"Torpedo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... submit. But after five months of fruitless negotiations the patience of the Government at Tokio was exhausted. On Feb. 8, 1904, the Japanese fleet made a sudden descent upon Port Arthur. This act, so audaciously planned, resulted in the destruction of battle-ships, cruisers, torpedo-boats—nine in all—to which were added the day following two more ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... strange yarns—"shaves" about what was going on at Omdurman, and the Khalifa's intentions. "Abdullah would fight? No, he would run away; he was laying down mines in the Nile to blow up our gunboats. A Tunisian had devised a torpedo, but as it was being lowered from a dervish boat, the machine exploded, and the engineer was hoisted with his own petard." Then there were stories of extraordinary discoveries of precious minerals—gold mines by the score. Two young officers, who wished some fun with ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... and you'll see," said Rob, and he went on with his task, which was the preparation of something in the fashion of a torpedo, for about a pound of powder had been transferred from their keg to a small tin canister, in whose lid they drove a hole, and passed through it a slow match, made by rubbing a strip of rag with moistened gunpowder, which dried up at once in the ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... States government requested that British war vessels keep away from our coast and then allowed the U-boat 53 to land at Newport and obtain information in regard to the sailing of vessels, which it then proceeded to torpedo. This occurred about the time of the blowing up ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... been repeated formation of distinct branches or 'schools,' such as the further specialised specialist gunnery and torpedo sections. It was not till 1860 that uniform watch bills, quarter bills, and station bills were introduced, and not till later that their general adoption was made compulsory. Up to that time the internal organisation and discipline of a ship depended on her own officers, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... questions she put to him even too readily—with an indifferent matter-of-factness, indeed, more dreadful than any most passionate outburst. But at the root of the apparent apathy lay despair and remorse,—weary, like gorged and sleeping tigers far back in their dens. Only the dull torpedo of misery was awake, lying motionless on the bottom of the deepest pool of ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... struggle in increasing numbers, represented an entirely new development, for the submarine is a vessel which can travel unseen beneath the water and, while still unseen, except for a possible momentary glimpse of a few inches of periscope, can launch a torpedo at long or short range and with deadly accuracy. In these circumstances it became imperative to organize the Admiralty administration to meet new needs, and to press into the service of the central administration a large number of officers charged with the sole duty of studying ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... it's a torpedo to blow up and scare me; Jack likes to play tricks. Well, I'll scream loud when it goes off, so he will be satisfied that I'm dreadfully frightened," thought Jill, little dreaming what the last surprise of ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... "It is a torpedo," shouted Ralph. Every one leaned over the ship's side and waited, some with terror on their faces, others pale but calm. Two or three rushed for the companionway, and ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... despatch-boat on which Ridge Norris was a passenger entered the northwest passage of Key West Harbor, and was headed towards the quaint island city that had been brought into such sudden prominence by the war. The port was filled with United States cruisers, gun-boats, yachts converted into torpedo-boat destroyers, Government hospital-ships, and others flying the flag of the Red Cross Society, transports, colliers, supply-ships, water-boats, and a huddle of prizes—steamers and sailing-vessels captured off the Cuban coast. Amid these the Speedy slowly threaded ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... naval architect named DUNKIN claims to have constructed a new style of vessel, impervious to rams, shell, or shot." Now, then, where is our friend, Captain ERICSSON? The Captain has a torpedo which he is anxious to explode, near a strong vessel belonging to somebody else. He says it will blow up anything. DUNIN says nothing can blow up his vessel. A contest between these very positive inventors would be ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... one of which was larger than the rest. The smaller ones were about eight inches long. All were torpedo-shaped, but had flattened bottoms, which enabled them to stand upright. Two of the smaller ones were empty and unstoppered, the others contained a colourless liquid, and possessed queer-looking, nozzle-like stoppers ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... have given the enemy matter for reflection. Although allowed an hour's time for consideration, the soldiers refused to surrender, and opened fire with their rifles on the battleships. Then, before the Kinshu Maru was blown in two by a torpedo, a number of the Japanese officers and men performed harakiri.... This strong display of the fierce old feudal spirit suggests how dearly a ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... By a compressed air or by a direct steam impulse arrangement these weapons are started on their course and are directed, and then the running is taken up by their own engines operating on screw propellers, driven by a magazine of compressed air contained in the body of the torpedo. Means are also provided to maintain the designed level below the water surface. The torpedo may either be projected from the war ship itself or from one of those launches which owe their origin to our member, Mr. John Isaac ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... It is the same with coded communications to Foreign Powers. The movements of our fleet are known to foreign naval attaches even before the maneuvers are carried out. The whereabouts of the smallest torpedo boat and submarine is no secret—to ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... ship-building experience. Dozens of apparently seaworthy boats have gone up the Yangtze-Kiang, not to return. After years of experiment a somewhat satisfactory river-boat has been evolved. It combines the sturdiness of a sea-going tug with the speed of a torpedo-boat destroyer. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... After a duel with the Japanese "Matsushima," the Chinese flagship "Tingyuen" was severely damaged, and only saved from sinking by the intervention of her sister ship, the "Chenyuen." These two ironclads, together with the torpedo boats, succeeded in making their escape, but five of the Chinese vessels were sunk or destroyed. In men, the Chinese lost 700 killed or drowned and 300 wounded, while the Japanese lost 115 killed and 150 ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Thorpe. One week known merely to a few friends as a clever young engineer, the next his name was on the lips of the civilised world. His first success was followed by a series of remarkable feats, of which his flight above the Atlantic, his race with the torpedo-boat-destroyers across the North Sea, and his sensational display during the military man[oe]uvres on Salisbury Plain, impressed his name and personality firmly upon the fickle mind of the public, and explains the tremendous excitement caused by ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... motion in the land, and the fact that an uneven keel made Jonah claw around more than usual, made the whale land-sick. A whale can throw a stream from its snout for about five rods, but when it strikes land that way under heavy ballast it chucks all its load, water and solids, like a torpedo hitting a ship. I have experimented with small whales—say from ten to twenty feet over all, and never knew one to miss when he bumped land. The whale was prepared especially to do that—to release Jonah, and does it with wonderful automatic economy—the same that we scientific men note ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Gracious king! He's like a torpedo blow-up under the engine-room. The bank'll sink if he stays aboard another month, I do believe. And yet," he added, with a shake of the head, "I don't see but he'll have to stay; there ain't another ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... from heaven," and Professor Moses Gerrish Farmer, who broke new paths into the once unknown. As early as 1859, Mr. Farmer lighted his whole house with electric lights, and blew up a little ship by a tiny submarine torpedo in 1847, and in the same year propelled by electricity a car carrying passengers. Yet neither of these names is found in the majority of ordinary cyclopedias or ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... clouds form almost a solid flooring, one feels very much at sea, and wonders if one is in the navy instead of aviation. The diminutive Nieuports skirt the white expanse like torpedo boats in an arctic sea, and sometimes, far across the cloud-waves, one sights an enemy ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... navy consists of 4 battleships of the first class, 2 of the second, and 48 other vessels, ranging from armored cruisers to torpedo-boats. There are under construction 5 battleships of the first class, 16 torpedo-boats, and 1 submarine boat. No provision has yet been made for the armor for three of the five battleships, as it has been impossible to obtain it at the price fixed by Congress. It ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... of the explosion, but it found no solution of the disaster. Various theories were advanced of internal spontaneous explosion, but no one was misled. The general sentiment of Americans was that the Spanish in Cuba deliberately exploded a submarine torpedo under her, to accomplish the result that followed. Previous to this cowardly act there was much difference of opinion among the people of all sections of the country as to the propriety of declaring war against Spain, but public sentiment was at once unified in favor of war ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... about coal torpedoes. Then I knew as in all probability I'd carried the man who managed the business, and I gave word to the police, but they never could make anything of it. You know what a coal torpedo is, don't you? Well, you see, a cove insures his ship for more than its value, and then off he goes and makes a box like a bit o'coal, and fills it chock full with dynamite, or some other cowardly stuff ...
— The Cabman's Story - The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' • Arthur Conan Doyle
... never for a moment doubted her ability to accomplish her ends. Men's hearts had hitherto been but potter's clay in her hands, and she had no misgivings now; but she felt that the love of Le Gardeur was a thing she could not tread on without a shock to herself like the counter-stroke of a torpedo to the naked foot of an Indian who rashly steps upon it as it basks in a ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... called from Cronstadt; cruisers and torpedo-boats came. An order was issued to the sailors and to the Red Guards who patrolled all the works of the Taurida, to make use of their arms if any one attempted to enter the palace. For that day unlimited powers were accorded ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach and destroy the enemy vessel before the crew were ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... rather too limited a view of the subject. Dulness has other avatars besides the literary. In the last and finest book, Pope attempts to complete his plan by exhibiting the influence of dulness upon theology and science. The huge torpedo benumbs every faculty of the human mind, and paralyses all the Muses, except 'mad Mathesis,' which, indeed, does not carry on so internecine a war with the general enemy. The design is commendable, and executed, so far as Pope was on a level with his task, with ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... had built at the shipyards of Mr. Normand, the celebrated Havre engineer, a torpedo boat called the Poti, which we herewith illustrate. This vessel perceptibly differs from all others of her class, at least as regards her model. Her extremities, which are strongly depressed in the upperworks, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... knew that, and every spring would swim from whatever place he happened to be in—would swim like a torpedo-boat straight for Novastoshnah and spend a month fighting with his companions for a good place on the rocks, as close to the sea as possible. Sea Catch was fifteen years old, a huge gray fur seal with almost a ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... Hiroshima. Total destruction spread over an area of about 3 square miles. Over a third of the 50,000 buildings in the target area of Nagasaki were destroyed or seriously damaged. The complete destruction of the huge steel works and the torpedo plant was especially impressive. The steel frames of all buildings within a mile of the explosion were pushed away, as by a giant hand, from the point of detonation. The badly burned area extended for 3 miles in length. The hillsides up to a radius of 8,000 feet were scorched, ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... parents who had given their children to God, with a Christian name which they trusted would be registered in heaven. They told rather of lawless lives, and a past which must be buried in oblivion or acknowledged with shame and perhaps fear. "Fighting-cock," "Torpedo," "Brimstone," and "the Slasher," were among the leaders who dubbed Blair with the title of "Mum," and so saluted him on all occasions. Blair had a very considerable sense of his own dignity, and was by no means pleased with this style of address. ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... account of electricity dates back to 600 years B. C. Thales of Miletus was the first to describe the properties of amber, which, when rubbed, attracted and repelled light bodies. The ancients also described what was probably tourmaline, a mineral which has the same qualities. The torpedo, a fish which has the power of emitting electric impulses, was known in very ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... inventions of Fulton just referred to. In the latter half of 1803 he repaired to England, and later on to the United States, and after the year 1803 he seems to have had neither the will nor the opportunity to serve Napoleon. In England he offered his torpedo patent to the English Admiralty, expressing his hatred of the French Emperor as a "wild beast who ought to be hunted down." Little was done with the torpedo in England, except to blow up a vessel off Walmer as a proof of what it could do. It is curious also that when Bell offered his ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... silvery torpedo come whistling through the air and settle in the landing-rack of the platform; it looked like a jet-powered vessel of some kind. A line formed, and Hawkes stuffed a ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... cried Zero, brightening, 'a torpedo in the Thames! Superb, dear fellow! I recognise in you the marks of ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... not move himself in bed without luminous corruscations. Such may have been the case of those people, who have been related to have taken fire spontaneously, and to have been reduced to ashes. The electric concussion from the gymnotus electricus, and torpedo, are other instances of the power of the animal system to accumulate electricity, as in these it is used as a weapon of defence, or for the purpose of ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... radius is about 50,000 miles, depending upon the speed. She carries twelve 16-inch guns, twenty-two 6-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, eight 3-pounders, four rapid-fire guns, six aerial torpedo tubes, and six bomb droppers, which can simultaneously discharge tons of explosives. She has a complement of 1400 officers and men. She required three years and eight months to build at a cost of $10,000,000. In action her entire ship's ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... are gardening on a summer afternoon, you may look very fetching, if you are nineteen, and the right sex for the adjective. Miss Sally did, being both, and for our own part we think it was inconsiderate and thoughtless of cook. Sally was sprung upon that young man like a torpedo on a ship with no guards out, saying with fascinating geniality through a smile (as one interests oneself in a civility that means nothing) that Mr. Fenwick had just gone out, and she didn't know when he would be back. But why not ask Mrs. Prince at the school, opposite ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... carried a small torpedo-like boat, fitted in a groove along the top, so that it could be entered from the Nautilus by opening a panel, and, after that was closed, the boat could be detached from the submarine, and would then bob upwards to the surface like a cork. The ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... like old Shylock without watching him and finding out his real game? I should have thought it hardly necessary to tell you I've been down the river all the time; down the river," added Raffles, chuckling, "in a Canadian canoe and a torpedo beard! I was cruising near the foot of the old brute's garden on Friday evening when one of the precious pair came down to tell him they had let me slip already. I landed and heard the whole thing through the window of the room where we shall find him to-night. It was Levy who set ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... prominent upper fin, which is generally out of the water as they go along at a tremendous pace, may be seen at a great distance, and they can swim at the rate of a mile a minute. A shark somewhat reminds me of the torpedo of the present day, and in my humble opinion is much ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... purpose, though nothing was accomplished with them. Still persistent in his endeavors to drive off the enemy, he adopted the invention of David Bushnell, a native of his own State, which the inventor called the "great American Turtle," and which, in fact, was a submarine torpedo, probably the first one thus used in warfare. It was to be guided by one man, and that man was to have been Bushnell himself; but, unfortunately, he fell sick, and the "turtle" boat with its infernal machine was ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... tired to wright ennything. i never had so much fun in my life. i only got burned 5 times. 1 snapcracker went off rite in my face and i coodent see ennything til mother washed my eyes out. Zee Smith fired a torpedo and a peace of it flew rite in the corner of my eye and made a blew spot there. i fired every one of my snapcrackers. it ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... Madame le Claire sat wild-eyed and excited, and flew fearfully to Judge Blodgett and the professor, when Mr. Brassfield went free, with Alderson at heel. And all the time, as the crew of a ship carry on the routine of drill while the torpedo is speeding for her hull, these social amenities went on all unconscious ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... that thing happened which shocked and startled them with all the force of a torpedo from a U-boat, and left ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... drew nearer the harbour we began to meet the sharp-nosed destroyers and torpedo boats that guard the harbour, and as we neared the entrance we were delighted with the view of a vast park and grounds with a castle peeping out from the trees. This park is known as Mount Edgecombe, the seat of Earl Edgecombe. The park is one of the most beautiful in England ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... squadron and providing it with coal; getting the battle-ships and the armored cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to train them in manoeuvring together, and to have them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo-boats into a flotilla for practice; securing ample target exercise, so conducted as to raise the standard of our marksmanship; gathering in the small ships from European and South American waters; ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... terrible sensation to any passenger, no matter how brave he may think himself," he went on to say, "when he feels the shock as a torpedo explodes against the hull of the steamer and knows that in a short time she is doomed to be swallowed by the sea. And you told me once yourself, Jack, that this scheming cousin of yours couldn't ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... thin Italian Consular-clerk, speaking with a strong accent. "An English steam yacht ran aground on the Meloria about ten miles out, and was discovered by a fishing-boat who brought the news to harbor. The Admiral sent out two torpedo-boats, which managed after a lot of difficulty to bring in the yacht safely, but the Captain of the Port has a suspicion that the crew were trying to make ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... Lido, where I supped at a little osteria beneath the trees, a number of gray torpedo boats rushed to and fro in the harbor entrance, restless as hunting dogs straining at the leash. That night Venice was dark, so black that one stumbled from wall to wall along the narrow lanes in the search for his own doorway. ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... this section of my subject, to call your attention to two very interesting but very different kinds of marine engines. One is the high-speed torpedo vessel, or steam launch, of which Messrs. Thornycroft's firm have furnished so many examples. In these, owing to the rate at which the piston runs to the initial pressure of 120 lb. and to very great skill ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... conversation of Socrates has the effect of a torpedo's shock upon him. When he talks with other persons he has plenty to say about virtue; in the presence of Socrates, his thoughts desert him. Socrates replies that he is only the cause of perplexity in others, because ...
— Meno • Plato
... swung all his weight and muscle on the left rein. The team and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the pillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The driver's strap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fell on the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, while Erebus—beautiful, raven-black, best-loved Erebus—lay whickering ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... Choof-choof-choof! came the Torpedo Destroyer behind us, and I wrapped the reins around my wrist, in case Parsifal should get uneasy and want to print ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... certainly he worked us. On shore Good is a gentle, mild-mannered man, and given to jocosity; but, as we found to our cost, Good in a boat was a perfect demon. To begin with, he knew all about it, and we didn't. On all nautical subjects, from the torpedo fittings of a man-of-war down to the best way of handling the paddle of an African canoe, he was a perfect mine of information, which, to say the least of it, we were not. Also his ideas of discipline were of the sternest, and, in short, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... a red light swung slowly to and fro on the ledge. From the extreme end of the canyon below the Cat's Paw came the crash of a track-torpedo, answered almost instantly by a second, above the break. It was the warning signal to get into the clear. There was a buzz of rapid movement among the laborers. In twos and threes and dozens, a ragged procession of lanterns and torches, they ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... merely a convenient place of departure for other more interesting sites, though there is some picturesqueness of costume and situation about it; and the Englishman is pleased to see many ships with the national flag, and to know that one of the great industries of the place is the Whitehead torpedo factory. The Tarsia, as the Rjeka was called, gave the name of Tarsatica to the ancient Liburnian city. The Romans built a castle on the bank of the stream to rein in the ferocious Gepids. Round this castle the ancient ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... had basely deserted his flag, dropped upon his back, and lay as still as though he had actually suffered the extreme penalty of martial law. It must be added that the captain of the firing party was so frightened by the noise of the torpedo that he scampered away into his nest, much to the mortification of Leo; but he was recalled, and compelled to face the music at ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... I could creep alongside the schooner and do it to her; but that there gunboat's got heavy steel plates right round her, going ever so deep, and they'd be rather too much for my tools. They'd spoil every auger I've got. The skipper hasn't got a torpedo aboard, has he? One of them new 'uns that you winds up and sets a-going with a little screw-propeller somewheres astern, and a head full of nitro— what-d'ye-call-it, which goes ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... same experiment has within a week of the time at which I am now writing, been made at Washington, as it was by Mr. Fulton half a century ago with his Torpedo-harpoon. If the marquis contemplated simply human agency as the aid to apply his portable powder-machine, it must be admitted that he had at least contemplated a more effective diving bell than any known to modern times. Submarine transit was indeed a subject to which ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for? Why are your ships not spreading their sails to the breeze? With a favourable wind and with bending oarsmen, are you perhaps delayed by the echeneis (Remora, or sucking-fish)? or by the shell-fish of the Indian Ocean? or by the torpedo, whose touch paralyses the hand? No; the echeneis in this case is entangling venality; the bites of the shell-fish, insatiable avarice; ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... expense. The colossal European war just beginning as these pages go to press bids fair to cost immeasurably more aintenance of armies upon a peace-footing-the feeding and clothing of the men, the building and maintenance of barracks and forts, of battleships and torpedo boats, of guns and ammunition, automobiles, aeroplanes, and the increasing list of expensive modern military appurtenances. Europe spends nearly two billion dollars a year in times of peace on its armies and navies-money enough to build four or five Panama canals annually. The entire merchant marine ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... be added the stupendous price of capturing trenches protected by barbed wire entanglements, of bombing whole countrysides, of desolating states and wiping out industries, not to mention the cost of building forty million dollar ships that can be sunk in six or seven minutes with one well aimed torpedo, the limit has been reached, and bankruptcy sooner or later ensues. Capitalism is now paying that price ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... master-mechanic's warning, refused to be quieted; and when, after the three hours of the slow return journey were out-worn, McCloskey came to tell him that the train was pulling into the Angels yard, the explosion of a track torpedo under the wheels made him start like ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... embargo, grotto, hero, innuendo, motto, mosquito, mulatto, negro, portico (oes or os), potato, tornado, torpedo, veto, volcano. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... way. It is not known who first overstepped the bounds of punctilio; but the consequences were immediate. Buck Malone, of the Mulberry Hills, with a Dewey-like swiftness, got an eight-inch gun swung round from his hurricane deck. But McManus's simile must be the torpedo. He glided in under the guns and slipped a scant three inches of knife blade between the ribs of the Mulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile Brick Cleary, a devotee to strategy, had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch of the electrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of gunfire ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... the subject of naval construction. Before entering the German Secret Service, I certainly knew the difference between a torpedo and a torpedo boat destroyer, but naturally could not give an accurate description of the various types of destroyers and torpedoes. My instructor in this subject was Lieutenant Captain Kurt Steffens, torpedo expert ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... served in the war and was invalided out after the Battle of Jutland. He got the D.S.O. over the Falklands affair, and has now some post at the Admiralty. He was in command of a torpedo boat which sank a German cruiser, and was ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... will remember with pleasure the presence in our midst of this famous Polar navigator in August, 1880, and his lady, whose kindliness of manner and elegant French, won the hearts of many. The instructive torpedo lectures of the scientific commander of the Northampton iron-clad, Capt. Fisher, will likewise retain a corner in the chambers ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... then and there attacked by a submarine. Germany admits that it was a German submarine. The submarine deliberately fired a torpedo at the GREER, followed later by another torpedo attack. In spite of what Hitler's propaganda bureau has invented, and in spite of what any American obstructionist organization may prefer to believe, I tell you the blunt ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... us describe the nature of another kind of fish. Perhaps the crews of the aforesaid ships have been benumbed into idleness by the touch of a torpedo, by which the right hand of him who attacks it is so deadened—even through the spear by which it is itself wounded—that while still part of a living body it hangs down benumbed without sense or motion. I think some such misfortunes must have happened ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... would redouble their fire. Might better have saved their powder and let us run into the fields and be blown to bits, you will say. Not at all. They would consider that a waste of good mines. Nobody wants to waste a whole mine on a poor little torpedo boat destroyer — and twenty to forty men. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... observer helped him into his cumbersome, heavily-padded armor. They checked his instruments, making sure that the protective devices of the suit were functioning at full efficiency. Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing the stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed. But this one had something that the ordinary speedster or flitter ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... time we tried a new plan. We used a 'go-devil-squib.' That's a sort of torpedo, holding about a quart of the glycerine, and it has a firing head of its own. We drop that down the pipe and when it hits on the top cannister it goes off, and sets off the rest of the explosive. But, somehow, it didn't work this time. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... into all their entertainments. He remarks, that the water of the Gambia above Barraconda has such a strong scent of musk, from the multitude of crocodiles, that infest that part of the river, as to be unfit for use. The torpedo also abounds in the river about Cassan, and at first caused not a little terror and amazement to ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... heard, Mr. Hewitt—I know there are rumors—of the new locomotive torpedo which the government is about adopting; it is, in fact, the Dixon torpedo, my own invention, and in every respect—not merely in my own opinion, but in that of the government experts—by far the most efficient and certain yet produced. ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... telegram from port to port, the Oregon speeding down one side of a continent and up the other to Bahia; then came two anxious, silent weeks when apprehension and fear pictured four Spanish cruisers with a pack of torpedo boats sailing out into the west athwart the lone ship's course, the suspense ending only when tidings came of her arrival at Jupiter Inlet; then off Santiago, after a month of waiting, there is the outcoming of Cervera's squadron, when this splendid ship, ...
— The Voyage of the Oregon from San Francisco to Santiago in 1898 • R. Cross
... was thrilling: battleships, cruisers, torpedo-boats, the Royal yacht, the Admiralty yacht, and, most interesting of all, Nelson's ship, the Victory. As if the steamer knew that a crowd of eager Cubs were longing to see all round the Victory, it went out of its way to steam right round it, slowly and ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... Courbet, Devastation, Redoubtable, Indomptable, Milan, Condor, Falcon, the dispatch boat Coulevrine, and six torpedo boats. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... electric cannon. It fires a solid ball, weighing about twenty-five pounds, but instead of powder, which would hardly do under water, and instead of compressed air, which is used in the torpedo tubes of the Government submarines, we use a current of electricity. It forces the cannon ball out ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... form of vessel, to which the above odd name has been given by its inventor, M. Donato Tommasi, of Paris, France, is a combination of a boat wholly submerged with a raft: a connecting link, to borrow the naturalist's expression, between the submerged torpedo boat and the monitor. The advantages which are expected to be realized from this hybrid craft, the inventor describes as follows: "It is evident that a vessel, plunged several yards below the surface of the sea, is no longer influenced ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... undecked cannon sloops and richly gilded frigates, which were models of the ones the kings had used on their travels. Finally, there were also the heavy, broad armour-plated ships with towers and cannon on deck—such as are in use nowadays; and narrow, shining torpedo boats which resembled long, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... that less than eighty per cent. of the passengers was ill as against the normal percentage of 99.31416. As Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should be made over his visit, things was kept down as much as possible, so that, on leaving Calais, the President's boat was escorted by only ten torpedo-boat destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three cruisers, and eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted submarines. There was also a simple and informal escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible balloons having been cut out of the program in accordance from the President's wishes. However, ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... he noticed two British torpedo boat destroyers, one to starboard, the other on the port bow, apparently keeping pace with the Volhynia. They were still there at noon, subjects of speculation among the passengers; and at tea-time their number ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... of getting a living. Who would expect to find millions of poisoned darts in a Jelly-fish? Who would guess that these weapons are coiled up, ready to spring out at their prey? Men have made many weapons for killing, from the bow-and-arrow to the torpedo, but none of them is more wonderful than ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... and torpedo-boats will be allotted the ferocious duty of pursuing merchant ships, falling upon them at night, and sinking them, with the object of cutting the communications and paralysing the trade of the enemy. The effect of naval wars on trade will in ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... here in tolerable quantities, especially when the smoothness of the water permitted us to hale the seyne. Amongst the rest, we got here cavallies, breams, mullets, soles, fiddle-fish, sea eggs, and lobsters; and here, and in no other place, met with that extraordinary fish called the Torpedo, or numbing fish, which is in shape very like the fiddle-fish, and is not to be known from it but by a brown circular spot of about the bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its back; perhaps its figure will be better understood when ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... of tossing, blue-grey water, for the sight of a sinister periscope, or for the smudge of a friendly cruiser, and when night fell, a thousand pairs of ears listened with strained intentness for the impact of the deadly torpedo or for the signal ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... felt; and as we cheered and cheered the swirling, glowing, beautiful thing, we knew how badly frightened we really had been. With danger gone, the tension lifted and we read the fear in our hearts. A torpedo boat destroyer came lumbering across the sky line. It also was to convoy us, but it had a most undramatic entrance; and besides we had sighted land. The deck cheered easily, so we cheered the land. And everyone ran about exclaiming ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... run, just as he was, and then the worst happened. I think the hippo went under water when he found the sneeze was coming, for just as pa got to the tank the water flew into the air like a torpedo had exploded under a battle-ship, and the hippo had sneezed all right and pa and the audience which had followed him were drenched and deafened by the explosion. The hippo had blown the water all out of his tank, and he lay at the bottom, on his side, sneezing little sneezes ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... to Newport with me at five-thirty," were his first words. "Katy's all ready, and means to sit up till the boat gets in at two-thirty, keeping a little supper hot and hot for you. The Torpedo Station is in its glory just now, and there's going to be a great explosion on Thursday, which Amy ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... "but is there not some room for doubt yet as to the fate of the Dotterel? I have met men in America who asserted from their own personal knowledge that there was a coal torpedo aboard that vessel." ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at night against torpedo and aeroplane attacks. From that mortar Armand has shot half a dozen bombs of phosphide of calcium which are hurled far into the darkness. They are so constructed that they float after a short plunge and are ignited on contact by the action of ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... 'em for breakfast and lunch and dinner. And they even insist upon trifling with the holies of your smoking times, trying to light up cigarettes themselves, and jabbering all the time, why then you seize on a civil offer to risk your neck in a racing car as a drowning man would catch at a torpedo if he found ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... old man; but when the Italian had bowed himself out and his guests had sunk into their seats again, he said dryly to Fulkerson, "I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well, or the derrick wouldn't look quite so ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... nearly a dozen in number, and more than one prominent "government official" honored Mr. Blocque's repast. I had been introduced among the rest to Mr. Torpedo, member of Congress, and bitter foe of President Davis; Mr. Croker, who had made an enormous fortune by buying up, and hoarding in garrets and cellars, flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, and other necessaries; and Colonel Desperade, a ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... shape of a high-piled truck came rolling down on them with a shout of, 'By your leave there, by your leave!' from the unseen porter behind. Mark drew Vincent sharply aside, and then saw Caffyn coming quickly towards them through the crowd, and forgot the torpedo his uncle was doing his best to launch: he felt that with Caffyn came safety. Caffyn, who had evidently been hurrying, gave a sharp glance at the clock: 'Sorry to be late,' he said, as he shook hands. 'Binny fetched me a hansom with a wobbling old ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... out, it was not easy to distinguish the vessels from the hulks. The Pinola struck the third from the eastern shore and her men jumped on board. The intention was to explode two charges of powder with a slow match over the chains, and a torpedo by electricity under the bows of the hulk, a petard operator being on board. The charges were placed, and the Pinola cast off. The operator claims that he asked Bell to drop astern by a hawser, but that instead of so doing, he ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... The torpedo boat was found after the war lying on the bottom of the harbor, about one hundred feet from the wreck of the Housatonic, with her bow pointing toward the sloop of war and with every man of her crew dead at his ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... passed through a doorway, and stepped into a little torpedo-shaped car that rested on the metal roof behind him. A moment later the little ship rose, and then slanted smoothly down over the edge of the roof, straight for the largest of the ships below. This was the flagship. Nearly a hundred feet greater ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... be classified and allotted to particular spheres of work, just as warships are built in accordance with the special duty which they are expected to perform. In reconnaissance, speed is imperative, because such work in the air coincides with that of the torpedo-boat or scout upon the seas. It is designed to acquire information respecting the movements of the enemy, so as to assist the heavier arms in the plan of campaign. On the other hand, the fighting corsair of the skies might be likened to ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... always brings before me the often mooted question raised by the sentimentalists and humanitarians concerning the horrors of war. Not long after this time, the papers - the sentimentalist papers - were furious with Lord Dundonald for suggesting the adoption by the Navy of a torpedo which he himself, I think, had invented. The bare idea of such wholesale slaughter was revolting to a Christian world. He probably did not see much difference between sinking a ship with a torpedo, and firing a shell into her magazine; and likely enough had as much ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke |
