"Explosive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of 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 this source for their success, and for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... aeroplanes; there is an upward limit of size. They are not going to be very big, but they are going to be very able and active. Within a year we shall have—or rather they will have—aeroplanes capable of starting from Calais, let us say, circling over London, dropping a hundredweight or so of explosive upon the printing machines of The Times, and returning securely to Calais for another similar parcel. They are things neither difficult nor costly to make. For the price of a Dreadnought one might have hundreds. They will be extremely hard to hit with any sort of missile. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... of this city was called as a witness at the inquest upon the bodies of the unfortunate persons killed by the recent explosion at Bergen, N.J. The Professor having previously analyzed some of the explosive mixture, testified as follows:—"I have subjected it to chemical analysis, and find it to correspond to the formula C{6}, H{3}, O{3}, and NO{5}; it is well made nitro-glycerin; the substance freezes at about 46; it is made to ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... after the squadron took up its residence on the Nancy front, the Huns came over and bombed us severely; many of the mechanics were fresh from the factories in England and were quite unaccustomed to seeing the damage that one hundred pounds of high explosive can do to the delicate anatomy of the human being; panic seized them; but a greater fear possessed them when Jimmie's orders burst upon them like the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun; they marched as if on parade ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... artillery was hardly less active than in Artois. On one section, according to a German report, the British fired 1,700 shrapnel shells, 700 high explosive shells, and about the same number of bombs within twenty-four hours. On January 27, 1916, the Germans attempted an infantry attack on a salient northeast of Loos, but were held back. A British night attack on the German trenches near Messines, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... few girls lost their heads. One fainted and was carried to the rest-room. But the others flung the flying shuttles of talk until, in a single exchange fifteen thousand conversations had been made possible in sixty minutes. There are always girls in reserve for such explosive occasions, and when the hands of any operator are seen to tremble, and she has a warning red spot on each cheek, she is taken off and given a recess until she ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... The explosive noise of the railway trucks seemed to augment Decoud's irritation. He muttered something to himself, then began to talk aloud in curt, angry phrases thrown at the silence of the two women. They did not look at him at all; while Don Jose, with his semi-translucent, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... mine. The draught, the mental confusion, the noise and stirring in my head, seemed to last an interminable time. Curious vague impressions of half-forgotten things danced and vanished on the edge of my consciousness. At last he broke the spell. With a sudden explosive sigh he ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... gratification in normal or abnormal channels was perhaps attached by the mind to some group of objects. It was completely suppressed but it left an abnormal tension in the central system. If now a chance experience touches on this group of ideas, there results an explosive reaction; and movements, convulsions, spasms, obsessions, and fears set in which get their particular character not through the secondary intrusion but from the primary desire. To discharge that intrusion leads therefore only to the elimination ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... 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 into our lines ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... it!" burst out his cousin Randy. "For all we know, those Hasley people may have a large quantity of TNT or some other high explosive stored there, and if that should ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... They were explosive, and lighted with a snap that made him jump. When he saw what he had done, he turned the watering-pot over them, and put his foot ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... scant few hundreds of yards from its goal, the protective mirror was punctured and the freight of high explosive let go, with a silent, but nevertheless terrific, detonation. But now another torpedo was on its way, and another, and another; boring on ruthlessly toward the smaller sphere. Fighting simultaneously three ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... expected to be finished and went home. Excitement or no excitement, I saw no reason to abandon all routine. My forethought was proven when I returned refreshed in midmorning as the last shovelfuls of dirt came from the tunnel and the explosive charges were hurried to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... weight of stone as water; the stones varying in size, the average being, I suppose, about that of a hen's egg; but I do not suppose that at any instant the arch of water was without four or five as large as a man's fist, and often came larger ones,—all vomited forth with the explosive power of a small volcano, and falling in a continual shower as thick, constant, and, had it not been mixed with the crash of the fall, as loud as a heavy fire of infantry; they bounded and leaped in the basin of the fall like hailstones in a thunder-shower. As we watched the fall ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... demon-like beast 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 ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... in surface pathos, yet its details remain with great clearness. The piece of damaged goods which, being of no further fighting use, was being returned with thanks to the hearthside from whence it came, was an individual answering to the unheroic cognomen of Briggs. A high-explosive shell had been sent by the Gods to alter the current of Briggs's career. Briggs came through all that part of the war which concerned him without a scratch upon his person—only after the arrival in his immediate vicinity of the high-explosive shell he was unfortunately unable to see. ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... civilizational factor of prostitution, the 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 ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... heated water, before the land had yet emerged from the waves, and yet you and I were there in the latent potencies of the chemically and dynamically warring elements. We were there, the same as the heat and flame are in the coal and wood and as the explosive force of powder is in the grains. The creative cosmic chemistry in due time brought us forth, and started us on the long road that led from the amoeba up to man. There have been no days of creation. Creation has been a continuous process, and the creator has been this principle of evolution ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... at eight in the morning, and never spent its fury till nine at night, and the wind changed its direction eleven times. The Nevada left Auckland two feet deeper in the water than she ought to have been, and laboured heavily. Seas struck her under the guards with a heavy, explosive thud, and she groaned and strained as if she would part asunder. It was a long weird day. We held no communication with each other, or with those who could form any rational estimate of the probabilities of our destiny; no officials ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... o'clock on the first day of the fire Mayor Schmitz sent a tug to Pinole for several cans of the explosive. He also sent a telegram to Mayor Mott of Oakland. He received this reply to his Oakland message: "Three engines and hose companies leave here immediately. Will forward ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... mind with respect to sassingers." I once told him of a young woman who brought in a manuscript, and said, as she placed it in my hands, "I don't know what to do with myself sometimes, I'm so filled with mammoth thoughts." A series of convulsive efforts to suppress explosive laughter followed, which I remember ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... To this explosive condition of things the news of Burgoyne's surrender acted as a spark. The experience of former wars had taught France the worth of the Americans as enemies, and she was expecting to find in them valuable helpers in her schemes of revenge; now ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... of their humanity. This unhappiness goes on smouldering in the subconscious mind of the community till its life is reduced to ashes or a sudden combustion is produced. The repressed personality of man generates an inflammable moral gas deadly in its explosive force. ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... Colonel Flitcroft interrupted, with an explosive and rueful incredulity. "Well, I'd like to—" Second thoughts came to him almost immediately, and, as much out of gallantry as through discretion, fearing that he might be taken as thinking of one at home, he relapsed ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Duchess of Snowdon, and we are not precisely congenial; besides, I had much to do in the laboratory. I'm working for that new explosive of which I told you. There's fame and fortune in it, and I'm on the way. I feel it coming"—his eyes sparkled a little. "I made it right with the servants; so don't ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... September 13, 1916, a group of Austrian seaplanes attacked Venice once more. Incendiary and explosive bombs struck the church of San Giovanni Paola, the Home for the Aged, and a number of other buildings, inflicting some damage, although no casualties were reported. Chioggra also was attacked by the same machines; but here, too, the damage ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... six-pounder, using a shell containing cordite, a powerful English explosive, was in charge of a marine corporal named J.J. Murray, who acted as captain of the gun. After firing several rounds with marked success, Murray saw that the gun was loaded for ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... aeroplanes, at least, were on time, and as they swept nearer we counted ten of them, and our spirits rose; for ten swift aeroplanes armed with explosive bombs can make a lot of trouble ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... scruples; and though it must have been difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed them, he could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes; and so he trained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, and an instant later an explosive radium projectile whizzed ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Packard was welcomed by wrath in young Packard. Heat and anger and explosive denunciation, these were to be looked for now. Never had it been the Packard way to temporize; always had it been the Packard way to leap in and strike. Few-worded always was the old man; as few-worded ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... hand as a business man would. In conversation her pose is similar; she gesticulates much, is vivacious in speech, with much power of mimicry, and while talking she arches the inner angles of her eyebrow, making vertical wrinkles at the center of her forehead. Her laugh is open and explosive and uncovers her white rows of teeth. With men she is on terms of careless equality." ("Inversione congenita dell'istinto sessuale in una donna," ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... French and British newspapers. From these she gathered that the German forces were in imminent peril between the Belgian Antwerp army on the north and the British army advancing from the south; and that in the plains of Alsace the French had given the first public exhibition of the new "Turpin" explosive. The results had been foudroyant ... and simple. Complete regiments of German soldiers had been destroyed in one minute. It seemed curious, she thought, that with such an arm as this the French command did not at once come irresistibly to the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... motion picture circles. The methods of her persecutors, if unchecked, would beyond doubt wreck her strength and health in a short time, and in addition, there was the danger that at any moment a physical attack, a swiftly thrown acid bomb, an explosive mixture concealed in an innocent-looking package, might destroy both her beauty and her reason in one blinding flash. With the fear in her great brown eyes constantly before him, Duvall determined more than ever to free her ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... taken off the boxes of dynamite, and these were unscrewed, and the explosive was with great care divided into the portions as agreed upon. Two of the cases furnished just sufficient for the ammunition waggons and the two big guns, the other two for the smaller cannon and the trucks with the rifles. The charges were sewn up in pieces of the canvas, the smaller ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... 'The explosive matter was placed under an area in the basement story, dynamite being the agent employed for the outrage. A large aperture was made in the wall, which is three feet thick. Several large rents running to the top have been made, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... was 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 ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... allow emotion to get the better of me, Valeria. I don't want to run rank like some overgrown weed, and so I dread the accumulation of emotion—emotion that has never had a good explosive utterance. One has to be so discreet in these Italian gardens; no one shouts ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... they being really underground communications with their rear defences. The whole fighting was of a cold, deliberate, merciless nature. No quarter was given or taken. One of the battalions opposing us was similar to our own, a students' battalion from Bavaria. The enemy used explosive and dum-dum bullets, and sniped off any of our wounded lying exposed in the open. They were helped in their work by an arrangement we had come to regarding wounded. It was not permitted to stop to take back prisoners or to stop to dress a wounded ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... married. 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 ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... probably in connection with this signal, Austrian shells began to come over. They do not use shrapnel because the rocky soil of Italy makes that unnecessary. They fire a sort of shell that goes bang and releases a cloud of smoke overhead, and then drops a parcel of high explosive that bursts on the ground. The ground leaps into red dust and smoke. But these things are now to be seen on the cinema. Forthwith the men working on the road about us begin to down tools and make for the shelter trenches, a long procession going at a steady but resolute walk. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... aviator had dropped a large explosive bomb, which, luckily for the Motor Boys and their comrades, had fallen into an open space, though not far from one of the camouflaged stations where the soldiers were quartered before being taken up to the ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... 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
... he replied. "It is something much more subtle than an explosive bullet—which would really be a rather crude appliance—admirably thought out and thoroughly well executed. We have to deal with a most ingenious and ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... The explosive wrath of Sir John, which was not to be appeased, shook the souls of the commissioners, and they wrote to Governor Morris, urging that people might be set at work upon the road, if the Assembly had made provision for opening it; and that flour might be sent without delay to the mouth of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... garland and the vacant place on the medius lectus,—that carnival-shower of questions and replies and comments, large axioms bowled over the mahogany like bomb-shells from professional mortars, and explosive wit dropping its trains of many-colored fire, and the mischief-making rain of bon-bons pelting everybody that shows himself,—the picture of a truly intellectual banquet is one which the old Divinities might well have attempted to reproduce in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... road, beyond a high cedar hedge. While he was speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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 ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... with gratitude and respect, rather than with the devotion and passionate fondness which lie sleeping beneath the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as she sits between this estimable and most correct of personages and the misshapen, crotchety, often violent and explosive little man on the other side of her, leaning and swaying towards him as she speaks, and looking into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in them at which her soul could quiet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... German 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 else incriminating found ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... 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 ...
— The Method By Which The Causes Of The Present And Past Conditions Of Organic Nature Are To Be Discovered.—The Origination Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... you ought 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
... wrecking scows, the 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 of powder in ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... years before, but the number of his ships rapidly decreased. Whales were becoming scarce, and New England capital preferred other forms of investment. The leisurely old sailing craft was succeeded by the steam whaler, and the explosive bomb slew, instead of the harpoon and lance hurled by the sinewy right arm of a New Bedford man or Cape ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... over the other. I accordingly continued to use a neutral stimulus, but placed it from twelve to fifteen inches away from the child. This resulted in very hard straining on her part, with all the signs of physical effort (explosive breathing sounds resulting from the setting of the larynx, rush of blood to the head, seen in the flushing of the face, etc.). The number of experiments in each series was intentionally made very small, from one to twelve, in order ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... half a dozen tables between us and the next group. The flamboyant Algerian removed the coffee cups. When we were alone again, I reiterated my explanation. At every stage of my knowledge I was held in the bond of secrecy. Lackaday's sensitive soul dreaded, more than all the concentrated high-explosive bombardment of the whole of the late German Army, the possibility of Lady Auriol knowing him as the ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... 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 among ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the powerful machine puffed out on its flaring way through the night. Faster and faster came the big explosive breaths, until they blended in a long steady roar, and the train was sweeping northward at forty miles an hour. The clouds had broken; the night had grown colder; the gibbous moon gleamed over the vast and solitary landscape. It was ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... German chemist, who in his laboratory compounds a new explosive, has more effect upon the wars of the modern peoples than ten thousand soldierly legs and arms; and the man who invents one new labour-saving machine may, through the cerebration of a few days, have performed the labour it would ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... struck dead by the sheer holiness of the tabu object, the holiness stored inside it like so much electricity, his death was a misfortune, an interesting accident, and no more.[68:1] But when it is made into the deliberate act of an anthropomorphic god, who strikes a well-intentioned man dead in explosive rage for a very pardonable mistake, a dangerous element has been introduced into the ethics of that religion. A being who is the moral equal of man must not behave like ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... be laboring with speech that had to be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... We were all doubly armed now. Explosive bullet-projectors and the heat-ray cylinders. And we had several eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... of explosive action and had great reserve of strength. He was moved by flashes of insight, and was capable of long-sustained flights of vehement effort; but his will-power was nourished entirely by those moments of intense prevision, which showed ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 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 ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of smoke two or three miles off. The Germans have been firing salvoes of four shots over a little village where the French batteries are stationed, shrapnel that burst in little puffs of white smoke; the French reply with explosive shells that raise columns of dust over the German lines. Half of our regiment have left already for the trenches. We may go tonight. We have made a march of about 75 kilometers in four days, and are now on the front, ready to be called on at any moment. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... impossible to ride down the lane. Altogether our surroundings were unpleasant. The enemy soon made them worse, for about an hour before dawn on the 28th he suddenly put over a few small shells, apparently high explosive, round "B" Company's trenches, while one or two also fell round "C" and "A" Companies. Finally he pitched three clean into the quarry, and the sentry wake up to the fact that they were not only high explosive, ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... against their will they had been compelled to take up the sack of powder and tug it homeward; and then, in compliance with their promise, deliver it over to Martin who had first ridiculed their adventure; then berated them; and in the end set the explosive off so near the Webster border line that its defiant boom had rattled every pane of glass ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... evident to Jahleel Woodbridge. Before this man returned, of whose growing and rival influence he had already so much reason to be jealous, he must have put an end to anarchy in Stockbridge, and once more stand at the head of its government. Sedgwick had warned him of the explosive state of popular feeling: he had resented that warning, and the event had proved his rival right. The only thing now left him was to show Sedgwick that if he had not been able to foresee the rebellion, he had been able to suppress it. ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... Berkshire magistrates extended to the interiors of inns. Whether the two Acts were not needlessly prolonged is open to grave question. Certainly, while driving the discontent underground, they increased its explosive force. General David Dundas, in his Report on National Defence of November 1796, states that at no time were there so many people disposed to help the invaders. Perhaps we may sum up by declaring the two Acts a disagreeable ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... 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
... me with a message of relief, yet it justified my worse fears. She was here, and the place was about to be blasted by some titanic explosive of the Croen science creation! Her words were indistinct, but the tone was almost mocking, and I thought I heard ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... pale student, shivering in his shoes, Sees from his theme the turgid rhetoric ooze; And the born soldier, fate decreed to wreak His martial manhood on a class in Greek, Popkin! How that explosive name recalls The grand old Busby of our ancient halls Such faces looked from Skippon's grim platoons, Such figures rode with Ireton's stout dragoons: He gave his strength to learning's gentle charms, But ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... GUN-COTTON. An explosive compound, having some advantages over gunpowder, but so irregular hitherto in its action that it is at present used only for mining purposes. It consists of ordinary cotton treated with nitric and sulphuric acid and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... dances and amusements, carried on with great spirit, making a very novel barbarous durbar. The dances seemed to me wonderfully like those of the American Indians in general, a monotonous stamping accompanied by hand-clapping, head-jerking, and explosive grunts kept in time to grim drum-beats. The chief dancer and leader scattered great quantities of downy feathers like a snowstorm as blessings on everybody, while all chanted, "Hee-ee-ah-ah, hee-ee-ah-ah," jumping up and down until all were bathed ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... gunpowder which was known to be stored there. He would not ask any of his men to undertake this dangerous feat, but, amidst the breathless suspense of thousands of spectators, he coolly searched for and safely carried out, first one, and then a second, cask of this explosive material. Had the fire reached the powder, it was known that the worst consequences of the conflagration would ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... left mines, timed to go off at any time up to twenty-eight days. One could never be sure that the ground underneath one's feet would not blow up at any moment. These mines were small boxes of high explosive, inside of which was a little metal tube with trigger and detonator attached. Inside the tube was a powerful acid, which, when it had eaten its way through, set free the trigger and exploded the charge. The length of ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... sank, for this proved that there must be at least two burglars, and the odds against him were desperate. After that came a low, cruel laugh, the unmistakable sound of the rattle of knives and forks, and the explosive uncorking of a bottle. At that his heart sank even lower yet, for he had read that cool habitual burglars always had supper before they got to work, and therefore he was about to deal with a gang of professionals. Also that explosive uncorking clearly indicated champagne, and he ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... odd, standing there, so aggressive and explosive, bottle in one hand and test-tube in the other, that Mrs. Hall was quite alarmed. But she was a resolute woman. "In which case, I should like to ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... 