. The good town craved of Pothon de Xaintrailles, who commands there, to send them what saltpetre he could spare for making gunpowder. The saltpetre came in this day by the Pierrefonds Gate, and Cammet with it, but on another horse, ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... which these and other substances were put. Salts of ammonium were also known; while alum was used as a mordant in dyeing. Many substances were employed in ancient medicine: galena was the basis of a valuable Egyptian cosmetic and drug; the arsenic sulphides, realgar and orpiment, litharge, alum, saltpetre, iron rust were also used. Among the Arabian and later alchemists we find attempts made to collate compounds by specific properties, and it is to these writers that we are mainly indebted for such terms as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... powder and ball, the veriest dunce in Christendom may blow out a gentleman's brain, while it takes an artiste to run one through the body handsomely. Give me the sword, Carlton-I've a great horror, in such cases, of 'villanous saltpetre.'" ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... permitting alum to crystallise in this slow way, we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallise, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallises, we have formed these hexagonal prisms capped at the ends by pyramids; by allowing saltpetre to crystallise we have these prismatic masses, and when carbon crystallises, we have the diamond. If we wish to obtain a perfect crystal we must allow the molecular forces free play; if the crystallising mass be permitted to rest upon a surface ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... base or radical of the acid which is extracted from nitre or saltpetre be better known, we have judged proper only to modify its name in the same manner with that of the muriatic acid. It is drawn from nitre, by the intervention of sulphuric acid, by a process similar to that described ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... Doctor, "if it could be purchased at the same price, it would be the cheaper manure. It contains 46-1/2 per cent of potash, and on soils, or for crops where potash is needed, we may sometimes be able to purchase saltpetre to advantage." ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... midst of the temperate zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Uncle Stalky get you into a mess yet?" Like many other leaders, Stalky did not dwell on past defeats. They pushed through a dripping hedge, landed among water-logged clods, and sat down on a rust-coated harrow. The cheroot burned with sputterings of saltpetre. They smoked it gingerly, each passing to the other between ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... man for a dollar. He was the worst nigger that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... confessed that the Earl's courtship of Elizabeth was anything at that moment but a gentle dalliance. In those thorny regions of finance were no beds of asphodel or amaranthine bowers. There was no talk but of troopers, saltpetre, and sulphur, of books of assurance, and bills of exchange; and the aspect of Elizabeth, when the budget was under discussion, must effectually have neutralized for the time any very tender sentiment. The sharpness ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... pity, so it was, That villainous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed.—First Part of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... appease the ceaseless thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer. Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought, saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Muscovado sugars, from which it is made; the bounty upon wrought silk exported, a drawback of the duties upon raw and thrown silk imported; the bounty upon gunpowder exported, a drawback of the duties upon brimstone and saltpetre imported. In the language of the customs, those allowances only are called drawbacks which are given upon goods exported in the same form in which they are imported. When that form has been so altered by manufacture of any kind as to come ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... parlor, when she stopped. The damp which fell from the vaulted ceiling like a pall upon her, and the emotions which were agitating her heart, combined to overwhelm her. She tottered, and had to lean against the wall, reeking as it was with wet and with saltpetre. ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... I glad! For if I do look grim and rough, I've got some feelin'— People think A soldier's heart is mighty tough; But, Harry, when the bullets fly, And hot saltpetre flames and smokes, While whole battalions lie afield, One's apt to think about ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... all these things are true; if we may hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night vocal ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... writing at a desk beneath a window. I walked all the length of the room very slowly, for what I had come for had completely gone out of my head. Fortunately the man never heard me until I had recollected it. Then he got up, and I asked him for some stone-blue, saltpetre, tea, pickles, salt, etc. He was very civil. I bought some things and asked for a note of them. He went to his desk again; I looked at some newspapers lying near. On the top was a circular from Smith & Elder containing notices of the most important new works. The first and longest ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... handsomely appointed, though not with the same degree of splendour that prevails in Bengal, where the quantity of plate makes so striking a display. The large silver vases, in which butter and milk are enclosed in a vessel filled with saltpetre, which give to the breakfast-tables of Calcutta an air of such princely grandeur, are not ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... these considerations not unconnected with the subject, let us inquire what saltpetre is, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... haven't spirit!" said he. "That Seigneur Duvarney, I know him; and I know his son the ensign—whung, what saltpetre is he! And the ma'm'selle—excellent, excellent; and a face, such a face, and a seat like leeches in the saddle. And you a British officer mewed up to kick your heels till gallows day! ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the whole matter of war is a thing that smites common-sense and Christianity in the face; so everything connected with it is utterly foolish, unchristian, barbarous, brutal, and savouring of the Feejee Islands, cannibalism, saltpetre, and the devil. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... shell for incendiary purposes, filled with a very fiercely flaming composition of saltpetre, sulphur, resin, turpentine, antimony, and tallow. It has three vents for the flame, and sometimes is equipped with pistol barrels, so fitted in its interior as to discharge their ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... filings, and saltpetre, by all that is abominable! Ah, faith! there must have been ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... spent by M. Verdier in surveying the country west of the Alleghany mountains. In that time he visited and examined all the mounds or tumuli, "deciphered a great many resemblances of inscriptions," and penetrated into many saltpetre caves in search of mummies and triune idols. He succeeded in proving to his own satisfaction, and, as we shall see, to that of his employers, that the tumuli were erected for burying-places; that their builders were Malays who chartered the ship Argo from Jason, and came over from the Sandwich ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... make candles will find it a great improvement to steep the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and dry them. The flame is clearer, and the ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... gentlemen meant any harm, for they provided plenty of food, and took them to bed with them. They set my daughter at liberty next day, and she spoke very handsomely of the young gentlemen, and said they had cured the skins with saltpetre, and were stuffing them when she left. But the subject was ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... It is in the elements of matter, and not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man, knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them into unnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and the general inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do on the innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from the actual force expended, is drawing conclusions from the sheerest hypothetical ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... gave to three of her little brothers and sisters. One boy, however, 'had huffed her,' and got no penny. But she relented, and, when she went out, bought for him a mince-pie. Her visit of New Year's Day was to her maternal aunt, Mrs. Colley, living at Saltpetre Bank (Dock Street, behind the London Dock). She meant to return in time to buy, with her mother, a cloak, but the Colleys had a cold early dinner, and kept her till about 9 P.M. for a ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... mineral wealth of California. Popular attention has been but lately directed to it. But the discoveries that have already been made will warrant us in the assertion that California is one of the richest mineral countries in the world. Gold, silver, quicksilver, iron, copper, lead, sulphur, saltpetre, and other mines of great value have already been found. We saw a few days ago a beautiful specimen of gold from the mine newly discovered on the American Fork. From all accounts the mine is immensely rich, and already ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs—sleepy dogs blinking in the firelight, friendly ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... own destruction by their arrogance and cruelty. Can you imagine that creatures of this kind, armed only with such miserable weapons as you may see in our museum of antiquities, clumsy iron tubes charged with saltpetre, have more than once threatened with destruction a tribe of the Vril-ya, which dwells nearest to them, because they say they have thirty millions of population—and that tribe may have fifty thousand—if the latter do not accept their notions of Soc-Sec (money getting) on some trading ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... started on our exploring expedition, passing at the entry the remnants of old saltpetre works, which were established here during the struggle at New Orleans. The extent of this cave would render a detail tedious, as there are comparatively few objects of interest. The greatest marvel is a breed of small white fish ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... do a little business without capital, went to New York city as his commercial agent. Her letters to her father are "almost exclusively business letters," and he on his part gives her "directions for the sale and purchase, not only of muslins and moreens, but also of skins, saltpetre, and the like." ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... of the earth are saltpetre, which is found in the Elburz, and in Azerbijan; sulphur, which abounds in the same regions, and likewise on the high plateau; alum, which is quarried near Tabriz; naphtha and gypsum, which are found in Kurdistan; and talc, which exists in the mountains near Koum, in the vicinity of Tabriz, and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... ordinary circular vessels or gharas used for storing and collecting water, larger ones for keeping grain, flour and vegetables, and surahis or amphoras for drinking-water. In the manufacture of these last salt and saltpetre are mixed with the clay to make them more porous and so increase their cooling capacity. A very useful thing is the small saucer which serves as a lamp, being filled with oil on which a lighted wick is floated. These saucers resemble those found in the excavations of Roman remains. Earthen ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell |
