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More "Torpedo" Quotes from Famous Books
... thing would disturb him for hours, and his friends were never sure of his equanimity. I was present once when a blundering friend trod unwittingly on his favorite prejudice, and Landor went off instanter like a blaspheming torpedo. There were three things in the world which received no quarter at his hands, and when in the slightest degree he scented hypocrisy, pharisaism, or tyranny, straightway he became furious, and laid about ... — Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... we now hear of nothing but smokeless powder and small bore rifles, heavy ironclads and swift cruisers, torpedo boats and dynamite guns. Europe seems hastening on to that time foretold by General Grant when, worn out by a fatal and ruinous policy, she will bow to the supremacy of peace-loving America, and learn anew from her the ... — The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... invention for use at night against torpedo and aeroplane attacks. From that mortar Armand has shot half a dozen bombs of phosphide of calcium which are hurled far into the darkness. They are so constructed that they float after a short plunge and are ignited on contact by the action of the ... — The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... the poor man would have shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a smooth front to it,—which happily, though difficult, was not impossible to do. I began again at the beginning, to such a wretched, paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand ... — Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... explosion at Bemerhaven, and people began to talk about coal torpedoes. Then I knew as in all probability I'd carried the man who managed the business, and I gave word to the police, but they never could make anything of it. You know what a coal torpedo is, don't you? Well, you see, a cove insures his ship for more than its value, and then off he goes and makes a box like a bit o'coal, and fills it chock full with dynamite, or some other cowardly stuff of the sort. He drops ... — The Cabman's Story - The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on toward a meeting place. The ship moved a trifle faster, because it was climbing. The speeds would match exactly when they met. The small torpedo-shaped shining ship and the bulging glowing metal satellite floated with a seeming vast deliberation in emptiness, while the most gigantic of possible round objects filled all the firmament beneath them. They were 200 miles apart. ... — Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... a dandy," said Jim, after the boys had shaken hands and made a few formal inquiries about the interval which had elapsed since last they met. As Jim spoke, his eye roamed over the long torpedo body ... — Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... THE torpedo, in capital letters and italics with a line under the word. I've invented one that would ... — The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... that Germany were one big ship and all the Germans on board, and I had a torpedo big enough to blast them ... — The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... ascendency, thorough intellect and character, to win deference from all—wise enough to see always the supreme end, to know what each instrument was fit for, and to bring all forces to bear in the right way—a man of consummate adroitness, to sail in torpedo-sown waters without exciting an explosion, though conducting wires of local prejudice, class sensitiveness, and personal foible on every hand led straight down to magazines of wrath which might shatter the cause in a moment—a man having resources of his own to ... — James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... disappeared from the Midwest. But on April 19, the same object—or else a similar one—appeared over West Virginia. Early that morning the town of Sisterville was awakened by blasts of the sawmill whistle. Those who went outside their homes saw a strange sight. From a torpedo-shaped object overhead, dazzling searchlights were pointing downward, sweeping the countryside. The thing appeared to be about two hundred feet long, some thirty feet in diameter, with stubby wings and red and green lights along the sides. For almost ... — The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... but the voice of no man upon earth echoed to the voice of my conscience. "I called aloud; but there was none to answer; there was none that regarded." To me the whole world was unhearing as the tempest, and as cold as the torpedo. Sympathy, the magnetic virtue, the hidden essence of our life, was extinct. Nor was this the sum of my misery. This food, so essential to an intelligent existence, seemed perpetually renewing before me in its fairest colours, ... — Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... must in the end submit. But after five months of fruitless negotiations the patience of the Government at Tokio was exhausted. On Feb. 8, 1904, the Japanese fleet made a sudden descent upon Port Arthur. This act, so audaciously planned, resulted in the destruction of battle-ships, cruisers, torpedo-boats—nine in all—to which were added the day following two more ... — A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to ... — Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... seemed merged, rocks did not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, islands of stone had a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, jumping, piercing a broken wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, shooting an almost sheer fall, she came to rely on a sense of intuition rather than memory, for night had ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... notes, however, and their descriptions varied from a black pear-shaped globe which had hovered for minutes before descending behind the mountains into the lake, to detailed word pictures of a silvery, torpedo-shaped vessel of space with portholes and flaming rockets and an unknown flag ... — Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... royal highness the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Mr. Gladstone, in marble and bronze; G. F. Watts, in bronze, for the 'Permanent Manchester Art Exhibition'; Mr. Peter Brotherhood, inventor of a torpedo engine, in marble and bronze, which held the place of honor at the Royal Academy the year of its exhibition; Princess Henry of Prussia, in marble; her highness Princess Helena of Saxe-Altenburg; his excellency the Baron ... — Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... foot of each of the numerous hills which occurred along the route. Very thick bush had to be cut through, and at first but slow progress was made. The road, as is generally known, took a direction towards the Inyezane. Whilst out on one occasion, the road party saw a torpedo explosion which took place about three miles from where the party was working. It had been accidentally fired by Kaffirs, who were unaware of the clangers connected with the implement, and it is ... — South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Navy; a Captain and two Commanders were joined by the Naval Attache of a great neutral Power on his way to visit the Fleet. An Engineer Commander and a Naval Instructor shared a luncheon basket with a Sub-Lieutenant and a volunteer Surgeon. Two Clerks, a Midshipman and a Torpedo Gunner found themselves thrown together, and at the last moment a Chaplain ... — The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... And its concealment is mischievous because, first, it leads people to imagine all sorts of horrors in a document which contains nothing worse than any record of the squabbles of two touchy idlers; and, second, it is clearly a monstrous thing that Douglas should have a torpedo launched at him and timed to explode after his death. The torpedo is a very harmless squib; for there is nothing in it that cannot be guessed from Douglas's own book; but the public does not know that. By the way, it is rather a humorous ... — Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... at 80 deg. to 100 deg. C. decomposes slowly, and sunlight causes it to undergo a slow decomposition. It can, however, be preserved for years without undergoing any alteration. It is very susceptible to explosions by influence. For instance, a torpedo, even placed at a long distance, may explode a line of torpedoes charged with gun-cotton. The velocity of the propagation of the explosion in metallic tubes filled with pulverised gun-cotton has been found to be from 5,000 to 6,000 mms. per second in tin tubes, ... — Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... brutal age, ministered to by hard-fisted men, and we had put it a hundred decent years behind us when—it all comes back again! To-day there are no prisons for the crews of merchantmen, but they can go to the bottom by mine and torpedo even more quickly than their ancestors were run into Le Havre. The submarine takes the place of the privateer; the Line, as in the old wars, is occupied, bombarding and blockading, elsewhere, but the sea-borne traffic must ... — Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... conducting it. If this instance stood alone, some explanation, some disavowal by the German Government, some evidence of criminal mistake or wilful disobedience on the part of the commander of the vessel that fired the torpedo might be sought or entertained; but unhappily it does not stand alone. Recent events make the conclusion inevitable that it is only one instance, even though it be one of the most extreme and distressing instances, of the spirit and method ... — President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... arrived at my house in a case of samples last July. The samples went up from right to left in order of importance, each in his own little bed—until you got to Torpedo Jimmy at the end, who had a double bed to himself. Starting with Cabajo fino in the right-hand corner, the prices ranged from about nine a penny to five pounds apiece, the latter being the approximate charge for T. James ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 4, 1914 • Various
... hundred million meteorites enter our atmosphere and are cremated, every day. Most of them weigh only an ounce or two, and are invisible. Some of them weigh a ton or more, but even against these large masses the air acts as a kind of "torpedo-net." They generally burst into fragments and fall ... — The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... as mounted on a torpedo launch and ready for action. The shell or projectile is fired by compressed air, admitted from an air reservoir underneath by a simple pressure of the gunner's finger over the valve. The air passes up through the center of the base, ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... a certain point on the border, the order is known in Mexico before it is executed. It is the same with coded communications to Foreign Powers. The movements of our fleet are known to foreign naval attaches even before the maneuvers are carried out. The whereabouts of the smallest torpedo boat and submarine is no secret—to any but ... — I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... of vessel, to which the above odd name has been given by its inventor, M. Donato Tommasi, of Paris, France, is a combination of a boat wholly submerged with a raft: a connecting link, to borrow the naturalist's expression, between the submerged torpedo boat and the monitor. The advantages which are expected to be realized from this hybrid craft, the inventor describes as follows: "It is evident that a vessel, plunged several yards below the surface of the sea, is no longer influenced ... — Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... of China has ordered the construction of two more torpedo boats at the German port ... — The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... officers and men alike should be kept as much as possible on blue water, for it is there only they can learn their duties as they should be learned. The big vessels should be manoeuvred in squadrons containing not merely battle ships, but the necessary proportion of cruisers and scouts. The torpedo boats should be handled by the younger officers in such manner as will best fit the latter to take responsibility and meet the ... — State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... in a dream, she hears the talk Of mine, torpedo, bomb and gun— She shudders, but her thoughts are all Encradled with her ... — Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... batteries would redouble their fire. Might better have saved their powder and let us run into the fields and be blown to bits, you will say. Not at all. They would consider that a waste of good mines. Nobody wants to waste a whole mine on a poor little torpedo boat destroyer — and twenty to forty men. There's no profit ... — The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... pains of maternity as an unmeaning blot on the scheme of things, that I have none left for a more genial emotion. Altogether, I am disappointed in myself as a father. I seem to have no imagination, and at present I would rather touch a loaded torpedo than my son.' ... — The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was upon me before I had thought to execute these instructions, I straightened myself out rigidly, and lo! I shot in like a torpedo on the very top of the billow, holding the point of the board up, yelling like a Comanche Indian. So fast, so straight did I go, that it was all I could do to swerve in the shallow water and not be hurled with force on ... — White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the bridge surpassed in heroism young Osmond Kelly Ingram, who threw overboard the explosives on the American destroyer Cassin in order that the German submarine's torpedo should not detonate them and destroy his ship—and gave his life for his comrades and his country in doing so. Ingram sought danger instead of fleeing it. He might have saved his life without discredit. But he did not think of his ... — The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... Fulton came home to begin her construction. Since his luckless experience with the French Institute he had tested a steamer on the Seine; failed to interest Napoleon; tried, without success, to get the British Government to adopt his torpedo; tried and failed again with the American Government at Washington. Fulton's thoughts seemed to have been riveted on his torpedo; but Livingston was confident of the future of the steamboat, and had ... — American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... with increasing enthusiasm, "Marston will come! and Elphinstone of the torpedo! and the gallant Bloomsbury, and Billsby the brave, and all our friends of the Baltimore Gun Club! And we shall receive them with all the honors! And then we shall establish projectile trains between the Earth and the Moon! Hurrah for ... — All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... effect, a claim to torpedo at sight, without regard to the safety of the crew or passengers, any merchant vessel under any flag. As it is not in the power of the German Admiralty to maintain any surface craft in these waters, the attack can only be delivered ... — New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ravenous man-eaters scent blood from an enormous distance, and their prominent upper fin, which is generally out of the water as they go along at a tremendous pace, may be seen at a great distance, and they can swim at the rate of a mile a minute. A shark somewhat reminds me of the torpedo of the present day, and in my humble ... — Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... branching nerve-cell, or "soul-cell," from the brain of an electric fish (Torpedo), magnified 600 times. In the middle of the cell is the large transparent round nucleus, one nucleolus, and, within the latter again, a nucleolinus. The protoplasm of the cell is split into innumerable fine threads (or ... — The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... as they passed through Palace Yard on their way to the House shuddered as they observed a long, black, wicked-looking motor-car, shaped like a torpedo. In this machine Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING, the new Air-Member for East Herts, had done most of his electioneering. Now he had arrived to take his seat and, rumour said, to make his maiden speech. Would the Front ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... arrangements sailed in secret, and the news was known in American cities scarcely any sooner than it was in France, so careful had the military authorities been not to give the lurking German submarines a chance to torpedo the transports. ... — Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... up to Newport with me at five-thirty," were his first words. "Katy's all ready, and means to sit up till the boat gets in at two-thirty, keeping a little supper hot and hot for you. The Torpedo Station is in its glory just now, and there's going to be a great explosion on ... — In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... the harbor: yachts and cat-boats were out in numbers; schooners and barges sped up the bay, their sails shining against the green Island shores; row-boats and steam-tugs were crossing and recrossing between the city and the Fort and Torpedo Station. A sharp double whistle announced the "Eolus" just started on her up trip, with a long wake of creamy foam behind her. Fleets of white clouds were drifting across the sky, which was bluer than the sea, like ships of heaven, simulating and repeating the movements ... — A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... grappling-iron at its extremity, kept afloat by pieces of cork. This grappling-iron, it was intended, should hook itself to the cable of the vessel it was to destroy, and thus swing the catamaran alongside. It was, indeed, on a larger scale, though with less destructive power, something like Harvey's torpedo of the ... — How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... his hat, shook off the dust from his disordered clothes, and went his way without a word. Barndale went his way also. The band crashed out again, and the crowd once more began its circle. When a torpedo is lowered into the sea, the wound it makes in the water is soon healed. But the torpedo goes on and explodes by-and-by, ... — An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... ask questions, but she sat like one in a dream, taking in with wide-open eyes all the details of the charming view,—the shores, broken by red-roofed villas and cottages rising from clouds of leafy greenery; the Torpedo Island with its tall flag-staff and floating banner over the dwelling of the Commandant; Fort Adams, whose steep glacis seemed powdered with snow just then from the multitude of daisies in bloom upon them; the light-houses; the soft rises of hill; and beyond, the shimmering ... — A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... "The Socratic dialectics, clearing away," says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch. 68; Maurice, Ancient Philosophy, p. 119.] "from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly created consciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it was combined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence ... — The Old Roman World • John Lord
... away toward Fort Powell and Cedar Point. Yet as from her after deck they saw the same exploit, at the same murderous cost, repeated by the Brooklyn and another and another great ship and their consorts, while not a torpedo did its work, they tearfully called the hour "glorious" and "victorious" for the Tennessee and her weak squadron, that still fought on. So it seemed to them even when more dimly, as distance and confusion grew and rain-clouds gathered, they saw a wooden ship ram the Tennessee, ... — Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... thing. A lot of cruisers and torpedo boats were down in the harbor and up the Hudson, and we could see their ... — Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... "a naval architect named DUNKIN claims to have constructed a new style of vessel, impervious to rams, shell, or shot." Now, then, where is our friend, Captain ERICSSON? The Captain has a torpedo which he is anxious to explode, near a strong vessel belonging to somebody else. He says it will blow up anything. DUNIN says nothing can blow up his vessel. A contest between these very positive inventors ... — Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... modern heavy rifled guns into maritime warfare, and if they are not put in an efficient condition we may easily be subjected to humiliation by a hostile power greatly inferior to ourselves. As germane to this subject, I call your attention to the importance of perfecting our submarine-torpedo defenses. The board authorized by the last Congress to report upon the method which should be adopted for the manufacture of heavy ordnance adapted to modern warfare has visited the principal iron and steel works in this country and in Europe. It is hoped ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... of oil consumption; I have had her up to 180 miles. Her steaming radius is about 50,000 miles, depending upon the speed. She carries twelve 16-inch guns, twenty-two 6-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, eight 3-pounders, four rapid-fire guns, six aerial torpedo tubes, and six bomb droppers, which can simultaneously discharge tons of explosives. She has a complement of 1400 officers and men. She required three years and eight months to build at a cost of $10,000,000. In action her entire ship's ... — L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... the latter aim they certainly succeeded. Sunday night was the end of the organised opposition to their movements. After that no body of men would stand against them, so hopeless was the enterprise. Even the crews of the torpedo-boats and destroyers that had brought their quick-firers up the Thames refused to stop, mutinied, and went down again. The only offensive operation men ventured upon after that night was the preparation of mines and pitfalls, and even in that their ... — The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... not tell. But those that took it full gave us an idea of how we were behaving. "Let her have it and see how she'll do," said the skipper, and Howe, who was at the wheel—with his clothes good and dry again—let her have it full. With everything on and tearing through the water like a torpedo-boat, one puff rolled her down till she filled herself chock up between the house and rail, but she kept right on going. Some vessels can't sail at all with decks under, but the Johnnie never stopped. "She's all right, this one," said ... — The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... the ocean; saw a big passenger liner the victim of torpedo fire; saw babies tossed into the water by distracted mothers who jumped in after them to ... — Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... Hampshire as she sank? I tried to trace those boats. I traveled up there and interviewed people who had seen them. I got no good from it. But it kept coming to me that it was not a mine that had sunk the ship, that it was a torpedo from a German submarine, and that Kitchener was on one of the boats that put off and that he had been taken prisoner by the enemy. God knows why that thought persisted—there were reasons against it—it was a boy's theory. But it persisted; I couldn't ... — Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... along the shores of Pelham Bay, how many mint-juleps it had seen drunk on the veranda of the country club, how many kisses it had interrupted; and whether it would rather pry into people's private affairs or look for torpedo-boats and night attacks in time of war. But most of all he wondered why it spent so much of its light on space, sweeping the heavens like a fiery broom with indefatigable zeal. There were no lovers or torpedo-boats up there. Even the birds were in bed, and the Wright brothers were known ... — The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... volunteers, including two of Krsto's own relatives, had gone to Russia's aid. Otherwise "Portartur" would never have fallen. Krsto's cousin was engineer on one of Rozhdjestvcnski's ships. Every one believed England had tried to Sink them by concealing Japanese torpedo boats among the fishing fleet. They, however, kindly absolved me from complicity in the affair, mainly because ... — Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... hellebore, nightshade, belladonna, henbane, aconite; banewort[obs3], bhang, ganja[obs3], hashish; Upas tree. [list of poisonous substances(on-line)] Toxline. rust, worm, helminth[Med], moth, moth and rust, fungus, mildew; dry rot; canker, cankerworm; cancer; torpedo; viper &c. (evil doer) 913; demon &c. 980. [Science of poisons] toxicology. Adj. baneful &c. (bad) 649; poisonous &c. (unwholesome) 657. phr. bibere ... — Roget's Thesaurus
... torpedo-shaped bodies carried by wings of soft brown and dull red—floated about, sipping where and when and as long as they liked. Sometimes the sphinx has almost an aggressive tone In his flight—hasty, important, brooking no ... — Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... convenient place of departure for other more interesting sites, though there is some picturesqueness of costume and situation about it; and the Englishman is pleased to see many ships with the national flag, and to know that one of the great industries of the place is the Whitehead torpedo factory. The Tarsia, as the Rjeka was called, gave the name of Tarsatica to the ancient Liburnian city. The Romans built a castle on the bank of the stream to rein in the ferocious Gepids. Round this castle the ancient Tarsatica grew up. ... — The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... "coast aeroplane" could fly out 30 or 40 miles from land, and rising to a great height, descry any hostile ships on the distant horizon, observe their number, strength, formation and direction, and return within two hours with a report to obtain which would require several swift torpedo-boat destroyers and a much greater time. The question as to whether it would be practicable to bombard an enemy on land or sea with explosive bombs dropped or discharged from flying machines or airships, is one which is much ... — Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... ill as against the normal percentage of 99.31416. As Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should be made over his visit, things was kept down as much as possible, so that, on leaving Calais, the President's boat was escorted by only ten torpedo-boat destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three cruisers, and eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted submarines. There was also a simple and informal escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible balloons having been cut out ... — Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... the weather, so the farmer may know whether or not to prepare to plow, and the Sunday school whether to arrange or to postpone its picnic tomorrow; airships mount the heavens, steamships plough the ocean's bosom, submarine torpedo boats undermine the deep with missiles of death, while photography turns one inside out, and doctors no longer guess at the location of a bullet. All these things have come to pass within my life-time. What may the young before me expect in ... — Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... lost his footing and would have been sucked under by a comber had not Captain Holt grapped him by the collar and landed him on his feet again. Now and then a roller more vicious than the others would hurl a log of wood straight at the cart with the velocity of a torpedo, and swoop back again, the log missing its mark ... — The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... TORPEDO. A cartilaginous fish allied to the rays, furnished with electrical organs, by means of which it is able to give powerful shocks. Also, a contrivance for blowing up ships of war by means ... — The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... hundreds of yards from its goal, the protective mirror was punctured and the freight of high explosive let go, with a silent, but nevertheless terrific, detonation. But now another torpedo was on its way, and another, and another; boring on ruthlessly toward the smaller sphere. Fighting simultaneously three torpedos and the giant globe, the enemy began dodging, darting hither and thither with a stupendous acceleration; but the tiny pursuers could not be shaken off. ... — Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... noticed two British torpedo boat destroyers, one to starboard, the other on the port bow, apparently keeping pace with the Volhynia. They were still there at noon, subjects of speculation among the passengers; and at tea-time their number was increased to five, the three new destroyers appearing ... — The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... and in these disaster-filled times, when men tax their ingenuity to build increasingly powerful aggressive weapons, it was possible that, unknown to the rest of the world, some nation could have been testing such a fearsome machine. The Chassepot rifle led to the torpedo, and the torpedo has led to this underwater battering ram, which in turn will lead to the world putting its foot down. At ... — 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... known merely to a few friends as a clever young engineer, the next his name was on the lips of the civilised world. His first success was followed by a series of remarkable feats, of which his flight above the Atlantic, his race with the torpedo-boat-destroyers across the North Sea, and his sensational display during the military man[oe]uvres on Salisbury Plain, impressed his name and personality firmly upon the fickle mind of the public, and explains the tremendous excitement caused by his inexplicable disappearance during ... — Uncanny Tales • Various
... turned out the typical German soldier, in like manner through other molds they have turned out according to pattern the German secret service man. He is a kind of spy-destroyer performing in his sphere the same service that the torpedo-boat destroyer does in its domain. This man was the German reincarnation of Javert, the police inspector who hung so relentlessly upon the flanks of Jean Valjean. In his stolid silence I read an iron determination to "get" me, and in that flickering ... — In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... There's a torpedo-boat at the Havre at this moment. A telegram from me will bring her to the Needle ... — The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... France held Tunis, France held Bizerta. Tunis and Bizerta would shield temporarily the remains of Serbia. From the end of November, 1915, the smaller French ships, torpedo boats, trawlers and transports made the trip from Durazzo to San Giovanni di Medua to embark the Serbian Army. Great steamers, such as the Natal, Sinai, and Armenie, and a flotilla of armored cruisers followed them. Thirteen thousand men ... — Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... and you'll see," said Rob, and he went on with his task, which was the preparation of something in the fashion of a torpedo, for about a pound of powder had been transferred from their keg to a small tin canister, in whose lid they drove a hole, and passed through it a slow match, made by rubbing a strip of rag with moistened gunpowder, which dried up at once in the hot evening sunshine. At the bottom ... — Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... experienced before. For twenty minutes our shells flayed the German front line, and under this arch of shrieking explosives the battle party crawled right up to the rim of the bombardment. What wire remained uncut was blown to fragments by a torpedo, and when the barrage lifted and came down behind, the raiders jumped into the enemy's trench and set to work. For twenty minutes they bombed and destroyed, cleared dug-outs, pulled down machine guns, barricaded communication trenches, and handed prisoners ... — The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy and worm, start ceiling-high (balkenhoch), and thence fall shattered and supine, to be borne home on shutters, not without indignation, when he proved electric and a torpedo!' ... — Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... temper. In the wooing days everyone is a lamb, and only becomes the howling wolf after marriage. Circumstances that ruffle the temper in the presence of the intended are but like the harmless squib, but would become like the explosive torpedo in his or her absence or in after-marriage. Quarreling caused by matrimonial differences is the most frequent cause of infelicity, and most of it is caused by an innate irate temper of ... — The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... mine fields zigzagged their venomous coils across the channel. The strong, unchanging current of the Dardanelles, flowing steadily south, carried with it all floating mines dropped in the upper reaches. Torpedo tubes ranged on the shore discharged their missiles halfway across the Straits. Before warships could enter these waters a lane had to be swept and kept. Daily, therefore, the minesweepers steamed ahead of the ... — Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... was among the very finest. In this were our boy friends from Chelton, and as they lined up the admiration expressed was unstinted. The Sprint was another splendid speed boat, built with torpedo stern and a queer spray hood at the bow. This was being run by a girl—a young lady noted for her skill at any sort ... — The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... that one of McClellan's shells struck during the first day's bombardment, and split it into fragments. At Gloucester Point, across the York river, the great guns of the Merrimac were planted, it is said, and a fleet of fire-rafts and torpedo-ships were moored in the stream. By all accounts, there could have been no less than five hundred guns behind the Confederate entrenchments, the greater portion, of course, field-pieces, and, as the defending army was composed of one hundred thousand men, we must add that number ... — Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... more anon. Lying in the still waters of the dock, alongside the comparatively big grey cruiser, were the trim little hulls of a numerous flotilla of 20-knot motor launches, newly arrived from Canada, with wicked-looking 13-pounder high-angle guns, stumpy torpedo-boat masts and brand-new White Ensigns and brass-bound decks. These were the advance guard of a fleet of over 500 similar craft, to the command of which many of the officers being trained would, after a period of practical experience at sea, ... — Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... warships, built at a cost of millions of dollars and tenanted by hundreds of hardy sailors, are torn and rent by shot and shell and at times sent to the bottom with all on board by the explosion of torpedoes beneath their unprotected lower hulls. The torpedo boat, the submarine, with other agencies of unseen destruction, have come into play to add enormously to the horrors of naval warfare, while the bomb-dropping airships, letting fall its dire missiles from the sky, has come to add to the dread terror ... — A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... the further advantage of rendering it easier to put the port of Havre quickly in defense. A certain number of floating batteries, anchored behind the breakwaters and protecting the advances of torpedo boats by means of their firing, would make a formidable defense. Not having to perform any evolutions, they might without danger be invested with armor plate thicker than that of ordinary ironclads. In order to complete ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... unusual strength and we would have given it more serious attention had not our eyes been smitten with the sight of a veritable marvel. It might have been the white swan of Lohengrin there on the stony margin of the road, or the green dragon of Whantley, or the Holland submarine torpedo boat; but it was none of these. It ... — The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... Venetian boy-scout on the Lido Had sighted a hostile torpedo, So he cried, "Don't suppoge You can blow up the Doge; You must ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... turn the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach and destroy the enemy vessel before the crew ... — Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... you may look very fetching, if you are nineteen, and the right sex for the adjective. Miss Sally did, being both, and for our own part we think it was inconsiderate and thoughtless of cook. Sally was sprung upon that young man like a torpedo on a ship with no guards out, saying with fascinating geniality through a smile (as one interests oneself in a civility that means nothing) that Mr. Fenwick had just gone out, and she didn't know when he would be back. But why not ask ... — Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... them with a shout of, 'By your leave there, by your leave!' from the unseen porter behind. Mark drew Vincent sharply aside, and then saw Caffyn coming quickly towards them through the crowd, and forgot the torpedo his uncle was doing his best to launch: he felt that with Caffyn came safety. Caffyn, who had evidently been hurrying, gave a sharp glance at the clock: 'Sorry to be late,' he said, as he shook hands. 'Binny fetched me a hansom with a wobbling old animal in it that ran down like a top when we'd ... — The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... besides many billions of indirect expense. The colossal European war just beginning as these pages go to press bids fair to cost immeasurably more aintenance of armies upon a peace-footing-the feeding and clothing of the men, the building and maintenance of barracks and forts, of battleships and torpedo boats, of guns and ammunition, automobiles, aeroplanes, and the increasing list of expensive modern military appurtenances. Europe spends nearly two billion dollars a year in times of peace on its armies and navies-money enough to build ... — Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... describe the nature of another kind of fish. Perhaps the crews of the aforesaid ships have been benumbed into idleness by the touch of a torpedo, by which the right hand of him who attacks it is so deadened—even through the spear by which it is itself wounded—that while still part of a living body it hangs down benumbed without sense or motion. I think some such misfortunes must have happened ... — Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... and there attacked by a submarine. Germany admits that it was a German submarine. The submarine deliberately fired a torpedo at the GREER, followed later by another torpedo attack. In spite of what Hitler's propaganda bureau has invented, and in spite of what any American obstructionist organization may prefer to believe, I tell ... — The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... clouds form almost a solid flooring, one feels very much at sea, and wonders if one is in the navy instead of aviation. The diminutive Nieuports skirt the white expanse like torpedo boats in an arctic sea, and sometimes, far across the cloud-waves, one sights an enemy ... — Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... all his weight and muscle on the left rein. The team and cart swerved that way and crashed like a torpedo into the pillar. The men on the cart went flying like skittles. The driver's strap burst, the pillar rang with the shock, and John Byrnes fell on the car track with a broken shoulder twenty feet away, while Erebus—beautiful, raven-black, best-loved ... — The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... the thirty seconds which brought no response, "let's see you make good! Will you fire a torpedo, or one of the ... — Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... she saw Walter! He was in a beautiful, brand new little two-seater, which was shaped very much like a torpedo and came smartly close to ... — Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... Bramhall's find?" said they. "They've discovered a young torpedo in Ray. He's quite good and they'll probably get into the final. But we needn't be afraid. They've a weak string in Johnson, while we haven't a weakness anywhere. However, we'll take no risks." And so they started a savagely severe system ... — Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... almost against his plate and both hands and both feet manipulating controls, hurled the first torpedo. Propelling rockets viciously aflame, it twisted and looped around the incandescent rods of destruction so thickly and starkly outlined, under perfect control; unaffected by the hideous distortion of all ... — Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... twin, toy torpedo boats—mere streaks of red and black upon the water, with Italy's flag at the taffrail. But the little ships were no toys and Assunta hated them, for the strange craft told of the ceaseless battle waged by authority against the mountain smugglers and ... — The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... and fro with the ebb and flow of the tide at the entrance of Mobile Bay, is a buoy which marks the spot of a deed of purest heroism. A few fathoms below that buoy lies the monitor Tecumseh, sunk by a torpedo at the beginning of the battle, as we have seen, and the buoy commemorates, not the sinking of the ship, but the self-sacrifice of her commander, Tunis ... — American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... Russian Black Sea fleet ran into the Breslau and the Hamidieh and damaged them both in a running fight. A week later Russian torpedo boats sank several Turkish supply boats ... — The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... with shipping and the shore lined with warehouses where the stevedores were already busily engaged in lading or discharging cargoes. On each side of the Moltke, little more than a stone's throw away, lay gray battleships, cruisers, torpedo boats, destroyers, and ... — A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... virtues and graces of the proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown human torpedo. ... — The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... submarine, which was thrown into the struggle in increasing numbers, represented an entirely new development, for the submarine is a vessel which can travel unseen beneath the water and, while still unseen, except for a possible momentary glimpse of a few inches of periscope, can launch a torpedo at long or short range and with deadly accuracy. In these circumstances it became imperative to organize the Admiralty administration to meet new needs, and to press into the service of the central administration a large number of officers charged with the sole duty ... — The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... off and they were in the middle of the canal. The Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan's head. Oh Heavens! a sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down between two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman laugh and a weight upon his back. Down ... — The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... regarding him anxiously. That decided him. With a crashing bellow of rage and a sweep of his powerful tail he darted at the inoffensive head. But it vanished instantly, and a sudden tremendous turmoil, developing into a wake that lengthened out with the speed of a torpedo-boat, showed him the hopelessness of pursuit. Turning abruptly, he swam back to the shore and sulkily withdrew into the thickets to seek ... — In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the plans of the Committee somewhat after the manner of a submarine torpedo. They had everything in readiness for Monday, and the newspapers, which had also got wind of their intentions, had already announced to the public unequivocally that a restricted bond market would be started on that day. With ... — The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... had the "Dodger's" hawsers been cast aboard than the submarine torpedo boat headed out. It was a get-away swift enough—-almost to take the breath of ... — Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... reenforcement. She therefore decided to dispatch a fighting fleet from her home forces. Accordingly on the 29th of April, Admiral Cervera left the Cape Verde Islands and sailed westward with one fast second-class battleship, the Cristobal Colon, three armored cruisers, and two torpedo boat destroyers. It was a reasonably powerful fleet as fleets went in the Spanish War, yet it is difficult to see just what good it could accomplish when it arrived on the scene of action. The naval superiority in the West Indies would still be in the hands of the concentrated American Navy, ... — The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... conception of its import. They did not even realize that war had actually burst upon the serenity of their peaceful lives. Each transport vessel was placed in command of a naval officer, and guarded in its passage across the channel by light cruisers and torpedo destroyers. The transport of the whole Expeditionary Army was completed within ten days, without the loss of a man and with a precision worthy of all military commendation. But such secrecy was maintained that the ... — The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... explosion gave evidence of even greater blast effects than in Hiroshima. Total destruction spread over an area of about 3 square miles. Over a third of the 50,000 buildings in the target area of Nagasaki were destroyed or seriously damaged. The complete destruction of the huge steel works and the torpedo plant was especially impressive. The steel frames of all buildings within a mile of the explosion were pushed away, as by a giant hand, from the point of detonation. The badly burned area extended for 3 miles in length. The hillsides up ... — The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... wounded monster seemed in sore distress. This was Rojestvensky's flag-ship, and the enemy made it one of their chief targets, sweeping its decks until the great ship became a veritable shambles. Admiral Rojestvensky, wounded and his ship slowly settling under him, was transferred in haste to a torpedo-boat destroyer, and as evening came on the huge ship, still fighting desperately, turned turtle and vanished beneath the waves. As for the admiral, the destroyer which bore him was taken and he fell ... — Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... strong to see the most striking objections to such a revelation. From the little we know of the structure of the human understanding, we must be convinced that an overpowering conviction of this kind, instead of tending to the improvement and moral amelioration of man, would act like the touch of a torpedo on all intellectual exertion and would almost put an end to the existence of virtue. If the scriptural denunciations of eternal punishment were brought home with the same certainty to every man's ... — An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... made to the effect that, next to the Zeppelin air ship, M. Santos Dumont's balloon was probably attracting most of the attention of experts. The account given of this air vessel by the Daily Express was somewhat startling. The balloon proper was compared to a large torpedo. Three feet beneath this hangs the gasoline motor which is to supply the power. The propeller is 12 feet in diameter, and is revolved so rapidly by the motor that the engine frequently gets red hot. The only accommodation for the traveller is a little bicycle ... — The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... send the fleet each winter to the Caribbean Sea for manoeuvres, which lasted about four months. In December, 1907, the Atlantic fleet, comprising sixteen battle-ships and a flotilla of torpedo-boats, began a cruise around the world. President Roosevelt steadily adhered to the plan in the face of the most extravagant denunciation on the part of those who declared that it could be considered only ... — History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... make the fleet ready for war, it must be carried out with the fleet in its war composition. All the different elements, battleships, cruisers, torpedo craft, and the rest, must be fully represented, otherwise the admiral would be practising in peace with a different instrument from that with which he would need to ... — Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... ocean; saw a big passenger liner the victim of torpedo fire; saw babies tossed into the water by distracted mothers who jumped in after them to ... — Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... he muttered; "his old brag and ostentation have caught these fools! I wonder where his vessel is? If I could fire a torpedo under it and send them all where young Jack and the other boy have gone to, I shouldn't have a dull moment for the rest of ... — Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... don't know what we've got here, but it's not a natural body. Could be anything from a torpedo on up." ... — Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... follows: "A queer thing has happened here. A cruiser which had come in for repair was due to go out this morning. She was ready for sea the night before, the officers and crew had all come back from short leave, and the working parties had cleared out. Then in the middle watch, when the torpedo lieutenant was testing the circuits, it was discovered that all the cables leading to the guns had been cut. Dawson has been called in, and bids me say that, if you can come down, now is the chance of your life. I will put ... — The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... prove what a mighty factor would have to be reckoned with in the martial aeroplane. Curtiss without any practice at all hit a mimic battle ship fifteen times out of twenty-two shots. His experiment has convinced the military and naval authorities of this country that the aeroplane and the aerial torpedo constitute a new danger against which there is no existing protection. Aerial offensive and defensive strategy is now a problem which demands ... — Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... dozen giant craft, torpedo-shaped and steel-incased, the scarlet fire of their gas blasts holding them poised steady in their fifty-mile-long line. From curious swellings that broke the clean lines of their under-bodies black spheres were dropping in steady streams. ... — When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... before the orthodox Cambridge dons! I like Lubbock's paper very much: how well he writes. (119/3. Sir John Lubbock's paper was a review of Leydig on the Daphniidae. M'Donnell's was "On the Homologies of the Electric Organ of the Torpedo," afterwards used in the "Origin" (see Edition VI., page 150).) M'Donnell, of course, pleases me greatly. But I am very curious to know who wrote the Protozoa article: I shall hear, if it be not a secret, from Lubbock. ... — More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... madder lion than Tom never lived. It was cruel enough to be lassoed and disgrace enough to be "hog-tied," as Jim called it, but to be thrust down into a bag and packed on a horse was adding insult to injury. Tom frothed at the mouth and seemed like a fizzing torpedo about to explode. The lioness being considerably longer and larger, was with difficulty gotten into the other pannier, and her head and paws hung out. Both lions ... — Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the stream all I could think of was that there were a million German submarines with a torpedo on each, across the warhead of which was inscribed my ... — Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... word in aeronautical development is what might be called, for want of a better term, an aerial submarine. I refer to seaplanes carrying in clips beneath the fuselage specially constructed 18-inch torpedoes. In the under side of this type of torpedo is an opening. When the torpedo is dropped into the sea the water, pouring into this opening, sets the propelling mechanism in motion and the projectile goes tearing away on its errand of destruction precisely as though fired from the torpedo-tube of a submarine. ... — Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... much interested in the things about me. Forward, the torpedo-discharge tubes and other apparatus about the little doors in the vessel's nose made it look somewhat like the shield used in boring a ... — The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... of trial and modification, attained the unprecedented speed of 341/2 knots an hour, and His Majesty's navy has possessed, in the Turbinia's younger and greater sister, the Viper, now unhappily lost, a torpedo-destroyer capable of 41 miles an hour. There can be little doubt that the sea speeds of 50 and even 60 miles an hour will be attained within the next few years. But I do not think that these developments will do more than delay the advent of the "explosive" ... — Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... leads people to imagine all sorts of horrors in a document which contains nothing worse than any record of the squabbles of two touchy idlers; and, second, it is clearly a monstrous thing that Douglas should have a torpedo launched at him and timed to explode after his death. The torpedo is a very harmless squib; for there is nothing in it that cannot be guessed from Douglas's own book; but the public does not know that. By the way, it ... — Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... whose duty it was to turn the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach and destroy the enemy vessel before the ... — Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... of eyes swept the horizon, and the intervening spaces of tossing, blue-grey water, for the sight of a sinister periscope, or for the smudge of a friendly cruiser, and when night fell, a thousand pairs of ears listened with strained intentness for the impact of the deadly torpedo or for the ... — The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... Newport with me at five-thirty," were his first words. "Katy's all ready, and means to sit up till the boat gets in at two-thirty, keeping a little supper hot and hot for you. The Torpedo Station is in its glory just now, and there's going to be a great explosion on ... — In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... Torpedo Boat, recently built at Bristol, R. I., for the British Government. The novelties in the placing of the screw, etc. The Peculiar Boiler. 4 figures.—Improved Hopper Steam Dredger. 2 figures.—The St. Gothard Tunnel.—The Beacon Tower of Lavezzi. ... — Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... grey beneath the great brown hood of his duffle—a face so youthful, yet with the knowledge of the command of men writ plain thereon. The propellers have swirled faithfully and unceasingly; the good ship in consequence has cleft the passive waves. But who knows what hideous lurking peril of mine or torpedo we have not survived, what baleful eye has not glowered at us, itself unseen, and retired again to its foul underworld, baulked of its ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... admiral that I was leaving the ship and would like to pay my respects. Sampson is a thin man with a gray beard. He looks like a college professor and has very fine, gentle eyes. He asked me why I meant to leave the ship, and I said I had heard one of the torpedo boats was going to Key West, and I thought I would go with her if he would allow it. He asked if I had seen the cable from Long, and I said I had heard of it, and that I was really going so as not ... — Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Navy Journal thinks the problem of a torpedo boat capable of firing rapidly and with certainty, has at length reached a ... — Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... shivering as in an ague fit. No man is brave in presence of an earthquake, or a bursting boiler, or an exploding torpedo. I could not be expected to feel much courage in presence of the fearful fate that appeared ... — A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... blood on the Gallipoli beach. For the Southland incident was duplicated in almost every particular on the Ballarat in April, 1917. This story was enacted in the waters of the English Channel, and there were no casualties, for the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made easy as each man calmly waited his turn and enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, and again and again did the strains of "Australia Will Be There!" ring out over the waters. As they sang "So Long, Letty," many substituted other ... — "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... knees, examining a queer specimen of purplish moss which had drawn his eye. The eternal scientist in the man could not be downed. Mado had come out armed with one of the bulky kalbite torpedo-projectors and was looking ... — Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... including a powerful pivot-gun, that one of McClellan's shells struck during the first day's bombardment, and split it into fragments. At Gloucester Point, across the York river, the great guns of the Merrimac were planted, it is said, and a fleet of fire-rafts and torpedo-ships were moored in the stream. By all accounts, there could have been no less than five hundred guns behind the Confederate entrenchments, the greater portion, of course, field-pieces, and, as the defending army was composed of one hundred thousand ... — Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... last April, should have given the enemy matter for reflection. Although allowed an hour's time for consideration, the soldiers refused to surrender, and opened fire with their rifles on the battleships. Then, before the Kinshu Maru was blown in two by a torpedo, a number of the Japanese officers and men performed harakiri.... This strong display of the fierce old feudal spirit suggests how dearly a Russian ... — Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... and so they are bluff and slow. Our Admiralty declined to allow a race between these and the French launches in Paris, else, no doubt, the superior speed of the French boats would have astonished John Bull. All this has lately changed, so that launches and torpedo boats in England can steam twenty ... — The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... mishap. Of course each box was provided with a lid, and the plates were so closely packed that a fair amount of shaking would not affect them; the only danger was the spilling of the acid. Mr. Crohne had remarked that a torpedo boat of that size would have 100 indicated horse power, but then the whole boat would be filled with machinery. What might be done with electricity they had, as yet, no idea of. At present, they could only get 33,000 foot pounds from 1 lb. of lead and acid, ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... immediately, revealing her periscope for a minute as she took her observations. Then she launched a torpedo at a big German supply-ship not more than a ... — The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... each session authorized the building of one or more vessels, and the Secretary of the Navy presents an earnest plea for the continuance of this plan. He recommends the authorization of at least one battle ship and six torpedo boats. ... — Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons. This marvellous force of Life of which you boast is a force of Death: Man measures his strength by his destructiveness. ... — Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... rode along, I found the column turned out of the main road, marching through the fields. Close by, in the corner of a fence, was a group of men standing around a handsome young officer, whose foot had been blown to pieces by a torpedo planted in the road. He was waiting for a surgeon to amputate his leg, and told me that he was riding along with the rest of his brigade-staff of the Seventeenth Corps, when a torpedo trodden on by his horse had exploded, killing the horse and literally blowing off all the flesh from one of his legs. ... — Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... does not rust and wear out like cheap tin-plate, and weighs but a fraction of other substances. It is largely replacing brass and copper in all departments of industry — especially where dead weight has to be moved about, and lightness is synonymous with economy — for instance, in bed-plates for torpedo-boat engines, internal fittings for ships instead of wood, complete boats for portage, motor-car parts and boiling-pans for confectionery and in chemical works. The British Admiralty employ it to save weight in the Navy, ... — Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the clouds form almost a solid flooring, one feels very much at sea, and wonders if one is in the navy instead of aviation. The diminutive Nieuports skirt the white expanse like torpedo boats in an arctic sea, and sometimes, far across the cloud-waves, one sights an enemy escadrille, moving ... — Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... the observer helped him into his cumbersome, heavily-padded armor. They checked his instruments, making sure that the protective devices of the suit were functioning at full efficiency. Then all three went out to the flitter. A tiny speedster, really; a torpedo bearing the stubby wings and the ludicrous tail-surfaces, the multifarious driving-, braking-, side-, top-, and under-jets so characteristic of the tricky, cranky, but ultra-maneuverable breed. But this one had something that the ordinary speedster or flitter did not carry; spaced around the needle ... — The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... suspected of being the cause of all the trouble. He, too, wishes to cancel his engagements for the graduating ball, and thinks something ought to be done to those young idiots of yearlings who set off the torpedo. "Nothing could have gone wrong but for them," says he; but the wise heads of the class promptly snub him into silence. "You've simply got to do as we say in this matter, Billy. You've done enough mischief already." And so it results that the message he sends by Uncle Jack is: "Tell mother and ... — Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... hitherto been but potter's clay in her hands, and she had no misgivings now; but she felt that the love of Le Gardeur was a thing she could not tread on without a shock to herself like the counter-stroke of a torpedo to the naked foot of an Indian who rashly steps upon it as it ... — The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... boat hit shore just then, and Phil, caught off his guard, took a header and landed astride one of the gasoline cans. "I wonder if that was a torpedo," he grunted as he ... — The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... will be associated in my mind with the ceaseless ring and din of riveting-hammers, where, day by day, hour by hour, a new fleet is growing, destroyers and torpedo boats alongside monstrous submarines—yonder looms the grim bulk of Super-dreadnought or battle cruiser or the slender shape of ... — Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... to see that it ain't his last!" advised Mickey. "There's no use growing morgue lines on your mug; with all May running wild just to please you and the man in the moon; loosen up, if you have to tickle your liver with a torpedo to start you!" ... — Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the human race, and that in its practice explosives are largely used. To "blow-up" effectively, whether in a literal or figurative sense, is difficult. To improve this power in war, and in the literal sense, I set myself to work. I invented a torpedo, which seemed to me better than any that had yet been brought out. To test its powers, I made a miniature fortification, and blew it up. I also blew up ... — In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... the chance which was offered for Turkey to get back some of what her inveterate Russian enemy had seized in the course of a century and her inveterate British friend had pocketed as the price of her protection. On 29 October a horde of Bedouins invaded the Sinai Peninsula while Turkish torpedo boats raided Odessa, and on 1 November the British ambassador departed from Constantinople. The two Central Empires had enlisted their first ally, and the war had taken another stride ... — A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... had it been taken from him, or had he himself passed it on into another's keeping? There were a few incidents that strengthened the possibility of the latter theory. After the torpedo struck the ship, in the few moments during the launching of the boats, Danvers was seen speaking to a young American girl. No one actually saw him pass anything to her, but he might have done so. It seems to me quite likely that he entrusted ... — The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Roumann again. "I have studied it all out, and I think the projectile, shaped somewhat like a great shell, such as they use in warfare, or, more properly speaking, built like a cigar or a torpedo, is the only feasible means of reaching Mars. We shall go in a projectile, two hundred feet long, and ten feet in diameter at the largest point. That will offer the least resistance to the atmosphere of the earth, though when we get within the ... — Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... thing happened which shocked and startled them with all the force of a torpedo from a U-boat, and left ... — Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... [poisonous plants] hemlock, hellebore, nightshade, belladonna, henbane, aconite; banewort[obs3], bhang, ganja[obs3], hashish; Upas tree. [list of poisonous substances(on-line)] Toxline. rust, worm, helminth[Med], moth, moth and rust, fungus, mildew; dry rot; canker, cankerworm; cancer; torpedo; viper &c. (evil doer) 913; demon &c. 980. [Science of poisons] toxicology. Adj. baneful &c. (bad) 649; poisonous &c. (unwholesome) 657. phr. bibere venenum ... — Roget's Thesaurus
... forts, and cover the landing. Admiral Porter ordered Colonel Ellet to go in advance, with a boat of his ram fleet, to remove the obstructions the Rebels had placed in the river, under the guns of the fort. A raft was attached to the bow of the ram, and on the end of the raft was a torpedo containing a half ton ... — Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... here—possibly till April—people will talk. You know how ready they are. There is also the fact that I have only hired the skis for three weeks. Also—a minor point, but one that touches me rather—that I shall want my hair cut long before March is out. Thomas, imagine me to be a torpedo-destroyer on the Maplin Sands, and tell me what on earth ... — Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... than any other man," Bill declared promptly. "Positively! Everybody ought to know that. He invented a device so that they could smell a German submarine half a mile away, and they could tell when a torpedo was fired. Another invention turned a ship about with her prow facing the torpedo, so that it would be most likely to go plowing and not hit her, as it would with broadside on. I guess that saved many a ... — Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... punctilio; but the consequences were immediate. Buck Malone, of the Mulberry Hills, with a Dewey-like swiftness, got an eight-inch gun swung round from his hurricane deck. But McManus's simile must be the torpedo. He glided in under the guns and slipped a scant three inches of knife blade between the ribs of the Mulberry Hill cruiser. Meanwhile Brick Cleary, a devotee to strategy, had skimmed across the lunch counter and thrown the switch of the electrics, leaving the combat to be waged by the light of ... — Strictly Business • O. Henry
... faces of the passengers as they stampeded for their life-belts, though there was no panic. Nobs rose with a low growl. I rose, also, and over the ship's side, I saw not two hundred yards distant the periscope of a submarine, while racing toward the liner the wake of a torpedo was distinctly visible. We were aboard an American ship—which, of course, was not armed. We were entirely defenseless; yet without warning, ... — The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... on an Antoinette monoplane, to carry off the prize of L1000 offered by the proprietors of the Daily Mail. On the first occasion he fell in mid-Channel, owing to the failure of his motor, and was rescued by a torpedo-boat. His machine was so badly damaged during the salving operations that another had to be sent from Paris, and with this he made a second attempt, which was also unsuccessful. Meanwhile M. Bleriot had arrived on the scene; and on 25th July he crossed the Channel from Calais ... — The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... regular electric cannon. It fires a solid ball, weighing about twenty-five pounds, but instead of powder, which would hardly do under water, and instead of compressed air, which is used in the torpedo tubes of the Government submarines, we use a current of electricity. It forces the cannon ball out with ... — Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... here everything depends upon accurate aim, so that the heavy projectile may hit the right place. For this purpose clever manoeuvring is everything. Moreover, the battles round Port Arthur show us the importance of the torpedo and the mine. The Russian fleet has met with its heaviest losses owing to the clever manoeuvring and the superior torpedo tactics of the Japanese. It looks as if in modern naval battles artillery would prove altogether ... — The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Russian War the Japanese gave orders that a Russian admiral, who was a wounded prisoner of war on board a Japanese torpedo boat, was to be shot if any attempt was made by the Russians to ... — A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... while helping him. After two or three days in bed Fulton went to his foundry to inspect the battery's machinery causing a relapse from which he died. This resulted in some delay in completing the machinery and stopped work on the Mute, an 80-foot, manually propelled, torpedo boat that Fulton was having built ... — Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... the Edison and Sim's torpedo is also driven by an electric motor. In this case the current is conveyed from the ship or fort which discharges the torpedo by an insulated conductor running off a reel carried by the torpedo, the "earth" or return half of ... — The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... destruction; a hideous crash followed, a terrible rending, breaking, smashing, concatenation of noises, succeeded by frightful detonations, as through the gaping hole torn in the great battleship by the deadly torpedo, the water rushed upon the heated boilers, the explosion of which in turn ignited the magazines. By that deadly underwater thrust of the enemy the battleship was reduced in a few moments to a disjointed, disorganized, sinking mass ... — And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Kaiser went to Wilhelmshafen to warn submarine commanders to be careful and that submarines will hunt in pairs, one standing ready to torpedo while the other warns. The German losses at Verdun are small as artillery fire annihilated enemy first. I think an attack will be made now in another part ... — Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... nights which he had spent in them he heard close at hand the sepulchral voices of howling monkeys and the roaring of the jaguars; he saw gigantic serpents coiled like lianas on trees; he knew those slumbering forest lakes full of torpedo-fish and swarming with crocodiles; he knew under what a yoke man lives in those unexplored wildernesses in which are single leaves that exceed a man's size ten times,—wildernesses swarming with blood-drinking mosquitoes, tree-leeches, ... — Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... resourceful friend, its swift and irresistible helper in its serious need, and an indulgent minister to its lighter fancies. Be it whim or emergency, the modern laboratory is equally at the service of romance, equally ready to gratify mankind with a torpedo or ... — Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... the Home-Secretary, "I do not think you would find much difference between oakum-picking and sentry-go, and a plank-bed and a hammock on board a torpedo-boat have each great claim to ... — Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... said Fuller, "let's decide what shape we want to use. As designer, I'd like to point out that a sphere is the strongest, a cube easiest to build, and a torpedo shape the most efficient aerodynamically. However, we intend to use it in space, ... — Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... 1864 a Confederate ironclad ram, the Albemarle, appeared on the waters of Albemarle Sound. As no Union war ship could harm her, Commander W. B. Gushing planned an expedition to destroy her by a torpedo. On the night of October 27, with fourteen companions in a steam launch, he made his way to the ram, blew her up with the torpedo, and with one other man escaped. His adventures on the way back to the fleet read like fiction, ... — A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... courageous, he thought, and looked at Mary closely; but her eyes wandered from him to the phantom-shapes that loomed out of a pale, wintry mist: tramps thrashing their way to the North Sea: a vast, distant liner with tiers of decks one above the other: a darting torpedo-destroyer which flashed by like a ... — The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... so later and the entire convoy, guarded by United States torpedo destroyers, were steaming ... — The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... for firing at torpedo-boats or any hostile craft which might be discovered close to a vessel, were now brought to bear upon the crab, and ball after ball was hurled at her. Some of these struck, but glanced off without penetrating her ... — The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... employed in the capture of fresh water fish,[16] but the most common is a torpedo-shaped trap of bamboo (Fig. 19). Stone conduits lead the water from streams into the open ends of these traps, thus carrying in fish and shrimps. The funnel-shaped opening has the sharpened ends set close together so that it is quite impossible for the prisoners ... — The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... consists of three ships moored one astern of the other, and that not one of them is the old Excellent, she having been removed. Our friend invited us to accompany him on board an old frigate moored a little way up the harbour, from which we could see some interesting torpedo experiments. ... — A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... shop window, and bagged a whole trayful of suburban engagement rings. As it happened, the police had taken up a wrong scent before they got on the right one. But had the watchdogs come along a few minutes earlier they would have found their way blocked effectively. One of the thieves had fired a torpedo in the road just behind the G.-G. to scare the chauffeuse (one of those big, fat torpedoes motorists and bicyclists sometimes use to frighten dogs) and so had secured a clear road to the nearest ferry. The policemen found the fragments of the torpedo ... — The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... Treasury; the use of appropriations for the purchase of subsistence stores without waiting for the beginning of the fiscal year for which the appropriation is made; for additional appropriations for the collection of torpedo material; for increased appropriations for the manufacture of arms; for relieving the various States from indebtedness for arms charged to them during the rebellion; for dropping officers from the rolls ... — Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... "Arcadian." Hot and bright. Dead calm sea. Last night a dense fog during which a Turkish Torpedo boat sneaked down the Straits and torpedoed the Goliath. David and his sling on the grand scale. No details yet to hand. ... — Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... their limitations as to beauty and to brains. Immediately behind her slipped in Mrs. Cripps. The doctor abstained, conscious of having put a match to the fuse which had exploded yesterday's astounding homiletic torpedo. The whole affair irritated him to the point of detestable ill-temper. Still, if only to throw dust in the public eye, the house of Cripps must be represented. He therefore deputed the job—like so many another ungrateful one—to his forlorn-looking and red-eyed spouse. This vote of ... — Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Flag Captain, who, on learning his antecedents, recommended the blushing Reginald for the post of batman to the Senior Wireless Officer. Here his talents showed to such advantage that in a little over a year he received a commission as technical officer, and was placed in charge of an experimental Torpedo School, well away from the storms and tempests that ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... The torpedo talker is of the rapid fire explosive variety. He bursts into a conversation. He scatters labials, dentals, and gutturals in all directions. He is a war-time talker,—boom, burst, bang, roar, crash, ... — Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... merged, rocks did not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, islands of stone had a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, jumping, piercing a broken wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, shooting an almost sheer fall, she came to rely on a sense of intuition rather than memory, for night had transformed ... — The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she's a dandy," said Jim, after the boys had shaken hands and made a few formal inquiries about the interval which had elapsed since last they met. As Jim spoke, his eye roamed over the long torpedo body ... — Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... conscious of a superiority. No neighbour mind serves as a mirror to reflect the generous confidence he felt within himself; and perhaps the man never yet existed, who could maintain his enthusiasm to its full vigour, in the midst of this kind of solitariness. He is touched with the torpedo of mediocrity. I believe that nothing which Mary produced during this period, is marked with those daring flights, which exhibit themselves in the little fiction she composed just before its commencement. ... — Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... morning. Of course, it mayn't be intended to be a likeness of you, skipper, but it's got a pith helmet on, which the up-country nigger doesn't generally add to portraits of himself; and moreover, it's wearing a neat torpedo beard on the end of its chin, delicately ... — A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Dartmouth, heading the list at the passing-out exam, and so at once gaining the rating of midshipman; doing equally well afloat during the subsequent three years and a half, qualifying for Gunnery, Torpedo, and Navigating duties, serving for six months aboard a destroyer, and everywhere gaining the esteem and goodwill of my superiors, here was I, Paul Swinburne, at the age of seventeen and a half, an outcast kicked out of ... — Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... Aristide to leap into the middle of the road. He looked ahead, and there, in a cloud of dust, a thing like a torpedo came swooping down. He held up both his arms, the signal of a motorist in distress. The torpedo approached with slackened speed, and stopped. It was an evil-looking, drab, high-powered racer, and two bears with goggles sat in the midst thereof. ... — The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... among the very finest. In this were our boy friends from Chelton, and as they lined up the admiration expressed was unstinted. The Sprint was another splendid speed boat, built with torpedo stern and a queer spray hood at the bow. This was being run by a girl—a young lady noted for her skill at ... — The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... water line are a serious menace to the vessels carrying them, and they should not be so carried by vessels other than torpedo boats. ... — Porto Rico - Its History, Products and Possibilities... • Arthur D. Hall
... invaluable help, and if sent in sufficient numbers would undoubtedly save a situation which is manifestly critical. But they are required now and in as great numbers as possible. There is no time for delay. The present method of submarine attack is almost entirely by torpedo with the submarine submerged. The gun defense of merchant ships keeps the submarine below the surface but does no more; offensively against a submerged submarine it is useless, and the large majority of the ships torpedoed ... — The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... the Camino in December, 1914, and in the same month Kansas sent the Hannah loaded with flour contributed by the millers of the state. In January and March, 1915, two Massachusetts relief ships, the Harpalyce (sunk by torpedo or mine on a later relief voyage) and Lynorta, sailed. Oregon and California together sent the Cranley in January, 1915, loaded with food and clothing, and several other similar state ships were sent at later dates. ... — Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... Radcliffe Thorpe. One week known merely to a few friends as a clever young engineer, the next his name was on the lips of the civilised world. His first success was followed by a series of remarkable feats, of which his flight above the Atlantic, his race with the torpedo-boat-destroyers across the North Sea, and his sensational display during the military man[oe]uvres on Salisbury Plain, impressed his name and personality firmly upon the fickle mind of the public, and explains the tremendous excitement caused by his inexplicable ... — Uncanny Tales • Various
... also carried a small torpedo-like boat, fitted in a groove along the top, so that it could be entered from the Nautilus by opening a panel, and, after that was closed, the boat could be detached from the submarine, and would then bob upwards to the surface like a cork. The importance ... — The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the Gymnotus electricus that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can listen, too. If they will only note the difference ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... pursuit came on apace, and soon the two vessels were yard-arm to yard-arm engaged in mortal combat. For a while the confusion was so great that it was impossible to say what would be the upshot. But a fortunate torpedo sent the pirate craft to the bottom, and of all her crew, only the skipper survived. He was brought (loaded with chains) before ... — Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... could creep alongside the schooner and do it to her; but that there gunboat's got heavy steel plates right round her, going ever so deep, and they'd be rather too much for my tools. They'd spoil every auger I've got. The skipper hasn't got a torpedo aboard, has he? One of them new 'uns that you winds up and sets a-going with a little screw-propeller somewheres astern, and a head full of nitro— what-d'ye-call-it, which ... — Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... majority of the displays represented scenes of the war,—such as an engagement between Japanese infantry and mounted Cossacks, a night attack by torpedo boats, the sinking of a battleship. In the last-mentioned display, Russian bluejackets appeared, swimming for their lives in a rough sea;—the pasteboard waves and the swimming figures being made to rise and fall by the pulling of a string; while the crackling of quick-firing ... — The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... could. The widening and deepening of the canal system so as to shift boats from the Baltic to the Volga had been considered in the time of the Tzar. It was considered and dismissed as impracticable. Once, indeed, they did try to take two torpedo-boats over, and they lifted them on barges to make the attempt. Well, we said that as the thing could be planned, it could be done, and the canals are deepened and widened, and we took through them, under their own power, seven big destroyers, six small destroyers and four submarine ... — Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... by modern piracy, it would be hard for the fuel contractor to hide his output. The only way that I can see would be for such a pirate to watch out for ships loaded with what was most needed, run up and threaten to torpedo the craft with everybody on board unless they took to the boats, put a prize crew aboard and run that steamer to a lonely beach on an uninhabited island and start a supply depot of his ... — The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... you, Gerald, she's a dandy," said Jim, after the boys had shaken hands and made a few formal inquiries about the interval which had elapsed since last they met. As Jim spoke, his eye roamed over the long torpedo body of the big ... — Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... including two of Krsto's own relatives, had gone to Russia's aid. Otherwise "Portartur" would never have fallen. Krsto's cousin was engineer on one of Rozhdjestvcnski's ships. Every one believed England had tried to Sink them by concealing Japanese torpedo boats among the fishing fleet. They, however, kindly absolved me from complicity in the affair, mainly because I had ... — Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... artificial capacity as formally comes home to the aggregate conscience of those with whom he acts, or bears upon the interests (real or pretended), the importance, respectability, and professed objects of the society. Beyond that point the nerve is bound up, the conscience is seared, and the torpedo-touch of so much inert matter operates to deaden the best feelings and harden the heart. Laughter and tears are said to be the characteristic signs of humanity. Laughter is common enough in such places as a set-off to the mock-gravity; ... — Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... those wonderful and smiling exteriors. During the nights which he had spent in them he heard close at hand the sepulchral voices of howling monkeys and the roaring of the jaguars; he saw gigantic serpents coiled like lianas on trees; he knew those slumbering forest lakes full of torpedo-fish and swarming with crocodiles; he knew under what a yoke man lives in those unexplored wildernesses in which are single leaves that exceed a man's size ten times,—wildernesses swarming with blood-drinking mosquitoes, tree-leeches, and gigantic poisonous spiders. He had experienced ... — Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... warning from tower or headland of the approaching shoal. The student may learn what manner of fish it was (the great Eagle-ray) with whose barbed fin-spine—most primitive of spear-heads—Ulysses was slain; and again, he may learn not a little about that ναρκη {narkê}, or torpedo, to which Meno compared his master Socrates, ... — The Legacy of Greece • Various
... Henry. "And this is how it came about. When I read of the leak in the navy's secrets and the attempts of the Germans to torpedo our transports, I wrote to Captain Hardy about it. I told him we could be just as useful catching German spies in New York as we were in Pennsylvania. He answered and said he didn't think we could be of ... — The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... the Captain, "the torpedo, even of the most improved type, can only keep up this speed of twenty knots for a distance of five hundred yards, within which range the boat discharging it would have to approach before sending it off at the vessel attacked, ... — Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... by the land batteries, for the batteries would redouble their fire. Might better have saved their powder and let us run into the fields and be blown to bits, you will say. Not at all. They would consider that a waste of good mines. Nobody wants to waste a whole mine on a poor little torpedo boat destroyer — and twenty to forty men. There's ... — The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... and Lexington, was the return of Mr. Perkins to his home. A piece of burning punk lay in the road, and presently he stepped on that. The fleeing forces had doubled on their tracks, also, and a fire-cracker exploded near him. Then a torpedo. And there was no enemy in sight to take revenge on. Mr. Perkins hastened his steps and was soon, himself, in ... — The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... parade the ground in the state, compared with his natural self, of scarecrow, and with the dreadful habit of talking to himself quite rageing, was a horrible alternative. Mrs. Baerens at last directed her husband upon the General, trembling as though she watched for the operations of a fish torpedo; and other ladies shared her excessive anxiousness, for Mr. Baerens had the manner and the look of artillery, and on this occasion ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A large branching nerve-cell, or "soul-cell," from the brain of an electric fish (Torpedo), magnified 600 times. In the middle of the cell is the large transparent round nucleus, one nucleolus, and, within the latter again, a nucleolinus. The protoplasm of the cell is split into innumerable fine threads (or fibrils), which are embedded in intercellular ... — The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... Delaware on the 13th of October, heading southeast to look for British merchantmen in the West India track. Her commander was Captain Jacob Jones, a name revived in modern days by a destroyer of the Queenstown fleet in the arduous warfare against the German submarines. Shattered by a torpedo, the Jacob Jones sank in seven minutes, and sixty-four of the officers and crew perished, doing their duty to the last, disciplined, unafraid, so proving themselves worthy of the American naval service and of the memory of the unflinching captain ... — The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... especially adopted for firing at torpedo-boats or any hostile craft which might be discovered close to a vessel, were now brought to bear upon the crab, and ball after ball was hurled at her. Some of these struck, but glanced off ... — The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... Gneisenau were armoured cruisers of 11,600 tons. The Leipzig, the Nuernberg, and the Dresden were light cruisers of about 3,500 tons. The armament of the larger vessels included eight 8.2-inch and six 6-inch guns. The smaller relied upon either ten or twelve 4-inch pieces. Each ship carried torpedo tubes, and the speed of each was about twenty-two or twenty-three knots an hour. The Dresden, however, could go to twenty-seven knots. The squadron possessed all-important allies. Several German merchant-marine companies, notably the Kosmos, plied along the Chilian coast. The tonnage ... — World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... aeroplane. Curtiss without any practice at all hit a mimic battle ship fifteen times out of twenty-two shots. His experiment has convinced the military and naval authorities of this country that the aeroplane and the aerial torpedo constitute a new danger against which there is no existing protection. Aerial offensive and defensive strategy is now a problem which demands ... — Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... is coming: heading direct for us. She's in a hurry, too, crowding on all steam, and eating up the distance like a torpedo-boat destroyer. I think it's a cruiser. It's not the old tub I ... — A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... a doubt seemed to beset him as regards the identity of electricities. 'Is it right,' he seemed to ask, 'to call this agency which I have discovered electricity at all? Are there perfectly conclusive grounds for believing that the electricity of the machine, the pile, the gymnotus and torpedo, magneto-electricity and thermo-electricity, are merely different manifestations of one and the same agent?' To answer this question to his own satisfaction he formally reviewed the knowledge of that day. He added to it new experiments of his own, and finally decided in favour of ... — Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... carried to success—these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the Germans; the danger of the torpedo was ever present on her voyages, and the certainty that if she were sunk, and he captured, any means would be taken to force him to speak before he was shot, was altogether beyond dispute. Even at this moment he carried hidden in a match-box a little phial, which never left him, to put the sure impediment ... — The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... I embarked at Liverpool, on board the Mistress of the Seas, the S.S. Olympic, the largest passenger boat afloat. For three days we lay in the channel, awaiting our escort, four torpedo boat destroyers, and, finally, as the wheel of the mighty leviathan commenced churning the waters, I knew we were really ... — S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... of eight men whose duty it was to turn the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach and destroy the enemy vessel before the crew ... — Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... a torpedo exploding under her chair would have made the heroic damsel quit her post, not for one instant would she leave her parent exposed to the wiles of ... — A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... hummed and spoke. "Captain, I'm getting a very short wave transmission from a point out on the starboard bow. Does that sound like your torpedo?" It ... — Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... no elaborate system of fortification was necessary, and that Rangoon's best security lay in her winding, dangerous river; so I gave it as my opinion that, with two small batteries at Monkey Point and King's Point, and a couple of torpedo-boats, Rangoon would be ... — Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... seemed to him to be a solemn farce. "I never got a chance to deliver it. It is in my pocket at this moment. But I reckon it better not stay there, to rise up in judgment against us," he added, sotto voce, as he arose, went to the fire, drew the white paper torpedo from his vest pocket and dropped it into the flames, where it was instantly ... — Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... a doorway, and stepped into a little torpedo-shaped car that rested on the metal roof behind him. A moment later the little ship rose, and then slanted smoothly down over the edge of the roof, straight for the largest of the ships below. This was the flagship. Nearly a hundred ... — The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... high-piled truck came rolling down on them with a shout of, 'By your leave there, by your leave!' from the unseen porter behind. Mark drew Vincent sharply aside, and then saw Caffyn coming quickly towards them through the crowd, and forgot the torpedo his uncle was doing his best to launch: he felt that with Caffyn came safety. Caffyn, who had evidently been hurrying, gave a sharp glance at the clock: 'Sorry to be late,' he said, as he shook hands. 'Binny fetched me a hansom with a wobbling old ... — The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... predatory eyes that looked like two blaster muzzles. They were all familiar to Pop. Kane was all steel and meanness. The kind of carrion bird that took what others had worked for. Not big time, you understand. In another age he'd have been a torpedo—a hireling killer. But out among the stars he was working for ... — Turnover Point • Alfred Coppel
... Her steaming radius is about 50,000 miles, depending upon the speed. She carries twelve 16-inch guns, twenty-two 6-inch guns, sixteen 4-inch anti-aircraft guns, eight 3-pounders, four rapid-fire guns, six aerial torpedo tubes, and six bomb droppers, which can simultaneously discharge tons of explosives. She has a complement of 1400 officers and men. She required three years and eight months to build at a cost of $10,000,000. In action her entire ship's company is protected by at least six ... — L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... heard of such a thing?" but she ran out to see what it was, and at that moment the cabbage bounded right in front of the pen, hit a big stone, burst open with a noise like a torpedo, and out rolled Buddy Pigg, over and over, just like a pumpkin. But, believe me, he wasn't hurt the least mite, but ... — Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts, failed to materialize, and for weeks the people of Great Britain and Germany could only wonder what had become of their naval forces and why they did not come into contact with each other. A few minor engagements in the North Sea, in which light cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers were concerned, served only to deepen ... — America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... Remember, gentlemen, that this first major expedition is to be purely one of exploration; the one of conquest will set out after you have returned with complete information. You will each report by torpedo every tenth of the year. We do not anticipate any serious difficulty, as we are of course the highest type of life in the Universe; nevertheless, in the unlikely event of trouble, report it. We shall do the rest. In conclusion, I warn you again—let no people know that we exist. Make no conquests, ... — Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... after a considerable amount of trial and modification, attained the unprecedented speed of 341/2 knots an hour, and His Majesty's navy has possessed, in the Turbinia's younger and greater sister, the Viper, now unhappily lost, a torpedo-destroyer capable of 41 miles an hour. There can be little doubt that the sea speeds of 50 and even 60 miles an hour will be attained within the next few years. But I do not think that these developments will do more than delay the advent of the ... — Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... greased with blood. They swept the seas For England; and—we reap the fruits Of their heroic deviltries! Our creed is in the cold machine, The inhuman devildoms of brain, The bolt that splits the midnight main, Loosed at a lever's touch; the lean Torpedo; "Twenty Miles of Power"; The steel-clad Dreadnoughts' dark array! Yet ... we that keep the conning tower Are not so strong as they Whose ... — Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... echo, embargo, grotto, hero, innuendo, motto, mosquito, mulatto, negro, portico (oes or os), potato, tornado, torpedo, veto, volcano. ... — Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... Early next morning, while Admiral Sampson was away at a conference with General Shafter, lookouts on the American battleships descried the Infanta Maria Teresa feeling her way out of the harbor, followed by the remainder of the Spanish fleet, three armored cruisers and two torpedo-boat destroyers. The Americans instantly closed in, directing their fire first against the Teresa and later against the rest of the fleet as they tried to follow their leader out to safety. Once out of the ... — The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... know how ready they are. There is also the fact that I have only hired the skis for three weeks. Also—a minor point, but one that touches me rather—that I shall want my hair cut long before March is out. Thomas, imagine me to be a torpedo-destroyer on the Maplin Sands, and tell me what on ... — Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... Where would the trouble be? 4. Draw a picture to show the parts of your left ear, and name each part. 5. How do you take care of your ears? 6. Comment on doing each of these things:—firing a bean shooter at anyone; throwing gravel or sand; firing off a cap or torpedo close to some one's head; boxing a person on the ear; running a nail cleaner or pencil point into your ear; putting on the baby's cap so that the ears are folded forward; asking your teacher to repeat her question. 7. Have you tried to train your ears? How?—and why? 8. Find out about ... — The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... preceded, followed, and flanked by destroyers; at night every glimmer of light eclipsed, the ships speeding ahead in perfect blackness, each inch of the sea swept by watchful eyes to discover the telltale ripple of a periscope or the trail of a torpedo, gun crews on the alert, depth bombs ready. Nor was the crossing anything like a vacation yachting cruise for the doughboys transported, packed as they were like sardines two and three decks below the waterline, brought up in shifts to catch a brief ... — Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... and the armored cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to train them in manoeuvring together, and to have them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo-boats into a flotilla for practice; securing ample target exercise, so conducted as to raise the standard of our marksmanship; gathering in the small ships from European and South American waters; settling on the number and kind of craft needed as auxiliary cruisers—every ... — Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... There is nothing mean about the British public. "What are a few bales of gun-cotton,' it cries—" a few tons of paltry bullets, in comparison with the march of civilisation and humanity and open markets? We do but give them of our best, our finest Bessemer steel, our latest thing in torpedo-boats—nothing is too good for them. What are we, if not magnanimous?' says the British public. I always like that about it—it never grudges a few millions for war expenditure in the cause of philanthropy! Considering how very sharply it looks after its L s. d. in other directions, ... — 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... whispered. Before I could straighten him out a second and more awful idea hit him. He grabbed a handful of shirt on the first torpedo and poked his face down. "You with China ... — Arm of the Law • Harry Harrison
... they can learn their duties as they should be learned. The big vessels should be manoeuvred in squadrons containing not merely battle ships, but the necessary proportion of cruisers and scouts. The torpedo boats should be handled by the younger officers in such manner as will best fit the latter to take responsibility and meet ... — Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt
... altogether, one of which was larger than the rest. The smaller ones were about eight inches long. All were torpedo-shaped, but had flattened bottoms, which enabled them to stand upright. Two of the smaller ones were empty and unstoppered, the others contained a colourless liquid, and possessed queer-looking, nozzle-like stoppers that were connected ... — A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... same time came news from Spain telling that the Spanish were making ready for hostilities. An exceptionally large number of artisans were at work preparing for sea battle-ships, cruisers, and torpedo-boat destroyers. The cruisers Oquendo and Vizcaya, with the torpedo-boat destroyers Furor and Terror, were already on their way to Cuba, where were stationed the Alphonso XII., the Infanta Isabel, and the Nueva Espana, ... — The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... am to tired to wright ennything. i never had so much fun in my life. i only got burned 5 times. 1 snapcracker went off rite in my face and i coodent see ennything til mother washed my eyes out. Zee Smith fired a torpedo and a peace of it flew rite in the corner of my eye and made a blew spot there. i fired every one of my snapcrackers. it took me ... — The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... in this manner," says our author, "are not more admirable than many of the distempers themselves. Who can apprehend by what impenetrable method the bite of a mad dog, or tarantula, can produce these symptoms? The touch of a torpedo numbness? If they are allowed to do these, doubtless they may the other; and not by miracles, which Spinoza denies the possibility of, but by natural and regular causes, though inscrutable to us. The ... — Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... is over and done with for me: and yet I too feel that this can't last. We sit here talking, and leave everything to Mangan and to chance and to the devil. Think of the powers of destruction that Mangan and his mutual admiration gang wield! It's madness: it's like giving a torpedo to a badly brought up child to play ... — Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all ... — Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... ratsbane[obs3]. [poisonous plants] hemlock, hellebore, nightshade, belladonna, henbane, aconite; banewort[obs3], bhang, ganja[obs3], hashish; Upas tree. [list of poisonous substances(on-line)] Toxline. rust, worm, helminth[Med], moth, moth and rust, fungus, mildew; dry rot; canker, cankerworm; cancer; torpedo; viper &c. (evil doer) 913; demon &c. 980. [Science of poisons] toxicology. Adj. baneful &c. (bad) 649; poisonous &c. (unwholesome) 657. phr. ... — Roget's Thesaurus
... can this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebrae, and then bends to kiss the lady's hand; and where every civilian of any standing does the same? I am not writing of the nobility and of the corps of officers in this connection. No doubt there are black ... — Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... the old man; but when the Italian had bowed himself out and his guests had sunk into their seats again, he said dryly to Fulkerson, "I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well, or the derrick wouldn't look quite so ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... insult failed to move me. The rest of the game was with the salmon. He suffered himself to be drawn, skip-ping with pretended delight at getting to the haven where I would fain bring him. Yet no sooner did he feel shoal water under his ponderous belly than he backed like a torpedo-boat, and the snarl of the reel told me that my labor was in vain. A dozen times, at least, this happened ere the line hinted he had given up the battle and would be towed in. He was towed. The landing-net was useless for one of his size, and I would not have him gaffed. I stepped into ... — American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... out. Order followed order, and soon the gig, with the captain, Trendon, and the torpedo expert, was driving for the point marked "Seal Cave" on the map ... — The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... delay a red light swung slowly to and fro on the ledge. From the extreme end of the canyon below the Cat's Paw came the crash of a track-torpedo, answered almost instantly by a second, above the break. It was the warning signal to get into the clear. There was a buzz of rapid movement among the laborers. In twos and threes and dozens, a ragged procession of lanterns and torches, ... — The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... write at all, or write in such a manner that I might as well not have written at all, for I should most certainly never be read. Good God! to leave a man the alternative of a particular style, or an indictment for a libel, when he sat down to compose, would be like placing a torpedo on his hand; for you cannot, as was most forcibly, and beautifully said by Lord Erskine, "expect men to communicate their free thoughts to one another under the terror of a lash hanging over their heads;" and again, on another occasion, "under such circumstances, no man could sit down to write ... — A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... the harbour we began to meet the sharp-nosed destroyers and torpedo boats that guard the harbour, and as we neared the entrance we were delighted with the view of a vast park and grounds with a castle peeping out from the trees. This park is known as Mount Edgecombe, the seat of Earl ... — The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... been Torpedo's characteristics in days gone by, at this advanced period in his history he possessed none so striking as a stoical inaptitude for being moved. Another of his distinguishing traits was a propensity for grazing which he was prone to indulge at inopportune ... — At Fault • Kate Chopin
... did over sauerkraut and pretzels and Limburger and "wienies", otherwise known as "hot dogs". Actually, Jimmie found, they were hoping to encounter a submarine; not to be hit, of course, but to have the torpedo pass within a foot or two, so that they might have something thrilling to write to ... — Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... his fire until only two miles separated him from his adversaries. After a duel with the Japanese "Matsushima," the Chinese flagship "Tingyuen" was severely damaged, and only saved from sinking by the intervention of her sister ship, the "Chenyuen." These two ironclads, together with the torpedo boats, succeeded in making their escape, but five of the Chinese vessels were sunk or destroyed. In men, the Chinese lost 700 killed or drowned and 300 wounded, while the Japanese lost 115 killed and 150 wounded. The result of this victory was that the Chinese never afterward attempted ... — China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... entertainments. He remarks, that the water of the Gambia above Barraconda has such a strong scent of musk, from the multitude of crocodiles, that infest that part of the river, as to be unfit for use. The torpedo also abounds in the river about Cassan, and at first caused not a little terror and amazement to ... — Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... for boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, and possess, in addition to the author's surpassing knack of storytelling, a great educational value for all ... — Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... force had the batsman struck that he exploded the large torpedo inside the home-made ball. There was a rattling explosion, and Teall, unable to figure, in that first instant, what had happened, sent the ... — The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... mostly, and wet all the time, and with a mutinous crew, and so afraid you'll miss something that you can't write what you have got." Then he added, as an after- thought, "And our cruisers thinking you're a Spanish torpedo-boat and chucking ... — Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... was explained by the submarine explosion of this torpedo. Cyrus Harding could not be mistaken, as, during the war of the Union, he had had occasion to try these terrible engines of destruction. It was under the action of this cylinder, charged with some explosive substance, nitro-glycerine, picrate, or some other material ... — The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... incident was duplicated in almost every particular on the Ballarat in April, 1917. This story was enacted in the waters of the English Channel, and there were no casualties, for the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made easy as each man calmly waited his turn and enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, and again and again did the strains of "Australia Will Be There!" ring out over the waters. As they sang "So ... — "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... last word in naval construction—a torpedo yacht. A small cruiser, with turbines up to date, oil-fuelled, and fully armed with the latest and most perfect weapons and explosives of all kinds. The fastest boat afloat to-day. Built by Thorneycroft, engined by Parsons, armoured by Armstrong, ... — The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... grade just east of Euston, and was cut in two in order that half of it might be drawn to the top at a time. Rear Brakeman Joe was left to guard the part of the train that remained behind, and he did this by walking back a few hundred yards along the track, and placing a torpedo on top of one of the rails. Then he went back as much farther and placed two torpedoes, one a ... — Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... Fuller, "let's decide what shape we want to use. As designer, I'd like to point out that a sphere is the strongest, a cube easiest to build, and a torpedo shape the most efficient aerodynamically. However, we intend to use ... — Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... brigantines, discharging or receiving cargo, while out on the pale-green, translucent surface of the harbor were scattered a dozen or more war-ships of the North Atlantic Squadron, ranging in size from the huge, double-turreted monitor Puritan to the diminutive but dangerous-looking torpedo-boat Dupont. All were in their war-paint of dirty leaden gray, which, although it might add to their effectiveness, certainly did not seem to me to improve their appearance as component parts of an otherwise beautiful marine picture. Beyond the war-ships and nearer to the ... — Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... out in the grounds. He was just thinking sorrowfully, as he listened to the music, how like his own position was to that of the hero of Tennyson's Maud—a poem to which he was greatly addicted, when Mr Pickering's 'Hi!' came out of nowhere and hit him like a torpedo. ... — Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... shower, its shady, pleasant waters were as balm to hot bare legs and burning feet. Flowers of many kinds grew along its banks, while below the bridge where it crossed the road there was always a school of minnows eager to be fed, and now and then one saw something larger dart by—something dark, torpedo-shaped, swift, touched with white along its propellers—a trout. There is no end of entertainment in such things. Summer-time, the country, and childhood—that is a happy combination, and a bit of running water adds ... — Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... him,—by all rational men, that is, excepting the few eyeless deaf persons who have lost both taste and smell in some complete paralysis. The use of Morse's telegraph is by no means confined to the small clique who possess or who understand electrical batteries. It is not only the torpedo or the Gymnotus electricus that can send us messages from the ocean. Whales in the sea can telegraph as well as senators on land, if they will only note the difference between long spoutings and short ones. And they can listen, too. If they will only note the difference between long and short, ... — The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... ten yards off and they were in the middle of the canal. The Mungana had passed it. It was in a line with Alan's head. Oh Heavens! a sudden smother of foam, a rush like that of a torpedo, and set low down between two curving waves, a flash of gold. Then a gurgling, inhuman laugh and a weight upon his back. Down ... — The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... "You've read 'The Riddle of the Sands,' I suppose. You must have. Well, that's exactly what he's at, mapping out mud-banks and things so as to be able to run a masked flotilla of torpedo boats in and out when the time comes. There was one of the same lot caught the other day sketching a fortification in Lough Swilly. Father read it to me ... — Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... not at his best when playing a lone-handed or tactically isolated part in battle. He is not a kamikaze or a one-man torpedo. Consequently, the best tactical results obtain from those dispositions and methods which link the power of one man to that of another. Men who feel strange with their unit, having been carelessly received by it, and indifferently handled, will rarely, ... — The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... him anxiously. That decided him. With a crashing bellow of rage and a sweep of his powerful tail he darted at the inoffensive head. But it vanished instantly, and a sudden tremendous turmoil, developing into a wake that lengthened out with the speed of a torpedo-boat, showed him the hopelessness of pursuit. Turning abruptly, he swam back to the shore and sulkily withdrew into the thickets to seek some less ... — In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... confidence under Sundbeck's capable command; it hummed so that it was a pleasure to hear it. To judge from the sound of the engine-room, one would have thought the Fram was moving through the water with the speed of a torpedo-boat. If this was not the case, the engine was not to blame; possibly, the screw had a share of it. The latter ought probably to have been somewhat larger, though experts are not agreed about this; in any case, there was something radically ... — The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... through on land on the continent, and they make no complaints that commerce is stopped. Everybody tries to ply the Channel and the North Sea as usual, both of which have German and English mines and torpedo craft and submarines almost as thick as batteries along the hostile camps on land. The British Government (which now issues marine insurance) will not insure a British boat to carry food to Holland en route to the starving Belgians; and I hear that no government and no ... — The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... vital powers that makes us insensible to all the virtues and graces of the proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown human torpedo. ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... consisting of four battleships, one armored cruiser and two converted yachts, one of them the "Gloucester," under the command of the intrepid Richard Wainwright—of the entire Spanish fleet, consisting of four powerful armored cruisers of the highest class and two torpedo boat destroyers, under the command ... — Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... had fallen into a well of silence and was not to be extracted by any Hydraulic power, though she smiled like the June sky over her head. Di's peculiarities were out in full force, and she looked as if she would go off like a torpedo at a touch; but through all her moods there was a half-triumphant, half-remorseful expression in the glance she fixed on John. And Laura, once so silent, now sang like a blackbird, as she flitted to and fro; but her fitful song was always, "Philip, ... — A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... tried as an experiment. The envelope was attached to a keel on which was mounted the engine, a 35 horse-power Anzani, driving two swivelling four-bladed propellers. From the keel was suspended a torpedo-shaped boat car in which a crew of two was accommodated. Originally a vertical fin and rudder were mounted at the stern end of the keel, but these were later replaced by fins on the stern ... — British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... she carried a battery of six 16-inch guns. Aft, the turret was similarly equipped. Also the Queen Mary mounted other big guns and rapid firers. She was equipped with an even half-dozen 12-inch torpedo tubes. She was one of the biggest ships of war ... — The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... miles; one of those scuttling Ford delivery trucks. It locked fenders with Casey when he swung to the left. The two cars skidded as one toward the right-hand curb; caught amidships a bright yellow, torpedo-tailed runabout coming up from Main Street, and turned it neatly on its back, its four wheels spinning helplessly in the quiet, sunny morning. Casey himself was catapulted over the runabout, landing abruptly in a sitting position on the corner ... — The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... said they. "They've discovered a young torpedo in Ray. He's quite good and they'll probably get into the final. But we needn't be afraid. They've a weak string in Johnson, while we haven't a weakness anywhere. However, we'll take no risks." And so they started a savagely severe ... — Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Zero, brightening, 'a torpedo in the Thames! Superb, dear fellow! I recognise in you the marks of ... — The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... war had actually burst upon the serenity of their peaceful lives. Each transport vessel was placed in command of a naval officer, and guarded in its passage across the channel by light cruisers and torpedo destroyers. The transport of the whole Expeditionary Army was completed within ten days, without the loss of a man and with a precision worthy of all military commendation. But such secrecy was maintained that the British public remained in ignorance of its passage ... — The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... all creatures. Early in the day, a Patriot (or some say, it was a Patriotess, and indeed Truth is undiscoverable), while standing on the firm deal-board of Fatherland's Altar, feels suddenly, with indescribable torpedo-shock of amazement, his bootsole pricked through from below; he clutches up suddenly this electrified bootsole and foot; discerns next instant—the point of a gimlet or brad-awl playing up, through the firm deal-board, and now hastily drawing ... — The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... us describe the nature of another kind of fish. Perhaps the crews of the aforesaid ships have been benumbed into idleness by the touch of a torpedo, by which the right hand of him who attacks it is so deadened—even through the spear by which it is itself wounded—that while still part of a living body it hangs down benumbed without sense or motion. I ... — Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... as all camps ever were, was full of strange yarns—"shaves" about what was going on at Omdurman, and the Khalifa's intentions. "Abdullah would fight? No, he would run away; he was laying down mines in the Nile to blow up our gunboats. A Tunisian had devised a torpedo, but as it was being lowered from a dervish boat, the machine exploded, and the engineer was hoisted with his own petard." Then there were stories of extraordinary discoveries of precious minerals—gold mines by the score. Two young ... — Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... The submarine, which was thrown into the struggle in increasing numbers, represented an entirely new development, for the submarine is a vessel which can travel unseen beneath the water and, while still unseen, except for a possible momentary glimpse of a few inches of periscope, can launch a torpedo at long or short range and with deadly accuracy. In these circumstances it became imperative to organize the Admiralty administration to meet new needs, and to press into the service of the central administration a large number of officers charged with the sole duty of studying the new ... — The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... The voices would be taken for ventriloquists, whilst scenes heard would be considered to be perceived in catalepsy by a person in good health, and in full possession of his faculties, if not a doctor. At Fiume is the Whitehead torpedo manufactory, but as the hammering and other noises connected with it would prevent the chief persons in charge of the factory from being got at, the hypnotists were doubtless foiled there. Of course they may have got some information indirectly, but ... — Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... Straight as a torpedo it rushed for Delcarte, and, as Taylor and I stumbled on through the tall grass toward our unfortunate comrade, we saw the tiger rear upon him and crush him to ... — The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a mad merry fellow in Mimnermus. This love is that salt that seasoneth our harsh and dull labours, and gives a pleasant relish to our other unsavoury proceedings, [5537]Absit amor, surgunt tenebrae, torpedo, veternum, pestis, &c. All our feasts almost, masques, mummings, banquets, merry meetings, weddings, pleasing songs, fine tunes, poems, love stories, plays, comedies, Atellans, jigs, Fescennines, elegies, odes, &c. proceed hence. ... — The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... supplied with many pairs of nerves larger than any other nerves of the body; but how so large a quantity is so quickly accumulated as to produce such amazing effects in a fluid ill adapted for the purpose is not yet satisfactorily explained. The Torpedo possesses a similar power in a less degree, as was shewn by Mr. Walch, and another fish lately described by Mr. Paterson. ... — The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... fishes offer another case of special difficulty; for it is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced. But this is not surprising, for we do not even know of what use they are. In the gymnotus and torpedo they no doubt serve as powerful means of defence, and perhaps for securing prey; yet in the ray, as observed by Matteucci, an analogous organ in the tail manifests but little electricity, even when the animal is greatly irritated; so little that it can ... — On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... passion for war and its preparations occurs frequently among these early artists. Leonardo designed scores of military engines. Francesco di Giorgio has left a whole bookful of such sketches, in one of which he anticipates the torpedo-boat.[84] So, too, Michael Angelo took his share in erecting fortifications, though he did not fritter away so much time on experiments as some of his contemporaries. Donatello and his colleagues did not even leave us plans to compensate ... — Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... bodies are pressing out with a force great enough to resist this crushing weight of air. But if you were suddenly to go up above the earth's atmosphere, or if you were to stay down here and go into a room from which the air were to be pumped all at once, your body would explode like a torpedo. ... — Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... to the subject of naval construction. Before entering the German Secret Service, I certainly knew the difference between a torpedo and a torpedo boat destroyer, but naturally could not give an accurate description of the various types of destroyers and torpedoes. My instructor in this subject was Lieutenant Captain Kurt Steffens, torpedo expert of the Intelligence Department of the Imperial Navy. After a month ... — The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... confronting her. It was no use to pass the thing over as a misunderstanding on Gladys's part, for Sahwah's flight condemned her. Putting her arm around Gladys, she led her down to the dock and into the launch. She set the engine going at full speed, sending the small craft through the water like a torpedo, the spray dashing over the bow and drenching them both. The excitement of this mad flight through the water made Gladys forget her hurt feelings. She watched Nyoda, fascinated. Nyoda was of a decided athletic ... — The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... to speak of him in this manner:—'Tom is a lively rogue; he remembers a great deal, and can tell many pleasant stories; but a pen is to Tom a torpedo, the touch of it benumbs his hand and his brain.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 209. Goldsmith in his Life of Nash (Cunningham's Goldsmith's Works, iv. 54) says:—'Nash was not born a writer, for whatever ... — Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... no agreeable or timid expression in its angry eyes. He was just expecting Victor Hugo's devil fish to complete his horror when a sudden, sharp, bone-breaking shock struck him from an electrical eel or marine torpedo. This was a real and sensible danger, and as he struggled to ascend the hulk to the rotten half-deck, the spongy substance gave way, the treacherous quicksand, with its smooth, tenacious throat-clutch, slid down and caught him. The danger was ... — Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... at the time of the battles just described, the Spaniards had a fleet of war-ships under the command of Admiral Cervera, an old and able naval commander. In the fleet were four large cruisers and two torpedo-boats. Three of the cruisers were of seven thousand tons burden each, and all could make from eighteen to nineteen knots an hour. Each carried a crew of about five hundred men, and all were well supplied with guns ... — American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... about this consummation more speedily. The firing of a bomb or of a torpedo from an aerial war engine often accomplished in an hour what could not have been accomplished, a few years before, under months, ... — The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... trifling with the holies of your smoking times, trying to light up cigarettes themselves, and jabbering all the time, why then you seize on a civil offer to risk your neck in a racing car as a drowning man would catch at a torpedo if he found ... — In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... glimpse of the narrow entrance to the Grand Harbour, the heavy fortifications whose walls seemed to run down into the sea, and, beyond, the steep slopes, upon which the picturesque city of Valetta is built. A few naval vessels were within sight of the Transport. A wicked looking submarine and a French torpedo boat ... — The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... concealment is mischievous because, first, it leads people to imagine all sorts of horrors in a document which contains nothing worse than any record of the squabbles of two touchy idlers; and, second, it is clearly a monstrous thing that Douglas should have a torpedo launched at him and timed to explode after his death. The torpedo is a very harmless squib; for there is nothing in it that cannot be guessed from Douglas's own book; but the public does not know that. By the way, it is rather a humorous stroke ... — Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... anxiously. That decided him. With a crashing bellow of rage and a sweep of his powerful tail he darted at the inoffensive head. But it vanished instantly, and a sudden tremendous turmoil, developing into a wake that lengthened out with the speed of a torpedo-boat, showed him the hopelessness of pursuit. Turning abruptly, he swam back to the shore and sulkily withdrew into the thickets to seek some less ... — In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... year that less than eighty per cent. of the passengers was ill as against the normal percentage of 99.31416. As Mr. Wilson had requested that no fuss should be made over his visit, things was kept down as much as possible, so that, on leaving Calais, the President's boat was escorted by only ten torpedo-boat destroyers, a couple battle-ships, three cruisers, and eight-twelfths of a dozen assorted submarines. There was also a simple and informal escort of about fifty airy-oplanes, the six dirigible balloons having been cut out of the program in accordance from the President's ... — Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... embargo, grotto, hero, innuendo, motto, mosquito, mulatto, negro, portico (oes or os), potato, tornado, torpedo, ... — Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... in the valley from out of a black shed—the only sign of man's handiwork for many miles—it came—something grey at first, moving slowly as though being pushed down a slight incline, then afloat in the air, gathering speed—something between a torpedo with wings and a great prehistoric insect. Now and then it described strange circles, but mostly it came towards them as swift and as true as an arrow shot from a bow. The two men looked at one another—the shorter, to whose cheeks the Cumberland winds had brought no trace ... — Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... deg. to 100 deg. C. decomposes slowly, and sunlight causes it to undergo a slow decomposition. It can, however, be preserved for years without undergoing any alteration. It is very susceptible to explosions by influence. For instance, a torpedo, even placed at a long distance, may explode a line of torpedoes charged with gun-cotton. The velocity of the propagation of the explosion in metallic tubes filled with pulverised gun-cotton has been found to be from 5,000 to 6,000 mms. per second ... — Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... are bluff and slow. Our Admiralty declined to allow a race between these and the French launches in Paris, else, no doubt, the superior speed of the French boats would have astonished John Bull. All this has lately changed, so that launches and torpedo boats in England can steam twenty miles ... — The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... Confederate ram "Raleigh" was in the Cape Fear River above the town of Smithville, the scene of the last adventure. Cushing obtained permission from his superior officer to ascend the river, and try to blow up the ram with a torpedo. On the night of the 23d of June he started, taking with him Jones and Howarth, the officers who had been with him in the previous trip, and fifteen men. The night was pitchy dark, and all went well as they passed the fort and the little town ... — The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Essad was in San Giovanni harbour. We sent a policeman galloping on to stop it, and followed as fast as our meagre horses would allow. We also heard that a submarine had been in the port the day before and had tried to torpedo the ... — The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... three to four minutes to load, the advantage of quick-firing is not apparent, for here everything depends upon accurate aim, so that the heavy projectile may hit the right place. For this purpose clever manoeuvring is everything. Moreover, the battles round Port Arthur show us the importance of the torpedo and the mine. The Russian fleet has met with its heaviest losses owing to the clever manoeuvring and the superior torpedo tactics of the Japanese. It looks as if in modern naval battles artillery would prove altogether inferior ... — The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... instantly, like the gentleman in The Tempest, he 'suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange.' Other men puffed, snorted, and splashed. George passed through the ocean with the silent dignity of a torpedo. Other men swallowed water, here a mouthful, there a pint, anon, maybe, a quart or so, and returned to the shore like foundering derelicts. George's mouth had all the exclusiveness of a fashionable club. His breast-stroke was a thing to see ... — The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... hear of nothing but smokeless powder and small bore rifles, heavy ironclads and swift cruisers, torpedo boats and dynamite guns. Europe seems hastening on to that time foretold by General Grant when, worn out by a fatal and ruinous policy, she will bow to the supremacy of peace-loving America, and learn anew from her the lessons of ... — The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... occasion when the aeroplane was quite near its destination—the motor of the Antoinette monoplane failed suddenly, and the aviator could do nothing but plane down into the water. On the first occasion he alighted neatly, suffering no injury, and being rescued by a torpedo boat; but in the second descent, striking the water hard, he was thrown forward in his seat and his head injured ... — Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... household might be out in the grounds. He was just thinking sorrowfully, as he listened to the music, how like his own position was to that of the hero of Tennyson's Maud—a poem to which he was greatly addicted, when Mr Pickering's 'Hi!' came out of nowhere and hit him like a torpedo. ... — Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... is so often misunderstood. It should be obvious by this time that her attitude to International Law has always been one of approximate reverence. The shells with which she bombarded Rheims Cathedral were contingent shells, and the Lusitania was sunk by a relative torpedo. Neutrals all over the world, who are smarting just now under a fresh manifestation of Germany's respective goodwill, should try to realise before they take any action what is the precise situation of our chief enemy: He has (relatively) ... — Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... In the Russian War the Japanese gave orders that a Russian admiral, who was a wounded prisoner of war on board a Japanese torpedo boat, was to be shot if any attempt was made by the ... — A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... deliver it. It is in my pocket at this moment. But I reckon it better not stay there, to rise up in judgment against us," he added, sotto voce, as he arose, went to the fire, drew the white paper torpedo from his vest pocket and dropped it into the flames, where it was ... — Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... my clothes, and made my way, in the darkness, through the ward-room to the forward hatchway, and to the gun deck. There I found Admiral Lee, with his officers and men, on deck in their night clothes. I soon learned what was the cause of the excitement. It was an explosion of a hundred-pound torpedo under the bottom of the Minnesota, which had been borne thither by a torpedo-boat manned by Confederates from somewhere up the James river. The officers and men on deck, in the gloom of the night, were discussing in a subdued but excited tone the possibility of capturing the torpedo-boat; but, owing ... — Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... of hull is extremely easy to produce and it is capable of carrying a considerable load. However, it is not a good type to use for all kinds of boats. It makes a splendid little pleasure yacht or submarine-chaser, but for a torpedo-boat destroyer or a freighter it ... — Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... a gunboat, and will be armed with three kinds of guns: one to fire on the surface of the water, a submarine gun to use under the water, and torpedo tubes. ... — The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 30, June 3, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Southland incident was duplicated in almost every particular on the Ballarat in April, 1917. This story was enacted in the waters of the English Channel, and there were no casualties, for the work of rescue by torpedo-boats was made easy as each man calmly waited his turn and enlivened the monotony meanwhile with ragtime, and again and again did the strains of "Australia Will Be There!" ring out over the waters. As they sang ... — "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... assigned a certain area which he is to explore. Remember, gentlemen, that this first major expedition is to be purely one of exploration; the one of conquest will set out after you have returned with complete information. You will each report by torpedo every tenth of the year. We do not anticipate any serious difficulty, as we are of course the highest type of life in the Universe; nevertheless, in the unlikely event of trouble, report it. We shall do the rest. In conclusion, I warn you again—let ... — Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... Guayquerie Indians, who are the most skilful and active fishermen in those parts, brought us a fish, which, they said, benumbed their hands. This fish ascends the little river Manzanares. It is a new species of ray, the lateral spots of which are scarcely visible, and which much resembles the torpedo. The torpedos, which are furnished with an electric organ externally visible, on account of the transparency of the skin, form a genus or subgenus different from the rays properly so called.* (* Cuvier, Regne ... — Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... craft looked exactly like a flat-iron with a match stuck up in the middle; it drew five feet of water or less, carried a four-inch gun forward, which was trained by the ship, and, on account of its persistent rolling, was to live in three degrees worse than a torpedo-boat. When Judson was appointed to take charge of the thing on her little trip of six or seven thousand miles southward, his first remark as he went to look her over in dock was, "Bai Jove, that topmast wants staying forward!" The topmast was a stick about as thick as ... — This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... caught fish here in tolerable quantities, especially when the smoothness of the water permitted us to hale the seyne. Amongst the rest, we got here cavallies, breams, mullets, soles, fiddle-fish, sea eggs, and lobsters; and here, and in no other place, met with that extraordinary fish called the Torpedo, or numbing fish, which is in shape very like the fiddle-fish, and is not to be known from it but by a brown circular spot of about the bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its back; perhaps its figure will be better understood when I say it is a flat fish, much resembling the thorn-back. ... — A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... old man; but when the Italian had bowed himself out and his guests had sunk into their seats again, he said dryly to Fulkerson, "I reckon they didn't have to torpedo that well, or the derrick wouldn't look quite so ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... cheap tin-plate, and weighs but a fraction of other substances. It is largely replacing brass and copper in all departments of industry — especially where dead weight has to be moved about, and lightness is synonymous with economy — for instance, in bed-plates for torpedo-boat engines, internal fittings for ships instead of wood, complete boats for portage, motor-car parts and boiling-pans for confectionery and in chemical works. The British Admiralty employ it to save weight in the Navy, and the war-offices of the European ... — Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... men whose duty it was to turn the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach and destroy the enemy vessel before the crew were suffocated ... — Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... this be possible, I hear it replied, in that land where every officer clacks his heels together with a report like an exploding torpedo, ducks his head from his rigid vertebrae, and then bends to kiss the lady's hand; and where every civilian of any standing does the same? I am not writing of the nobility and of the corps of officers ... — Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... manner so underhanded as to suggest a trap. They knew, as no one else knew, in those quiet mid-summer days of July, that civilization was about to be suddenly and most cruelly torpedoed. The submarine was Germany and the torpedo, Austria, and the work was ... — The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... know not with what authenticity, that Johnson considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said of him, 'Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties[465].' That the literature of this country is much indebted to Birch's activity and diligence must certainly be acknowledged. We have seen that Johnson honoured him with a Greek Epigram[466]; and his correspondence ... — Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... minute, and you'll see," said Rob, and he went on with his task, which was the preparation of something in the fashion of a torpedo, for about a pound of powder had been transferred from their keg to a small tin canister, in whose lid they drove a hole, and passed through it a slow match, made by rubbing a strip of rag with moistened gunpowder, which dried up at once ... — Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... is in Berlin that she has been especially successful. To her credit there are: A bust of her royal highness the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Mr. Gladstone, in marble and bronze; G. F. Watts, in bronze, for the 'Permanent Manchester Art Exhibition'; Mr. Peter Brotherhood, inventor of a torpedo engine, in marble and bronze, which held the place of honor at the Royal Academy the year of its exhibition; Princess Henry of Prussia, in marble; her highness Princess Helena of Saxe-Altenburg; his excellency the Baron von ... — Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... which he placed on his chair before sitting down. "What new monkey shine is that?" growled old Botts. "S-s-s-h, pa," said Johnny anxiously; "I was playing fireworks with Billy Simson this afternoon and I swallowed a torpedo." "Did, eh?" "Yes, and if anything should touch me kinder hard I might go ... — Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... books for boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, who, by degrees, become most expert in this most wonderful and awe-inspiring field of modern naval practice. The books are written by an expert and possess, in addition to the ... — The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... heart-stilling roar of destruction; a hideous crash followed, a terrible rending, breaking, smashing, concatenation of noises, succeeded by frightful detonations, as through the gaping hole torn in the great battleship by the deadly torpedo, the water rushed upon the heated boilers, the explosion of which in turn ignited the magazines. By that deadly underwater thrust of the enemy the battleship was reduced in a few moments to a disjointed, disorganized, sinking mass of shapeless, ... — And Thus He Came • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... relatives, had gone to Russia's aid. Otherwise "Portartur" would never have fallen. Krsto's cousin was engineer on one of Rozhdjestvcnski's ships. Every one believed England had tried to Sink them by concealing Japanese torpedo boats among the fishing fleet. They, however, kindly absolved me from complicity in the affair, mainly because I ... — Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... Dozens of apparently seaworthy boats have gone up the Yangtze-Kiang, not to return. After years of experiment a somewhat satisfactory river-boat has been evolved. It combines the sturdiness of a sea-going tug with the speed of a torpedo-boat destroyer. ... — Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... the vagueness hung heavily. As Dan cast his eyes gloomily into the wake of the tug, he saw a dark object shoot out of the foam and dart down upon them like a torpedo; in fact a torpedo could not have worked more serious effect upon the boat than ... — Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... beams of force held the structure of glowing, bluish metal. It was a small thing, scarcely half the size of Roal. From it curled three thin tentacles of the same bluish metal. Suddenly the generators within F-1 seemed to roar into life. An enormous aura of white light surrounded the small torpedo of metal, and it was shot through with crackling streamers of blue lightning. Lightning cracked and roared from F-1 to the ground near him, and to one machine which had come too close. Suddenly, there ... — The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... "Regarding the sinking of torpedo boat V-187," says the Tageblatt account, "an eyewitness says the small craft fought heroically to the bitter end against overwhelming odds. Quite unexpectedly the V-187 was attacked by a flotilla of English destroyers coming from the north. Hardly had the first shot been fired when ... — The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... conquered. For what would there have been to conquer? Mr. Jeff Davis was constantly writing him to take command of a corps in the confederate army, but Col. Sellers said, no, his duty was at home. And he was by no means idle. He was the inventor of the famous air torpedo, which came very near destroying the Union armies in Missouri, and the city of ... — The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... four hundred thousand tons. Ah, the dear old Bandersnatch! Never can I forget the thrill of exquisite emotion which pervaded my inmost being as I stepped on board in mid-ocean. Everything was in apple-pie order. Bulkheads, girders, and beams shone like glass in the noonday sun. The agile torpedo-catchers had been practising their sports, and I could not resist a feeling of intense pride when I learnt that only fifty of these heroic fellows had that morning perished owing to the accidental explosion of one of their charming playthings at the very crisis of the ... — Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... followed order, and soon the gig, with the captain, Trendon, and the torpedo expert, was driving for the point marked "Seal Cave" on the map ... — The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... long, will you," left her and swam out into the blue with her swift, over-hand stroke. Neville was the best swimmer in a swimming family. She clove the water like a torpedo destroyer, swift and untiring between the hot summer sun and the cool summer sea. She shouted to the others, caught them up, raced them and won, and then they began to duck each other. When the Hilary brothers and sisters were swimming ... — Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... estimate of Tolstoy by Merejkowski. The main points of this study have been known to students who followed Tolstoy's extraordinary career for the past quarter of a century. Ibsen's individualism appeals. Better his torpedo exploding a thousand times under the social ark than the Oriental passivity of the Russian. There is hope in the message of Brand; none in Tolstoy's nihilism. One glorifies the will, the other denies, rejects it. ... — Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... in naval construction—a torpedo yacht. A small cruiser, with turbines up to date, oil-fuelled, and fully armed with the latest and most perfect weapons and explosives of all kinds. The fastest boat afloat to-day. Built by Thorneycroft, engined by Parsons, armoured by Armstrong, armed by Crupp. If she ever comes into action, it ... — The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... mold and turned out the typical German soldier, in like manner through other molds they have turned out according to pattern the German secret service man. He is a kind of spy-destroyer performing in his sphere the same service that the torpedo-boat destroyer does in its domain. This man was the German reincarnation of Javert, the police inspector who hung so relentlessly upon the flanks of Jean Valjean. In his stolid silence I read an iron determination to "get" me, and in that flickering ... — In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... and the fact that an uneven keel made Jonah claw around more than usual, made the whale land-sick. A whale can throw a stream from its snout for about five rods, but when it strikes land that way under heavy ballast it chucks all its load, water and solids, like a torpedo hitting a ship. I have experimented with small whales—say from ten to twenty feet over all, and never knew one to miss when he bumped land. The whale was prepared especially to do that—to release Jonah, and does it ... — Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Boat in the World.—Messrs. Thornycroft & Co., of Chiswick, in making preliminary trials of a torpedo boat built by them for the Spanish navy, have obtained a speed which is worthy of special record. The boat is twin-screw, and the principal dimensions are: Length 147 ft. 6 in., beam 14 ft. 6 in., by 4 ft. 9 in. draught. On a trial at Lower Hope, on ... — Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... his experiments; and trying to overcome the difficulties that presented themselves, Robert Fulton was living in Paris with Joel Barlow. He was in Paris when Napoleon became first consul. At that time he was experimenting with his diving boat and submarine torpedo. Napoleon was so much interested in this work that he gave Fulton ten thousand francs to carry it on. The inventor was in France in 1803 when Napoleon organized his army for the invasion of England. He was surrounded by influential ... — Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... should be kept as much as possible on blue water, for it is there only they can learn their duties as they should be learned. The big vessels should be manoeuvred in squadrons containing not merely battle ships, but the necessary proportion of cruisers and scouts. The torpedo boats should be handled by the younger officers in such manner as will best fit the latter to take responsibility and meet the emergencies ... — State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... originality. "The Socratic dialectics, clearing away," says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch. 68; Maurice, Ancient Philosophy, p. 119.] "from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly created consciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it was combined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence until ... — The Old Roman World • John Lord
... much the same conditions. But in the Civil War weapons and methods were introduced which caused a revolution greater even than that which divided the sailing-ship from the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships in iron armor, and the employment of the torpedo, the ram, and the gun of high power, produced such radically new types that the old ships of the line became at one stroke as antiquated as the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades. Some of these new ... — Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... could make out clearly the coast of Cornwall. As the land grew nearer the famous Eddystone Lighthouse came into view, and, making a great sweep around it, instead of running for Southampton as we all had expected, we headed for Plymouth. A number of torpedo boats, commonly called "Ocean Lice," accompanied us for the last few miles, as a ... — On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... demand that natural and simple feelings shall be ignored, and that every chapter shall record something not less startling than murder or treason, are there not already means for gratifying their tastes? Do not the "Torpedo" and the "Blessing of the Boudoir" give enough of these delicate condiments with the intellectual viands they furnish? Let old-fashioned people enjoy their plain ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... has gone into such matters deeply, paying Mr. Brennan over half a million dollars for his torpedo invention. ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... also the fact that I have only hired the skis for three weeks. Also—a minor point, but one that touches me rather—that I shall want my hair cut long before March is out. Thomas, imagine me to be a torpedo-destroyer on the Maplin Sands, and tell me what on ... — Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... serious injuries to the men employed in the shaft, it reads a new lesson as to the firing of charges of powder by electricity, and one that should be carefully noted by railway and civil engineers, and even by the torpedo service of the United States. The exact cause of the explosion has scarcely been fully and accurately set forth by the various reports ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... soubriquets spoke not of pious parents who had given their children to God, with a Christian name which they trusted would be registered in heaven. They told rather of lawless lives, and a past which must be buried in oblivion or acknowledged with shame and perhaps fear. "Fighting-cock," "Torpedo," "Brimstone," and "the Slasher," were among the leaders who dubbed Blair with the title of "Mum," and so saluted him on all occasions. Blair had a very considerable sense of his own dignity, and was by no means pleased with this style of address. Yet he showed his resentment by increased ... — The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... of Admirals Schley and Sampson, consisting of four battleships, one armored cruiser and two converted yachts, one of them the "Gloucester," under the command of the intrepid Richard Wainwright—of the entire Spanish fleet, consisting of four powerful armored cruisers of the highest class and two torpedo boat destroyers, under the command of ... — Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... the dirigibles this is understandable. They could not be handled by a single man without the aid of mechanical devices. Some are dropped from a cradle which is tilted into a vertical position after the shell has been inserted. Others are fired from a tube not unlike the torpedo tube of a submarine, but which imparts only slight initial velocity to the missile. Its chief force is derived from gravity, and to be assured of its explosion the aviator must discharge it from a height proportionate to ... — Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Dilke had discussed the view of Sir John Colomb and of his brother, Admiral Colomb. The Admiral appeared to rely upon "blockade," which required a navy much stronger than Great Britain possessed, and might, with modern weapons and the torpedo, be impracticable of execution, while Sir John Colomb appeared to admit the necessity of purely military forces to prevent invasion. Dilke, looking at the extent of the Empire to be defended, had thought ... — The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... held up there for three days, during which time I secured pictures of the steamer Dinorah, which limped into port after being torpedoed, of a sailing vessel which had struck a mine, and some interesting scenes on board French torpedo boat destroyers as they returned ... — How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... side, so out I came in those parts. If I don't take the shine off the Sea Serpent, when I get back to Boston, then my name's not Sam Patch'.) 'Well,' says I, 'Professor, send for Sam Patch, the diver, and let him dive down and stick a torpedo in the bottom of the Province and blow it up; or if that won't do, send for some of our steam towboats from our great Eastern cities, and tow it out to sea; you know there's nothing our folks can't do, when they once fairly take hold on a ... — The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Gerald, she's a dandy," said Jim, after the boys had shaken hands and made a few formal inquiries about the interval which had elapsed since last they met. As Jim spoke, his eye roamed over the long torpedo body of the big ... — Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... 1st—the very date on which the Lusitania left New York harbor. This conjunction was bound to appear intentional rather than fortuitous, and even to-day the majority of Americans believe that I must have known beforehand of the design to torpedo the Lusitania. ... — My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... numbers, represented an entirely new development, for the submarine is a vessel which can travel unseen beneath the water and, while still unseen, except for a possible momentary glimpse of a few inches of periscope, can launch a torpedo at long or short range and with deadly accuracy. In these circumstances it became imperative to organize the Admiralty administration to meet new needs, and to press into the service of the central administration a large number of officers charged with the sole duty of studying the ... — The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... in the lecture before the orthodox Cambridge dons! I like Lubbock's paper very much: how well he writes. (119/3. Sir John Lubbock's paper was a review of Leydig on the Daphniidae. M'Donnell's was "On the Homologies of the Electric Organ of the Torpedo," afterwards used in the "Origin" (see Edition VI., page 150).) M'Donnell, of course, pleases me greatly. But I am very curious to know who wrote the Protozoa article: I shall hear, if it be not a secret, ... — More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... further advantage of rendering it easier to put the port of Havre quickly in defense. A certain number of floating batteries, anchored behind the breakwaters and protecting the advances of torpedo boats by means of their firing, would make a formidable defense. Not having to perform any evolutions, they might without danger be invested with armor plate thicker than that of ordinary ironclads. In order to complete the system, there might be erected upon ... — Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... could not complain, or the poor man seemed as if he would have shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a smooth front to it; which happily, though difficult, was not impossible to do. I began again at the beginning; to such a wretched paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand never found to do: at which I have worn myself these two months to the hue of saffron, to the humor of incipient desperation; and now, four days ago, perceiving well that I was like a man swimming in an element that grew ever rarer, till at last it became vacuum (think ... — The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... these life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about by an overgrown human torpedo. ... — The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... waters looked at night-time from daytime. Outlines seemed merged, rocks did not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, islands of stone had a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, jumping, piercing a broken wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, shooting an almost sheer fall, she came to rely on a sense of intuition rather than memory, for night had transformed ... — Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... and at the rear, the torpedo-boat destroyers were scouting vigilantly, with gunners standing by ready to fire promptly at any periscope or conning tower of an enemy craft ... — Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... anti-British feeling, and it was said that her activity in running up earthworks and apparently impregnable fortifications was in anticipation of Disraeli declaring war and ordering the fleet to bombard the Crimean ports; hence, too, in addition to the strong fortifications, torpedo mines were laid for miles along the seaboard, and every possible means and opportunity were taken to make it widely known that the Black Sea was one deadly mine-field. The Press on all sides was, as usual, brimful of reports ... — Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... definitely agreed to warn the crews and passengers of passenger liners. We have lived up to that promise in every way. We are not out to torpedo without warning neutral ships bound for England. Our submarines have respected every one of them so far, and they have met scores in the North Sea, the ... — Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... third. It has also been played in Italy long ago. The voices would be taken for ventriloquists, whilst scenes heard would be considered to be perceived in catalepsy by a person in good health, and in full possession of his faculties, if not a doctor. At Fiume is the Whitehead torpedo manufactory, but as the hammering and other noises connected with it would prevent the chief persons in charge of the factory from being got at, the hypnotists were doubtless foiled there. Of course they may have got some information indirectly, but ... — Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... there is on land in Germany. Nobody tries to get goods through on land on the continent, and they make no complaints that commerce is stopped. Everybody tries to ply the Channel and the North Sea as usual, both of which have German and English mines and torpedo craft and submarines almost as thick as batteries along the hostile camps on land. The British Government (which now issues marine insurance) will not insure a British boat to carry food to Holland en route to the starving Belgians; and I hear that no government ... — The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... tried to use her wireless, that she brought herself into position to fire on the Wolf, and that preparations were being made to use her gun. If the Hitachi had manoeuvred at all, it was simply so that she should not[1] present her broadside as a target for a torpedo from the raider. ... — Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... dollars and tenanted by hundreds of hardy sailors, are torn and rent by shot and shell and at times sent to the bottom with all on board by the explosion of torpedoes beneath their unprotected lower hulls. The torpedo boat, the submarine, with other agencies of unseen destruction, have come into play to add enormously to the horrors of naval warfare, while the bomb-dropping airships, letting fall its dire missiles from the sky, has come to add to the dread ... — A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... had given us some warning, but the sudden dash of the long, snaky torpedo boat from out the haze came as a decided shock. For one brief moment we of the after port stood as if turned to stone, then every man ran to his quarters and stood ready to do his duty. With a cry, our second ... — A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... time you get to the entrance of the Channel you will probably find it swarming with French cruisers and torpedo-destroyers, so if you'll be advised by me, you'll leave Queenstown out and get as far north ... — A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... along the sides; there were undecked cannon sloops and richly gilded frigates, which were models of the ones the kings had used on their travels. Finally, there were also the heavy, broad armour-plated ships with towers and cannon on deck—such as are in use nowadays; and narrow, shining torpedo boats ... — The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
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