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 name ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Kate's laughter became explosive and uncontrollable. Pete nodded sideways to fill up the gap in his eloquence, and then went on. "But if my dooiney molla can't marry my wife, there's one thing he can do for her—he can make her house his home in Ramsey when ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... ape's fingers were about to close upon the girl's arm the youth rose suddenly with a short, vicious growl. A clenched fist flew before Meriem's eyes to land full upon the snout of the astonished Akut. With an explosive bellow the anthropoid reeled backward and tumbled ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... There was a 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. He emerged in a moment, ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... at football, turning a game into a battle. For the milder of us there's golf—an epidemic. Women turn to cricket—tennis is too soft—and tomorrow they'll be bicycling by the thousand;—they must breed a stouter race. We may reasonably hope, old man, to see our boys blown into small bits by the explosive that hasn't got its ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... good earnest, and the Spaniards on the hills were engaged in heavy volley firing. The Mauser bullets drove in sheets through the trees and the tall jungle grass, making a peculiar whirring or rustling sound; some of the bullets seemed to pop in the air, so that we thought they were explosive; and, indeed, many of those which were coated with brass did explode, in the sense that the brass coat was ripped off, making a thin plate of hard metal with a jagged edge, which inflicted a ghastly ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... once look round as he went on his explosive way to the gulch, but Roy Beaudry crouched lower behind the cactus until the man had disappeared. Then he crawled back to the grove, slipped through it, and crept to the ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 to the fury of the crowd outside. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... relieved, and proceeded to tame the school into submission. It was little Jimmie Cameron who precipitated the crisis. Jimmie's nose, upon which he relied when struggling with his snickers, had an unpleasant trick of failing him at critical moments, and of letting out explosive snorts of the most disturbing kind. He had finally been warned that upon his next outburst punishment ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... explosion," remarked Tom judicially, though his voice was still husky. "Now, while I don't know everything, I believe there always has to be an explosive in order to bring about ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... and all. Then Jimmy recited part of a highly patriotic address, beginning, "Give up the Union? Never!" He worked his arm in the gestures with all the grace and agility of a pump-handle. His voice, to be sure, came out very strong on the prepositions and conjunctions, and sank to a whisper on the explosive climaxes; but we all voted it a masterpiece of elocution, and his father really thought so. When these exercises were over, Dr. Cricket and I played a game of chess, in which he insisted that I should take the part of the British, while he ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... most 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
... inquiries concerning the patient, she let the doctor take his leave. Then she stood looking at the outside of Lord Dymchurch's letter, and wondering what might be its contents. Beyond a doubt, they were of an explosive nature. Whatever his excuse, Lord Dymchurch's abrupt departure would enrage Lady Ogram. Had he been refused by May? Or had something come to pass which made it impossible for him to offer marriage something connected with Lashmar's ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... shut and went after the man who'd dropped down behind a desk. He came upon that man, hopelessly panicked, just as his hands closed on a clumsy gun that was supposed to set off a chemical explosive to propel ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Hyson Jr., in Oolong and Bohea, in Souchong and Gunpowder, in Black and Green; and if there were Scarlet or Yellow or Blue Teas, Col. PUNCHINELLO would equally admire, steep, sweeten and sip them. Nor is Dr. PUNCHINELLO less an admirer of the explosive fire-cracker, sent to us by JOHN, to assist us in the preservation of our liberties. The Hon. Mr. PUNCHINELLO declines dogs (in pies,) and opium (in pipes,) nor can he say whether he approves of bird's nests (in porridge,) as he has ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... sharp slap on her 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 ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... and artisans, and shopkeepers and students and schoolmasters, who have no quarrel whatever, who on the whole rather respect and honour each other, should with explosive bombs deliberately blow one another to bits so that even their own mothers could not recognize them; That human beings should use every devilish invention of science with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against whom they have no personal ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... (Fig. 29) depicts the crater in a later stage of its history. The prodigious explosive power has now been exhausted, and has perhaps been intermitted for some time. Again, the volcano bursts into activity, but this time with only a small part of its original energy. A comparatively feeble eruption now issues from the same vent, deposits materials close around the orifice, and raises ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... rubs at the head, in time with his explosive phrases. "You want real hair, I presume—and to your measure—and to look natural—and convenable!" (Both old ladies shuddered at the word.) "Of course, if you want it ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... very sorry to miss. She was driving a young horse that she'd 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 when she turned a sharp corner and found ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... help thinking of the possibility of a break occurring in the high wall of masonry which loomed ahead of him. If there should be any undiscovered weakness in the wall! Or if an enemy should sink a charge of dynamite, or some other high explosive, at the base of the dam and ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... House of Commons. It is little to the discredit of a man so immersed in business that he should have been fascinated, as he was, by the outward appearance of perfect order presented by the French Empire and by the brilliancy of its visible edifice, not discerning the explosive forces which its policy was all the time accumulating in the dark social realms below; though the fact that he, with all his natural sagacity, did fall into this tremendous error, is a warning to railway and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... rest of Europe, to Latin America, in its own internal structure. Notwithstanding Madrid's wartime growth and prosperity, the city is fast losing ground as the nucleus of the life and thought of Spanish-speaking people. The madrileno, lean, cynical, unscrupulous, nocturnal, explosive with a curious sort of febrile wit is becoming extinct. His theatre is beginning to pander to foreign tastes, to be ashamed of itself, to take on respectability and stodginess. Prices of seats, up to 1918 very low, rise continually; the artisans, apprentice boys, loafers, clerks, ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... find them standing with finger on nose and engaging your interrogative eye—they pause, by a happy instinct, directly under my window, and dispute their point or tell their story or make their confidence. One scarce is sure which it may be; everything has such an explosive promptness, such a redundancy of inflection and action. But everything for that matter takes on such dramatic life as our lame colloquies never know—so that almost any uttered communications here become an acted play, improvised, mimicked, proportioned and rounded, carried bravely to its ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... has a terrific explosive, which is being held in reserve to the last.... It is said that a bomb weighing scarcely ten kilometres can annihilate everything within a radius of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... amplitudinous vision of the Harbor which Mr. Ernest Poole has made his own, but which was now a vestibule to the hell of the European war. All the adjoining land was choked far backward with a vast blockade of explosive freight-trains waiting to be unloaded into the unheard-of multitude of munition-ships waiting to run the gantlet of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... Agassiz stood as if himself petrified; then, without even an 'Excuse me,' he vanished by the same door. Presently he returned, flushed, gazing ruefully at the fragments in his hand, covered with mucilage or liquid glue. After a pause, during which those who knew him not awaited an explosive denunciation of gaucherie, Agassiz said quietly: 'In Natural History it is not enough to know how to study specimens; it is also necessary to know how to handle them'—and then proceeded with ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... watched the other lay it aside on a pile of papers. He was thinking, thinking hard. And his thought was mostly of the man whose shaking hand betrayed him. Suddenly an explosive movement brought his clenched fist down on ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... gun-pointin' in the navy, but about the same principle," he declared. "In the army I believe they call this kind o' shootin' direct fire, because you sight direct on the target." He scratched his ingenious head and examined the ammunition. "Not a high explosive shell in the lot," he mourned. "I'll have to use percussion fire to get the range; then I'll drop back a little an' spray her with shrapnel. Seems a pity to smash up a fine schooner like that one with percussion ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... invention by Gottlieb Daimler of the high-speed gasoline engine, in 1885, that really gave an impetus to the building of efficient automobiles of all powers. The success of his explosive gasoline engine, forerunner of all succeeding gasoline motor-car engines, was the incentive to inventors to perfect the steam-engine for use ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... splitting the end, the bullet is made to expand or "mushroom" when it strikes the body, and its stopping power is thereby greatly increased, the resulting wound being much more severe. These "soft-nosed" expanding bullets are to be distinguished from "explosive" bullets which contain substances which detonate on impact. High velocity bullets are unlikely to lodge in the body unless spent, or pulled up by a sandbag, or metal buckle on a belt, or a book in the pocket, or the core and the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... despite the usual lengthy and unsatisfactory routine of police inquiries, searches, and arrests, practically nothing could be ascertained concerning him or the circumstances attending his death. All that was certain was that the deceased man had in his possession an explosive machine, evidently destined for some deadly work, and that, while traversing the park, it had exploded, thus putting an end both to ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... caricatures in which Carlyle vented his spleen and caprice, that one marvels how the two men could have talked ten minutes together, or would wonder, had not one been as imperturbable as the other was explosive. Horatio Greenough and Walter Savage Landor are the chief persons he speaks of as having met upon the Continent. Of these he reports various opinions as delivered in conversation. He mentions incidentally that he visited Professor Amici, who showed him his microscopes ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... not matter, but as soon as I had passed the explosive state I said, "That all comes from altering my style, and if I hadn't Edwardes must have known that it ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... reached under the dash and pulled out a gun that was the twin of the monster strapped to his arm. "Use this instead of your own," he said. "Rocket-propelled explosive slugs. Make a great bang. Don't bother shooting at anyone—I'll take care of that. Just stir up a little action and make them keep ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... only an argument; but it happened that her explosive statement sprang out like a switchman, finally shifting the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... foundations,' said Lane. 'It could be stopped right here if some one would dynamite all the block beyond Van Ness Avenue. It could never jump across a strip so broad.' 'But they've forbidden any more dynamiting,' said Anderson. 'Never mind; I'd take the chance myself if we could get any explosive,' replied Lane. 'Well, there's a launch full of dynamite from Contra Costa County lying right now at Meigs's Wharf,' said Anderson. Just then Mr. and Mrs. Tom Magee arrived, driving an automobile on the wheel rims. Lane despatched them to Meigs's Wharf for the dynamite. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... title to regard. Let there be no vinegar-faced, wholesale denunciation of them, because sometimes their pranks are wild and overleap the fences of propriety. Rather let appreciation of their worthiness accompany all reproving checks upon their extravagances. Let nimble fun, explosive jokes, festoon-faced humor, the whole tribe of gibes and quirks, every light, keen, and flashing weapon in the armory of which Punch is the keeper, be employed to make the world laugh, and put the world's laughter on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... reasons for them, since they rest only upon the words that have been let fall by the dapper little French agent who sits beside him on the box, and holds on for dear life, uttering numerous exclamations, in his explosive way, as they ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... the ruin that man can make, and then these places, from which the driving back of the enemy began, will be hard indeed to trace, even with maps. It is said that even now in some places the wire has been removed, the explosive salved, the trenches filled, and the ground ploughed with tractors. In a few years' time, when this war is a romance in memory, the soldier looking for his battlefield will find his marks gone. Centre Way, Peel Trench, Munster Alley, and these other paths to ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... good system for his wants and his times—which, blindly adhered to, and continued into a different age, put to strive with new competitors, brought his country to ruin. The "dead and formal" Prussian system was then contrasted with the "living" French system—the sudden outcome of the new explosive democracy. The system which now exists is the product of the reaction; and the history of its predecessor is a warning what its future history may be too. It is not more celebrated for its day than Frederic's for his, and principle teaches that a bureaucracy, elated by sudden success, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... than the brute 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, raising his voice, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... The explosive stage into which planets may pass. According to the finest scientific thinking, a planet will either nova, ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... old gentleman, however, planted so much powder and so many explosive contrivances in the roads leading into Hawkeye, and then forgot the exact spots of danger, that people were afraid to travel the highways, and used to come to town across the fields, The Colonel's motto was, "Millions for defence but not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the edge of a steep cliff, about eighteen feet high, and with a clumsy jump and a tremendous splash vanished in the water. As the flesh of the hippopotamus, which is said to resemble pork in flavor, was much desired as food by the soldiers under Baker's charge, he had a small explosive shell constructed, which, fired into the creature's brain, seldom failed to leave its huge body floating dead on the surface of ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... this gentleman's going to have a fit; it's lost we are entirely this time. He rolled his head to and fro, and then buried his face into a heap of dried rubbish at the foot of a plantain stem, clasped his hands over it, and gave an explosive sneeze. The gorillas let go all, raised themselves up for a second, gave a quaint sound between a bark and a howl, and then the ladies and the young gentleman started home. The old male rose to his full height ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... chimneys, and were well ventilated. Interior slopes were revetted with gabions, crowned by fascines and sand bags. Gabions were also employed to repair the damage caused by the enemy's artillery. Abattis, military pits, caltrops and spikes, stuck through planks, and explosive machines were employed in front of different parts of the defences. Mines were resorted to in front of the Flag-staff Bastion to retard the French approaches. They were made in rocky soil with craters from twelve to fifteen feet deep. The Russian counter-approaches generally consisted of fleches, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... years being 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 Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... solenoid-hammer, slowly pounding a hole in the glaze, and placed a small charge of the plastic explosive. Chunks of the lava-like stuff pelted down between the little mound and the huge one of the old library, blowing a hole six feet in diameter and the two and a half feet deep, revealing concrete bonded with crushed ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... Mounted Police-Constable Wight, who was some distance away, was awakened and told of the situation. Meantime, Mr. Winning, who had not committed any overt act, had retired to a camp near by with his high explosives. But Constable Wight got an information sworn out against him for having an explosive in his possession with intent to endanger life, which was putting it mildly enough when he was in fact dealing with a man running amuck with dynamite playthings. However, this served the purpose of ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... the untidy, stuffy attic in the still more untidy, stuffy boarding-house where he lived, and wrote feverishly. What he wrote Robert did not know. There was an air of mystery about the whole business, as though he were concocting a deadly explosive which might go off at any moment. Sometimes he seemed dated, sometimes cast down by the results, ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... as a slow moving, high trajectory missile containing high explosive and exploding by contact or time fuse. Grenades may be divided roughly into two classes—1, hand grenades, and 2, rifle grenades, and each of these classes may be subdivided as regards means of explosion, into 1, time fuse, or ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... "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, and perhaps the outside ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... had avoided this question in their profound gossip. It had lain between them untouched, like a substance possibly dangerous and explosive. Yet they could not have parted without touching it, and George, with characteristic moral courage or rashness, had touched it first. Lucas was of a mind to reply succinctly that the Wheeler woman's conduct was not a bit devilish odd. But sincerity ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... collected his various implements and chemicals. First of all he set out, on the floor, a two-quart copper tea-kettle; and beside this, choosing carefully, he ranged the necessary ingredients for a "making" of his secret explosive. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... to come to close quarters with reality is visible in every phrase. The denial of the value of all the old romantic stage machinery, with its artificial climaxes and explosive effects, is perceptible in the quiet endings of the acts and the entirely unsensational exposition of the dramatic action. There is one scene (and by no means an unnatural one) in which there is a touch of violence, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... are mental creatures, and with the explosive and mechanistic aid of ideas we can pervert the whole psyche. Only, however, in a destructive degree, not in a ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... trains had a beautiful voice for echoes. It was created to inspire them and to encourage them, and I stood fascinated by the thunderous noises he was making till father seized me by the hand and thrust me into the care of the train conductor. They said something to each other in the sharp, explosive way men have, and the conductor took me to a seat and told me I was his girl for the time being, and to stay right there till he came for me ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... 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 the ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... East Swale River, about three miles from the little town, with a shabby-looking lighter beside her, from which she was taking in an extra complement of her own shells and material for making Lennard's explosive, as well as a full load of fuel for her engines. They pulled up at the door of the Bear and Key Hotel, and as the motor came to a standstill a man dressed in the costume of an ordinary worker on the oyster-beds came up, touched ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... 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, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the harem of his brother; a mere prisoner of state, watched by the baleful eye of jealousy, and traduced by the venal tongues of courtiers; dwelling in a torment of uncertainty as to the fate to which his brother's explosive temper and irresponsible power might devote him, hoping for no repose or safety but in his funeral-urn,—he began to grow hard and defiant, and that which, in the native freedom of his soul, should have been his noble steadfastness degenerated ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... two girls, beautiful visions of Arctic perfection, standing in well-bred suspense and holding their gowns in the 1915 manner, and all four have hurried down to the best seats and have unharnessed and stowed away their upholsterings, and DeLancey has folded up his explosive hat and Sam has leaned back in a lordly way and beckoned to the usher for another program—by the time all this has transpired, the actors have forgotten their lines, and we have gotten our money's worth out ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... several methods of self-analysis, and repeated to himself that he had experienced a great happiness and was probably on the threshold of a great success. These two reflections did not help him much. The happiness had been of the explosive kind, and the success in the business matter was more than problematic, as well as certainly distant in ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... enterprise of the 9th May was the first major action of the war in which the "Ninth" took part. Shattered at its inception, the whole attack soon came to an end. The lack of high explosive shells and the consequent failure of the British artillery to destroy the enemy wire entanglements were probably the main causes of the holocaust that took place on that day. Though one of the biggest disasters the British arms sustained throughout the war, it was scarcely noted in ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... explosive projector; Carter crouched beside me. But before I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the starlit deck an electro beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, broke its breech. I sank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the hostile current. ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... religion is with us no explosive force threatening the disruption of our most cherished institutions. On the contrary, it has been said, not as a mere figure of speech, that "Christianity is part of the common law of England." And even the bitterest enemies of our religion will scarcely deny that, upon the whole, a nation ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... "affairs"—one after the other—were condoned "for her husband's sake." Perhaps Nannie felt what it might be to be as happy and proud as she was,—she was large, generous, comprehending at this moment. And she passed the explosive little woman over to her husband, who received her with the calm courtesy that never made ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... we experiment with it and see what it would do, so Perry built a fire, after placing the powder at a safe distance, and then touched a glow-ing ember to a minute particle of the deadly explosive. It extinguished the ember. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... beginning of the war, the French carried shells and shrapnel in about equal numbers. The shells explode with the time-fuse exactly as do shrapnel. From several sources I was told that they were loaded with the new explosive which had been introduced only about three months before the beginning of hostilities. As the war progresses the French tend to use more and more of these explosive shells, which are used against infantry in the same way as are shrapnel. The ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... with every apparatus for catching the gigantic cetacean. No whaler had ever been better armed. We possessed every known engine, from the harpoon thrown by the hand to the barbed arrows of the blunderbuss, and the explosive balls of the duck-gun. On the forecastle lay the perfection of a breech-loading gun, very thick at the breech, and very narrow in the bore, the model of which had been in the Exhibition of 1867. This precious weapon of American origin could throw with ease a conical ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... return from Portugal, in company with Miss Rose, the heiress; the Honourable Melville Jocelyn, the diplomate; and the Count and Countess de Saldar, refugees out of that explosive little kingdom. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
