"Saltpetre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of 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 ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... branch of the 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
... 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 Confederacy, war ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... runners. Their vigilance was often eluded, of course, yet nevertheless the number of cargoes that slipped through was painfully inadequate to meet the needs of the fenced-in States. Clothing, medicines, articles of necessary household use were denied to civilians. Cannon, rifles, saltpetre, and other munitions of war were withheld from the Confederate armies. While the ports of the North were bustling with foreign trade, grass grew on the cobble-stoned streets along the waterfronts of Charleston and Savannah. Slow starvation aided the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... your humbugging; yer worth a dozen dead niggers anyhow," said he, taking up the pail of water and throwing nearly half of it over him; then passing the bucket to the black man and ordering him to get more water and wash him down; then to get some saltpetre and a sponge to sop ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... prepared sulphuric acid by burning sulphur and nitre together in earthen pots, calling it Gunduk Ka Attar, or "attar of sulphur." Nitric acid, which was prepared, not by the process described by Geber, but by mixing saltpetre, alum, and a portion of a liquor obtained by spreading cloths over the common gram plant, and leaving them exposed to the dew, when they were found to absorb the acid salt so abundantly secreted by the plant on the surface of its leaves, and which, ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... gathering in the harvest, furriers preparing rich skins, children picking maize, drovers tending their flocks, wood-cutters returning heavily loaded from the mountains. Others again are engaged in carding and combing wool, navvies are digging irrigation canals, chemists are manufacturing saltpetre and gunpowder, armourers are making or mending firearms. Tailors, shoemakers, bricklayers, potters, millers, sawyers—every kind of labourer or artisan is here to be found. There are no idlers, and no unemployed. Everybody, ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... the guidance of manufacturers and officers, has yet to be created. While from time immemorial certain articles of food have been preserved by salting, smoking, drying, or by the addition of sugar and in some cases of saltpetre, during the last quarter of the 10th century the use of chemicals acting more powerfully as antiseptics or preservatives extended enormously, particularly in England. A very large fraction of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Jedo, 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
... 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 means of producing good; and those piles ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 eyes almost ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... 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 ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... occupied almost the whole of the ground floor, as well as the little yard 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 be stricken ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... in small quantities, it considerably assists the antiseptic action of salt, and also prevents the destruction of the florid colour of meat, which is caused by the application of salt. Thus, it will be perceived, from the foregoing statement, that the application of salt and saltpetre diminishes, in a considerable degree, the nutritive, and, to some extent, the wholesome qualities of meat; and, therefore, in their use, the quantity applied should be as small as possible, consistent with the perfect ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... become a strange merit in a partisan or statesman, always and scrupulously to tell the truth. Lies are part of the regular ammunition of all campaigns and controversies, valued according as they are profitable and effective; and are stored up and have a market price, like saltpetre and sulphur; being even more deadly ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... most abundant; but saltpetre and naphtha are among the products. Quantities of rice are grown here, and a singular method is adopted for separating the grain from the ear. The bunches of paddy are spread on mats, and the Sumatrans rub out the grain under their ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... Majesty's account in your own ship, they will be worth thirty-five thousand pesos and more when delivered in Goa or Cochin, as is affirmed by men experienced in this kind of merchandise. Your Majesty needs many things in your royal magazines which are brought from the above-named cities, such as saltpetre, iron, anchors, slaves for the galleys, arms, biscuits, cayro, white cloth, and wearing apparel for convicts. Those articles are bought every year in Manila from merchants of Yndia, at excessive ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... 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 investigations when American citizens are held prisoners by ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... that your journal recently gave currency to the "saltpetre method" of extracting stumps, and W.H. White also recommends it in your columns. His method is to bore a hole in the stump in the fall of the year, fill in the hole with saltpetre, plug up till the following summer, then fill the hole ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... field, close by, was the resort of duellists, and many a bloody affray has there occurred. Casimir, King of Poland, was an abbot of this church. The revolution was sadly injurious to this fine sanctuary, and it was for a time converted into a saltpetre manufactory. Charles X. repaired it, and after him Louis Philippe carefully superintended its restoration. The inside of the church is a cross, with a circular choir; and the arches are semi-circular, and indicate great antiquity. The restoration of the nave and choir ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Durham, mines of iron, coal, slate, and freestone; and in every shire of England, generally quarries of hard stone, chalk, and flint: these be commodities honorable and not feigned, being of such estimation that France, nor other realms, may well forbear; and as for saltpetre, there is sufficient made in England to furnish our turn for the wars. Also we have hot fountains or bathes, which you nor no other realms christened have."—Sign. L. v. rev. If ancient GILDAS speak the truth, Great Britain was no contemptible place twelve hundred years ago—the period when he ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... ounces of alcohol; One and a half ounces of glycerine; One ounce of liverwort; Three hundred and twenty grains of saltpetre; Forty drops ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... November and March. The Germans place them in deep tubs, which they cover with layers of salt and saltpetre, and with a few laurel leaves. They are left four or five days in this state, and are then completely covered with strong brine. At the end of three weeks they are taken out, and left to soak for twelve hours in clear well-water; ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... are compounds of 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 ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... 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, and charcoal." ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... Russia. Once it was prevalent everywhere. The Hand of Glory was a hand cut off from the body of a robber and murderer who had expiated his crimes on the gallows. To endow it with the properties of a talisman, the blood was first of all extracted; it was then given a thorough soaking in saltpetre and pepper, and hung out in the sun. When perfectly dry, it was used as a candlestick for a candle made of white wax, sesame seed, and fat from the corpse of the criminal. Prepared thus, the Hand of Glory was deemed to have the power of aiding ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... incendiary purposes, filled with a very fiercely flaming composition of saltpetre, sulphur, resin, turpentine, antimony, and tallow. It has three vents for the flame, and sometimes is equipped with pistol barrels, so fitted in its interior as to discharge ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... found a comfortable home and kind treatment in their old age that the Ladies of Charity determined to found an institution on the same lines for all the beggars of Paris. A large piece of ground that had been used for the manufacture of saltpetre was accordingly obtained from the King, who also gave a large contribution of money toward the undertaking. The hospital, known as "La Salpetriere" from the use to which the ground had formerly been put, was soon in course of building, but the beggars who were destined to 1711 it, ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... the British into the hills the Khasis are said to have been acquainted with the art of manufacturing gunpowder, which was prepared in the neighbourhood of Mawsanram, Kynchi, and Cherra. The gunpowder used to be manufactured of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, the three ingredients being pounded together in a mortar. The Jaintia Rajas possessed cannon, two specimens of which are still to be seen at Jaintiapur. Their dimensions ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... was a 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 and semi-tropical Atlantic, he decided ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... armed and disciplined and fed and led against the greatest and strongest coalition which the modern world had ever seen. France, under Camot, became a vast workshop. Its most eminent scientific men taught the people how to gather saltpetre and the government how to manufacture powder and artillery. Horses had to be obtained. Carnot was as reckless of himself as of others. He knew no rest. There was that to be done which had to be done quickly and at any cost; there ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... true; if we may hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night vocal ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a round weighing forty pounds, three ounces saltpetre, let stand six or eight hours, pound three ounces allspice, one pound black pepper, two pounds salt, and seven ounces brown sugar; rub the beef well with the salt and spices. Let it remain fourteen days turning it every day and rub with the pickle, then wash ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various
... 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 ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... more than a million of dollars was destroyed, and over thirty lives were lost by the explosion of various materials in the buildings burned The occurrence has elicited from Prof. ROGERS, of the University of Pennsylvania, a letter stating that, in his opinion, saltpetre by itself is not explosive, but that the great quantity of oxygen which it contains greatly increases the combustion of ignited matter with which it may be brought in contact, and that this may evolve gases so rapidly as to cause ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... of metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of coffee, cotton, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... that this land was very rich in saltpetre, and had collected a considerable quantity for the purpose of making powder. This intention I had kept secret, however, from all except the emperor, whose permission I needed to establish manufactories for rifles and other guns. With the aid of these I hoped in a short time to subdue all the enemies ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... Louis XV. has told me that one day when the king his master was supping at Trianon with a small party, the conversation turned on shooting and then on gunpowder. Somebody said that the best powder was made of equal parts of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal. The Duke of La Valliere, better informed, maintained that for cannon the proper proportion was one part of sulphur, one of charcoal, and five of well-filtered, well-evaporated, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... He was the worst nigger that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... abundance makes the contrast in the condition of the peasantry all the more puzzling. There must be something radically wrong in the modes of the governing power. This part of India is noted for the excellence and prolific yield of its sugar crops. From here, also, indigo and saltpetre are exported in large quantities. Along the route traversed by the railway we see fruit-trees of various sorts native to this section, such as tamarinds, almonds, mangos, oranges, cocoanuts, and other products of the palm family. ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... which he must study who would have his vision of God fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the resisting ball,—not less real to his eye, because not apparent,—or in the villanous compound itself, while yet the spark is wanting,—'rules' for other 'wrestling ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... 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, ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... roots of capers, genista or broom, pennyroyal and half-boiled cabbage, I find in this catalogue of purgers of black choler, origan, featherfew, ammoniac [4209]salt, saltpetre. But these are very gentle; alyppus, dragon root, centaury, ditany, colutea, which Fuchsius cap. 168 and others take for senna, but most distinguish. Senna is in the middle of violent and gentle purgers downward, hot in the second degree, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... to give "our method of curing" the last-mentioned dainties; but we think we may as well follow up the history of our pigs, from the sty to the kitchen. I always found that the recipes usually given for salting pork contained too much saltpetre, which not only renders the meat hard, but causes it to be very indigestible. The following is the manner in which they were cured ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... fellow in the play who would have loved war had they not digged villainous saltpetre from the harmless earth. The countryside, too, in my opinion, would be more peaceful of a summer afternoon were it not overrun with dogs. Let me be plain! I myself like dogs—sleepy dogs blinking in the firelight, friendly dogs with wagging tails, young dogs in their first puppyhood ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... established by the khedive Ismail in 1870. Various kinds of paper are manufactured, and 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 produce ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... war after the summer of 1915 but for the commercial development of the Haber process by the I.G. The story is too well known to repeat at length. The basic element of explosives is nitrogen, which is introduced by nitric acid. This was produced from imported Chili saltpetre, but the blockade cut short these imports, and but for the Haber method, the vital step in producing nitric acid from the air, Germany would have been ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... 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 ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... hundred pounds per annum spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in villainous saltpetre! And after—ask the Yusufzaies What comes of all ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... same, and represents precisely the same amount of material in the store, and of labour spent in producing it. But the corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear sulphur and saltpetre, till at last the labourers who have consumed corn and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their currency to obtain materials for the feast, discover that no amount of currency will command anything ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... 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 one hundred and fifty thousand Vendeans, they published a decree, and on ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... assistance of their friends. Nine hundred of them mounted, under the command of Col. Campbell, poured down from the Allegany, like the torrents from its summit. Gunpowder they had already learnt to prepare from the saltpetre in their caves, and lead they dug out of their mines. Dried venison satisfied their hunger, pure water slaked their thirst, and at the side of a rock they enjoyed comfortable repose. Armed with rifles, sure to the white speck on the target, at the distance of one hundred paces, or to ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... region lying below the parallel of El-Muwaylah. It is, indeed, still my conviction that "tailings" have been washed for gold, even by men still living. We also brought notices and specimens of three several deposits of sulphur; of a turquoise-mine behind Ziba; of salt and saltpetre, and of vast deposits of gypsum. These are sources of wealth which the nineteenth century is not likely ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... set about providing for the wants of his men, and strained every nerve to get them in good fighting order for the approaching campaign. He replenished his treasury with a large amount of silver which he drew from the mines of La Plata. Saltpetre, obtained in abundance in the neighborhood of Cuzco, furnished the material for gunpowder. He caused cannon, some of large dimensions, to be cast under the superintendence of Pedro de Candia, the Greek, who, it may be remembered, had first come into the country with Pizarro, and who, with a number ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... 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 ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... of the most violent of the French democratic and anti-English journals. We should like to extract it all, but it is too lengthy, and we must content ourselves with the last ten lines. Here they are, breathing saltpetre and bayonets:— ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... 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
... with the men to frighten Walsh, and burn the house. I promised to do so, and he then furnished us with powder and ball; we went down to the river side, and McCarthy gave his pistols and 7/6 in money to Anthony Ryan. He gave me some powder, flax, and something like saltpetre, and showed me, by putting some powder into the pan, and snapping it, how the flax was to be lighted. McCarthy then parted with us, and we, after eating the bread and meat, went to Walsh's. I lighted the tow, and Paddy Ryan put the fire into the roof. I and two of the party then went and stood ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... 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 pleasure of the imposer?[66] ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 (Pl. IV. ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... stalactites, or petrifactions, at the top and sides. Before these were blackened by the smoke of the torches, they are said to have been extremely beautiful. The floor is of a deep sandy earth, which has been repeatedly dug up, for the purpose of obtaining saltpetre, with which ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... opening, resembling a great gate, forms the entrance to these rocky passages. Overgrown with ivy, it has rather the appearance of a bower than of a place of terror and anguish. Several of these side halls are now used as workshops by rope-makers, while in others the manufacture of saltpetre is carried on. The region around is rocky, but without displaying any high mountains. I saw numerous grottoes, some of them with magnificent entrances, which looked as though they had been cut in the rocks by ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... this door open and found the Secretary of the Committee within; he was writing at a large table loaded with books, papers, steel ingots, cartridges and samples of saltpetre-bearing soils. ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... and stifling, the saltpetre fumes filling the throat and lungs, until breathing was difficult. The dense bank of vapor enveloping the ship also rendered it almost impossible to aim with any accuracy. We of Number Eight gun were early impressed with this fact, and ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... Quality of the Lands above the Fork. A Quarry of Stone for building. High Lands to the East: Their vast Fertility. West Coast: West Lands: Saltpetre ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... gave to three of her little brothers and sisters. One boy, however, 'had huffed her,' and got no penny. But she relented, and, when she went out, bought for him a mince-pie. Her visit of New Year's Day was to her maternal aunt, Mrs. Colley, living at Saltpetre Bank (Dock Street, behind the London Dock). She meant to return in time to buy, with her mother, a cloak, but the Colleys had a cold early dinner, and kept her till about 9 P.M. for ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Both saltpetre and common salt are made by lixiviation from some of the poor oosur soils; but, from the most barren in Oude, carbonates of soda, used in making glass and soap, are taken. The earth is collected from the surface ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... 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 ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... unnatural alliances, or chained up in durance vile. It is in the elements of matter, and not in its molecules, that this tremendous dynamic force resides. Man, knowing this, harnesses them into his service, first by forcing them into unnatural alliances, as in the case of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre, and then successfully pitting them in conflict against the rocks and the general inertia of matter. To charge all the destructive work they do on the innocent and harmless molecules, which are two steps removed from the actual force expended, is drawing conclusions ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... The revolted city will be compelled to do without these "foreigners," and why not? France invented beet-root sugar when sugar-cane ran short during the continental blockade. Parisians discovered saltpetre in their cellars when they no longer received any from abroad. Shall we be inferior to our grandfathers, who hardly lisped the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... 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 it ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... 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
... pound, to be paid in gold; France, by her export duty on linen and cotton rags and skins of animals; Russia, by various export duties; Portugal, by her duties on wine exported; Great Britain, by her export duties, imposed in India, on gunny-cloth, linseed, jute, saltpetre, and opium; and Holland, by her monopoly and export duties on the coffee of Java,—give precedents for a tax on cotton. The United States are prohibited by the Constitution from levying an export duty, but may nevertheless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... a little walk," he said; "but I must first make a note of what you say, for, when I wish to remember something important, the devil makes confusion in my head. These, then, are means of dissolving gold—oil of vitriol, salts of ammonia, and saltpetre!" ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... 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 of Biscay ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... Vijayanagar will forbid the importation of saltpetre and iron into his kingdom from any Bijapur port; and will compel its ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... 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 ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... fancy for new possessions, and selects the most productive spots for his plantations. When he desired muslin, calico, and camel's-hair shawls for his family, he put his finger on India; and when he called for those great staples of commerce, indigo, saltpetre, jute, flax, and linseed, India sent them at his bidding. When he required coffee, he found Ceylon a Spice Island, and at his demand it furnished him with an annual supply of sixty millions of pounds. He required more sugar for his coffee, and by shipping a few coolies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... as waking one morning and finding himself famous, and it is quite an ordinary fact, that a blaze may be made with a little saltpetre that will be stared at by thousands who would have thought the sunrise tedious. If we may believe his biographer, Wordsworth might have said that he awoke and found himself infamous, for the publication of the Lyrical Ballads undoubtedly raised ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... alembic, the retort, the sand-bath, the water-bath and other valuable instruments. To them is due the discovery of antimony, sulphuric ether and phosphorus, the cupellation of gold and silver, the determining of the properties of saltpetre and its use in gunpowder, and the discovery of the distillation of essential oils. This was the success of failure, a wondrous process of Nature for the highest growth,—a mighty lesson of comfort, strength, and encouragement if man would ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... I started for the saltpetre-works, a distance of fourteen leagues. Having ascended the steep coast-mountains by a zigzag sandy track, we soon came in view of the mines of Guantajaya and St. Rosa. These two small villages are placed at ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Camphor Gum Arabic Gum Asphaltum Gum Tragacanth Hemlock Oil Horehound Laudanum Licorice Root Magnolia Water Muriatic Acid Saltpetre Sienna Oil ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... per annum spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!" And after—ask the Yusufzaies What comes ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... fertilise it. Withal, it is inundated at certain periods of the year by the river's overflow, but in the dry season parched by the rays of a tropical sun. Its surface is then covered with a white efflorescence, which resembles a heavy hoar frost; this, called salitre, being a sort of impure saltpetre, left after the evaporation and subsidence of ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... see the dawn of the inevitable day of compromise, for we now have, instead of the old argument that the divine power by one miraculous act changed Lot's wife into a salt pillar, the suggestion that she was caught in a shower of sulphur and saltpetre, covered by it, and that the result was a lump, which in a general way IS CALLED in our sacred ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... of the air and thus build it into nitric acid which 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 is ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... from its once romantic appearance. Visitors first descend a well-like pit, into which a stream falls, by a flight of steps, and then passing under a high archway, proceed along a level road, to what are called the vats, where saltpetre was once manufactured. Their blazing torches, numerous as they may be, hardly light up the vast subterranean region. From the large hall they make their way through a low narrow passage, known as the "Vale of Humility," into another hall of enormous extent, the roof so lofty that the ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... cloves. Lay them 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 ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... 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 ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Bacon in the thirteenth, and Berthold Schwartz in the fourteenth century, are reputed to have carried out experiments by mixing physical salt (in the form of the chemically labile saltpetre) with physical sulphur and - after some initial attempts with various metals - with charcoal, and then exposing the mixture to the heat of physical fire. The outcome of this purely materialistic interpretation of the three alchemical concepts was not the acquisition of wisdom, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... are those run in moulds. For this purpose, melt together one quarter of a pound of white wax, one quarter of an ounce of camphor, two ounces of alum, and ten ounces of suet or mutton-tallow. Soak the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and when dry, fix them in the moulds and pour in the melted tallow. Let them remain one night to cool; then warm them a little to loosen them, draw them out, and when they are hard, put them in a box in ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... 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 ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... exchanged courtesies, and bought, for ourselves and for him, some of the sixpenny cigars of the house. We lingered over our drink in silence, and, for a time, nothing could be heard except the crackling of the saltpetre in the Sunday-Afternoon Splendidos. Then Georgie inquired what was doing at my end, and told me of what he was writing and of how he was amusing himself, and I ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... great minds are confused and lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent efforts. As Jean Paul says, there is sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre in the soul, but powder is not made, for they never find each other. To understand this will-plexus is preeminent among the new demands now laid ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... 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 get ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... groping under the black cloak of our Maker?—who will not blind us with his light. Did he not give us also these lusts, the keen knife and the sweetness, these sensations that are like pineapple smeared with saltpetre, like salted olives from heaven, like being flayed with delight.... And did he not give us dreams fantastic beyond any lust whatever? What is the good of talking? Speak to your own kind. I have gone, Benham. I am lost already. There is no resisting any more, since I have ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... (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, and wash them with a little cold water, until a solution of ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... 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 boys in the kingdom. But there are departments of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... knowing, that it had called in music to help. It was the third mate and his gang completing his floor to receive the coming tea-chests. Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many hundred bundles of light flexible canes from Sumatra and Malacca; on these he had laid tons of rough saltpetre, in 200 lb. gunny-bags: and was now mashing it to music, bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in line, with huge wooden beetles called commanders, and lifted them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical power ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... bothering the purser.' The purser can't do it with the help of 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 were ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... cold is intense in a degree of which we have no experience in England, though we lie to the north of them.[5] This arises in a measure from their distance from the sea, and again from their elevation of level, and further from the saltpetre with which their soil or their atmosphere is impregnated. The sole influence then of their fatherland, if I may apply to it such a term, is to drive its inhabitants from it to the West or to ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... a week agone, Cammet was sent on a swift horse to Chateau Thierry. The good town craved of Pothon de Xaintrailles, who commands there, to send them what saltpetre he could spare for making gunpowder. The saltpetre came in this day by the Pierrefonds Gate, and Cammet with it, but on another ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... filings, and saltpetre, by all that is abominable! Ah, faith! there must have been poison ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... the water. I should think 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 was a slight smarting ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... 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; and the fugitive, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... herself. "See, now! It's jeal'sy of me, Mr. Wilfrud, becas I'm a widde and just an abom'nation to garls, poor darlin's! And twenty shindies per dime we've been havin', and me such a placable body, if ye'll onnly let m' explode. I'm all powder, avery bit! and might ha' been christened Saltpetre, if born a boy. She hasn't so much as a shot to kill a goose, says Chump, poor fella! But he went, annyway. I must kiss somebody when I talk of 'm. Mr. Wilfrud, I'll take the girls, and entitle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Filling on the main-yard, they steered for the Federal squadron. Captain Wilson was now ordered into the boat, and carried on board the flagship, when he was informed by flag-officer Goldboursh that his vessel had saltpetre on board, and that consequently she was a lawful prize to the Federal Government, but that he might take a passage on board her to Philadelphia. He replied that his cargo was not saltpetre, that his ship was British property, and that he could not ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... this is a 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 ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... manufactory of carpets, which are admirable in appearance, and, save in durability, equal to the English. Indigo seed from Bundelkund is also a most extensive article of commerce, the best coming from the Doab. For cotton, lac, sugar, and saltpetre, it is one of the greatest marts in India. The articles of native manufacture are brass washing and cooking utensils, and stone deities worked ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... 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 ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... discoverers 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 ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... the 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 it over a wood fire. It will be ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... 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
... to be done," responded the bravo. "This is the last night I shall come to Orbajosa—the last. I have to look up some boys who remained in the town, and we are going to see how we can get possession of the saltpetre and the sulphur that are in the ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... and German ideas had passed thus over our heads there ensued disgust and mournful silence, followed by a terrible convulsion. For to formulate general ideas is to change saltpetre into powder, and the Homeric brain of the great Goethe had sucked up, as an alembic, all the juice of the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him, did not believe it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The explosion carried them away like grains of ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... powder at the 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
... hundred quintals of powder; and your Majesty informed me that the viceroy would send them. Although he did not send the whole amount, two hundred and thirty-five quintals of powder and a hundred quintals of saltpetre arrived. We shall be obliged to use what there is in the royal magazines here, that we may not lack so necessary a thing; yet the whole ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... are covered uniformly with a brilliant pottery glaze which renders, it is true, the forms rather blurred and not easy to see, but which resembles in a surprising manner, antiquities which the action of fire or of earth, impregnated with saltpetre, have slightly damaged. The feigned hieroglyphs therein are mistaken for those as to which the work has been neglected. Their statuettes recall the figurines of poor ware, which the Ancient Egyptians placed in so great a number in their tombs. In spite of their imperfections, ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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. However, ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... 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, and Ephraim's sons held aloof, watching ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... essentials, it is well to get ready, also, some tinder. I have tried a great many different kinds of lint and punk, including a number that were artificially prepared, soaked with saltpetre or other combustibles. But these are not really fair play. The true woodcrafter limits himself to the things that he can get in the woods, and in all my recent fire-making I have contented myself with the tinder used for ages by the red men: that is, cedar wood finely shredded between ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... 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 ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... a match, and stok, a stick), 'a gunner's forked staff to hold a match of lint dipped in saltpetre.' ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott |
