"Combustible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Bog and Pet withdrew, and had hardly reached the foot of the tower, when the musical thunder of the great bell announced the constantly reiterated story of a fire in the Seventh—that most combustible of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... gallery construction are likewise of ornate treatment. All exterior doors and trim are of metal and all interior carpenter work is done with Kalomein iron protection, so that the building, in its strictest sense, will contain no combustible material. ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... this ethereal explosion from that of most other bodies; and seems to have been the cause, which prevented the ingenious Dr. Franklin, and others since his time, from ascribing the powerful effects of the electric battery, and of lightning in bursting trees, inflaming combustible materials, and fusing metals, to chemical explosion; which it resembles in every other circumstance, but in the manner of the previous condensation of the materials, so as violently to attract each other, and suddenly set at liberty the heat and ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... quicker than that supplied by seed trees afterward. Nor is the system feasible where there is much fir or other species less fire-resisting than pine. It is dangerous in practice except where there is very little combustible matter on the ground and fire is generally easy of control, and exceedingly dangerous to advocate because serves as a pretext and example for indiscriminate carelessness with fire under all conditions. Finally, the alleged immunity of pine from injury by ground fires ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... adventurers to sweep as with the besom of destruction every object and monument of art which stood in their way. Cortez razed the walls of ancient Mexico to the ground as he entered it, and his zealous followers committed to the flames whatever was light and combustible. This spirit marked the entire conquest which was carried on under the triple mania of religious bigotry, the lust of gold, and the unchastened spirit of national robbery. We have to glean for facts among that which is left. It is still an interesting field, but it has ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... ratio than lignite. The fuel ratio measures roughly the heat or calorific power of the coal, in other words, its fuel value. However, some bituminous coals have a higher calorific power than some anthracites, because a large part of their volatile matter is combustible and yields more heat than the corresponding weight of fixed carbon in the anthracite. The fuel ratio pretty well discriminates coals of the higher ranks, and gives a classification corresponding roughly with their commercial uses. For ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... had been thought so necessary a measure by all the chieftains, that even Oubacha himself was the first to authorize the act by his own example. He seized a torch previously prepared with materials the most durable as well as combustible, and steadily applied it to the timbers of his own palace. Nothing was saved from the general wreck except the portable part of the domestic utensils, and that part of the woodwork which could ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... their place, they become thinner every year; and, as they diminish, they shade the grass less, which therefore grows more luxuriantly; and, where a strong wind carries a fire through dried grass and leaves, which cover the earth with combustible matter several feet deep, the volume of flame destroys all before it; the very animals cannot escape. We have seen it enwrap the forest upon which it was precipitated, and destroy whole acres of trees. After beginning;, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... which all the initiated allow are suddenly unfolded, descending like lightening by the inspiration of the spirit and illuminating the darkened soul, to these mysteries no man perhaps was ever a more sudden or a more combustible kind of convert than myself. I beamed with gospel light; it shone through me. I was the beacon of this latter age: a comet, sent to warn the wicked. I mean, I was all this in my own imagination, which swelled and mounted to ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... on four little paperclips," he said, crawling from beneath her. "She's a wicker-willow lunch-basket below. She's a runnin' miracle. Have you had this combustible spirit-lamp long?" ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... combustible wood was prepared. The body was taken charge of by persons chosen to perform the last sacred rites, and firmly bound in skins or blankets, and then placed upon the funeral pyre, with all the personal effects of the deceased, together with ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... city to which I had come was indeed a novel sight. Its buildings average in height one-third of ours, although they occupy nearly as much ground space. They are composed almost totally of non-combustible materials. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... of barrels of petroleum had been stored up in vats, and when the combustible fluid was spouting from the wells at the rate of many hundred barrels per day. Before the present deep wells were bored, oil was not produced in sufficient quantities to cause such a conflagration, and there was never seen upon the creek a stratum of the fluid of such ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... of the heaviest woods known to science, and used extensively in the manufacture of mallets, etc., was displayed; also the San Juan wood, which has lately been discovered, and is found extensively on the coast. This wood is practically non-combustible, and is said to be the coming wood for car building, furniture, and interior finishing, being susceptible of a high polish. The mahogany, for which Honduras is noted, was shown in many varieties, as were rosewood, ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Arabs, enlisted in Singapore and taken to the scene of action by Mr. Fontaine. The "enemy" was seldom obvious, but during the war it inflicted a loss upon us of eight killed and twenty-three wounded. We took various stockades, shot from sixty to eighty Malays, burned a good deal of what was combustible, and gave stability to the shaky rule of the Datu Klana, Syed Abdulrahman. Of this prince, who owed his firm seat on the throne to British intervention, the Resident wrote in 1880:—"Loyal to his engagements, he had gained the good will of the British Government. Straightforward, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... names for the same things. But the possibility of a concurrent application of the two names, is a mere consequence of the conjunction between the two attributes, and was, in most cases, never thought of when the names were introduced and their signification fixed. That the diamond is combustible, was a proposition certainly not dreamed of when the words Diamond and Combustible first received their meaning; and could not have been discovered by the most ingenious and refined analysis of the signification ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... part, [Footnote 85: Although ash, water, and vitamines nourish the body, it is impossible to measure their nutritive value in terms of fuel value. Fuel value expresses the nutritive value only of the combustible foodstuffs,—carbohydrates, fats, and protein. However, according to Sherman, "the most conspicuous nutritive requirement is that of energy for the work of the body." Hence, the fuel value of a food is often spoken of as its nutritive ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... conflagration. Our situation was for some time extremely perilous. The vessel neared us more than once, and apparently threatened to involve us in one common destruction. The cargo, consisting of dry provisions, spirits, cotton goods, and other articles equally combustible, burned with great violence, while the fury of the destroying element, the amazing height of the flames, the continued storm, amidst the thick darkness of the night, rendered the scene appalling and terrible. About ten o'clock, the ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... mere separation of its elements into two portions; one part is oxygenated at the expense of the other, so as to form carbonic acid; while the other part, being disoxygenated in favour of the latter, is converted into the combustible substance called alkohol; therefore, if it were possible to re-unite alkohol and carbonic acid together, we ought to ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... of Smithfield, to assert that their practice was wholly barbarous. In the present case a pyre, some twelve feet high, was built at the foot of a huge granite boulder, near the sea-coast: it was constructed of dry wood, and was drenched with combustible materials. Jean was bound firmly to a strong hurdle, made of birch stems and withies securely lashed together. Judith, Garthmund, and the principal elders, placed themselves under the venerable oak; the ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... plunged the victim into a depth of twenty feet. But the contriver was not satisfied with his attempt to break the bones of the unfortunate person whom he thus entrapped. He managed to have a small chamber filled with some combustible in the side of the pit, which was to be set on fire, and, on the return of the platform to its place, suffocate his detenu with smoke. Whether he had performed any previous atrocities in this way, or whether the present instance was the commencement of his profession of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... by Marsollier in his Histoire de l'Inquisition. First a good fire was started; then the victim was stretched out on the ground, his feet manacled, and turned toward the flame. Grease, fat, or some other combustible substance was rubbed upon them, so that they were horribly burned. From time to time a screen was placed between the victim's feet and the brazier, that the Inquisitor might have an ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... city. Individual and distorted passions kindled the mighty and virtuous love of the people for the triumph of democracy. It is thus that in a conflagration the most tainted substances oft light the fire; the combustible matter is foul, but the flames pure; the flame of the Revolution was liberty; the factious might dim, they could not stain, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... be vigilantly safe-guarded against the attacks of the enemy. Every precaution is taken to insure safety. All openings in the protective deck above are covered with heavy steel gratings to prevent fragments of shell or other combustible substances from getting through to the magazine or ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... that the root-house had been finished, as it formed a secure storehouse for their goods, and would also be made available as a hiding-place from the Indians, in time of need. The boys carefully scraped away all the combustible matter from its vicinity, and also from the house; but the rapid increase of the fire now warned them to hurry down to join Catharine and the young Mohawk, who had gone off to the lake shore, with such things as they ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... roses producing moss-roses—we clearly see that the nature of the conditions is of subordinate importance in comparison with the nature of the organism in determining each particular form of variation; perhaps of not more importance than the nature of the spark, by which a mass of combustible matter is ignited, has in determining the nature ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... been struck with the fact that certain substances, while differing widely, from one another in many respects, were alike in combustibility. From this he argued that all combustible substances must contain a common principle, and this principle he named phlogiston. This phlogiston he believed to be intimately associated in combination with other substances in nature, and in that ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... at Charleston, known as the "Hint Club." Its purpose was to hint to such people that they had better look out. If they did not mend their ways, it was unnecessary to inform them more explicitly what they might expect. Houses were combustible then as now, and the use of firearms was well understood. In Georgia the legislature itself attempted coercion. Paper money was made a legal tender in spite of strong opposition, and a law was passed prohibiting any ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... types, from dusty lofts over stores, and ammoniacal lofts over stables, to buildings offering acres of space, and carefully planned for the purpose. They are more or less fire-proof, slow-burning, or briskly combustible, like the dwellings they have devastated. But the modern tendency is to a type where flames do not destroy, nor moth corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. Such a warehouse is a city in itself, laid out in streets and avenues, with the private tenements on either hand duly numbered, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... summer, and especially after the excessive dryness occasioned by the hot winds, the whole face of the country becomes, as it were, combustible, and bush-fires have at such times burst forth apparently spontaneously, and spread with great rapidity. The "Black Thursday" of the colony, some fifteen years since, when fire covered many hundreds of miles, is still remembered with horror; but, as settlement and cultivation have extended, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... people throughout the world, and the pride and glory of American citizens. Every year since the adoption of the old Constitution, have discordant elements cropped out, and incidents transpired, which demonstrated to every rational mind, that as time rolled on, the accumulation of combustible elements would ultimately explode, and shake the civilized world ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... occasion, fastened upon the basis, which was of dry deal board, underneath; which suddenly conceiving flame, gave fire to the device of the masque, all of oiled paper, and dry fir, etc. And so, in a moment, disposed itself among the rest of that combustible matter that it was past any man's approach before it was almost discovered. Two hours begun ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... happy in his rationalistic explanations of the whole mass of myths. He supposes a terrific storm, in which the lightning kindled the combustible materials of the cities, aided perhaps by an earthquake; but this shows a disposition to break away from the exact statements of the sacred books which would have been most severely condemned by the universal Church during at least eighteen hundred years of its history. Nor would the explanations ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... work to restore to some degree of comfort that most desolate of scenes, an abandoned camp. Unfortunately, on leaving the place, little thinking that they were so soon to return, they had burned everything combustible, and thus a strip of board or a piece of timber could hardly be found within the limits of the corps. Nevertheless, comfortable quarters were soon erected, and the routine of ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... do the same. This they all agreed to, and the papers having been drawn out in due form about midday, I sent down notice to the old lady, who seemed extremely pleased and thankful. The ceremonies of bathing were gone through before three, while the wood and other combustible materials for a strong fire were collected and put into the pit. After bathing she called for a pan (betel-leaf) and ate it, then rose up, and with one arm on the shoulder of her eldest son, and the other on that of her nephew, approached the fire. As she rose up fire ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... published by him at Edinburgh a great many years ago, where he mentions, 'those impure tales which will be the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious authour.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, Lord Hailes has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hailes thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people[548].' ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... had rounded up all the firewood into one heap. Now, to this combustible material the fellow was bringing a side of bacon and a small bag of flour. These he dropped on the firewood, then went back for more of the ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... of her sister, Phillida built no castles. Millard's politeness to her had been very agreeable, but she knew that it was only politeness. Almost every man's and every woman's imagination is combustible on one side or another. Many young women are set a-dreaming by any hint of love or marriage. But Phillida had read only sober books—knowing little of romances, there was no stock of incendiary material in her memory. Her fancy ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... hut upon my settlement, about forty yards from the creek of St. John, till I could build my house, and lodging {19} for my people. As my hut was composed of very combustible materials, I caused a fire to be made at a distance, about half way from the creek, to avoid accidents: which occasioned an adventure, that put me in mind of the prejudices they have in Europe, from the relations ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... soon as they begin to look dangerous. Even the coffee-pot may be rigged with a wire handle by which to be hung. Wire and string are our special hobbies in camp. Fan a fire instead of blowing it. Your breath has lost most of its combustible gas. A tin or wooden plate makes a good fan. Put away dry kindling every night. You don't know what sort of weather it will ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... comes over you, and just as you feel inclined to send for the cat's-meat man down the next court to come and fetch you away to the Dogs' Home, in bounces your landlady, and with two or three "Well, I nevers!" and "There's an imperent 'ussey, for you!" nearly bursts the patent non-combustible bootlace you lent her last night to hang the brass locket round ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... Man, and Venus the Woman, which I speak more of, seeing I write of them. This Tincture is delivered in Verdigreece, and likewise it is found in Vitriol, as in a Mineral whereof a peculiar Book might be wrote. In all these things a combustible Sulphur is found, and yet a Sulphur which is incombustible, this is a strange thing, one is a white Sulphur, the other is red in the operative generation; but the true Sulphur is incombustible, ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... the bonfire no more—no, not at all; nor the fireworks neither—no, nothing of no kind of the sort." All this in his natural voice: then, swelling in dignity and in diction, "but, for the accumulated pile of combustibles, I say—for the combustible pile that you have accumulated, that you may not be deprived of the merit of doing a good action, the materials of which it is composed, that is to say, the logs of wood, and the bavins of furze, with the pole and tar-barrel, shall be sold, and the money ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... becoming exceedingly hot; and as, at this season of the year, the heat of the sun was so intense that every substance became a combustible, and a single spark, if exposed to the air, in a moment became a flame, much evil was to be dreaded from fire. On the east side of the town of Sydney, a fire, the effect of intoxication or carelessness, broke out among the convicts' ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... such ferocious nature gave rise to a train of gloomy apprehensions. There were many cabins and sheds about the camp constructed of branches of trees which had become dry and combustible, and fears were entertained that they might be set on fire by the mudexares, or Moorish vassals, who visited the army. Some even dreaded that attempts might be made to poison the wells and fountains. To quiet these dismal alarms all mudexares ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the bridge is quickly thrown to the ground. Then the conqueror, being stayed in his course at the bridge, marcheth back towards the City again, and runs along with great noise and violence through Thames Street westward, where, having such combustible matter in its teeth, and such a fierce wind upon its back, it prevails with little resistance, unto the astonishment ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... The combustible balls are not yet come to hand. Five or six boxes of ammunition will be sent down to Tarrytown by water the first opportunity. 'Tis necessary that Dr Eustis, if not at the Plains, should be ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... fix our attention for a moment on the gunpowder which urges the cannon-ball. This is composed of combustible matter, which if burnt in the open air would yield a certain amount of heat. It will not yield this amount if it perform the work of urging a ball. The heat then generated by the gunpowder will fall short of that produced in the open air, by an ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the obscurer and more practical assertors of freedom. This was at no time more remarkable than in the present Session, during the discussion of those arbitrary measures, the Treason and Sedition Bills, when sparks were struck out, in the collision of the two principles, which the combustible state of public feeling at the moment rendered not a little perilous. On the motion that the House should resolve itself into a Committee upon the Treason Bill, Mr. Fox said, that "if Ministers were determined, by means of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... experiment clearly shows that temperature is a most important factor in the illuminating value of a flame, and this is still further shown by a study of the action of the diluents present in coal gas, the non-combustible ones being far more deleterious than the combustible, as they not only dilute, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... matter, this endless self-scrutiny. We are all familiar with the addled ego of literature—the writer whom constant self-communion has made vulgar, acid, querulous, and vain. And yet it is remarkable that of so many who meddle with the combustible passions of their own minds so few are blown up. The discipline of living is a ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... my strange companion; "it is only imprudence that makes victims. Olivari, who perished at Orleans, ascended in a mongolfier made of paper; his car, suspended below the chafing-dish, and ballasted with combustible materials, became a prey to the flames! Olivari fell, and was killed. Mosment ascended at Lille, on a light platform; an oscillation made him lose his equilibrium. Mosment fell, and was killed. Bittorf, at Manheim, saw his paper balloon take fire ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... the vegetable world and from the earth the food and drink it requires for its sustenance and motion. It receives colloidal food for its muscles: combustible food for its motion; water for the solution of its various parts; salt for constructive and other physical purposes. These have all to be arranged in the body; and they are arranged by means of the membranous envelopes. Through these ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... Now, as in Napoleon's time, the effect of the guns is moral rather than material. About midday French's horse-artillery guns came into action from the north. Smoke and flames from the dongas told that some of our shells had fallen among the wagons and their combustible stores. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... equipoise, a monarchy and hierarchy break out of the confusion of ambitious struggles, and the foundation of both is secured by feudal tenures. This appears to be the origin of monarchial and priestly power, and the dawn of civilization. But such combustible materials cannot long be pent up; and getting vent in foreign wars and intestine insurrections, the people acquire some power in the tumult, which obliges their rulers to gloss over their oppression with a show ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side Of thundering Aetna, whose combustible And fuell'd entrails thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds, And leave a singed bottom, all involved With stench and smoke; such resting found the sole Of ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... in Manila December 21, 1751, ordered the extermination of the Mahometans with fire and sword; the fitting out of Visayan corsairs, with authority to extinguish the foe, burn all that was combustible, destroy the crops, desolate their cultivated land, make captives, and recover christian slaves. One-fifth of the spoil (the Real quinto) was to belong to the King, and the natives were to be exempt from the payment of tribute whilst ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... bright, hard, glassy stem, the next thing is to develop a long, well-filled ear. To this end, available ammonia or nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, and magnesia are indispensable. Ammonia (spirits of hartshorn) is necessary to aid in forming the combustible part of the seed. The other ingredients named are required to assist in making the incombustible part of the grain. In 100 parts of the ash of wheat, there are the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... owned a large rambling Mansion. The pillars were rotten, the galleries tumbling down, the thatch dry and combustible, and there was only one door. Suddenly, one day, there was a smell of fire: the old man rushed out. To his horror he saw that the thatch was aflame, the rotten pillars were catching fire one by one, and the rafters were burning like tinder. But, inside, the children went on amusing themselves ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... storms he supposed that the man must be very angry and that the sounds and flashes were the result of throwing or rolling heavy or combustible articles of furniture as he had so repeatedly known his mother and uncle to do. As such a view of life was all that he knew, it was not strange that he could make no ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... murmurs, as if to gather strength for the new and more furious outburst that the next moment followed, it kept on its terrific march till it reached the central elevation, which embraced the most tangled, densely covered, and combustible part of the slash, and on which had been left standing an enormous dry pine, that towered so up high above the surrounding forest as to have long served as a landmark for the hunters and fishermen, in setting their courses through the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... across the street. The fire had spread with astonishing rapidity. Some combustible material in the second story had exploded with great force, and this had seemed to scatter the fire. The entire second story was on fire now, as well as ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... when a flame is smoking badly, distinct traces of carbon monoxide are being produced, but when an acetylene flame burns properly the products are as harmless as those of coal gas, and, light for light, less in amount. Mixed with air, like every other combustible gas, acetylene forms an explosive mixture. F. Clowes has shown that it has a wider range of explosive proportions when mixed with air than any of the other combustible gases, the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... objectionable to Mr. Grimshaw; they attracted numbers of profligate people to Haworth, and brought a match to the combustible materials of the place, only too ready to blaze out into wickedness. The story is, that he tried all means of persuasion, and even intimidation, to have the races discontinued, but in vain. At length, in despair, he prayed with such fervour of earnestness ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... but during the years 716-717 A.D. the city had to face a combined attack by a Moslem navy and army. The eastern emperor, Leo the Isaurian, conducted a heroic defense, using with much effectiveness the celebrated mixture known as "Greek fire." This combustible, probably composed of sulphur, naphtha, and quicklime, was poured or hurled on the enemy's ships in order to burn them. "Greek fire," the rigors of an uncommonly severe winter, and timely aid from the Bulgarians at length compelled the Arabs to beat a retreat. Their failure to take Constantinople ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... burned. Animal bodies, full of moisture, glowed awhile and then remained charred wrecks. Wood and other easily combustible things burned to ashes. On the ground lay the bodies, amidst heaps of hot mud, heaps of gleaming ashes and piles of volcanic stones. That ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... on this substance, which is in the highest degree combustible? Where had this naphtha come from? Was it a natural phenomenon taking place on the surface of the Angara, or was it to serve as an engine of destruction, put in motion by the Tartars? Did they intend ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... already dark when he brought his ship into action, and laid her alongside L'Orient. One particular only I shall add to the known account of the memorable engagement between these ships, and this I received from Sir Alexander Ball himself. He had previously made a combustible preparation, but which, from the nature of the engagement to be expected, he had purposed to reserve for the last emergency. But just at the time when, from several symptoms, he had every reason to believe ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "American Natural Oil," and used for a liniment. The Indians had used it, and the world has a way of looking to aborigines for medicine, even if not for health. Spiritualistic mediums and doctors bank heavily on Indians. This natural oil was known to be combustible. Out of doors it helped the campfire. But if burned indoors it made a horrible smoke and a smell to conjure with. Up to that time whale-oil mostly had been used for illuminating and lubricating purposes. But whale-oil was getting too ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... yourself one other question, and that is, whether it is a wise thing to live upon a surface that may be shattered at any moment; whether that is true peace which needs but a touch to melt away; whether you are wise with all this combustible material deep down in your conscience, in paying no regard to it but living and frolicking, and feasting and trafficking, and lusting and sinning on the surface, like those light-hearted, light-headed fools that build their houses on the slopes of volcanoes ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... have the secret of a mysterious combustible known as "Greek Fire" which was unquenchable by water. I think that "Greek Fire" was nothing more or less than ordinary petroleum, which was practically unknown in Europe in 1866, though from personal experience I can say that it ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... is combustible everyone who has watched the fitting of a hot shoe knows. That it is a bad conductor of heat, the absence of bad ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... many years ago, where he mentions 'these impure tales, which will be the eternal opprobium of their ingenious author'. JOHNSON: 'Sir, Lord Hales has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord Hales thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people.' I instanced the tale of Paulo Purganti and his Wife. JOHNSON: 'Sir, there is nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out of pocket. No, sir, Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... affirm, "there is the head of the table," and so he cares nothing about the nominal headship. He lives a free, busy life in the hill-country or near the sea, stalwart, swarthy, a lover of the open air, apt at work and sufficiently enterprising, self-respecting, "proud as Lucifer and combustible as his matches," in no case pinchingly poor, but rarely rich, and never in awe ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... shot, and had also a preparation sent, as they said, by the convention from Paris, which seems to have been of the nature of the Greek fire; for it became liquid when it was discharged, and water would not extinguish its flames. This combustible was concealed with great care in the captured ships; like the red-hot shot, it had been found useless in battle. Admiral Hotham's action saved Corsica for the time; but the victory had been incomplete, and the arrival at Toulon ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... portable outfits. Their use should not be tolerated when any other method is available, as the danger from accident alone should prohibit the practice except when properly installed and cared for away from other sources of combustible gases. ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... and her bonnet looking like an over-ripe fig, with a terrible cold that made her voice only a whisper, and sneezing herself almost to pieces, Mrs. Sparsit found Bounderby at his city hotel, exploded with the combustible information she carried and fainted quite away ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... three parts of this oxygen, with about one third of its weight of carbon, is converted into an elastic state, under the form of fixed air, that separates from the decomposing mass; a circumstance attending also on the combustion of coal and other combustible substances during their decomposition by that process, which supported in them by the external air of the atmosphere, where heat and light are both visible from the intensity and velocity of the combustion; and wholly invisible ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... sitting down, leaning his back against one of the bales. A short pipe was in his mouth, and he seemed to be enjoying his smoke. This was contrary to orders, for the cotton being combustible might easily catch fire; but this man, supposing that he would not be detected, indulged himself ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... would not waken the people faster than they could master them; but the fire began to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could hardly bear the street between them, and their business was to follow the fire for the surer execution. As fast as the fire either forced the people out of those houses which were burning, or frighted them out of others, our people ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... higher. A bonfire is premeditated. You shall see anon, how the flames will rise. The preparations are completed; the fire is applied. Hear how it crackles and hisses! Slowly but spitefully it mounts from limb to limb, and from one combustible to another, until the whole welkin is a-blaze, and shaking as with thunder! It is a beautiful sight. The gush of unwonted radiance rolls in effulgent surges adown the vale. How the owl hoots with surprise at the interrupting light! Bird of wisdom, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... officers of solar heat, we should prize it more than we do. Not that I should like to look upon the sun as a job, and have the proper regulation of its temperature get into politics, where we already have so much combustible stuff; but we take it quite too much as a matter of course, and, having it free, do not reckon it among the reasons for gratitude. Many people shut it out of their houses as if it were an enemy, watch its descent upon the carpet as if it were only a thief of color, and plant trees to shut ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... (according to her Maiesties prescription) he tooke forthwith eight of his woorst and basest ships which came next to hand, and disburthening them of all things which seemed to be of any value, filled them with gun-powder, pitch, brimstone, and with other combustible and firy matter; and charging all their ordinance with powder, bullets, and stones, he sent the sayd ships vpon the 28 of Iuly being Sunday, about two of the clocke after midnight, with the winde and tide against the Spanish fleet: which when they had proceeded a good space, being ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... the masts and rigging were all enveloped in flame, a dense smoke was rising from the hold, indicating that the electric fluid, in its descent through the ship, had come in contact with something in the cargo that was highly combustible. Passengers and crew stood looking on with pale, horror-stricken faces. But the captain, a man of self-possession, aroused all from their lethargy by ordering, in a loud, clear voice, the masts and rigging to be cut away instantly. This order was obeyed. Over went, crashing and hissing, three ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... illusions favorable to the "darling" who deceived him. His most alluring illusion was a booby idea that his "pet" was an invalid, and she kept pouring oil on the joke to keep it burning, and pulled the wool down further and further so that hubby could not see the combustible fluid she was pouring into the flames. Her illness was one of those "to be continued" story kinds—better to-day, worse to-morrow—and she "took" to the blankets at the most annoying and inopportune moments; and every time she "took" an indisposition she expected hubby to pull down ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... others slain. The Moslem camp was captured, but proved a doubtful prize. The plains were barren and scorching, and the harassing assaults of the Egyptians, who poured "Greek fire" (missiles filled with combustible materials) on their foes, rendered the situation more intolerable still. Pestilence broke out, and the king himself fell dangerously ill. He then ordered a retreat to Damietta, whither the sick were to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... not plain and ordinary, and the smiles which were intended as innocent lures from snares, instead of into them, might make trouble for all concerned. Haldane was naturally combustible, to begin with, and was now at the most inflammable ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... removed from command, if the decrees of the Convention for prosecuting the war against the Vendee were to be carried out. One of those decrees ordered that "the forests shall be razed, the crops cut down, the cattle {191} seized. The Minister of War shall send combustible materials of all sorts to burn the woods, brush, and heath." That was the spirit now entering the Revolution, the fury of destruction, the dementia of suspicion, the reign ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... should be built so as to constitute a fire wall wherever it is practicable to do so. Such walls should project at least three feet above the roof, and should be capped by stone, terra cotta, or sheet metal. They must form a complete cut-off of all combustible material, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... dark and rainy day. Like ocean tides, the frantic mob rolled in from every direction. Their shouts and revels swelled upon the night air. The rain began to fall in torrents. They broke into the houses for shelter; insulted maids and matrons; tore down every thing combustible for their watch fires; massacred a few of the body-guard of the queen, and, with bacchanalian songs, roasted their horses for food. And thus passed the hours of this long and dreary night, in hideous outrages for which one can hardly find a parallel in the annals of New Zealand cannibalism. ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... has laws of motion, that are adapted to itself, and constantly acts or moves according to these laws; at least when no superior cause interrupts its action. Thus, fire ceases to burn combustible matter, as soon as sufficient water is thrown into it, to arrest its progress. Thus, a sensible being ceases to seek pleasure, as soon as he fears that pain will ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... There was nothing easily combustible but the thatch on the roof; and that had been well soaked by the heavy rain which had now fallen incessantly for more than six hours. Burn the place ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... aeriform by appropriated degrees of heat. On the contrary, this elastic matter of heat, termed Calorique in the new nomenclature of the French Academicians, is liable to become consolidated itself in its combinations with some bodies, as perhaps in nitre, and probably in combustible bodies as sulphur and charcoal. See note on l. 232, of this Canto. Modern philosophers have not yet been able to decide whether light and heat be different fluids, or modifications of the same fluid, as they have many properties ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... city, as for their enmity to mankind. Their executions were so contrived, as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be torn to pieces by dogs; some were crucified; while others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights in the night time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles Nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus; sometimes ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... constructed great engines, such as were used in those days, in the absence of cannon, for throwing rocks and heavy beams of wood, to batter the walls. These machines also threw a certain extraordinary combustible substance called Greek fire. It was this Greek fire that, in the end, turned the scale of victory, for it caught in the lower court of the castle, where it burned so furiously that it baffled all the efforts of the besieged to extinguish it, and at length they were compelled to surrender. ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... emitting a choking atmosphere of charcoal and sulphur. Piled around the walls were some fifty or a hundred small barrels with copper hoops, and branded on the heads with the word "powder." Unmindful of the odor and the rather combustible material around him, Captain Brand again resumed his work, and rolled a large number of the little barrels toward the doorway, near the merchandise already there, saying to ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... sent to Newgate, and there were other arrests, which did but inflame the smouldering rage of the mob. Some of the wealthier foreigners, taking warning by the signs of danger, left the City, for there could be no doubt that the whole of London and the suburbs were in a combustible condition of discontent, needing only a spark ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... was a very combustible one, and in spite of the streams of water poured into the hold it was soon evident that the ship was doomed. Smoke began to ooze up between the planks everywhere, and the rising gale soon fanned the smouldering fire to flames that began to break out here and ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... was covered in, but not sufficiently completed to admit provisions. One hundred feet by twenty-five were the dimensions of this building, which was constructed with great strength; yet the mind was always pained when viewing its reedy combustible covering, remembering the livid flames that had been seen to shoot over every part of this cove: but no other materials could be found to answer the purpose of thatch, and every necessary precaution was taken to ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Greco, a town almost totally destroyed by the eruption in 1794. The whole surface of the country for some distance is laid waste by the river of lava, which flowed in a stream or body, of twenty feet in depth, destroyed in its course vineyards, cottages, and everything combustible, consumed and nearly overwhelmed the town, and at last poured into the sea, where as it cooled, it formed a rugged termination or promontory of considerable height. The surface of this mass presented a rocky and sterile aspect, strongly opposed to the exuberance of vegetation ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... kolori. Color (complexion) vizagxokoloro. Colorless senkolora. Colt cxevalido. Column kolono. Comb kombi. Comb kombilo. Combat batalo. Combat batali. Combatant batalanto. Combine kombini. Combustible brulebla. Combustion brulado. Come veni. Come (after) postveni. Come (back) reveni. Comedian komedianto. Comedy komedio. Comely gracia, beleta. Comet kometo. Comfort komforti. Comfort komforto. Comic komika, ridinda. Coming veno. Comma komo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... came out, and closely examined their feet. They were cool, and showed no trace of scorching, nor were their anklets of dried tree-fern leaf burnt. This, Jonathan explained, is part of the miracle; for dried tree-fern is as combustible as tinder, and there were flames shooting out among the stones. Sceptics had affirmed that the skin of a Fijian's foot being a quarter of an inch thick, he would not feel a burn. Whether this be true or not of the ball and heel, the instep is covered with skin no thicker than our own, ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... form of an altar—of unpolished pine, amidst whose interstices were placed preparations of combustible matter—stood the funeral pyre; and around it drooped the dark and gloomy cypresses so consecrated by song to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... purposes, the slow burning of iron. It develops heat, and, if the heat be preserved, a high temperature may be thus attained. The destruction of the first Atlantic cable was probably due to heat developed in this way. Other metals are still more combustible than iron. You may ignite strips of zinc in a candle flame, and cause them to burn almost like strips of paper. But we must now expand our definition of combustion, and include under this term, not only combustion in air, but also combustion in liquids. Water, for example, contains ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... water out of the glass jar into the earthenware one. In one second follows a series of sharp reports from inside the jar, which seems suddenly to have become filled with highly combustible crackers. The Professor drops the jar as if he had burnt his fingers, and the cracking and popping go on inside. Ladies rise frightened. ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... foot to that of six. That is accounted the best which is nearest the surface. It appears to be a mass of black earth held together by vegetable fibres. I know not whether the earth be bituminous, or whether the fibres be not the only combustible part; which, by heating the interposed earth red hot, make a burning mass. The heat is not very strong nor lasting. The ashes are yellowish, and in a large quantity. When they dig peat, they cut it into square pieces, and pile it up to dry beside the house. In some places it has ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... a quantity of the seared grass, and heaped a dry couch upon which Ben laid his charge within the genial heat that came from the cedar tree. Then they gathered up all the combustible matter within reach, and began to kindle a fire so near to the place where she lay that its heat must help to drive back the chill of death if there was a spark of life yet ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... be perfectly transparent. A most convincing proof that glass transmits the rays of the sun without being heated by them is afforded by the burning lens, which by converging the rays to a focus will set combustible bodies on fire, without its ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... insurgents, and partly formed their medium of intercourse with Italy and Asia Minor. The constant readiness of these men moving to and fro to carry everywhere sparks from the scene of conflagration tended in a high degree to excite apprehension, especially at a time when so much combustible matter was everywhere ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... encased in gauze wire which, while it admits oxygen to feed the flame, prevents communication between the flame and any combustible or explosive gas outside. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... parts of the forest. The soil of the woodlands is everywhere green with the curling fronds; and where I do not cut, the foresters and miners will be preparing heaps to carry away for litter and bedding. By the end of July the forest beneath the oaks will be covered with a carpet of stuff as combustible as tinder. Let us but fire it at Newnham, Littledean, Blakeney, Coleford, and at Speech by the courthouse, and we shall lay tens of thousands of oaks in blackened ruin. Philip of Spain has but to scatter the present small navy of England, for no more ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... cases the conditions of life play a subordinate part in causing any particular modification; like that which a spark plays, when a mass of combustibles bursts into flame—the nature of the flame depending on the combustible matter, and not ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... pleasing Bengal lights, with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a long time accumulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... to the better unlocking of the Mineral, yet if you have not the leasure to make so long a Digestion, you may by incorporating with powder'd Antimony a convenient Quantity of Oyl of Vitriol, and committing them immediately to Distillation, obtain a little Sulphur like unto the common one, and more combustible than perhaps you will at first take notice of. For I have observ'd, that though (after its being first kindled) the Flame would sometimes go out too soon of its self, if the same Lump of Sulphur were held again to the Flame of a ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... astronomers. But the people, incited by the propaganda of the clerics, nursed frightful hatred against the Jews, not only as "infidels," but also as intellectual aristocrats. The rage of the populace was the combustible material in the terrific explosions that occurred periodically, in the bloody saturnalia of the Pastouraux (1320), in the Black Death riots (1348), in the ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... will not leive of all this monastery Of you or these, of what's combustible, Naye of ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... say it has a somewhat pleasant odor; if you were to taste it, that it has a hot, biting taste, i.e., is pungent. If you put a lighted match to it you would notice that it burns easily, and with a flame, and may therefore be said to be combustible and inflammable. ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... remembered, however, that both in the ancient and the new idea the word 'element' was not intended to mean that which it means to us now, a fundamental unit of matter, but a general quality or property of matter. The three elements of Valentine were: (1) sulphur, or that which is combustible, which is changed or destroyed, or which at all events disappears during burning or combustion; (2) mercury, that which temporarily disappears during burning or combustion, which is dissociated in the burning from the body burnt, but ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... call myself the household god of a hundred families. Far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. Nor will I remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. Neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician whose simple ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cement-making materials, but, in larger ratio, to the fuel essential to rendering these substances available for materials of construction. Incidentally, investigations into the waste of structural materials have developed the fact that the destructive losses, due to fires in combustible buildings, amount to more than $200,000,000 per annum. A sum even greater than this is annually expended on fire protection. Inquiries looking to the reduction of fire losses are being conducted in order to ascertain the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... lantern, not for illumination but for safety. When the visitors have arrived on the lower platform, which is near the middle of the eastern side against the wall, the guide, who has not descended the steps, lights a basket of shavings or other quick combustible on the platform above. The effect is instantaneous and magical. Suddenly from an obscurity so profound that only the outline of the nearest columns can be faintly discerned by the flicker of a candle, the entire maze of columns flashes into being resplendent and white. The ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... wall. On some nights the full moonlight streamed in the three windows athwart the lamp-light. The room got hotter and closer. Ozias now and then, as he talked, motioned Jerome, who put another stick of wood in the stove. The whole atmosphere, spiritual and physical, seemed to grow combustible, and as if at any moment a word or a thought might cause a leap into flame. A spirit of anarchy and revolution was caged in that little close room, bound to a shoemaker's bench by the chain of labor for bread. The spirit was harmless enough, for its cage and its chain were ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a sigh, flutter my fan, and seem so agreeably confused—you have no notion, my dear, what fools men are. If you had not got the start of me, I would have had your little white-haired baronet in a week, and yet I don't take him to be made of very combustible materials; rather mild, composed, and pretty, I believe; but he has vanity, which is ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purpose of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound as ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... seems to have gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small coke, and peat. An abundance of coals existed in the neighbourhood: by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking the others with great care, a combustible was obtained better fitted even than charcoal itself for the fusion of that particular kind of ore which is found in the coal-measures. Thus we find Darby's most favourite charge for his furnaces to have been five baskets of coke, two of brays, and one of peat; next followed the ore, and then the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... evidence suggested suspicion of incendiarism and suicide. The papers, the books, the oil betrayed themselves as combustible materials, carried into the place for a purpose. The medicine chest was known (by its use in cases of illness among the servants) to contain opium. Adjourned inquiry elicited that the laboratory was not insured, and that the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... suitable to each. I say, it must be inferior, because nothing can be so hot, so tormenting, so intolerably insupportable, as the quickest apprehensions of, and the immediate sinking under, that guilt and indignation that is proportional to the offence. Should all the wood, and brimstone, and combustible matter on earth be gathered together for the tormenting of one body, yet that cannot yield that torment to that which the sense of guilt and burning-hot application of the indignation of God will do to the soul; yea, suppose the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... struck and lighted. The paper, after a few obstinate curlings, caught fire, and Frere, blowing the young flame with his breath, the bark began to burn. He piled upon the fire all that was combustible, the hides began to shrivel, and a great column of black smoke rose ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... this, or the other castles, made use of fire-balls, which they threw with their hands, designing to burn the doors of the castles. But the Spaniards from the walls let fall great quantities of stones, and earthen pots full of powder, and other combustible matter, which forced them to desist. Captain Morgan seeing this desperate defence made by the Spaniards, began to despair of success. Hereupon, many faint and calm meditations came into his mind; neither could he determine which way to turn ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various |
