"Saltpetre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... manner of founding cannon: These were Levantines or Greeks, several of whom had come to Peru out of respect for Pedro de Candia, who was master of the ordnance to Don Diego. Powder was likewise easily made in great abundance, as saltpetre is to be had in every part of that country of excellent quality. At the same time he had defensive armour made for those of his people who were in want, forming corslets and helmets of silver mixed with copper, which answered amazingly well, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... comfortable home and kind treatment in their old age that the Ladies of Charity determined to found an institution on the same lines for all the beggars of Paris. A large piece of ground that had been used for the manufacture of saltpetre was accordingly obtained from the King, who also gave a large contribution of money toward the undertaking. The hospital, known as "La Salpetriere" from the use to which the ground had formerly been ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... the heart of their dear country, has done more to recall the Canadians to a sense of the real value of the connexion with Great Britain than all the protocols of diplomatists, or all the powder that ever saltpetre ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... bothering the purser.' The purser can't do it with the help of farthings. And as respects aliquot parts, four shares among three persons are as incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt at giving change in half-crowns. However, this was all the preservation that the horse found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had: but the frost was antiseptic. And the horse was preserved in as useful a sense as ever ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... foreign merchants were settled here, but they found the hot seasons fatal, and no wonder, with 130deg. (F.) in the shade! The trade from the upper river, especially from the Presidio das Pedras Negras de Pungo Andongo,[FN2] consists of hides, cattle tame and wild (cefos); saltpetre washed from earth in sieves, mucocote or gum anime (copal), said by Lopes de Lima to be found in all the forests of Pungo Andongo; wax, white and yellow; oil of the dendem (Elais Guineensis) and mandobim, here called ginguba ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... gunpowder was manufactured in the whole of the Southern States. The Augusta powder-mills and arsenal were then commenced, and no less than 7000 lb. of powder are now made every day in the powder manufactory. The cost to the Government of making the powder is only four cents a pound. The saltpetre (nine-tenths of which runs the blockade from England) cost formerly seventy-five cents, but has latterly been more expensive. In the construction of the powder-mills, Colonel Rains told me he had been much indebted to a pamphlet by Major Bradley of ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... explored,"—"The strong chateaus, those feudal fortresses, that were ordered to be demolished attracted next the attention of your committee. Nature there had secretly regained her rights, and had produced saltpetre, for the purpose, as it should seem, of facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of destruction. From these ruins, which still frown on the liberties of the Republic, we have extracted the means of producing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... business, 'n' I was left out in the freezin', icy cold! Susan Clegg, I smashed a table,' he says, ''n' two chairs,' he says, ''n' I went to see the girl 'n' ask her to wait a little longer,—'n', Fire 'n' Brimstone 'n' Saltpetre, 'f your father hadn't gone 'n' married the ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... until they became quite hot. These were the pre-lucifer days. The fire to light the powder at the touch-hole was obtained by the use of a flint, a steel, and a tinder-box. The flint was struck sharply on the steel; a spark of fire fell into the tinderbox, and the match of hemp string, soaked in saltpetre, was readily lit, and fired off the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... constantly speaks of his use of gunpowder either to terrify the enemy or to serve for signals; but it is never used to throw a cannon-ball. It probably was known to the Chinese of that date, as the Arab speaks of gunpowder under the designation of "Chinese snow," meaning doubtless the saltpetre which forms a leading ingredient. The Chinese had been dabbling in alchemy for many centuries, and it is scarcely possible that they [Page 116] should have failed to hit on some such explosive. It is, however, believed on good authority ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... destroyed the Lucayans, so that the fishery fell much off. The island of Cubagua, which is rather more than 300 leagues from Hispaniola, nearly in latitude 10 deg. N. is about three leagues in circumference, entirely flat, and without water, having a dry barren soil impregnated with saltpetre, and only producing a few guiacum trees and shrubs. The soil does not even grow grass, and there are no birds to be seen, except those kinds which frequent the sea. It has no land animals, except a few rabbits. The few natives which inhabited ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... of metal in Maranham, they have never been worked; but some saltpetre-works have been established there. There are mineral and medicinal waters in some districts; but I believe they have not been analyzed: in short, little attention has hitherto been paid to any thing but the woods, and the growth of coffee, cotton, and sugar; in all of which Maranham ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... be said, it does seem hard, from a wholly disinterested point of view, that so many mighty men, with swift ships, armed with villainous saltpetre and sharp steel, should have set their keen faces all together and at once to nip, defeat, and destroy as with a blow, liberal and well-conceived proceedings, which they had long regarded with a larger mind. Every one who had been led to embark ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... man and true, who was employed in the Hotel de Saltpetre, in the Ruee Saleratus," replied Mr. ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... distilling, which are described by French, are shown in the following figures. Besides describing apparatus for distilling, subliming, and other processes in the laboratory, French gives directions for making tinctures, essences, essential oils, spirits of salt, and pure saltpetre, oil of vitriol, butter of antimony, calces (or as we now say, oxides) of metals, and many other substances. He describes processes for making fresh water from salt, artificial mineral water, medicated hot baths for invalids (one of the figures ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... for Saturn. The influences of the elements were supposed to be similar to the influence of the heavenly bodies over men. This same chemist was acquainted with oxidizing and calcining processes, and knew methods of obtaining soda and potash salts, and the properties of saltpetre. Also nitric acid was obtained from the nitrate of potassium. These and other similar examples represent something of the achievements of the Arabians in chemical knowledge. Still, their lack of knowledge is shown in their continued search for the philosopher's stone and the attempt ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... the oldest methods of preserving food. The addition of a little saltpetre helps to preserve the color of the meat. Brine is frequently used to temporarily preserve meat and other substances. Corned beef is a popular form of salt preservation. All salted meats require long, slow cooking. They should always be placed ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... grand old aisle had appeared immense and shadowy to her—quite different from all the Parisian churches—with its rough pillars worn at the base by the chafing of centuries, and its damp, earthy smell of age and saltpetre. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... find it a great improvement to steep the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and dry them. The flame is clearer, and the tallow will ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child
... the Ebro divides the levels of Arragon. Spain abounds with brackish streams, Salados, and with salt-mines, or saline deposits, after the evaporation of the sea-waters. The central soil is strongly impregnated with saltpetre: always arid, it every day is becoming more so, from the singular antipathy which the inhabitants of the interior have against trees. There is nothing to check the power of evaporation, no shelter to protect or preserve moisture. The soil becomes more and more baked and calcined; in some parts ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... extended and elaborate, giving the reader a full view of pioneer conditions and endeavor. The scheme of purification of nitre for gunpowder use is illuminating and attractive. Attention is directed to the saltpetre rock and caves of the western ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... "villanous saltpetre" was made by ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the shortest—that which places a man hand ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of the Volga, near Zarewpod, where many traces of a large town, still exist. Sumerkent is unknown, but may have been near Astrachan, formerly named Hadschi-Aidar-Khan. But there are ruins of a town still existing on both sides of the Volga, which are now used for the purpose of making saltpetre.—Forst. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... the light at once, but enter into other lateral black corridors—the Wings of the Dragon. More sable effigies of dispossessed gods; more empty shrines; more stone faces covered with saltpetre; and more money-boxes, possible only to reach by stooping, where more offerings should be made. And there is no Benten, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... religious and fanatical veneration. On that day they threw down the gauntlet before astonished Europe; and William the Conqueror, when he burnt his fleet, did not place himself with more audaciousness between victory and death. Without money, without credit, without arms, artillery, saltpetre, and armies; betrayed by Dumorier; Valenciennes being taken by the Austrians; Toulon in the hands of the English; the king of Prussia under the walls of Landau, and a country of ninety leagues extent devoured ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the cigarettes in that case, filled with so-called Egyptian tobacco, mixed with opium and saltpetre, which he preferred to the tobacco of the American, he mechanically glanced at the card which the servant had left on going from the room-the card of the unknown visitor for whom Madame Steno had ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... applicable to bronchitis and other chest inflammations will often fail to relieve a night cough, because the night cough in question is due to nervous irritation or indigestion. Narcotics are useless and hurtful. Great relief is frequently found from inhaling the smoke of burning nitre or saltpetre. Blotting paper may be soaked in a solution of saltpetre, dried and lighted. Place the burning substance near enough the patient for him to inhale the smoke, but not so near as to interfere with easy breathing, especially in cases where ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... murdering every one they knew to be of Mazarin's party; but I pacified them as I had done the others. The First President, seeing me coming in, said that "I had been consecrating oil mixed, undoubtedly, with saltpetre." I heard the words, but made as if I did not, for had I taken them up, and had the people known it in the Great Hall, it would not have been in my power to have saved the life of ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... ham put one ounce saltpetre, one pint bay salt, one pint molasses, shake together 6 or 8 weeks, or when a large quantity is together, bast them with the liquor every day; when taken out to dry, smoke three weeks with cobs or malt fumes. To every ham may ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... mixed together and powdered; its explosive force when fired, is owing to the instantaneous and abundant liberation of gaseous matter by the intense heat resulting from the action of the combustibles upon the saltpetre. It is not known by whom it was first applied to the purposes of war, but it is certain that it was used early in the fourteenth century. Cannons were used at the battle of Cressy, in 1346; small guns, or muskets, were introduced into the ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... abom'nation to garls, poor darlin's! And twenty shindies per dime we've been havin', and me such a placable body, if ye'll onnly let m' explode. I'm all powder, avery bit! and might ha' been christened Saltpetre, if born a boy. She hasn't so much as a shot to kill a goose, says Chump, poor fella! But he went, annyway. I must kiss somebody when I talk of 'm. Mr. Wilfrud, I'll take the girls, and entitle myself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which created considerable sensation in the last century was that of Elizabeth Canning. On New Year's Day, 1753, she visited an uncle and aunt who lived at Saltpetre Bank, near Well Close Square, who saw her part of the way home as far as Houndsditch. But as no tidings were afterwards heard of her, she was advertised for, rumours having gone abroad, that she had been heard to shriek out of a hackney coach in Bishopsgate-street. ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... entrance to these rocky passages. Overgrown with ivy, it has rather the appearance of a bower than of a place of terror and anguish. Several of these side halls are now used as workshops by rope-makers, while in others the manufacture of saltpetre is carried on. The region around is rocky, but without displaying any high mountains. I saw numerous grottoes, some of them with magnificent entrances, which looked as though they had been cut in the rocks by art. In one of these grottoes water fell from above, ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... of Potassa, Saltpetre (KO, NO^{5}).—Saturate boiling water with commercial saltpetre, filter while hot in a beaker glass, which is to be placed in cold water, and stir while the solution is cooling. The greater part of the saltpetre will crystallize in very fine crystals. Place these crystals ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... some are covered uniformly with a brilliant pottery glaze which renders, it is true, the forms rather blurred and not easy to see, but which resembles in a surprising manner, antiquities which the action of fire or of earth, impregnated with saltpetre, have slightly damaged. The feigned hieroglyphs therein are mistaken for those as to which the work has been neglected. Their statuettes recall the figurines of poor ware, which the Ancient Egyptians placed in ...
— Scarabs • Isaac Myer
... still my conviction that "tailings" have been washed for gold, even by men still living. We also brought notices and specimens of three several deposits of sulphur; of a turquoise-mine behind Ziba; of salt and saltpetre, and of vast deposits of gypsum. These are sources of wealth which the nineteenth century is not likely to ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... gunpowder. But Seneca would never have doubted for a moment that it was only by means of a series of experiments that a safety-lamp could be invented. Thomas Aquinas would never have thought that his barbara and baralipton would enable him to ascertain the proportion which charcoal ought to bear to saltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither common sense nor Aristotle would have suffered him to fall into such ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of nitric acid (which consists of nitrogen and oxygen), and alkaline substances. Thus nitrate of potash (saltpetre), is composed of nitric acid and potash: nitrate of soda (cubical nitre), ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... ground floor, as well as the little yard behind, which was covered with his workshops and warehouses; the small remaining space being taken up by the porter's lodge and the passage entry in the middle. The staircase walls were half rotten with damp and covered with saltpetre to such a degree that the house seemed to be stricken ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... This is a French word, used for a sort of tinder or touch-wood, an inflammable substance which is prepared from a fungus,[1] Boletus igniarius, and grows upon the cherry, ash and other trees. It is made by steeping it in a strong solution of saltpetre and cutting it in small pieces. It is also called German tinder. Thome says that Boletus laricis and Polyporus fomentarius yield the "amadou" of commerce. Then, again, the birch Polyporus, P. betulinus, is used for razor strops. We need not say anything on the uses of fungi as articles of food. ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... he collected saltpetre, burned willow twigs for charcoal, and made all the powder he needed in his caves. Before doing so he had been obliged to resort to many devices in order to get powder, sometimes disguising himself as a merchant and going into a town and buying small quantities at a time, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... had been very busy in inventing some fireworks. As Mrs. Peterkin objected to the use of gunpowder, he found out from the dictionary what the different parts of gunpowder are,—saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur. Charcoal, he discovered, they had in the wood-house; saltpetre they would find in the cellar, in the beef barrel; and sulphur they could buy at the apothecary's. He explained to his mother that these materials had ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... uncle Jackrael Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest and Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, and Ephraim's sons ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... believe. Her nose is flat and crooked, and her brows grow down over her eyes; a dead spiteful, grey, goggling eye, to be sure she has. And her face is flat and broad; and as to colour, looks like as if it had been pickled a month in saltpetre: I dare say she drinks:—She has a hoarse, man-like voice, and is as thick as she is long; and yet looks so deadly strong, that I am afraid she would dash me at her foot in an instant, if I was to vex her.—So that with a heart more ugly than her face, she frightens ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... "Gold is the most abundant; but saltpetre and naphtha are among the products. Quantities of rice are grown here, and a singular method is adopted for separating the grain from the ear. The bunches of paddy are spread on mats, and the Sumatrans rub out the grain under their feet, supporting themselves, for the more ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... that they had lighted on an agreement by which the Company had covenanted to furnish a person named Colston with two hundred tons of saltpetre. At the first glance, this transaction seemed merchantlike and fair. But it was soon discovered that Colston was merely an agent for Seymour. Suspicion was excited. The complicated terms of the bargain were severely examined, and were found ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... used by the Byzantine Greeks in warfare, first against the Saracens at the siege of Constantinople in 673 A. D. Therefore an anachronism in this poem. Liquid fire was, however, known to the ancients, as Assyrian bas-reliefs testify. Greek fire was made possibly of naphtha, saltpetre, and sulphur, and was thrown upon the enemy from copper tubes; or pledgets of tow were dipped in it ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... is to be done," responded the bravo. "This is the last night I shall come to Orbajosa—the last. I have to look up some boys who remained in the town, and we are going to see how we can get possession of the saltpetre and the sulphur that are in the house ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... beef or pale-board, which you can get, bone them and take off the inner skin; nick your beef about an inch distance, but mind you don't cut thro' the skin of the outside; then take two ounces of saltpetre, and beat it small, and take a large handful of common salt and mix them together, first sprinkling your beef over with a little water, and lay it in an earthen dish, then strinkle over your salt, so let it stand, four or five days, then ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... skin should first be cleaned, every particle of loose fat or flesh, being removed, and the useless parts cut away. When this is done, it should be soaked for an hour or two in warm water. The following mixture should then be prepared: Take equal parts of borax, saltpetre, and sulphate of soda, and with them mix water sufficient to produce the consistency of ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... of war is a thing that smites common-sense and Christianity in the face; so everything connected with it is utterly foolish, unchristian, barbarous, brutal, and savouring of the Feejee Islands, cannibalism, saltpetre, and the devil. ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... fed and led against the greatest and strongest coalition which the modern world had ever seen. France, under Camot, became a vast workshop. Its most eminent scientific men taught the people how to gather saltpetre and the government how to manufacture powder and artillery. Horses had to be obtained. Carnot was as reckless of himself as of others. He knew no rest. There was that to be done which had to be done quickly and at any cost; there was ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... candles are those run in moulds. For this purpose, melt together one quarter of a pound of white wax, one quarter of an ounce of camphor, two ounces of alum, and ten ounces of suet or mutton-tallow. Soak the wicks in lime-water and saltpetre, and when dry, fix them in the moulds and pour in the melted tallow. Let them remain one night to cool; then warm them a little to loosen them, draw them out, and when they are hard, put them in a box in a dry and ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... so-called "nitrifying" bacteria (an unfortunate term inasmuch as "nitrification" refers merely to a particular phase of the cycle of changes undergone by nitrogen). It had long been known that under certain conditions large quantities of nitrate (saltpetre) are formed on exposed heaps of manure, &c., and it was supposed that direct oxidation of the ammonia, facilitated by the presence of porous bodies, brought this to pass. But research showed that this process of nitrification is dependent ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... playwright puts all the fiddles, the French-horns, the kettle drums, and trumpets of his orchestra, in requisition, to usher in one of those horrible and brimstone uproars called melodrames; and it is thus he discharges his thunder, his lightning, his rosin, and saltpetre, preparatory to the rising of a ghost, or the murdering of a hero. We will now ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... to do so, and he then furnished us with powder and ball; we went down to the river side, and McCarthy gave his pistols and 7/6 in money to Anthony Ryan. He gave me some powder, flax, and something like saltpetre, and showed me, by putting some powder into the pan, and snapping it, how the flax was to be lighted. McCarthy then parted with us, and we, after eating the bread and meat, went to Walsh's. I lighted the tow, and Paddy Ryan put the fire into the roof. I and two ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... moist body is brought into contact with one of their projections, or "pseudopods," the protoplasm seems to roll itself in that direction, and so the whole organism gradually changes its place. So again, while a solution of salt, carbonate of potash, or saltpetre causes them to withdraw from the danger, an infusion of sugar, or tan, produces a flow of protoplasm towards the source of nourishment. In fact, in the same way it rolls over and round its food, absorbing what is nutritious ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... about the loins; & when the ground is open, I will send you some pepper-wort roots. For the flux, there is no better medicine than the cup used two or three times, &, in case of sudden torments, a clyster of a quart of water boiled to a pint, which, with the quantity of two or three nutmegs of saltpetre boiled in it, will ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... little business without capital, went to New York city as his commercial agent. Her letters to her father are "almost exclusively business letters," and he on his part gives her "directions for the sale and purchase, not only of muslins and moreens, but also of skins, saltpetre, ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... no; it is not my duty"—the Captain turned away, with his hair upon the rise. "I was sent here to look for saltpetre, not spectres. No officer in His Majesty's service can be expected—Bob, and Wilkins, are ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of water a pound and a half of sugar or molasses, and two ounces of saltpetre. If it is to last a month or two, use six pounds of salt. If you wish to keep it through the summer, use nine pounds of salt. Boil all together; skim and let cool. Put meat in the vessel in which it is to stand; pour the pickle over the meat until it is covered. Once in ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... in a barren season, and contents itself with foretelling the reader that choicer flowers are preparing to appear." Upon the foreign supply of gunpowder being prohibited, he proposed a plan, in the Pennsylvanian Journal, of a saltpetre association for the voluntary supply ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... no tanneries, no carpenters, shoemakers, weavers. Every family had to do everything for itself. The corn was pounded with a heavy pestle in a large mortar made by burning an excavation in a solid block of wood. By means of these mortars the settlers, in regions where saltpetre could be obtained, made very respectable gunpowder. In making corn-meal a grater was sometimes used, consisting of a half-circular piece of tin, perforated with a punch from the concave side. The ears of corn were rubbed on the rough edges, and the meal ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... length of the room very slowly, for what I had come for had completely gone out of my head. Fortunately the man never heard me until I had recollected it. Then he got up, and I asked him for some stone-blue, saltpetre, tea, pickles, salt, etc. He was very civil. I bought some things and asked for a note of them. He went to his desk again; I looked at some newspapers lying near. On the top was a circular from Smith & Elder containing notices of the most important new works. The first ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as he could." ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... burn down our yellow-feverish neighbor's house. We will give everybody time to pack up. We will make up a little purse for any specially hard case which the removal may show. But stay and be plague-stricken we will no longer; nor are we disposed to spend our whole income in burning sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal to keep out infection. And certainly, when by neglect to pay ground-rent, or other illegality, the owner of our nuisance has forfeited his right to stay, no mortal can blame us for taking the strictest and most decisive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... wine, casks of brandy, quantities of chestnuts and potatoes; and besides all this, chests containing ointments, drugs and lint, and lastly a complete arsenal of muskets, swords, and bayonets, a quantity of powder ready-made, and sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal-in short, everything necessary for the manufacture of more, down to small mills to be turned by hand. Lalande kept his word: the life of an old woman was not too much to give in ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... November and March. The Germans place them in deep tubs, which they cover with layers of salt and saltpetre, and with a few laurel leaves. They are left four or five days in this state, and are then completely covered with strong brine. At the end of three weeks they are taken out, and left to soak for twelve hours in clear well-water; they are then exposed, during three weeks, to a smoke produced by ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... all these things are true; if we may hope to make them seem true, or even probable, to the doubting soul, in an hour's discourse, then we may join without madness in the day's exultant festivities; the bells may ring, the cannon may roar, the incense of our harmless saltpetre fill the air, and the children who are to inherit the fruit of these toiling, agonizing years, go about unblamed, making day and night ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... king of Vijayanagar will forbid the importation of saltpetre and iron into his kingdom from any Bijapur port; and will compel ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... to give "our method of curing" the last-mentioned dainties; but we think we may as well follow up the history of our pigs, from the sty to the kitchen. I always found that the recipes usually given for salting pork contained too much saltpetre, which not only renders the meat hard, but causes it to be very indigestible. The following is the manner in which they ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... the gray dawn of July nineteenth, a watchman discovered flames issuing from an oil store on New Street. A carpenter shop next door was soon in flames. A large building in which quantities of saltpetre was stored caught next. A dense smoke filled the air, and a sudden explosive sound shot out a long tongue of flame that crossed the street. At intervals of a few moments others followed, causing everybody to fly for their lives. And at last one ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... that living Word, which he must study who would have his vision of God fulfilled, who would make of his 'good news' something more than a Poet's prophecy. He who found in the peaceful nitre, in the harmless sulphur, in the saltpetre, 'villanous' not yet, in the impotence of fire and sulphur, combining in vain against the motion of the resisting ball,—not less real to his eye, because not apparent,—or in the villanous compound itself, while yet the spark is wanting,—'rules' for other 'wrestling instances,' for other ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... favors their execution. But they operate only within a narrow area which it is easy for the husband to make still narrower; and if he keeps cool he will end by extinguishing this piece of living saltpetre. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... and embroidered with glass beads and seed-pearls; also some pearls and rubies, sapphires and crystal-stones; metal basins, copper kettles, and other copper and cast-iron pots; quantities of all sorts of nails, sheet-iron, tin and lead; saltpetre and gunpowder. They supply the Spaniards with wheat flour; preserves made of orange, peach, scorzonera, [406] pear, nutmeg, and ginger, and other fruits of China; salt pork and other salt meats; live fowls ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... are handsomely appointed, though not with the same degree of splendour that prevails in Bengal, where the quantity of plate makes so striking a display. The large silver vases, in which butter and milk are enclosed in a vessel filled with saltpetre, which give to the breakfast-tables of Calcutta an air of such princely grandeur, are ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... the Lands above the Fork. A Quarry of Stone for building. High Lands to the East: Their vast Fertility. West Coast: West Lands: Saltpetre ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... out in August, spread a considerable part of the garden with a thick coating of stable litter or dry leaves and burn it, prepare the seed bed in the middle of the burnt space, and soak two pounds of saltpetre in water for one hundred square feet, and water the bed with it for at least two weeks before sowing the seed. When the seedlings have acquired about five leaves, and the ground to plant is ready, lift the young plants gently on ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... armor and timber for oars, though, as a memorandum of 1580 says, "if the Spaniards catch you trading with them, you shall die for it." Probably what they objected to most was the sale of arms to the infidel. From Barbary came sugar, saltpetre, dates, molasses and carpets. Andalusia demanded fine cloth and cambric in return for wines called "seckes," sweet oil, raisins, salt, cochineal, indigo, sumac, silk and soap. Portugal took butter, cheese, fine cloth "light ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... more furious than the first. Can the mountains resist it? will they stand? By the Almighty! they do not. The earth trembles; the hillock, on the leeside of which we are, rocks and shakes; and the air grows thick and suffocating—full of dust and saltpetre and sulphur. We are like to choke. All around is dark as night. We can see nothing, hear nothing but the howling of the hurricane, and the thunder and rattle of falling trees and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... round weighing forty pounds, three ounces saltpetre, let stand six or eight hours, pound three ounces allspice, one pound black pepper, two pounds salt, and seven ounces brown sugar; rub the beef well with the salt and spices. Let it remain fourteen days turning it every day and rub with the pickle, then wash ...
— My Pet Recipes, Tried and True - Contributed by the Ladies and Friends of St. Andrew's Church, Quebec • Various
... commercial development of the Haber process by the I.G. The story is too well known to repeat at length. The basic element of explosives is nitrogen, which is introduced by nitric acid. This was produced from imported Chili saltpetre, but the blockade cut short these imports, and but for the Haber method, the vital step in producing nitric acid from the air, Germany would have been compelled to abandon ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... protection of the public and for the guidance of manufacturers and officers, has yet to be created. While from time immemorial certain articles of food have been preserved by salting, smoking, drying, or by the addition of sugar and in some cases of saltpetre, during the last quarter of the 10th century the use of chemicals acting more powerfully as antiseptics or preservatives extended enormously, particularly in England. A very large fraction of the British food supply being obtained ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... have no idea of honor unless it will yield somewhat to eat, no use for patriotism unless it can be made to pay. When we concluded to protect our citizens from Weylerian savagery, instead of sending a warship to Havana to read the riot act if need be in villainous saltpetre we had our ambassador crawling about the European courts humbly begging permission of the powers, and as we got no permission we did no protecting. When the church people elect me president of this Republic I'll have ante-mortem investigations when American citizens are held ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... little power accomplish wonders. Without it great minds are confused and lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent efforts. As Jean Paul says, there is sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre in the soul, but powder is not made, for they never find each other. To understand this will-plexus is preeminent among the new demands now laid ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... of her little brothers and sisters. One boy, however, 'had huffed her,' and got no penny. But she relented, and, when she went out, bought for him a mince-pie. Her visit of New Year's Day was to her maternal aunt, Mrs. Colley, living at Saltpetre Bank (Dock Street, behind the London Dock). She meant to return in time to buy, with her mother, a cloak, but the Colleys had a cold early dinner, and kept her till about 9 P.M. for a ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... trade, also, had been said to depend on the West Indian and the African. In the first place, it had but very little connection with the former at all. Its connection with the latter was principally on account of the saltpetre, which it furnished for making gunpowder. Out of nearly three millions of pounds in weight of the latter article, which had been exported in a year from this country, one half had been sent to Africa alone; for the purposes, doubtless, of maintaining peace, and encouraging ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... have pits in like sort of white plaster, and of fat and white and other coloured marble, wherewith in many places the inhabitors do compest their soil, and which doth benefit their land in ample manner for many years to come. We have saltpetre for our ordinance and salt soda for our glass, and thereto in one place a kind of earth (in Southery; as I ween, hard by Codington, and sometime in the tenure of one Croxton of London) which is so fine to make moulds ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... we must have importations of raw material. Large purchases of hemp and flax are alleged to have been made in the north of Europe, for spring shipment, and cotton from the United States is only delayed by the want of ships. Wool from Spain, and the Mediterranean, saltpetre, oil-seeds, &c., from India, and a host of minor articles, have also been kept back by the same cause, and will pour in upon us to make up our deficiencies directly any relaxation shall take place (if such could be foreseen) of the universal influx of grain. In this way, just as one cause ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... the nitrous acid in the air might be the general restorative which I was in quest of; and the conjecture was favoured, by finding that candles would burn in air extracted from saltpetre. I therefore spent a good deal of time in attempting, by a burning glass, and other means, to impregnate this noxious air, with some effluvium of saltpetre, and, with the same view, introduced into it the fumes of the smoaking spirit of nitre; but ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... the earth are saltpetre, which is found in the Elburz, and in Azerbijan; sulphur, which abounds in the same regions, and likewise on the high plateau; alum, which is quarried near Tabriz; naphtha and gypsum, which are found in Kurdistan; and talc, which exists ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... Eau-de-Cologne bottle, and put into it two and a half drachms of camphor, and eleven drachms of spirit of wine; when the camphor is dissolved, which it will readily do by slight agitation, add the following mixture:—Take water, nine drachms; nitrate of potash (saltpetre), thirty-eight grains; and muriate of ammonia (sal ammoniae), thirty-eight grains. Dissolve these salts in the water prior to mixing with the camphorated spirit; then shake the whole well together. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Asiatic Russia. Once it was prevalent everywhere. The Hand of Glory was a hand cut off from the body of a robber and murderer who had expiated his crimes on the gallows. To endow it with the properties of a talisman, the blood was first of all extracted; it was then given a thorough soaking in saltpetre and pepper, and hung out in the sun. When perfectly dry, it was used as a candlestick for a candle made of white wax, sesame seed, and fat from the corpse of the criminal. Prepared thus, the Hand of Glory was deemed to have the power of aiding and protecting the robbers in their nefarious ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... the gentry of France serve in the army on very slender pay, and to the utter ruin of their fortunes, all those who are not noble have their lands heavily taxed. Does he not know that wine, brandy, soap, candles, leather, saltpetre, gunpowder, are taxed in France? Has he not heard that government in France has made a monopoly of that great article of salt? that they compel the people to take a certain quantity of it, and at a certain ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... The abolitionists were blamed for that calamity very much as the Protestants have been blamed for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; and yet without doubt they were responsible for a portion of it. Gunpowder cannot be made of sulphur and carbon alone, but saltpetre also must ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... annum spent On making brain and body meeter For all the murderous intent Comprised in "villainous saltpetre!" And after—ask the Yusufzaies What comes of all ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... is also obtained through a door cut in the face of the rock, but this was made in 1793 when the soil and the bones of the old canons of the Church of the Three Kings were required for saltpetre to make gunpowder for the armies of the Republic. Over the door is a mask carved in the stone and a little window; above the monolithic church, standing on the platform of rock, is the exquisite flamboyant spire, not communicating ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... He smiled; the infernal invention would serve him for this purpose. With the aid of his pickaxe, Dantes, after the manner of a labor-saving pioneer, dug a mine between the upper rock and the one that supported it, filled it with powder, then made a match by rolling his handkerchief in saltpetre. He lighted it and retired. The explosion soon followed; the upper rock was lifted from its base by the terrific force of the powder; the lower one flew into pieces; thousands of insects escaped from the aperture Dantes had previously formed, and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... District organized. John Gordon was a Yankee, and should have known better. But he passed the sharp word at a time when Jan's blood-shot eyes blazed and his teeth gritted in torment. And because of this, there was a smell of saltpetre in the tent, and one lay quietly, while the other fought like a cornered rat, and refused to hang in the decent and peacable manner suggested ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... between eighteen and nineteen years of age, had borne an unexceptionable character, and was a domestic servant in the house of a gentleman living in Aldermanbury, named Edward Lyon. On the 1st of January 1753, she obtained liberty to pay a visit to her uncle, who lived at Saltpetre Bank. As she did not return at the specified time, Mr Lyon's family made inquiry of her mother about her, and learned that she had not made her appearance among her other relations after the visit to her uncle. Days and weeks passed, in which every inquiry was unavailingly made after ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... Silver, and 17 Bales of East-India goods, (which was less by 24 Bales than we have since got in the Sloop), That Kidd had left behind him a great Ship near the Coast of Hispaniola that nobody but himselfe could find out, on board whereof there were in bale goods, Saltpetre, and other things to the Value of at least 30,000 L.: That if I would give him a pardon, he would bring in the Sloop and goods hither, and would go and fetch the great Ship and goods afterwards. Mr. Emot delivered me that ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various |
