"Saltpetre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Iodine.—This is one of the simple chemical bodies which was discovered in 1812 by M. Courtois, of Paris, a manufacturer of saltpetre, who found it in the mother-water of that salt. Its properties were first studied into by M. Gay Lussac. It partakes much of the nature of chlorine and bromine. Its affinity for other substances is so powerful as to ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... applicable to bronchitis and other chest inflammations will often fail to relieve a night cough, because the night cough in question is due to nervous irritation or indigestion. Narcotics are useless and hurtful. Great relief is frequently found from inhaling the smoke of burning nitre or saltpetre. Blotting paper may be soaked in a solution of saltpetre, dried and lighted. Place the burning substance near enough the patient for him to inhale the smoke, but not so near as to interfere with easy breathing, especially in cases where ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... willing to do his work. In dim old centuries, with William Rufus, William of Ipres, or far earlier, he began; and has come down safe so far. Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given place to musket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, saltpetre ropematch to percussion-cap; equipments, circumstances have all changed, and again changed: but the human battle-engine in the inside of any or of each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there, six ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... a scoop net made of bark thread; a mockasin made of the like materials; a mat of the same materials, enveloping human bones, were found in saltpetre dirt, six feet below the surface. The net and other things mouldered on being exposed ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... in rows. These were the overflow from the neighbouring granary, to which three stone steps led. By way of decoration for the apartment, hanging to a nail in the middle of the wall, whose green paint scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre, was a crayon head of Minerva in gold frame, underneath which was written in Gothic letters "To ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... went fine cloth, ordnance and artillery, armor and timber for oars, though, as a memorandum of 1580 says, "if the Spaniards catch you trading with them, you shall die for it." Probably what they objected to most was the sale of arms to the infidel. From Barbary came sugar, saltpetre, dates, molasses and carpets. Andalusia demanded fine cloth and cambric in return for wines called "seckes," sweet oil, raisins, salt, cochineal, indigo, sumac, silk and soap. Portugal took butter, cheese, fine cloth "light green or sad blue," lead, tin and hides in exchange for ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that we are his walad (children). We shall see what we shall see. Yusuf even thinks he can be persuaded to sign the treaty. All the Kailouees are very fond of powder, and also very much alarmed at it. They say they could themselves make plenty of powder if saltpetre were found them. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Kingsnorth. Faith, it's a blessin' ye brought the boy here. There's no tellin' What the prison-surgeon would have done to him. It is saltpetre, they tell me, the English doctors rub into the Irish wounds, to kape them smartin'. And, by the like token, they do the same too in the English House of Commons. Saltpetre in Ireland's wounds ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs—sleepy dogs blinking ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... coppers, including a farthing. The pence she gave to three of her little brothers and sisters. One boy, however, 'had huffed her,' and got no penny. But she relented, and, when she went out, bought for him a mince-pie. Her visit of New Year's Day was to her maternal aunt, Mrs. Colley, living at Saltpetre Bank (Dock Street, behind the London Dock). She meant to return in time to buy, with her mother, a cloak, but the Colleys had a cold early dinner, and kept her till about 9 P.M. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man, knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them into unnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and the general inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do on the innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... worst nigger that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as he could." ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... not yet been properly and in a revolutionary manner explored,"—"The strong chateaus, those feudal fortresses, that were ordered to be demolished attracted next the attention of your committee. Nature there had secretly regained her rights, and had produced saltpetre, for the purpose, as it should seem, of facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of destruction. From these ruins, which still frown on the liberties of the Republic, we have extracted ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... choice ragout concocted of Truffles. But delicate and weak stomachs find them difficult to digest. Pliny said, "Those kinds which remain hard after cooking are injurious; whilst others, naturally harmful if they admit of being cooked thoroughly well, and if eaten with saltpetre, or, still better, dressed with meat, or with pear ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... among the papers, and the master having no knowledge on the subject, except that the linseed belonged to the owner of the ship, condemned both ship and cargo. A large portion of this cargo was consigned to Baring Brothers, Boston, including 1704 bags of saltpetre—contraband of war—which would have condemned all the property of the Barings, even if proof of ownership had been found on board, ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... (KO, NO^{5}).—Saturate boiling water with commercial saltpetre, filter while hot in a beaker glass, which is to be placed in cold water, and stir while the solution is cooling. The greater part of the saltpetre will crystallize in very fine crystals. Place these crystals upon a filter, ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... manufactured in the whole of the Southern States. The Augusta powder-mills and arsenal were then commenced, and no less than 7000 lb. of powder are now made every day in the powder manufactory. The cost to the Government of making the powder is only four cents a pound. The saltpetre (nine-tenths of which runs the blockade from England) cost formerly seventy-five cents, but has latterly been more expensive. In the construction of the powder-mills, Colonel Rains told me he had been much indebted to a pamphlet by ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... the nights, and especially the early hours of the morning before sun-rise, are so cold, that small quantities of water are covered with a thin sheet of ice. For this purpose, either shallow pits are dug in earth rich in saltpetre, {212b} and small shallow dishes of burnt porous clay are filled with water, and placed in these pits, or when the soil does not contain any saltpetre, the highest terraces on the houses are covered with ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of iodine and bromine, two substances hitherto undecompounded, were both amongst the class of manufacturers, one being a maker of saltpetre at Paris, the other a manufacturing chemist at Marseilles; and the inventor of balloons filled with rarefied air, was a paper manufacturer near Lyons. The descendants of Mongolfier, the first aerial traveller, still carry onthe establishment ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... great pity, so it was, That villainous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed.—First Part of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sorts: from Germany, Antwerp receives by land carriage, silver, bullion, quicksilver, immense quantities of copper, Hessian wool, very fine, glass, fustians of a high price, to the value of above 600,000 crowns annually; woad, madder, and other dye stuffs; saltpetre, great quantities of mercery, and household goods, very fine, and of excellent quality: metals of all sorts, to a great amount; arms; Rhenish wine, of which Guicciardini speaks in the highest terms, as good for the health, and not affecting either the head ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... are handsomely appointed, though not with the same degree of splendour that prevails in Bengal, where the quantity of plate makes so striking a display. The large silver vases, in which butter and milk are enclosed in a vessel filled with saltpetre, which give to the breakfast-tables of Calcutta an air of such princely grandeur, are ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... one ounce saltpetre, one pint bay salt, one pint molasses, shake together 6 or 8 weeks, or when a large quantity is together, bast them with the liquor every day; when taken out to dry, smoke three weeks with cobs or malt fumes. To every ham may be added a cheek, if you stow away a barrel and not alter ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... larger spring, in summer time, stops at certain periods and resumes its issue from under the rock, eight or ten times in a day. Further up in the mountain, above the spring, is a large cavern where the people sometimes collect saltpetre; but it is more abundant in a cavern still higher ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... strong remedies. Therefore, only use warm milk about the ears, with the decoction of poppy tops, or oil of violets; to take away the moisture, use honey of roses, and let aqua mollis be dropped into the ears; or take virgin honey, half an ounce; red wines two ounces; alum, saffron, saltpetre, each a drachm, mix them at the fire; or drop in hemp seed ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... left him. He smiled; the infernal invention would serve him for this purpose. With the aid of his pickaxe, Dantes, after the manner of a labor-saving pioneer, dug a mine between the upper rock and the one that supported it, filled it with powder, then made a match by rolling his handkerchief in saltpetre. He lighted it and retired. The explosion soon followed; the upper rock was lifted from its base by the terrific force of the powder; the lower one flew into pieces; thousands of insects escaped from the aperture Dantes had previously formed, and a huge snake, like the guardian demon of the treasure, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... threatening them, and secretly working at their destruction. Its waters, filtering through the soil, were perpetually in contact with the lower courses of these buildings, and kept the foundations of the walls and the bases of the columns constantly damp: the saltpetre which the waters had dissolved in their passage, crystallising on the limestone, would corrode and undermine everything, if precautions were not taken. When the inundation was over, the subsidence of the water which impregnated the subsoil caused in course of time settlements in the most ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and disgustingly filthy doth three-cornered ways on to the dusty table and clapped thereon a couple of dirty knives and forks, a pair of cracked plates, two poley cups and chipped saucers. Next came a plate of salt meat, red with saltpetre, and another of dark, dry, sodden bread. She then disappeared to the kitchen to make the tea, and during her absence two of the little boys commenced to fight. One clutched the tablecloth, and over went the whole display ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... boy of their people, Epraim's uncle Jackrael Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest and Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... day of compromise, for we now have, instead of the old argument that the divine power by one miraculous act changed Lot's wife into a salt pillar, the suggestion that she was caught in a shower of sulphur and saltpetre, covered by it, and that the result was a lump, which in a general way IS CALLED in our sacred books "a pillar ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... contained in dynamite, and forms the greater part of the various forms of blasting gelatines, such as gelatine dynamite and gelignite, both of which substances consist of a mixture of gun-cotton dissolved in nitro-glycerine, with the addition of varying proportions of wood-pulp and saltpetre, the latter substances acting as absorbing materials for the viscid gelatine. Nitro-glycerine is also largely used in the manufacture of smokeless powders, such as cordite, ballistite, ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... same objection against "villanous saltpetre" was made by ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the shortest—that which places a man hand to hand with his opponent. Some of the Kafir tribes ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... in connection with prisoners and the Mint he was shortly afterwards nominated one of the Commissioners for regulating the farming and making of saltpetre and gunpowder throughout Britain, an appointment which was all the more appropriate from the fact that his grandfather, George Evelyn of Long Ditton and Wotton (1530-1603), had been the first to introduce the manufacture of gunpowder into England, when he established mills ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... and Thyme, going out, again passed the tall, white young man. He had thrown away the hand-made cigarette, finding that it had not enough saltpetre to make it draw, and was smoking one more suited to the action of his lungs. He directed towards them the same ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... father do a little business without capital, went to New York city as his commercial agent. Her letters to her father are "almost exclusively business letters," and he on his part gives her "directions for the sale and purchase, not only of muslins and moreens, but also of skins, saltpetre, and the like." ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... the oldest methods of preserving food. The addition of a little saltpetre helps to preserve the color of the meat. Brine is frequently used to temporarily preserve meat and other substances. Corned beef is a popular form of salt preservation. All salted meats require long, slow cooking. They should always be placed in cold water and heated gradually in ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... leg or shoulder—is commonly a poor, underfed, sapless thing, scorched in an oven; and as for the round of beef, it has as good as disappeared—probably because it asks too much skill in the salting. Then again one's breakfast bacon; what intolerable stuff, smelling of saltpetre, has been set before me when I paid the price of the best smoked Wiltshire! It would be mere indulgence of the spirit of grumbling to talk about poisonous tea and washy coffee; every one knows that these drinks cannot be had at ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... buying and shipping 2000 tons saltpetre, besides millions of dollars worth of arms and stores. If we can keep Wilmington, we can send out cotton and bring in ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... On that day they threw down the gauntlet before astonished Europe; and William the Conqueror, when he burnt his fleet, did not place himself with more audaciousness between victory and death. Without money, without credit, without arms, artillery, saltpetre, and armies; betrayed by Dumorier; Valenciennes being taken by the Austrians; Toulon in the hands of the English; the king of Prussia under the walls of Landau, and a country of ninety leagues extent devoured by ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... farthings. And as respects aliquot parts, four shares among three persons are as incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt at giving change in half-crowns. However, this was all the preservation that the horse found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had: but the frost was antiseptic. And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever apricots ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... mountains that separate the province of Suse from that of Draha, abound in iron, copper, and lead. Ketiwa, a district on the declivity of Atlas, east of Terodant, contains also mines of lead and brimstone; and saltpetre also, of a superior quality, abounds in the neighbourhood of Terodant. In the same mountains, about fifty or sixty miles south-west of Terodant, there are mines of iron of a very malleable quality, equal to that ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... Osaka, and Miaco, there is the best dying of all sorts of colours, as red, black, and green; and for gliding gold and silver, is better than the Chinese varnish. Brimstone is in great abundance, and the pekul may be bought for seven. Saltpetre is dearer in one place than another, being worth one and a half. Cotton-wool, the pekul, may be bought ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... of it,' responded Harry, also grinning at the thought of these well-known specifics. 'I would rather it should turn out saltpetre and sulphur. Then we could make ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!" And after—ask the Yusufzaies What comes ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... American colonies, on the subject of the slave trade and slavery. It is not considered necessary to burden our pages with a repetition of the whole of the accompanying resolutions. They embraced every item of foreign commodities, excepting in a few instances where medicines, saltpetre, and other necessaries, were exempted from the prohibition. In a few counties, though they condemned the slave trade, they excepted negroes, and desired to retain the privilege of procuring them. This was in the early part of the movement. When the Continental ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... ounces of alcohol; One and a half ounces of glycerine; One ounce of liverwort; Three hundred and twenty grains of saltpetre; Forty drops of wintergreen. ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... from the ground, which was covered with rugs, a large green earthern jar. "It is full of rosewater to bathe thy face, for the water of the desert here is brackish, and harsh to the skin, because of saltpetre. The Sidi ordered enough rosewater to last till Ghardaia, in the M'Zab country. Then he will ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hands—Oh, ain't I glad! For if I do look grim and rough, I've got some feelin'— People think A soldier's heart is mighty tough; But, Harry, when the bullets fly, And hot saltpetre flames and smokes, While whole battalions lie afield, One's apt to think ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... they left their families, and generously marched to the assistance of their friends. Nine hundred of them mounted, under the command of Col. Campbell, poured down from the Allegany, like the torrents from its summit. Gunpowder they had already learnt to prepare from the saltpetre in their caves, and lead they dug out of their mines. Dried venison satisfied their hunger, pure water slaked their thirst, and at the side of a rock they enjoyed comfortable repose. Armed with rifles, sure to the white speck on the target, at the distance of one hundred paces, or to decapitate ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... Rub one tablespoonful of Saltpetre into the face of each ham; let it remain one day. Literally cover the ham with salt and pack it in a closed box. Leave it in box as many days as there are pounds to ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... under this denomination of contraband and merchandizes prohibited, shall be comprehended only warlike stores and arms, as mortars, artillery, with their artifices and appurtenances, fusils, pistols, bombs, grenades, gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur, match, bullets and balls, pikes, sabres, lances, halberts, casques, cuirasses, and other sorts of arms, as also soldiers, horses, saddles, and furniture for horses; all other effects and ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... of our sportsmen become dismally lengthened on finding that their fox has been "gathered unto his fathers" by means of hot lead and that villainous saltpetre "digged out of the bowels of the harmless earth"; some few, indeed, there are who are bold enough to declare that the pack has actually made a meal of a hare, and that their fox is snugly earthed in the neighbouring cover. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... one afternoon when sitting at his table preparing some villainous compound for the Queen, "go down to the laboratory, boy, and fetch me some gunpowder, sulphur, saltpetre, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... back; clean, and scale it, and take out the roe, but do not wash it. Take the bone neatly out. Rub it well inside and out with a mixture of salt and fine Havanna sugar, in equal quantities, and a small portion of saltpetre. Cover the fish with a board on which weights are placed to press it down, and let it lie thus for two days and two nights. Drain it from the salt, wipe it dry, stretch it open, and fasten it so with pieces of stick. Then hang it up and smoke ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... cold of Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated. [11] In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with a bed of snow; ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... if they had imprisoned saltpetre in company with a bunch of matches—but he restrained his rebellious feelings; he would not give his judges the satisfaction of knowing his torment. He soon thought only of procuring consolation: he summoned his friends, who visited him in throngs. Then he made the acquaintance ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... bullock's liver, pressing it thoroughly with a great weight for four days. Take ginger and every sort of spice that is used to meat, and half a pound of brown sugar, a good quantity of saltpetre, and a pound of juniper-berries. Rub the whole in thoroughly, and let it lie six weeks in the liquor, boiling and skimming every three days, for an hour or two, till the liver becomes as hard as ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... vast coast line, inlets of Georgia, Florida, Carolina. Danger flew with them always through the rushing brine, but with the fall of Richmond disaster might be trusted to swoop indeed. Then woe for all the wares below—the Enfield rifles, the cannon powder, the cartridges, the saltpetre, bar steel, nitric acid, leather, cloth, salt, medicines, surgical instruments! Their outlooks kept sharp watch for disaster, heaving in sight in the shape of a row of blue frigates released from patrol duty. Let Richmond fall, and the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... imagined, that the nitrous acid in the air might be the general restorative which I was in quest of; and the conjecture was favoured, by finding that candles would burn in air extracted from saltpetre. I therefore spent a good deal of time in attempting, by a burning glass, and other means, to impregnate this noxious air, with some effluvium of saltpetre, and, with the same view, introduced into it the fumes of the smoaking spirit of nitre; but both these methods ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... smiths at their forges Worked the red St. George's Cannoneers, And the villainous saltpetre Rung a fierce, discordant meter Round their ears; As the swift Storm drift, With hot sweeping anger, came the horseguards' clangor On our flanks; Then higher, higher, higher, burned the ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... of salt, a table-spoonful of powdered white-sugar, and one of saltpetre. Work this quantity into six pounds of fresh-made butter. Put the butter into a stone pot, that is thoroughly cleansed. When you have finished putting down your butter, cover it with a layer of salt, and let it remain ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... now thick with smoke from the muskets, which not only obscured our vision of the enemy, but made breathing difficult and most uncomfortable. The day was excessively hot, and no air stirring, we were forced to breathe this powder smoke, impregnated with saltpetre, which burned the coating of nose, throat, and ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... touch-hole was obtained by the use of a flint, a steel, and a tinder-box. The flint was struck sharply on the steel; a spark of fire fell into the tinderbox, and the match of hemp string, soaked in saltpetre, was readily lit, and fired off the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... haven't spirit!" said he. "That Seigneur Duvarney, I know him; and I know his son the ensign—whung, what saltpetre is he! And the ma'm'selle—excellent, excellent; and a face, such a face, and a seat like leeches in the saddle. And you a British officer mewed up to kick your heels till gallows day! So ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... battle of the Revolution; those of Massachusetts, Daughters of Liberty, who formed anti-tea leagues, proclaimed inherent rights, and demanded an independency in advance of the men; those of New York, who tilled the fields, and, removing their hearth-stones, manufactured saltpetre from the earth beneath, to make powder for the army; those of New Jersey, who rebuked traitors; those of Pennsylvania, who saved the army; those of Virginia, who protested against taxation without representation; those of South Carolina, who at Charleston established a paper in opposition ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Wilfrud, becas I'm a widde and just an abom'nation to garls, poor darlin's! And twenty shindies per dime we've been havin', and me such a placable body, if ye'll onnly let m' explode. I'm all powder, avery bit! and might ha' been christened Saltpetre, if born a boy. She hasn't so much as a shot to kill a goose, says Chump, poor fella! But he went, annyway. I must kiss somebody when I talk of 'm. Mr. Wilfrud, I'll take the girls, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... church to say her prayers, and the grand old aisle had appeared immense and shadowy to her—quite different from all the Parisian churches—with its rough pillars worn at the base by the chafing of centuries, and its damp, earthy smell of age and saltpetre. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... also the tobacco-pipe. Their guns, the locks of which {for holding the match) are of copper, they are supplied with by traders from Menangkabau; the swords are of their own workmanship, and they also manufacture their own gunpowder, extracting the saltpetre, as it is said, from the soil taken from under houses that have been long inhabited (which in consequence of an uncleanly practice is strongly impregnated with animal salts), together with that collected in places where goats are kept. Through this earth ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... burden, much worse than our modern land-tax? Besides that all the gentry of France serve in the army on very slender pay, and to the utter ruin of their fortunes, all those who are not noble have their lands heavily taxed. Does he not know that wine, brandy, soap, candles, leather, saltpetre, gunpowder, are taxed in France? Has he not heard that government in France has made a monopoly of that great article of salt? that they compel the people to take a certain quantity of it, and at a certain rate, both rate and quantity fixed at the arbitrary ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Volga, near Zarewpod, where many traces of a large town, still exist. Sumerkent is unknown, but may have been near Astrachan, formerly named Hadschi-Aidar-Khan. But there are ruins of a town still existing on both sides of the Volga, which are now used for the purpose of making saltpetre.—Forst. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... and took them home. I do not think the young gentlemen meant any harm, for they provided plenty of food, and took them to bed with them. They set my daughter at liberty next day, and she spoke very handsomely of the young gentlemen, and said they had cured the skins with saltpetre, and were stuffing them when she left. But the subject was always ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... window. I walked all the length of the room very slowly, for what I had come for had completely gone out of my head. Fortunately the man never heard me until I had recollected it. Then he got up, and I asked him for some stone-blue, saltpetre, tea, pickles, salt, etc. He was very civil. I bought some things and asked for a note of them. He went to his desk again; I looked at some newspapers lying near. On the top was a circular from Smith & Elder containing notices of the most important new works. The ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... sunken cistern—say eight feet square—into which the drainage would be conducted from the upper platform. In this cistern a force-pump is fitted, and the cistern is half filled with a solution of saltpetre and sal-ammoniac. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... base or radical of the acid which is extracted from nitre or saltpetre be better known, we have judged proper only to modify its name in the same manner with that of the muriatic acid. It is drawn from nitre, by the intervention of sulphuric acid, by a process similar to that described for extracting the muriatic acid, and by means of the same apparatus ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... more furious than the first. Can the mountains resist it? will they stand? By the Almighty! they do not. The earth trembles; the hillock, on the leeside of which we are, rocks and shakes; and the air grows thick and suffocating—full of dust and saltpetre and sulphur. We are like to choke. All around is dark as night. We can see nothing, hear nothing but the howling of the hurricane, and the thunder and rattle of falling trees and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... saltpetre, and sulphuric acid, and sulphur, and pitch, with frankincense and camphor, and Ethiopian wool, and boil them all together. This fire is so ready to burn that it clings to the timbers even under water. And add to this composition liquid varnish, and bituminous ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... examine her cargo. I had gone into the cabin, where I found the ship's manifest. I took it up to read it, as I concluded it would give me the information we required. I saw that some dry goods had been shipped, and some saltpetre, and I had just read "Three hundred and sixty barrels of gunpowder"—an article very much in request among the rebels—when there was a cry raised of "Fire, fire, fire!" Mr Heron had made the same discovery by seeing some ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... smiths at their forges Worked the red St. George's Cannoneers; And the "villainous saltpetre" Rung a fierce, discordant metre Round their ears; As the swift Storm-drift, With hot sweeping anger, came the horse-guards' clangor On our flanks. Then higher, higher, higher burned the old-fashioned fire Through ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... curiously-written letters from Generals Commander and Quattlebum, offering to bring their allied forces into the field-to blow this confederation down at a breath whenever called upon, are being published, to the great joy of all secessiondom; while saltpetre, broadswords, and the muskets made for us by Yankees to fight Yankees, and which were found to have wood instead of flint in their hammers, (and which trick of the Yankees we said was just like the Yankees,) are in great demand-and a few of our mob-politicians, who are all "Kern'ls" of ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... can be used by plant roots. This nitric acid if not immediately used will unite with lime or potash or soda or other similar substances and form nitrates, as nitrate of lime, nitrate of potash or common saltpetre. These nitrates are soluble in water and can be easily used by plant roots. If there are no plant roots to use them they are easily lost by being washed out of the soil. The work of the nitrifying germs ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... discovered in other parts of the country, show that the arts once flourished to an extent beyond what they have ever been known to do among the Indians. The body found in the saltpetre cave of Kentucky, was wrapped in blankets made of linen and interwoven with feathers of the wild turkey, tastefully arranged. It was much smaller than persons of equal age at the present day, and had yellowish hair. In Tennessee many walls of faced ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... idea of honor unless it will yield somewhat to eat, no use for patriotism unless it can be made to pay. When we concluded to protect our citizens from Weylerian savagery, instead of sending a warship to Havana to read the riot act if need be in villainous saltpetre we had our ambassador crawling about the European courts humbly begging permission of the powers, and as we got no permission we did no protecting. When the church people elect me president of this Republic I'll have ante-mortem ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Birch's recipe for rheumatic gout or acute rheumatism, commonly called in England the "Chelsea Pensioner." Half an ounce of nitre (saltpetre), half an ounce of sulphur, half an ounce of flour of mustard, half an ounce of Turkey rhubarb, quarter of an ounce of powdered guaicum. Mix, and take a teaspoonful every other night for three nights, and omit three nights, in a wine-glassful of cold ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... man of few words, no sentiments, short methods; materialistic, we might say; quietly ferocious; indifferent as to means, positive as to ends, quick of perception, sure in matters of saltpetre, a stranger at the custom-house, and altogether—take him right—very much of a gentleman. He had been, for a whole day, beset with the idea that the way to catch a voudou was—to catch him; and as he had caught numbers of them on both sides of the tropical ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... horse-trappings of the same stuff, and embroidered with glass beads and seed-pearls; also some pearls and rubies, sapphires and crystal-stones; metal basins, copper kettles, and other copper and cast-iron pots; quantities of all sorts of nails, sheet-iron, tin and lead; saltpetre and gunpowder. They supply the Spaniards with wheat flour; preserves made of orange, peach, scorzonera, [235] pear, nutmeg, and ginger, and other fruits of China; salt pork and other salt meats; live fowls of good breed, and very fine capons; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... mixture of three cwt. of guano, one of salt, one and a half of saltpetre, and one of gypsum, for each acre; sow broadcast and plow in about four inches deep, and you will find your manure well paid for, and no exhaustion of the soil, as is usually the case wherever this crop is cultivated, as it is a very gross ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... we started on our exploring expedition, passing at the entry the remnants of old saltpetre works, which were established here during the struggle at New Orleans. The extent of this cave would render a detail tedious, as there are comparatively few objects of interest. The greatest marvel is a breed of small white fish without eyes, several of which are always to be seen. Like all similar ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... nitric acid (which consists of nitrogen and oxygen), and alkaline substances. Thus nitrate of potash (saltpetre), is composed of nitric acid and potash: nitrate of soda (cubical nitre), of nitric ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... water a pound and a half of sugar or molasses, and two ounces of saltpetre. If it is to last a month or two, use six pounds of salt. If you wish to keep it through the summer, use nine pounds of salt. Boil all together; skim and let cool. Put meat in the vessel in which it is to stand; pour ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... be set free by the temperature of a burning building and get together. In respect to the old conundrum, "Will saltpetre explode?" Mr. A. A. Hayes, Prof. Silliman, and Dr. Hare's views were, as to the explosions in the New York fire of 1845, that in a closed building having niter in one part and shellac or other resinous material in another, the gaseous oxygen generated from the niter and the carbureted hydrogen ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... it possible to dive for a short distance, but prefer that some one else would try the experiment. With a log of wood for a pillow, one might sleep as on one of the patent mattresses. The taste of the water is salty and pungent, and stings the tongue like saltpetre. We were obliged to dress in all haste, without even wiping off the detestable liquid; yet I experienced very little of that discomfort which most travellers have remarked. Where the skin had been previously bruised, there ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... behind, which was covered with his workshops and warehouses; the small remaining space being taken up by the porter's lodge and the passage entry in the middle. The staircase walls were half rotten with damp and covered with saltpetre to such a degree that the house seemed to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... congress had the address to purchase all the powder on the coast of Africa, and that within the British forts, without attracting notice; and to seize the magazine in the island of Bermuda. Great exertions were also made in the interior to obtain saltpetre and sulphur, for the manufacture of that ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... especially on the right-hand side of the boulevard. One of the large panes of plate glass in the warehouses of La Petite Jeannette received certainly more than two hundred for its share. There was not a window that had not its ball. One breathed an atmosphere of saltpetre. Thirty-seven corpses were heaped up in the Cite Bergere; the passers-by could count them through the iron railings. A woman was standing at the corner of Rue Richelieu. She was looking on. Suddenly she felt that her feet were wet. 'Why, has it been raining?' ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... the compound is dissipated into the air in the form of gas, much of it in the form of free nitrogen. The basis from which explosive compounds are made contains nitrogen in the form in which it can be used by plants. Saltpetre, for example, is equally good as a fertilizer and as a basis for gunpowder. The products of the explosion are gases no longer capable of use by plants, and thus every explosion of nitrogen compounds aids in this gradual ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... I, to secure saltpetre for making gunpowder, composted "filth, dead animals, urine and offal with alternate layers of turf and lime mortar," and asserted that "a nitre-bed is the very pattern of a vine-border" and that "when the materials have been turned over and over again for a year or two they are in exactly ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... height or depth of their first ideas, and any interruption of their plans rather favors their execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... especially a fine quality for use in the government offices. In the Island of Roda there is a sugar-refinery of considerable extent, founded in 1859, and principally managed by Englishmen. Silk goods, saltpetre, gunpowder, leather, &c., are also manufactured. An octroi duty of 9% ad valorem formerly levied on all food stuffs entering the city was abolished in 1903. It used to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to be inexhaustible. From good authority I learned the existence of gold and copper mines, the metals being combined; and I saw specimens of coal taken from two or three different points, but I do not know what the indications were as to quality. Brimstone, saltpetre, muriate and carbonate of soda, and bitumen, are abundant. There is little doubt that California is as rich in minerals of all kinds as any portion ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... point of wanting it. The magazines were empty. The administrators of the powder-mills were assembled to know what they could do. They declared that the annual produce amounted to three millions of pounds only, that the basis of it was saltpetre drawn from India, that extraordinary encouragements might raise them to five millions; but that no hopes ought to be entertained of exceeding that quantity. When the members of the Committee of Public Welfare announced to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... of the thirteenth century shall be, if you please, an universal genius, chemist as well as astronomer. He has perhaps got so far as to know, that if he mixes charcoal and saltpetre in certain proportions and then applies fire, there will be an explosion which will shatter all his retorts and aludels; and he is proud of knowing what will in a later age be familiar to all the idle ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the magnificence of which bargain the latter learns from the captain, who says his share will be about seven and a half cents! We steam alongside, and learn that our prize is the schooner St. George, bound for Wilmington, via the Bermudas, with a cargo of salt, saltpetre, etc., and worth perhaps four thousand dollars. We send our prize list on board the flagship, and have a nice chat over the capture. It puts us in good humor, and our vessels chassee around each other till afternoon, when we separate, to hear shortly that the schooner, on being searched, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... wine, casks of brandy, quantities of chestnuts and potatoes; and besides all this, chests containing ointments, drugs and lint, and lastly a complete arsenal of muskets, swords, and bayonets, a quantity of powder ready-made, and sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal-in short, everything necessary for the manufacture of more, down to small mills to be turned by hand. Lalande kept his word: the life of an old woman was not too much to give in return ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he collected saltpetre, burned willow twigs for charcoal, and made all the powder he needed in his caves. Before doing so he had been obliged to resort to many devices in order to get powder, sometimes disguising himself as a merchant and going into a town and ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... fitted a leathern vizor of a most terrible appearance, stretched on the jaws of a shark, which he had brought from sea, and accommodated with a couple of broad glasses instead of eyes. On the inside of these he placed two rushlights, and, with a composition of sulphur and saltpetre, made a pretty large fusee, which he fixed between two rows of the teeth. This equipage being finished, he, one dark night chosen for the purpose, put it on, and, following the commodore into a long passage, in which he was preceded by Perry with a light in his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... used with flint and steel for obtaining a light. Matches are highly valued and readily purchased. The effect of the Circassian tobacco on the lungs is extremely bad, and among those tribes who use it many die from asthma and congestion of the lungs. This is principally due to the saltpetre with which it is impregnated. The Indian pipe is copied from the Eskimo, as the latter were the first to obtain and use tobacco. Many of the tribes call ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... explosive mixtures. Automatic fire was made from equal parts of sulphur, saltpetre, and sulphide of antimony, finely pulverized and mixed into a paste, with equal parts of juice of the black sycamore and liquid asphaltum, a little quick-lime being added. It was directed to keep ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Saltpetre the natives procure by a process of their own from the earth which is found impregnated with it; chiefly in extensive caves that have been, from the beginning of time, the haunt of a certain species of birds, of whose dung ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... father'd bought the business, my business, 'n' I was left out in the freezin', icy cold! Susan Clegg, I smashed a table,' he says, ''n' two chairs,' he says, ''n' I went to see the girl 'n' ask her to wait a little longer,—'n', Fire 'n' Brimstone 'n' Saltpetre, 'f your father hadn't gone 'n' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... in a pan with plenty of black pepper, an onion, and a few bay leaves. Add half vinegar and half small beer, enough to cover them. Put paper over the pan, and bake in a slow oven. If it be wished to make them look red, throw a little saltpetre over them ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... on the Indus (here spanned by a fine bridge), 28 m. SE. of Shikarpur; has rail communication with Kurrachee and Afghanistan, and considerable trade in various textiles, opium, saltpetre, sugar, &c.; 1 m. distant is Old Sukkur; the island of Bukkur, in the river-channel and affording support to the bridge, is occupied and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of three or four pounds, or little more. Unable to support the delay and expense of this, Zumalacarregui established manufactories in secluded corners of Navarre and the Basque provinces; and then, with infinite risk, caused saltpetre to be brought from the very heart of Arragon, and subsequently from France. The powder that was at first produced was very weak and bad, and the manufacturers worked day and night till they found ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of coffee, cotton, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... Cole said o' her pork and 'ams when the pig wor killed and her hadn't salt nor saltpetre. She'd see to it some day. Meanwhile the maggots came and ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... place, hail to that king of Parisian activity, to whom time and space give way. Yes, hail to that being, composed of saltpetre and gas, who makes children for France during his laborious nights, and in the day multiplies his personality for the service, glory, and pleasure of his fellow-citizens. This man solves the problem of sufficing at once to his amiable wife, to his hearth, ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... ever been noted for the excellence and prolific yield of its sugar crops. From here, also, indigo and saltpetre are exported in large quantities. No tea-gardens were seen,—these were left behind in the hills,—nor had we met with coffee plantations since leaving Ceylon. All along the route we saw fruit trees in considerable variety, of such as are indigenous to central India; among these were recognized ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... Seneca would never have doubted for a moment that it was only by means of a series of experiments that a safety-lamp could be invented. Thomas Aquinas would never have thought that his barbara and baralipton would enable him to ascertain the proportion which charcoal ought to bear to saltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither common sense nor Aristotle would have suffered him to fall ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of their projections, or "pseudopods," the protoplasm seems to roll itself in that direction, and so the whole organism gradually changes its place. So again, while a solution of salt, carbonate of potash, or saltpetre causes them to withdraw from the danger, an infusion of sugar, or tan, produces a flow of protoplasm towards the source of nourishment. In fact, in the same way it rolls over and round its food, absorbing ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... to grant patents of monopoly by scores. There was scarcely a family in the realm which did not feel itself aggrieved by the oppression and extortion which this abuse naturally caused. Iron, oil, vinegar, coal, saltpetre, lead, starch, yarn, skins, leather, glass, could be bought only at exorbitant prices. The House of Commons met in an angry and determined mood. It was in vain that a courtly minority blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the Queen's Highness to be called ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... perhaps they would have been unintelligible to him bad he known of them. Cyril had been bred up under the most stern dogmatic training, in those vast monastic establishments, which had arisen amid the neighbouring saltpetre quarries of Nitria, where thousands toiled in voluntary poverty and starvation at vast bakeries, dyeries, brick-fields, tailors' shops, carpenters' yards, and expended the profits of their labour, not on themselves, for they had need of nothing, but on churches, hospitals, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... length and 64 in breath. Every baker in Paris is obliged to have constantly deposited here 20 full sacks of flour, and as many more as he pleases by paying a trifle for warehouse room. Just a few steps northward is the Government Depot of powder and saltpetre. ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... to be pickled it should be dusted lightly with saltpetre sprinkled with salt, and allowed to drain twenty-four hours; then plunge it into pickle, and keep under with a weight. It is good policy to pickle a portion of the sides. They, after soaking, are sweeter to cook with vegetables, and the grease fried ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Black Antimony Calomel Camphor Gum Arabic Gum Asphaltum Gum Tragacanth Hemlock Oil Horehound Laudanum Licorice Root Magnolia Water Muriatic Acid Saltpetre ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... preserving beef is by salting; and, when intended to keep for a long time, such as for the use of shipping, it is always salted with brine; but for family use it should be salted only with good salt; for brine dispels the juice of meat, and saltpetre only serves to make the meat dry, and give it a disagreeable and unnatural red color. Various experiments have been made in curing beef with salt otherwise than by hand-rubbing, and in a short space of time, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night vocal with ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... America, Captain Barry, by orders of Franklin, directed Captain Gallatheau, of the ship "Marquis La Fayette," to proceed to the United States under convoy of the "Alliance," as the vessel was laden with one hundred tons of saltpetre, twenty-six iron eighteen-pounders, fifteen thousand gunbarrels, leather, uniforms for ten thousand men and cloth for five or six thousand. After being under convoy for three weeks in a gale of wind which split the ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... becas I'm a widde and just an abom'nation to garls, poor darlin's! And twenty shindies per dime we've been havin', and me such a placable body, if ye'll onnly let m' explode. I'm all powder, avery bit! and might ha' been christened Saltpetre, if born a boy. She hasn't so much as a shot to kill a goose, says Chump, poor fella! But he went, annyway. I must kiss somebody when I talk of 'm. Mr. Wilfrud, I'll take the girls, and entitle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... found the hot seasons fatal, and no wonder, with 130deg. (F.) in the shade! The trade from the upper river, especially from the Presidio das Pedras Negras de Pungo Andongo,[FN2] consists of hides, cattle tame and wild (cefos); saltpetre washed from earth in sieves, mucocote or gum anime (copal), said by Lopes de Lima to be found in all the forests of Pungo Andongo; wax, white and yellow; oil of the dendem (Elais Guineensis) and mandobim, here called ginguba (arachis); mats, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... rub it first with saltpetre, in the proportion of half an ounce, and the like quantity of moist sugar, to a pound of common salt. (See Savoury salt ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... of beef make a pickle with two gallons of water, four pounds of salt, one and a half pounds of brown sugar, one and a half ounces of saltpetre, half an ounce of saleratus. Put these ingredients on to boil, and when they boil, skim, and put away to cool. When cold, put the beef in it. Put weights on the meat, to keep ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... fill it out into great Earthen Pots, which {104} hold each 25 or 30 pounds, and these they expose to clear Nights; and if there be any impurity remaining, it will fall to the bottom: Afterwards they break the Pots, and dry the Salt in the Sun. One might make vast quantities of Saltpetre in these parts; but the Country people feeling that We buy of it, and that the English begin to do the same, they now sell us a Maon of 6 pounds for two Rupias and a half, which we had formerly ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... neat Stone Rings sett in Gold, some with Diamond Sparks, Stone Buttons in Silver, by the Card, black ditto in Silver, best Sword Blades, Shoe and Knee Chapes of all Sizes, Files of all Sorts, freezing Punches, Turkey Oyl Stones, red and white Foyl, moulding Sand, Borax, Saltpetre, Crucibles and Black Led Potts, Money Scales, large ditto to weigh Silver, Piles of Ounce Weights, Penny Weights & Grains, Coral Beeds, Stick ditto for Whistles, Forgeing Anvils, Spoon Teats, plain ditto, small raizing Anvils for Cream Potts, fine Lancashire Watch Plyers, Shears and Nippers, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... coal-mines, we have pits in like sort of white plaster, and of fat and white and other coloured marble, wherewith in many places the inhabitors do compest their soil, and which doth benefit their land in ample manner for many years to come. We have saltpetre for our ordinance and salt soda for our glass, and thereto in one place a kind of earth (in Southery; as I ween, hard by Codington, and sometime in the tenure of one Croxton of London) which is so fine to make moulds for goldsmiths and casters of metal, that a load of it was ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... of their disputes. The dear lady can evidently not exist without it, or at least not enjoy her dinner; Chwastowski, again, who, by the bye, is an excellent manager, is a compound of brimstone and saltpetre, and does not allow anybody to thwart him; therefore the quarrels sometimes reach the acute state. When entering the dining-room they eye each other with suspicious glances. The first shot is fired by my aunt ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... unfortunate family: chagrin, sickness, enemies, all seemed to conspire against us. A short while after her death my father received a letter from the chemist at Paris, informing him that the sample of potass which he had sent to France was nothing but marine salt, and some particles of potass and saltpetre. This news, although disagreeable, did not affect us, because we had still greater misfortunes to deplore. About the end of the year, my father finding his employment would scarcely enable him to support his numerous family, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... cure more diseases than any other medicine known; such as Distemper, Fersey, Hidebound, Colds, and all lingering diseases which may arise from impurity of the blood or lungs.—Take 1 lb. comfrey root, half lb. antimony, half lb. sulphur, 3 oz. of saltpetre, half lb. laurel berries, half lb. juniper berries, half lb. angetice seed, half lb. rosin, 3 oz. alum, half lb. copperas, half lb. master wort, half lb. gun powder. Mix all to a powder and give in the most cases, one table spoonful in mash feed once a day till cured. Keep ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... the early snowdrop, it comes forth in a barren season, and contents itself with foretelling the reader that choicer flowers are preparing to appear." Upon the foreign supply of gunpowder being prohibited, he proposed a plan, in the Pennsylvanian Journal, of a saltpetre association for the voluntary supply ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... ceaseless thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer. Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought, saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies of activity ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... common people regard them, although that danger has naught to do with any magical property. You must know that many substances, while wholly innocent in themselves, are capable of dealing wide destruction when they are mixed together; for example, saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, which, as Friar Bacon discovered, make, when mixed together, a powder whose explosive power is well-nigh beyond belief, and which is now coming into use as a destructive agent in war. Many other compounds can be produced of explosive nature, some indeed ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... a "winkey," which I here set down, lest child of mine, or grandchild, dare to make one on my premises; if he does, I shall know the mark at once, and score it well upon him. The scholar obtains, by prayer or price, a handful of saltpetre, and then with the knife wherewith he should rather be trying to mend his pens, what does he do but scoop a hole where the desk is some three inches thick. This hole should be left with the middle exalted, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... kettle drums, and trumpets of his orchestra, in requisition, to usher in one of those horrible and brimstone uproars called melodrames; and it is thus he discharges his thunder, his lightning, his rosin, and saltpetre, preparatory to the rising of a ghost, or the murdering of a hero. We will now proceed ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connection with the former at all. Its connection with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre, which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... one of the cigarettes in that case, filled with so-called Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre, which he preferred to the tobacco of the American, he mechanically glanced at the card which the servant had left on going from the room-the card of the unknown visitor for whom Madame Steno ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... million of livres, which I have accepted. I have in treaty another credit, which joined to this will purchase the articles directed in my instructions; the credit will be until May next, before which I hope remittances will be made. I have purchased of said M. Chaumont a quantity of saltpetre at ten sous, or five and one fourth per cent, in order that Captain Morgan might not ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... applied to no foreign power. We are using the utmost industry in endeavoring to make saltpetre, and with daily increasing success. Our artificers are also everywhere busy in fabricating small arms, casting cannon, &c. Yet both arms and ammunition are much wanted. Any merchants, who would venture to send ships laden with those articles, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... clashing of the two, is one of the great causes of the Thirty Years' War, one of the most disastrous checks which European progress ever suffered. Gunpowder, again, not content with killing men, becomes unexpectedly a political agent; 'the villanous saltpetre,' as Ariosto and Shakespeare's fop complain, 'does to death many a goodly gentleman,' and enables the masses to cope, for the first time, with knights in armour; thus forming a most important agent in the rise of the middle classes; while the spinning-jenny, ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley |
