"Nitre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nitre is excellent. Apply it to the face with the finger moistened with water and ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... Nomenclature of Acids in general, and particularly of those drawn from Nitre and ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... up the lines with fine plates of a different metal; the two were then united with the assistance of heat, and the whole burnished. Pliny has preserved a receipt for solder, which probably was used in these works. It is called santerna; and the principal ingredients are borax, nitre, and copperas, pounded, with a small quantity of gold and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... with the properties of the composition of nitre, salt of tartar, and sulphur, called pulvis fulminans. Of this, the explosion is produced by heat alone. Monsieur Bertholet, by dissolving silver in the nitrous acid, precipitating it with lime-water, and drying the precipitate on ammoniac, has discovered a powder, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... charcoal, distilled sulphur, and the purest nitre are powdered and mixed in a revolving drum,made into a paste with water, put under great pressure between sheets of gun metal, granulated, sifted, to separate the coarse and fine grains, and glazed by revolving in a barrel ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... lb. gunny-bags: and was now mashing it to music, bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in line, with huge wooden beetles called commanders, and lifted them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical power and unison, singing as follows, with a ponderous bump on the first note ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... acknowledges, however, "rubedo, calor, dolor," among its symptoms. Cochlearia, theriaca and similar articles, according to him, are almost always injurious. If no foetor exist, (and, of coarse, no actual mortification,) he applies a solution of sal ammoniac or nitre, with some vinegar or lemon juice; sometimes as a lotion, sometimes by keeping a rag imbued with it always in the ulcer. Hard rubbing he reprobates. If the disease have made progress, and foetor exist, muriatic ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... you wish to purify, in an equal measure of boiling water; a cupful of one to a cupful of the other. Strain this solution, and, letting it cool gradually, somewhat less than three-fourths of the nitre will separate in regular crystals. Saltpetre exists in the ashes of many plants, of which tobacco is one; it is also found copiously on the ground in many places, in saltpans, or simply as an effloresence. Rubbish, such as old mud huts, and mortar, generally abounds with it. (It ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... aeriform by appropriated degrees of heat. On the contrary, this elastic matter of heat, termed Calorique in the new nomenclature of the French Academicians, is liable to become consolidated itself in its combinations with some bodies, as perhaps in nitre, and probably in combustible bodies as sulphur and charcoal. See note on l. 232, of this Canto. Modern philosophers have not yet been able to decide whether light and heat be different fluids, or modifications of the same fluid, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... diminished: however, we knew every hour must lessen them, and I only waited for F——'s paroxysm of fever to subside about mid-day to send him off to Christchurch. I had exhausted my simple remedies, consisting of a spoonful of sweet spirits of nitre and a little weak brandy and water and did not think it right to let things go on in this way without advice: he was so weak he could hardly mount his horse; indeed he had to be fairly lifted on the old quiet station hack I have before mentioned ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... mint, of cinnamon, of sweet fennel-seeds, of treacle, aqua vitae, spirits of ammoniacal volatile oil, of sal ammoniac, dulcified spirits of nitre and of sal ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... Missisippi, and to the north of the famous river of Missouri, which we are now to cross. This river takes its rise at eight hundred leagues distance, as is alledged, from the place where it discharges itself into the Missisippi. Its waters are muddy, thick, and charged with nitre; and these are the waters that make the Missisippi muddy down to the sea, its waters being extremely clear above the confluence of the Missouri: the reason is, that the former rolls its waters over a sand and pretty firm ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... authorized by royal proclamation to dig up the floors of all dove-houses, stables, &c. In France, the plaster of old walls is washed to separate the nitrate of lime, which is a soluble salt, and this, by means of potash, or muriate of potash, is afterwards converted into nitre. Mr. Bowles, in his Introduction to the Natural History of Spain, assures us there is enough saltpetre in that country to supply all Europe ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... Iller, settling a dispute among the fishermen. On one of his journeys to fetch wine from Constance, at the hospice there he fell in with a man who could fire balls out of a machine by means of nitre, and who boasted that he could demolish with this weapon a certain castle in the neighbourhood. Over supper they began to argue, the artillerist maintaining that nitre was cold, and that the explosion which discharged the balls was caused by the contrariety ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... attention to the circumstance at that time, the flame of the candle, besides being larger, burned with more splendour and heat than in that species of nitrous air; and a piece of red-hot wood sparkled in it, exactly like paper dipped in a solution of nitre, and it consumed very fast—an experiment which I had never thought of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... the milk. This may be remedied—to a considerable extent, if not wholly—by the use of salt, or salt hay, and by feeding at the time of milking, or immediately after, or by steaming before feeding, or putting a small quantity of the solution of nitre into the ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... the same as at Timbuctoo; the muskets, which are matchlocks, are made in the country. They are very dexterous in throwing the lance. Gunpowder is also manufactured there; the brimstone is brought from Fas; the charcoal they make; and he believes they prepare the nitre.[83] Their arrows are feathered and barbed; the bows are all cross-bows, with triggers; the arrows, 20 to 40 in a quiver, are made of hides, and hang on the left side. The king never goes to war in person. The soldiers have a peculiar dress; their heads ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... cave in which they were found, abounded in nitre, copperas, alum, and salts. The whole of this covering, with the baskets, was perfectly sound, without any ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... attacked with a Fever. I saw her for the first time on the 20th, and found her Pulse quick, full, and strong. She complained of a violent Head-ach; for which she was blooded, and took the saline Mixture, with Nitre and Contrayerva. Next Day, the 21st, her Blood appeared very sizy, and she complained of having been costive for some Days. We gave her immediately an Ounce of the sal catharticum amarum, which operated well. She continued much in ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... acid gas, consists of about twenty-five parts of oxygen, and nine of carbon, devested of the mucilage and yest that rises with it. It should be recollected, that the decomposition of pyrites, the formation of nitre, respiration, fermentation, &c. are low degrees of combustion, and though it is the property of combustion to form fixed and phlogisticated airs, both the modes of doing it, and the quantity of the products, depend on the manner of oxygenating them in the changes brought about ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... Powdered nitre moistened with water and applied to the face night and morning, is said to remove freckles without injury ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... who has seen the thunder, from on high, Discharged by Jove with such a horrid sound, Descend where nitre, coal, and sulphur lie, Stored up for use in magazine profound, Which scarce has reached — but touched it, ere the sky Is in a flame, as well as burning ground, Firm walls are split, and solid marbles riven, And flying stones cast up as ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... 1801, Sir H. Davy knew that "dry nitre, caustic potash, and soda are conductors of galvanism when rendered fluid by a high degree of heat," (Journals of the Royal Institution, 1802, p. 53,) but was not aware of the general law which I have been engaged ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... Martin have just received from Philadelphia and Baltimore: Opium, Mercury, Jolap, Ipecacoanha, Nitre, Glanker Salts, Gum Kino, Columbo root, assorted vials, carts, etc. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... build themselves into crystals, each of their own peculiar form, and we see that there is here a wonderful order, such as we should never have dreamt of, if we had not proved it. If you possess a microscope you may watch the growth of crystals yourself by melting some common powdered nitre in a little water till you find that no more will melt in it. Then put a few drops of this water on a warm glass slide and place it under the microscope. As the drops dry you will see the long transparent needles of nitre forming on the glass, and notice how regularly these ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... carpet? Or can't you ride to Gallipoli? Here are some excellent white-tailed mules, good enough for Pindar, whom Colvocoressis has just brought in from the monastery. 'Transportation for one!' Is there anything to be brought back? Nitre, powder, lead, junk, hard-tack, mules, horses, pigs, polenta, or olla podrida, or other of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... words which Worcester and the English dictionaries spell re, while Webster, the Century, and the Standard prefer er:Calibre, centre, litre, lustre, maneuvre (I. maneuver), meagre, metre, mitre, nitre, ochre, ombre, piastre, sabre, sceptre, ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... thee with nitre, and take thee much sope, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... of green leaves and tender branches of the elder-tree, or with a solution of nitre made in the proportion of 1 oz. of nitre to each gallon of water. Another good remedy is to scatter sulphur over the leaves while the dew is upon them, afterwards giving them a ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... cobalt that serves for painting on porcelain, the gray, black specular nickel, etc.; native iron near the Bay of Samana, in the Mornes-du-Cap, and at Haut-and Bas-Moustique; other forms of that metal abound in numerous places, crystallized, spathic, micaceous, etc. Nitre can be procured in the Cibao, that great storehouse which has specimens of almost every metal, salt, and mineral; borax at Jacmel and Dondon, native alum at Dondon, and aluminous earth near Port-au-Prince; vitriol, of various forms, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... strongest vessels, and sometimes of disappearing in explosions and flames, they concluded must be the indwelling spirit or soul of the body, from which the fire had driven them forth. It was the Chaldee doctrine realized. Thus they obtained the spirit of wine, the spirit of salt, the spirit of nitre. We still retain in commerce these designations, though their significance is lost. When first introduced they had a strictly literal meaning. Alchemy, with its essences, quintessences, and spirits, was Pantheism materialized. God was seen to be in ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... labour of Copyists by device of Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had invented the Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling: what will the last do? Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was in the old-world Grazier,—sick of lugging ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... of bats had harbored and died here from time immemorial, that more than a hundred acres of the earthy floor of the cave had, from their decomposing remains, become impregnated with nitre; and during the years 1812 to 1814, a party of saltpetre-makers took up their residence here. They made great vats in the cave, in which they lixiviated the impregnated earth, and by wooden pipes conveyed it to a place where they boiled the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... taken down with yellow fever, which broke out suddenly and raged with a fearful violence. To the ordinary odours of carcasses and garbage, were added those of vinegar, tar, nitre, garlic, and gunpowder. Every disinfectant America had ever heard of was given a trial, and every man who possessed a shot-gun fired it all day and all night. The bells tolled incessantly. The din and the smells were hideous, the death carts rattled from dawn till dawn; many were left unburied ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... red of the present day, however, is an artificial product, containing no earthy base, and therefore improperly classed among the ochres. It is prepared by calcining sulphate of iron, to which a little nitre may be advantageously added. The result is a peroxide of iron, resembling light red, but more powerful, and of a more scarlet hue. It is very permanent, but being a purely iron pigment, should be cautiously employed ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... poor "Patenas," their phenomena obscure Rice lands between the hills Soil of the plains, "Talawas" IV. Metals.—Tin Gold, nickel, cobalt Quicksilver (note) Iron V. Minerals.—Anthracite, plumbago, kaolin, nitre caves List of Ceylon minerals (note) VI. Gems, ancient fame of Rose-coloured quartz (note) Mode of searching for gems Rubies Sapphire, topaz, garnet, and cinnamon stone, cat's-eye, amethyst, moonstone 37, Diamond not found in Ceylon (note) Gem-finders ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... he gave oftener than any other, was nitre; which he ordered in doses of twenty or thirty grains to adults, and of three grains to infants. Measles, colics, sciatica, headache, giddiness, and many other ailments, all found themselves treated, and I trust bettered, by nitre; a pretty safe medicine in ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to the worship of the Sun; and they were generally situated near hot springs, or else upon foul and fetid lakes, and pools of bitumen. It is, also, not uncommon to find near them mines of salt and nitre; and caverns sending forth pestilential exhalations. The Elysian plain, near the Catacombs in Egypt, stood upon the foul Charonian canal; which was so noisome, that every fetid ditch and cavern was from it called Charonian. Asia Proper comprehended little more than Phrygia, and ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... those who perchance read them. In this pioneer contribution on gunpowder analysis the charcoal of the powder is often called "oxid of carbon." In referring to the separation of potassium and sodium it is recommended to precipitate out the first in the form of tartrate. Naturally, nitre itself comes in for serious thought and the explosibility of the mixture of charcoal, nitre and sulphur arrests the author's attention, for ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... or too far gone in the common duration of life and even in that case, it will lessen the pain, lengthen life, and make death easier, especially if joined with small interspersed bleedings, millepedes, crabs' eyes prepared, nitre and rhubarb, properly managed. But the diet, even after the cure, must be continued, and never after greatly altered, unless it be into ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... was "acid to the taste and contained two grains of nitre," but Cavendish, suspecting that this was due to impurities, tried another experiment that proved conclusively that his opinions were correct. "I therefore made another experiment," he says, "with some more of the same ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the simplest accident. A short, feverish attack of illness having seized Mrs. Morgan, the housekeeper, on the night of Fenton's removal, she persuaded one of the maids to sit up with her, in order to provide her with whey and nitre, which she took from time to time, for the purpose of relieving her by cooling the system. The attack though short was a sharp one, and the poor woman was really very ill. In the course of the night, this girl was somewhat surprised by hearing noises ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... rate at which stalagmites grow has been tested in this cavern by a lantern which was dropped in 1812 and found cemented to the floor in 1843, since which its upward progress has been carefully watched. The Mammoth Cave contains immense quantities of nitre. During the great American Civil War, most of that used was found here, and as gunpowder contains two-thirds of nitre to all its other ingredients, these caverns were of great value to the nation. The Mammoth Cave is now private property, belonging to Dr. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... The deacon received this rebuke with great respect. After their prayer together, one of the company begged of the saint to be cured of the tertian ague. He answered: "You desire to be freed from a sickness which is beneficial to you. As nitre cleanses the body, so distempers and other chastisements purify the soul." However, he blessed some oil and gave it to him: he vomited plentifully after it, and was from that moment perfectly cured. They returned to their lodgings, where, by his orders, they ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the cutting of the sharpest instrument: whence the houses that are built of it in the two cities, appear as hewn out of one solid rock, and become harder, the more they are exposed to the inclemencies of the weather. This hardness may, with good reason, be ascribed to the salt of nitre, which contracts a certain viscidity from the rain wherewith it is mixed, and which easily penetrates into these stones, because their substance is spongy and cretaceous, and adheres to ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... the cellar where the eggs were supposed to be hatching in their nest. An unwary hound sniffing about the door got a throatful of the stinging smoke and fled yowling. Hydrochloric acid, vitriol and nitre-glycerine are kittle things to meddle with, and the place was ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... the method of producing smoke and sparks from the mouth has been still further improved. The fire can now be produced in various ways. One way is by the use of a piece of thick cotton string which has been soaked in a solution of nitre and then thoroughly dried. This string, when once lighted, burns very slowly and a piece one inch long is sufficient for the purpose. Some performers prefer a small piece of punk, as it requires no preparation. Still others use tinder made by burning ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... a mixture of two parts nitre, two parts neutral carbonate of potash, one part of sulphur, and six parts of common salt, all finely pulverized, makes a very powerful fulminating powder. M. Landgerbe adopts the extraordinary error of supposing that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... The consumption of raw spirits among the rebel ranks must have been enormous during the day; for every rebel canteen found on the field had been filled with that maddening compound, with or without the fiendish addition of the sulphur and nitre of gunpowder. Their attacks were like the rolling of billows toward a beach: their waves of battle swept up with raging fierceness, but broke and receded at every dash; and, like the waves when the tide is ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... tincture of myrrh, and give a gentle aperient. He should endeavour to rouse and support the system by tonic medicines, as gentian and colomba with ginger, adding to two drachms of the first two, and one drachm of the last, half an ounce of nitre; but he should place most dependence on nourishing food. Until the mouth is tolerably sound, it is probable that the animal will not be induced to eat; but it will occasionally sip a little fluid, and, therefore, gruel should be always within its reach. More should occasionally be ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... or a Philosophical Discourse of the Nature, Generation, place and Artificial Extraction of Nitre, with its Virtues and Uses, by William Clerke M. ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... flopping, Washed-out roses; Eaves dropping, Red noses; Pools, splashes, Spouts, spirts; Swollen sashes. Gutters, squirts; Limp curls, Splashed hose; Pretty girls, Damp shows; Piled grates, Cold shivers; Aching pates, Sluggish livers; Morn cruel, Eve a biter; Hot gruel, Sweet nitre; Voice a creaky Cracked cadenza, Face "peaky," INFLUENZA!!! Gloom growing, Glum, glummer Noses (and nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... is wrong and mine right, or else it's just the other way. I wrote some verses, funny ones, and sent her to-day, and she returned for answer that verse in Proverbs about vinegar on nitre, and seemed distressed that I ever had such worldly and funny thoughts. I told her I should like her better if she ever had any but solemn ones, whence we rushed into a discussion about proprieties and I maintained ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... marvelously rich, are still being made all over the state, in hitherto unknown and undeveloped territory. Besides gold, silver and copper, immense deposits of salt, borax, lime, platinum, sulphur, soda, potash-salts, cinnabar, arsenical ores, zinc, coal, antimony, cobalt, nickel, nitre, isinglass, manganese, alum, kaolin, iron, gypsum, mica and graphite exist in ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... or one of the effects, of a cause, is, not to produce of itself a certain phenomenon, but to fit something else for producing it. In other words, there is a case of causation in which the effect is to invest an object with a certain property. When sulphur, charcoal, and nitre are put together in certain proportions and in a certain manner, the effect is, not an explosion, but that the mixture acquires a property by which, in given circumstances, it will explode. The various causes, natural and artificial, which educate the human body or the human mind, have ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... that flame cannot subsist long without change of air, so that the common air is necessary to it, except in the case of substances, into the composition of which nitre enters, for these will burn in vacuo, in fixed air, and even under water, as is evident in some rockets, which are made for this purpose. The quantity of air which even a small flame requires to keep it burning is prodigious. It is generally said, that an ordinary candle ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... so that the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre digested in aqua regia, and diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... burned with carbonaceous matter, the product is carbonate of potash. The ashes left by burning wood contain the same salt. The ashes left by burning sea-weed produce carbonate of soda. When nitre is burned with sulphur, the product is sulphate of potash, etc. These have all been called generically, even in modern times, nitre, having each a certain prefix well understood by the adept, or ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the flagon had been laid in ice. He also suggests that possibly the cold winds from the Carpathians bring with them imperceptible particles of snow, which reach the water of the cave, and convert it into ice. Further, the rocks of the Carpathians abound in salts, nitre, alum, &c., which may, perhaps, mingle with such snowy particles, and produce the ordinary effect of the snow and salt in the artificial production ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... difficult thing to get clear of a cold if taken in time. Confinement to the house for a day, or even two, a lowered diet, a mixture of the solution of acetate of ammonia and spirits of sweet nitre the first day, some aperient medicine and an ordinary cough mixture the second or third day, warmer clothing and avoidance of exposure to high winds; this treatment will be found successful in nine cases out ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... they had set up armories, and were making guns as fast as they could. Their greatest trouble was about powder. They had chemists who knew how to make it, but they had no nitre to make it of, and did not know at first how to get any. At last one of their chemists said that there was some nitre—from a few ounces to a pound or two—in the earth of every cellar floor; and that if all the nitre in all the cellar ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... long-drawn Interjections, of Woe is me and Cursed be ye. So soon as History can philosophically delineate the conflagration of a kindled Fireship, she may try this other task. Here lay the bitumen-stratum, there the brimstone one; so ran the vein of gunpowder, of nitre, terebinth and foul grease: this, were she inquisitive enough, History might partly know. But how they acted and reacted below decks, one fire-stratum playing into the other, by its nature and the art of man, now when all hands ran raging, and the flames lashed high over shrouds ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... notion of the matter is, that the water of this pool acquired its medicinal virtues from the mud settled at the bottom, which was charged with metallic salts, perhaps from sulphur, allum, or nitre. And whenever it happened that the water was troubled by any natural cause whatsoever, perhaps a subterraneous heat, or rains; these salts were raised up and mixed with it, and might well be beneficial to those, who went down into the pool, before the metallic particles ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... of purifying which will be long and hard. 'I am ready,' says he, in effect, 'to submit to any sort of discipline, if only I may be clean. Wash me, beat me, tread me down, hammer me with mallets, dash me against stones, rub me with smarting soap and caustic nitre—do anything, anything with me, if only those foul spots melt away from the texture of my soul!' A solemn prayer, my brethren! if we pray it aright, which will be answered by many a sharp application of God's Spirit, by many a ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... could not take place, the ship was fumigated with gun-powder, as described in the Paper; though that smoke could have no effect in drying, but only in remedying the corruption of the air, by means of the acid spirits from the sulphur and nitre, aided perhaps by some species of an aerial fluid, then disengaged from the fuel, to counteract putrefaction. But as these purifications by gun-powder, as well as by burning tar and other resinous substances, are sufficiently known, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... labour, by means of wells of extraordinary depth. It is inhabited by the Orfella tribe, subsisting chiefly by agriculture, and the rearing of cattle, aided only in a trifling degree by a manufacture of nitre; they are accounted hardy and industrious, but at the same time dishonest and cruel. Benioleed castle stands in latitude 31B0 45' 38" N., longitude 14B0 ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... must, if possible, be induced to eat; he must not be "horned" unless there be great emaciation; he must not over-eat, but what he gets must be good. As to drink, dogs usually prefer clean cold water, and we cannot do harm by mixing therewith a little plain nitre. ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... in them a greater Measure of Probability, and are such as might possibly have happened. Of this kind is his first mounting in the Smoke that rises from the Infernal Pit, his falling into a Cloud of Nitre, and the like combustible Materials, that by their Explosion still hurried him forward in his Voyage; his springing upward like a Pyramid of Fire, with his laborious Passage through that Confusion of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... drained—to the dregs—the bottle of old hair tonics, dead catsups, syrups of undesirable preserves, condemned extracts of vanilla and lemon, decayed chocolate, ex-essence of beef, mixed dental preparations, aromatic spirits of ammonia, spirits of nitre, alcohol, arnica, quinine, ipecac, sal volatile, nux vomica and licorice water— with traces of arsenic, ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... admirable material for overturning all establishments. They have found that the gunpowder of ruins is far the fittest for making other ruins, and so ad infinitum. They have calculated what quantity of matter convertible into nitre is to be found in Bedford House, in Woburn Abbey, and in what his Grace and his trustees have still suffered to stand of that foolish royalist, Inigo Jones, in Covent Garden. Churches, play-houses, coffeehouses, all alike, are ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... eight drachms; gum benzoin, four drachms; yellow sanders, two drachms; styrax, two drachms; olibanum, two drachms; charcoal, six ounces; nitre, one drachm and a half; mucilage of tragacanth, sufficient quantity. Reduce the substances to a powder, and form into a paste with the mucilage, and divide into small cones; then put them into an oven, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre." ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... naturalist and philosopher has carried his researches on the above subject; as, in some editions, the Index of the article DENTES occupies several closely-printed columns. He recommends tooth-powder (dentifricia) of hartshorn, pumice-stone, burnt nitre, Lapis Arabus, the ashes of shells, as well as several ludicrous substances, in accordance with the mystic prejudices of the age. Amongst the remedies for fixing (firmare) teeth, he mentions Inula, Acetum Scillinum, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... serious effects afterwards from the wetting, yet the boy did take cold; and so feverish and restless did he become, that the good Dr. Maddox, who had attended Mabel, was sent for without delay. His prescription, however, was not a very alarming one: namely, castor oil and some spirits of sweet nitre. ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... this was done merely for mechanical amusement, and not for any personal pecuniary advantage. While Watt was making experiments as to the proper substances to be carved and drilled, he also desired Murdock to make similar experiments. "The nitre," he said in one note, "seems to do harm; the fluor composition seems the best and hardest. Query, what would some calcined pipe-clay do? If you will calcine some fire-clay by a red heat and pound it,—about ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... which we had a violent gust about seven o'clock. One of the hunters saw in a pond to the north which we passed yesterday a number of young swans. We saw a large rat, and killed a wolf. Another of our men had a stroke of the sun; he was bled, and took a preparation of nitre ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... what may be from what has been is a very dangerous deceit.—Were all the saltpetre in India monopolized, this would only make chemical researches more ardent and successful. The chalky earths would be searched for it, and nitre beds would be made in every cellar and every stable. Did not that prove sufficient the genius of chemistry would find in a new salt a substitute for nitre or a power superior to it.[3] It requires greater genius than Mr. Pitt seems to possess, to know the wonderful resources ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... wild from the rank productive force of the human mind is almost tantamount, in the moral world, to the destruction of the apparently active properties of bodies in the material. It would be like the attempt to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the expansive force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of steam, or of electricity, or of magnetism. These energies always existed in Nature, and they were always discernible. They seemed, some of them unserviceable, some noxious, some no better than a sport to children,—until contemplative ability, combining with practic ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... by Dr. Currie, the effects of which are wonderful, but which can only be applied at the commencement of the disease. In all diseases of indirect debility, therefore, it is proper to attempt the introduction of oxygen into the system, by the oxygenated muriate of potash, acid fruits, nitre, &c. I do not think that the inhaling of oxygen gas for a few minutes in the day can do much good; but free ventilation of apartments, and gentle exercise in the open air, are ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathoms deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... our inability either to understand them or the words employed in their expression. Having been in the habit of using words with either no meaning or a wrong one, it may be difficult to comprehend the subject of which they treat. A man may have a quantity of sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, but it is not until he learns their properties and combinations that he can make gunpowder. Let us then adopt a careful and independent course of reasoning, resolved to meddle with nothing we do not understand, and to use no words until we know ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... give her some sweet spirits of nitre," said I, taking out a little vial. "Will you ask the servant for a glass of water and ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... a fire blazing beneath it; another group is seated at a long table eating; some feed the immense boiler with new supplies from a heap of dirty-looking earth-stained salt. Others test the quality from time to time of that which has been purged and crystallized. It was the native nitre of the country on which they were occupied, and the test was its deflagration. In passing out of the first of the line of quarried caverns to go to the Ear, which is the last, we are struck with the beauty of the garden into which it opens, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... divelish yron Engin[*] wrought In deepest Hell, and framd by Furies skill, 105 With windy Nitre and quick Sulphur fraught, And ramd with bullet round, ordaind to kill, Conceiveth fire, the heavens it doth fill With thundring noyse, and all the ayre doth choke, That none can breath, nor see, nor heare at will, 110 Through smouldry cloud of duskish stincking ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... o'clock. You may take another dose of the nitre, and gargle your throat well with a little of it. ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... first place bleed the horse severely. Give him spirits of nitre, in water which should not be too cold, for it would chill him. Keep him well covered with blankets, and rub his legs and body well; blister him around the chest with mustard seed, and be sure to give him no cold water, unless there is spirits of ...
— The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses • P. R. Kincaid
... has felt indisposed, but is better, thanks to a draught "composed of laudanum, nitre and other savoury drugs." When their letters do not arrive promptly they are in despair. "Stage after stage without a line!" complains Theodosia the mother, in one feverishly incoherent note. And Theodosia the daughter, even at ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... some instances where powder has been condemned by survey, it has been directed to be thrown overboard. This should never be done; the nitre contained, which forms three-fourths (3/4) of the powder, is still perfectly good, and can be made serviceable. In future, condemned powder is always to be returned to the ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... of salt, called by the ancients nitre, but more commonly among us saltpetre. It is composed of nitric acid and potassa.[11] It is found in earthy substances; sometimes native or pure, in the form of a shapeless salt. Vast quantities are found in several of the marly earths of the East Indies, China, Persia, and ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... this tendency to run into definite forms, and nothing is easier than to give scope to this tendency by artificial arrangements. Dissolve nitre in water, and allow the water slowly to evaporate; the nitre remains and the solution soon becomes so concentrated that the liquid condition can no longer be preserved. The nitre-molecules approach ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... the clock shelf in the sitting-room there is a bottle of sweet spirits of nitre; it's the only bottle there, so you can't make any mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. I wonder you didn't send ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... impossible to fire a pistol at the bottom of the cavern, for although gunpowder may be exploded even in carbonic acid by the application of a heat sufficient to decompose the nitre, and consequently to envelop the mass in an atmosphere of oxygen gas, yet the mere influence of a spark from steel produces too slight an augmentation of temperature ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... we call frost? Our minister compares it to needles, the points of which enter our pores. What is become of the heat of the summer; in what part of the world is it that the N. W. keeps these grand magazines of nitre? when I see in the morning a river over which I can travel, that in the evening before was liquid, I am astonished indeed! What is become of those millions of insects which played in our summer fields, and in our evening meadows; they were so puny ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... be substantially the same, but the amount of medicines demanded exceeded the stock of even the largest druggists. The first several chests were complete as ordered, but as early as April the Marshalls were running out of certain drugs. Gum opium and nitre "found by Congress" was included in the chest for the Pennsylvania 4th Battalion, and by May 11 the Marshalls were out of Peruvian bark, ipecac, cream of tartar, gum camphor, and red precipitate of mercury. The chests outfitted after June 1 also ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... be; nor equivalent to the indicative present, as others will have it; but a true subjunctive, though its distinctive parts are chiefly confined to the second and third persons singular of the simple verb: as, "Though thou wash thee with nitre."—Jer., ii, 22. "It is just, O great king! that a murderer perish."—Corneille. "This single crime, in my judgment, were sufficient to condemn him."—Duncan's Cicero, p. 82. "Beware that thou bring not my son thither."—BIBLE: Ward's Gram., p. 128. "See ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown |
