"Explosive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment an explosion might occur which would shatter the vessel to fragments. Men shrank back, expecting every moment to be their last. With wonderful presence of mind Davis threw himself across the open end of the barrel, and with his body covered the dangerous explosive until ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... conclusions to the theory of the ignition of an explosive gas-mixture, and in particular to the combustion of "knallgas" (a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen) to water-vapour. At ordinary temperatures knallgas undergoes practically no change, and it might be supposed that the two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, have no affinity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... letter. He watched the other lay it aside on a pile of papers. He was thinking, thinking hard. And his thought was mostly of the man whose shaking hand betrayed him. Suddenly an explosive movement brought his clenched fist down on ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... his days communing with the past in a lofty room with distempered walls and busts round them. That he should be forced to act, to decide, to be artful, to wrangle with maids, to make ends meet, to squeeze his long frame and explosive disposition into a Creeper Cottage where only an ill-fitting door separated him from the noise and fumes of the kitchen, was surely a cruel trick of Fate, and not less cruel because he had brought it on himself. That he should have thought he could run away ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... said Lady Selina, seeking for the harmless word, in the face of this unknown explosive-looking girl—"I mean, of course, the cause of the educated—of the people who have made ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Explosive shells of melinite are the leading idea in France. It is manufactured at Bourges and is said to be a hundred times as powerful as gunpowder, or ten times nitroglycerine, and reduces what it strikes to a fine powder. They have also a new rifle powder ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... they expected to be finished and went home. Excitement or no excitement, I saw no reason to abandon all routine. My forethought was proven when I returned refreshed in midmorning as the last shovelfuls of dirt came from the tunnel and the explosive charges were hurried to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... in sight. His cheek was scratched, and every button that his vest had ever known had taken wings unto itself and flown, Bessie knew not whither. And yet, tired out as he was, dishevelled as he was, Thaddeus was not grumpy, but inclined rather to explosive laughter ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... there was a pause in the work, for the experts decided that the new oil which spouted forth in such vast quantities was too heavy and malodorous to serve as an illuminant. Presently, however, it was discovered that this defect was a virtue, for here was a non-explosive petroleum that could be utilized in great quantities as a fuel, and work was hastened with renewed vigor, for now California possessed the monopoly of the one great need, not only of herself, but of all ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... been difficult for him to believe that it was really I who followed them, he could not very well doubt the witness of his own eyes; and so he trained their stern gun upon me with his own hands, and an instant later an explosive radium projectile whizzed perilously close ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he came, an explosive, incredible storm of sound. Few indeed are the wilderness creatures that can charge in silence: muscular exertion can not alone relieve their gathered flood of madness and fury. And at once Ben sensed the ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... enclosed in two separate wrappings, or a double case. 5. Poisons, explosives, inflammable substances, and live animals are excluded from the mails. 6. Firearms may only be sent in detached parts. 7. All alcoholic liquors are regarded as explosive. ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... savage, often nodding, but always rousing again, succeeded in amusing himself nearly half the night long; and it was not until near midnight that he thought fit, after stirring up the fire, and adding a fresh log to it, to stretch himself beside one of the juniors, and grumble himself to sleep. A few explosive and convulsive snorts, such as might have done honour to the nostrils of a war-horse, marked the gradations by which he sank to repose; then came the deep, long-drawn breath of mental annihilation, such as distinguished the slumber of ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... On the 14th of January, the assassination of the French Emperor, which had been planned in England by Felice Orsini and other refugees, was attempted. On the arrival of the Imperial carriage at the Opera House in the Rue Lepelletier, explosive hand-grenades were thrown at it, and though the Emperor and Empress were unhurt, ten people were either killed outright or died of their wounds, and over one hundred and fifty were injured. Notwithstanding the scene of carnage, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... out again, spread on the air as if it were flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again, inconceivably powerful and explosive. The man's body, strung to its efforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath came up in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free hand down like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there came the unearthly abhorrent scream ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... blindfolding the twisted dynamite I was engaged in "gentling," I found that Brower was saddling the mournful creature with my saddle. My expostulation found him very snappy and very arbitrary. His opium-irritated nerves were beginning to react. I realized that he was not far short of explosive obstinacy. So I conceded the point; although, as every rider knows, a cowboy's saddle and a cowboy's gun are like unto a toothbrush when it comes to lending. Also it involved changing the stirrup length on the livery saddle. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... The explosive sounds issuing from under the shimmering veil of Queen Vashti certainly sounded more masculine than feminine, and that Persian princess confessed presently ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... investigation. A letter from M. Lobry de Bruyn appears in the number of the Chemiker Zeitung for October 31, warning those who may attempt to prepare free hydroxylamine by the above method that it is a dangerously explosive substance when warmed to a temperature of 80 deg.-100 deg.. Upon warming a flask containing the free solid base upon a water bath a most violent explosion occurs. A spontaneous decomposition appears to set ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... battleship—and the prow, as far aft as the well-deck, simply vanished from sight, disintegrated! It was as though it had never been, and for a second, so swiftly had it happened, the water of the ocean held the impression that portion of the warship had made—as an explosive leaves a crater in the soil ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... very slowly an indefinable fabric of traditional home training in restraint that is very hard to separate in analysis from mental heredity. People who have dwelt for many generations in towns are not only more temperate and less explosive in the grosser indulgences, but more urbane altogether. The drunken people are also the "uncivil" peoples and the individualistic peoples. The great prevalence of drunkenness among the upper classes two centuries ago can hardly have ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... the well-known "Surprise" Symphony. The slow movement of this work opens and proceeds in the most subdued manner, and at the moment when the audience may be imagined to have comfortably settled for their nap a sudden explosive fortissimo chord is introduced. "There all the women will scream," said Haydn, with twinkling eyes. A contemporary critic read quite a different "programme" into it. "The 'Surprise,'" he wrote, "might not be inaptly likened to the situation of a ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... years Mr. McCall had been in a state of suppressed revolution. He had smouldered, but had not dared to blaze. But this startling upheaval of his fellow-sufferer, Washy, had acted upon him like a high explosive. There was a strange gleam in his eye, a gleam of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... 'The explosive matter was placed under an area in the basement story, dynamite being the agent employed for the outrage. A large aperture was made in the wall, which is three feet thick. Several large rents running to the top have been made, and it now presents a most dilapidated appearance. The ground-floor, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... buried in bloated banks of savage, biting elements. Forked tongues dart out and in, dodge here and there, up and down, and wind their cutting edges around every object. A crash, a dull, explosive sound, and a puff of smoke leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... Pip was explosive. He called her a little ass and a gowk and a stupid idiot for doing such a thing, and she did not reproach him ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... where I keep my winter plants, I saw a horde of men rapidly demolishing the shop, under directions of a superintendent, who was absolutely sitting on top of my honeysuckle trellis. After swallowing six times,—a trick father once taught me to cure explosive speech,—I went down and asked him if he could tell me to what use the lot was to be put. He replied: 'My job is only to clean it up; but the plans call for a twelve-story structure,—warehouse, I guess. But you needn't fret; it's to ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Bluff, after his usual explosive fashion; but if his manner was crude, he generally hit the nail on the head, and no one could mistake his feelings in ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... their demands. If the miners still persisted in striking—well, the State would strike too, with all its might; otherwise there was an end of government in this country. The cheers which greeted this statement seriously annoyed Mr. JACK JONES, who sits for Silvertown, and maintains the explosive reputation of ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... precision in target cordinate identification and location. Precision does not mean "small warhead," although there is a beneficial impact as the right amount of explosive is placed on the target due the penalties imposed on the delivery vehicle required to carry the warhead long distances. All operations involving the use of firepower must also understand and evaluate the beneficial aspects of using non-destructive elements in conjunction with the attack ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... violent explosion, and the wriggler disappeared in a smear of dirty green. Gunga nearly fell over backward in fright, and even Forepaugh was shaken. He was surprised that the ancient cartridge had exploded at all, though he knew powder making had reached a high level of perfection before explosive chemical weapons had yielded to the newer, lighter, and infinitely more powerful ray weapons. The gun would impede their progress. It would be of very little use against the giant Carnivora of Inra. Yet something—perhaps a sentimental attachment, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... the surprise of his physicians, did not die, but he hovered on the brink of it for many thin weeks and his son gave up his entire vacation to be with him. The letters he sent Honor were brief bulletins of his father's condition, explosive regrets at having to give up his summer with her, but Jimsy was not a letter writer. In order properly to fill up more than a page it was necessary for him to be able to say, "Had a bully practice to-day," ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... high-velocity bullet penetrates the head, it exerts on the incompressible, semi-fluid brain an explosive (hydro-dynamic) force, which is transmitted to all points on the inner surface of the skull and leads to shattering of ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... adopted into the Wyoming Gang, or clan, descendants of the original populations of Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania; how quite by accident I stumbled upon a method of destroying Han aircraft by shooting explosive rockets, not directly at the heavily armored ships, but at the repeller ray columns, which automatically drew the rockets upward where they exploded in the generators of the aircraft; how the Wyomings threw the first thrill of terror into the Airlords by bringing an entire squadron crashing ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... Miss Penelope, in a somewhat troubled tone, remembering how an innocent baker in Rossmoyne had had some of the explosive matter in question thrown into his kitchen the night before last,—"you don't really think that these parcels you speak of contain infernal machines?—Yes, that is what they call them, my dear Priscilla," turning to her sister, as though anxious to apologize ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... instructions, I have examined the explosive machine sent to this arsenal yesterday. It is a small miniature case containing twelve copper cartridges, such as are used in a Smith & Wesson pocket pistol, a bundle of sensitive friction matches, a strip of sand-paper, and some fulminating ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... came passages of Scripture, their most telling words given with strong emphasis, the others indistinctly; some in tones of solemn rebuke, others in those of heart-broken pathos, but most distinctly audible in detached fragments. There was one exception,—a few words uttered brokenly, with a half-explosive force, from James 5: 4: ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... glory of the earth is the sun, which illuminates and gives life to the things of earth. Scientists declare that this light is produced by explosive gas which ascends from the sun to a height of from 5,000 to 300,000 miles. It is the brightness of the firmament; and the glory in the presence of Jehovah is illustrated by this brightness, as indicated by the Prophet: "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament". ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... likely—scuttling for shelter. Occasionally the Austrians would vary their rain of heavy projectiles with a sort of shell that went bang and released a fleecy cloud of smoke overhead and then dropped a parcel of high explosive that burst on the ground. It was curious to think that the guns from which these shells came were cunningly hidden away in nooks and glens on the other side of that distant range of hills, that the men serving the guns had little if any idea what they were firing ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... watered!—but misere! hot as—the disposition of the Cure. To-day, gentlemen, the affair becomes serious, for lo, the approach of a doubtful election, and a trifle of clerical interference, like a seed upon the balance, might well—" the sentence was appendixed by an explosive shrug. ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... haunches, blinking. Then he laughed. So did the man at the top of the slip and the lumberjacks clustered on the boat. Homeric laughter, as at some surpassing jest. But the roar of him who had taken that inglorious descent rose loudest of all, an explosive, "Har—har—har!" ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... metal and explosive were being hurled through the air as if Atlas were hurling stars about. There was something elemental, and superhuman about such colossal force. One felt like a pygmy in ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... offered and accepted to grace the harem of his brother; a mere prisoner of state, watched by the baleful eye of jealousy, and traduced by the venal tongues of courtiers; dwelling in a torment of uncertainty as to the fate to which his brother's explosive temper and irresponsible power might devote him, hoping for no repose or safety but in his funeral-urn,—he began to grow hard and defiant, and that which, in the native freedom of his soul, should have been his noble steadfastness degenerated ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... lighter is as sacred, Alb has explained to us all, as a Dutchman's house; and when the loud, explosive Scotsman arrived on the gunwale, uninvited and breathing fire, the lighter's owner proceeded also to breathe fire. He swore; his Kees dog yapped; his children cried and his wife vituperated. An understudy took the helm, and before Sir Alec could jump across to another barge, in his ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... crude oil is placed in an iron retort connected with a coil of pipe in a vessel of cold water. Heat is then applied to the retort, when the process of distillation commences. The first product is a light-colored, volatile substance, sometimes called naphtha, that is very explosive. This substance is used in the place of spirits of turpentine in the preparation of paints and varnishes, and, after further treatment, in removing paints and grease from clothing. The next product from the retort is the refined fluid ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... quite open, I have had it filled up with bags of earth piled one above the other, and I sleep with my head under these and hope for the best. Last night we had two adventures. Our "friends" pitched a high-explosive shell after dark with such a true aim that the pieces flew all about our ruin, in and out of the rooms. They followed this with three more, but they were farther off. The second thing was that my Sergeant-Major, Master Cook, and Sergeant-Bugler, all trembling with cold, poor ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... screen the fire! With what speed he bolts the door and puts out the downstairs lights, lest callers catch him in the business! How briskly does he mount the stairs with fingers already on the buttons! Then with what scattering of garments he makes him ready, as though his explosive speed had blown him all to pieces and lodged him ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... straight, or, technically speaking, has a flat trajectory. This is of the greatest value. Of the bullet it may be said, that its stopping power is all that could be desired. The Dum-Dum bullet, though not explosive, is expansive. The original Lee-Metford bullet was a pellet of lead covered by a nickel case with an opening at the base. In the improved bullet this outer case has been drawn backward, making the hole in the base a little smaller and leaving the lead at the tip exposed. ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... when Mr. Topham, the under-secretary, shook his head gravely, and said in his most dignified manner, that he thought the reported occurrence—the melinite incident—quite improbable. He was going on to explain that the composition of the explosive differed so materially from that of the food that it would be almost impossible for any mother to take the one for the other, when our ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... very much in their old way. To the great relief of Adele there was no explosive village demonstration of the news which had come home so cruelly to herself. The Doctor had given an admonition to the young minister, and the old Squire had told him, in a pointed and confidential way, that he had heard of his inquiries and assertions ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... lantern he carried. It cast a fugitive ray on the arrested trolley with the uncouth figure of the wild Pedro drooping over the load; then it moved towards the bungalow and ascended the stairs. After working at the stiff lock, Wang applied his shoulder to the door. It came open with explosive suddenness, as if in a passion at being thus disturbed after two years' repose. From the dark slope of a tall stand-up writing-desk a forgotten, solitary sheet of paper flew up and settled ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... disliked the gay little woman, with her muddy eyes, whose "affairs"—one after the other—were condoned "for her husband's sake." Perhaps Nannie felt what it might be to be as happy and proud as she was,—she was large, generous, comprehending at this moment. And she passed the explosive little woman over to her husband, who received her with the calm courtesy that ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... GUN-COTTON. An explosive compound, having some advantages over gunpowder, but so irregular hitherto in its action that it is at present used only for mining purposes. It consists of ordinary cotton treated with nitric and sulphuric acid ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... if you have a weak stomach, ever turn up any earth; though there may not be rotting flesh, other gases are imprisoned in the soil.) This night the wind was strong, and the smell of warm blood mingled with the phosphorous odor of high explosive, and there was that other sweet-sticky-sickly smell that is the strongest scent of a recent battle-field. It was a vile, unwholesome job, and we were glad that our time was limited to three-quarters of an hour, when our artillery would re-open fire. I got a ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... the president, "though it would, of course, suit for that. Nihil humunum alienum, eh?" and he broke into a loud, explosive laugh, while his spectacles irradiated that peculiar form of glee derived from a Latin quotation by those able to enjoy it. Dr. Boyster, walking on the other side of Mr. Tomlinson, joined in the laugh in ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... composition was discussed by the newspapers. "He plays very quietly, without the daring elan which distinguishes the artist from the amateur," said one; "his defect is the non- observance of the indication of accent at the beginning of musical phrases." What was then admired in Vienna was explosive accentuations and piano drumming. The article continues: "As in his playing he was like a beautiful young tree that stands free and full of fragrant blossoms and ripening fruits, so he manifested as much estimable ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... apparently the insulation of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution not merely for his own sake but for the sake of others; for since the virtue of holiness or taboo is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it within narrow bounds, lest breaking out it should blast, blight, and destroy whatever ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... way she begins; for her religious severities, if not her years, have curbed any disposition to explosive tenderness,—"I have received the letter of our child, which was addressed to you. I cannot tell you the feelings with which I have read it. I long to clasp her to my heart. And she appeals to you, for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... shouted, as they neared the bank above the danger spot. He was a few yards in advance of Jack's father and "Old Mack." Then suddenly he stood stock still, gave vent to a long, explosive whistle, and yelled, "Well, I'll be gin-busted! Look a' there, boys!" And following his astounded gaze, they saw, on the brink of the river, an old grey horse, with down-hanging head, his back to the gale, and about his neck a boy's coat, from the knotted ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... too near. Lady Agnes wore much of the time the countenance she might have shown at the theatre during a play in which pistols were fired; and indeed the manner of the young reciter had become more spasmodic and more explosive. It appeared, however, that the company in general thought her very clever and successful; which showed, to Sherringham's sense, how little they understood the matter. Poor Biddy was immensely struck; she grew flushed ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... no possibility of the existence of an explosive mixture in any of its parts at any time. It is not enough to argue that a mixture, even if it exists, cannot be exploded unless kindled. It is necessary to demand that a dangerous mixture can at no time be formed, even if ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... not wish to live on men, but live by them he must; and for that purpose he must study them, and especially their weaknesses. He would not cheat them; for there was in him an innate vein of honesty, so surly and explosive, at times, as to give him much trouble. The severest part of his self-education had been the repression of his dangerous inclination to call a sham a sham on the spot, and to answer fools according ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... was fixed upon the bud, which seemed to throb and stir as he spoke. The soft explosive force within was at work so strongly that the eye could watch its operation. The fissures of the sheath widened visibly and turned white as the ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... amplified Grace. "I can't, so I can't. Thank you, Winnie and Norma, for the lovely invitation, and please let me put it down to my credit account? I would like a refund," and she laughed her irresistible explosive outburst, in which the whole party joined, whether willingly or from ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... which we had many examples, had hitherto been practised with monotonous regularity. They had fired on the white flag and disregarded the sacred sign of the red cross. They had shot the hand that tended them, they had used Dum-Dum and explosive bullets, but on this occasion the triumph of originality in treacherous trickery was achieved. On the principle of "all is fair in love and war," the enemy utilised their ambulance for the purpose of removing their Hotchkiss gun from the field, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... great tank of benzine, a concentration of natural forces like a liquid dynamite, capable of wrecking the whole settlement in a moment. Endless precautions and vigilant care alone secure the safety of Balik-Papan from the perils incidental to the vast stores of explosive material. The raw petroleum brought from the mines of Samarinda, farther down the coast, by a fleet of hoppers (the local steamers which ply round the indented shore), is extracted by boring a stratum of coal known as "antichine," and ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... was not at school he sat at his desk in the untidy, stuffy attic in the still more untidy, stuffy boarding-house where he lived, and wrote feverishly. What he wrote Robert did not know. There was an air of mystery about the whole business, as though he were concocting a deadly explosive which might go off at any moment. Sometimes he seemed dated, sometimes cast down by the results, ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... really underground communications with their rear defences. The whole fighting was of a cold, deliberate, merciless nature. No quarter was given or taken. One of the battalions opposing us was similar to our own, a students' battalion from Bavaria. The enemy used explosive and dum-dum bullets, and sniped off any of our wounded lying exposed in the open. They were helped in their work by an arrangement we had come to regarding wounded. It was not permitted to stop to take back prisoners or ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... window of her sitting-room in the twilight—a cold evening in early winter. Sibylla was in an explosive temper. It was nothing unusual for her to be in an explosive temper now; but she was in a worse than customary this evening. Sibylla felt the difference between Verner's Pride and Deerham Court. She lived but in excitement; she cared but for gaiety. In removing to Deerham Court she had gone ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... colored powder which is converted by a temperature of 540 deg. into metallic gold and oxygen. It is only soluble in aqua regia. Treated with hydrochloric acid, it yields the chloride of gold and the metal. With aqua ammonia, it yields the fulminating gold, which is a blue mass and very explosive. ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... clock should not be interfered with before it stopped—nearly a year hence, sir. I understand the liquid is something stronger than water, but whether explosive or poisonous, I ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... chest, and was usually delirious, at the crash had jumped up and come to his senses, crying out: "It is treachery! It is Chamber No. 6 blowing up!" As a matter of fact, that was where the cartridges were. It was said that at Meudon traces had been found of the same explosive as had been used in bombs against the Emperor during the first days of May (a plot that had probably been hatched by the police). The perpetrator, however,—doubtless ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... would now become the oppressed. By the terms settled at Versailles they were to be handed over to states of other nationality. Ten years hence, perhaps sooner, both groups of Powers as they exist at present will have fallen. Other constellations will have appeared and become dominant. The explosive power of unsolved questions will continue to take effect and within a measurable space of time again blow up ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... them while they are dining." Apparently, then, the loyal efforts of Berkshire magistrates extended to the interiors of inns. Whether the two Acts were not needlessly prolonged is open to grave question. Certainly, while driving the discontent underground, they increased its explosive force. General David Dundas, in his Report on National Defence of November 1796, states that at no time were there so many people disposed to help the invaders. Perhaps we may sum up by declaring the two Acts a disagreeable but necessary expedient during ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... complications of successive and cumulative comedy. This humour seemed like the mental functionings of some mad, yet inevitably logical jester; it grew from more to more, from extravagance to extravagance, until reason itself tired and gave over. Such explosive stories as 'How I Edited an Agricultural Paper', 'A Genuine Mexican Plug', the deciphering of the Horace Greeley correspondence, 'The Facts in the Case of the Great Beef Contract, and many another, as Mr. Chesterton has pointed out, have one tremendous essential ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... the human race if it goes too far. He is trying to discover a psychic ray that will explode all the explosive at the ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... even speak French, and an equal number of Berlin grocers, who probably ask for nothing better than to be back in their shops, destroying each other at a distance of two or three miles with balls of lead and iron, many of them filled with explosive materials. I confess that I pity the horses almost as much as the men. It seems a monstrous thing that in order that the Alsacians should be forced into becoming subjects of King William of Prussia, an omnibus horse, who has honestly done his work ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Wait a minute till I cough," and then followed a series of explosive barks that sounded wonderfully realistic over the wire, after which the muffled voice continued: "Seem to have taken a beastly cold somehow, after school. Sneezing to beat the band, in the bargain. But I want to see you, the worst way, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... and it was moving in erratic, unpredictable darts and dashes here and there, like a dragon-fly's movements, but a hundred times more swift. Proximity-fused shells burst everywhere about it. It burst through a still-expanding puff of explosive smoke, darted down a hundred feet, and took a zig-zag course of such violent and angular changes of position that it looked more like a streak of metal lightning than ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... cupboards of the rooms with the legends of mediaeval romance. Visitors of the conventional aesthetic type would have many a surprise and many a shock. The jests often took the form of practical jokes, of which Morris, from his explosive temper, was chosen to be the butt, but which in the end he always shared and enjoyed. Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Faulkner would conspire to lay booby traps on the doors for him, would insult him with lively caricatures, and with relentless humour would send him to 'Coventry' ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... upon the appeal of a powerful example; to allay all doubt of exactly what was wanted, he formed a model company and drilled it himself. He was a natural man; troops warmed to him because of an unabashed use of broken English and his violently explosive use, under stress, of "gottam!" which was his only quasi-English oath. In countenance he was strikingly like Gen. George S. Patton and there were other points of resemblance. A private soldier at Valley Forge was impressed with "the trappings ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... written recently," was the sullen answer, "but if the newspapers are to be believed, he is crazy. Music all color, no rhythm, no themes, and then his preaching of Nietzsche—it's all wrong, all wrong, my boy. Art was made for joy. When it is anything else, it's a dangerous explosive. Chemically separate certain natural elements and they rush together with a thunder-clap. That's what Illowski has done. It isn't art. It's science—the science of dangerous sounds. He discovered that sound-vibrations rule the universe, that ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... nose-guard two bottles of 'neutralizer.' What it is composed of is a secret. But the bottles are to be carried in the pocket, so as to be ready for every emergency. The disadvantage of this plan consists of the fact that the neutralizer is highly explosive, and if a man should happen to sit down on a bottle of it in his coat-tail pocket suddenly it might hist him through the roof. But see how ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... offenses to honor and the like are added. These ideal values come to be regarded as more vital than material values. Hatred between groups becomes chronic and often seems to be groundless because the values concerned have thus become intangible. The chronic moods of hatred and dislike become explosive forces, ready to be excited to action whenever any difference arises. Veblen (97) says wars never occur except when questions of honor are involved, which is of course equivalent to saying that the reaction ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... they live on "in the unconscious". Nothing ever learned, he would say, can ever be forgotten, and no wish ever aroused can ever be quieted, except by being gratified either directly or through some substitute response. Each one of us, according to this view, carries around inside of him enough explosive material to blow to bits the whole social structure in which he lives. It is the suppressed sex wishes, and spite wishes growing out of thwarted sex wishes, that mostly ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... Admiral Thatcher, commanding United States squadron in Mobile Bay, and had come to meet me. A bountiful luncheon was spread, of which we partook, with joyous poppings of champagne corks for accompaniment, the first agreeable explosive sounds I had heard for years. The air of "Hail Columbia," which the band in attendance struck up, was instantly changed by Canby's order to that of "Dixie"; but I insisted on the first, and expressed a hope that Columbia would be again a happy land, a sentiment honored ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... noticed it about the same time. I yanked out my automatic (I had a clip of Boland explosive bullets in it) and Tweel, quick as a sleight-of-hand trick, snapped a queer little glass revolver out of his bag. It was much like our weapons, except that the grip was larger to accommodate his four-taloned ...
— A Martian Odyssey • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... his corner in the ropes before Young Denny was upon him. The boy lifted and sprang and dropped cat-footed in the middle of the ring, hunched of shoulder and bent of knee to meet the shocking impact. It was bewilderingly rapid—terrifyingly effortless—this explosive, spontaneous answer of every muscle to the call of the brain. Just as before, Sutton feinted and saw his opening and swung. Young Denny knew only one best way to fight; he knew only that he had to take a blow in order to give one, and Sutton's fist shot home against his unprotected chin. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... entrusted it to the care of the chaplain of the Dutch embassy, who happened to be a native of Vaud. In passing the barrier, the packet fell into the hands of the officials. They tore it open and examined it, happily unconscious that they were handling the most explosive kind of gunpowder that they had ever meddled with. It was not until the chaplain claimed it in the name of ambassadorial privilege, that the manuscript was allowed to go on its way to the press.[79] Rousseau repeats a hundred times, not ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the other pressed his lips tightly together and puffed out his cheeks, as if it cost him an effort to bring words to the surface. His reply came forth with explosive abruptness. ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... over wicked, wasteful man. Their novels are bursted notebooks—sometimes neat and orderly notebooks, like Mr. Galsworthy's or our own Ernest Poole's, sometimes haphazard ones, like those of Mr. Wells, but always explosive with reform. These gentlemen know very well what they are about, especially Mr. Wells, the lesser artist, perhaps, as compared with Galsworthy, but the shrewder and possibly the greater man. The very sentimentalists, who go to novels to exercise the idealism which ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... business of leasing to the English Government the right to manufacture that new explosive of yours," began Ned, plunging into the business at hand. "I think if you stick out a little you can get a better ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... he left Glen Ellen, had invented a most powerful explosive—"expedite" he called it. This was the weapon the balloons used. They were only hot-air balloons, clumsily and hastily made, but they did the work. I saw it all from the top of an office building. The first balloon missed the fortresses completely ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... write five songs to his taste than twice that number otherwise. The battle of his life was lost; in forlorn efforts to do well, in desperate submissions to evil, the last years flew by. His temper is dark and explosive, launching epigrams, quarrelling with his friends, jealous of young puppy officers. He tries to be a good father; he boasts himself a libertine. Sick, sad, and jaded, he can refuse no occasion of temporary pleasure, no opportunity to shine; and he who ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... started to race along the traverses. We found a machine gun and put an eleven-pound high-explosive "Stokes" under it. Three or four Germans appeared, running down communication trenches, and the bombers sent a few Millses after them. Then we came to a dug-out door—in fact, several, as Fritz, like a woodchuck, always ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... been called forth at the sight and exquisite taste of the Doctor's sugar, and the wonder with which they must have regarded the strange ammunition of the Wasungu. It is to be sincerely hoped that they did not hurt themselves with the explosive bullets and rim cartridges through any ignorance of the nature of the deadly contents; in which ease the box and its contents would prove ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Chassepot, who once, it will not be forgotten, "wrought miracles"; but he has his doubts as to the morality of explosive bullets. The nymph of modern warfare is addressed as she hovers above ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... moment a steady pursuit of one idea characterized Ringfield's actions. Already charged to explosive point by pressure of emotions both worthy and the reverse, he immediately entered into correspondence with several charitable institutions with regard to Angeel, and he also wrote to Mr. Enderby and Mr. Abercorn. It was ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... himself to wash the orderly. The noise, however, was followed by a succession of thumps which put an end to this pretty flight of fancy. Aghast he surveyed the scene before him. Close to the Brigade Headquarters' dug-out was an old French dump of every conceivable kind of explosive made up into every known form of projectile. No longer was it a picture of Still Life. The Sleeping Beauty was awake indeed. The Prince had come in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... more nerve-racking or explosive than an occasional hilarious whoop punctuated the melody. For once, at any rate, it seemed likely to go the distance; but no sooner did the chorus, which had been taken up, to a man, by the motley crowd and was rip-roaring along at a great rate, reach the second ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... persuasion, fired into the crowd. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, the Siberian peasant Logvinov, part of whose head was shot away by an explosive bullet. Another victim was the militant Socialist-Revolutionist Gorbatchevskaia. Several students and a number of workmen were also killed. Similar massacres occurred at the same time in other parts of the city. Other processions wending their way toward the meeting-place were fired into. Altogether ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... miscreant—a word very popular in O'Connell's day, but rather obsolete now. When the Speaker called on the member for an apology, we had won the day! These rash utterances in debate are the explosive balls that no one must use in battle; and if we only discover one in a fellow's pouch, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... six miles away are formed by the dashing and exploding of heavy masses mixed with air upon two projecting ledges on the face of the cliff, the one on which we are standing and another about 200 feet above it. The torrent of massive comets is continuous at time of high water, while the explosive, booming notes are wildly intermittent, because, unless influenced by the wind, most of the heavier masses shoot out from the face of the precipice, and pass the ledges upon which at other times they are exploded. Occasionally the whole fall is swayed away from the ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... whim of Placido's," said a friend who knew him well, "to take up political intrigue. It is not otherwise than as if he had come upon a new tempo in music, a new bacillus in the air, a new scent, or rhyme, or explosive. He will squeeze this revolution dry of sensations, and a week afterward will forget it, skimming the seas of the world in his brigantine to add to his already world-famous collections. Collections ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... of war at Peronne in a rather unfortunate manner. Whilst on a fatigue of salving telephone wire on the battle-swept ground of Biaches, just outside the town, Pte. Gibson of "C" company was accidentally killed by a bomb, whose explosive mechanism he had unwittingly set in action when pulling up ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... the channel between the Isle of Orleans and the shore, and toward it they came steadily drifting. Knox describes the pandemonium as awful, and the sight as inconceivably superb of these large burning ships, crammed with every imaginable explosive and soaked from their mast-heads to their water-line in pitch and tar. It was no new thing, however, to the gallant sailors, who treated the matter as a joke, grappling fearlessly with the hissing, spitting demons, and towing them ashore. "Damme, Jack," they shouted, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... housed in a theatre building, and known as the Women's Crisis League. To their office she took her way, determined to enlist for Belgium. Mrs. Bracher was in charge of the office—a woman with a stern chin, and an explosive energy, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... predominantly an agricultural country; yet she is at the present moment threatened in many parts with an Industrial Revolution, the ultimate effects of which may prove far more subversive than the attempted revolution of 1905. For beneath her soil lie explosive materials more deadly than any dynamite manufactured by intelligentsia. Her mineral wealth, at present almost untouched, is incalculable in quantity and amazing in variety. When her mines are opened ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... general's staff watching the course of the action by the billows of black smoke? Gone where the railroad sent the stage-coach, electricity sent the candle and horse-drawn street-cars, serum sent diphtheria, the knife sent the appendix, and rifled cannon and explosive shells sent the wooden walls of old ships ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... on the 30th of November, Neb, strolling on the beach, had not found a piece of a thick iron cylinder, bearing traces of explosion. The edges of this cylinder were twisted and broken, as if they had been subjected to the action of some explosive substance. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... the other hand they fire on our ambulances and ill-treat our ambulance nurses. They ill-treat and even kill our wounded. Clergymen seem to be particularly the object of their attacks. Last, but not least, we have in our possession explosive bullets left behind them by the enemy at Wechter, and we are also in receipt of medical certificates testifying that the wounds must have been inflicted by bullets of the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... expression in the eyes of Chet Bullard, master-pilot of the world, was answer enough. But Chet amplified it with explosive words. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... men, were maimed in every conceivable way, by every kind of weapon and missile, the most fiendish of which was an explosive and a poisoned bullet, represented in the engraving a little more than half the size of the originals, procured from the battlefield there by the writer. These were sent by the Confederates. Whether any were ever used by the Nationals, the writer is not informed. One was made to ...
— A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65 • Horace Edwin Hayden
... said Margaret timidly, attracted and yet alarmed by his explosive utterance, so different from the quiet speech of the ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... laboratories at Pittsburg; extended tests have been made as to the explosibility of various mixtures of gas and air; as to the explosibility of dust from various typical coals; as to the chemical composition and physical characteristics of this dust; the degree of fineness necessary to the most explosive conditions; and the methods of dampening the dust by water, by humidifying, by steam, or of deadening its explosibility by the addition of calcium chloride, stone dust, etc. A bulletin outlining the results thus far obtained in the study of ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... disturbing influence in her life—incredible as the thing appeared! I couldn't let him go on to make himself a worry and a nuisance, drive her out from a town in which she wished to be (for whatever reason) and perhaps start some explosive scandal. And that girl Rose seemed to fear something graver even than a scandal. But if I were to explain the matter fully to H. he would simply rejoice in his heart. Nothing would please him more than to have Dona Rita driven out ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... previous one stirred Florence, who had been sitting quietly, according to request, and "resting", but not resting her curiosity. "Who's disappointed in love, papa?" she inquired with an explosive eagerness that slightly startled her preoccupied parents. "What is all this about Aunt Julia, and grandpa goin' to live alone, and people committing suicide and prohibition and everything? ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... metallic gauze so rapidly conducts away the heat, that the temperature of the gas beneath the gauze is unable to arrive at the point of ignition. In the safety-lamp the little oil-lamp is placed in a circular funnel of fine gauze, which prevents the flame from passing through it to any explosive gas that may be floating about outside, but at the same time allows the rays of light to pass through readily. Sir Humphrey Davy, in introducing his lamp, cautioned the miners against exposing it to a rapid current of air, which ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... missing. For instance, those chaps down there know that every space-liner is equipped with emergency space-suits. Why pull the ship down with live men on board? That would naturally mean a fight, and we have no mean weapons, what with disintegrator ray-projectors and explosive electro-bullets." Then, again, for some reason, there were Ganymedans on board. They would very likely be whiffed out in the melee. The ship might be destroyed also, and they evidently are very careful about getting the ship down intact. ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... some careless mistake had no doubt been made. It is not known how or why a communication had been established between the reservoir which contained the oxygen and that which enclosed the hydrogen. An explosive mixture had resulted from the union of these two gases, to which fire had accidentally ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... the different wreaths and depths of smoke, and the explosive look of the flash on the right, are, however, very wonderful and peculiarly Turneresque; the sky is also beautiful in form, and the foreground, in which we find his old regard for washerwomen has not quite deserted ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... that hour, the supply of the explosive exhausted, and not a dozen streams of water being thrown in the entire fire zone, the stunned firemen and the stupefied people stood helpless with their eyes fixed in despair ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars from a point in Bergen County, N. J., just ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... by the proceeding, I could have understood it. But my business interests as far as past inventions went were safe in the hands of my lawyers, and although I had told him a certain amount about the new explosive which I had been working at, it was quite impossible for him to turn it to ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... irreconcilable division, and not giving much indication as yet of its power to combine and unite. Judaism, embittered by persecution, had from a nationality become a conspiracy; and the disaffected adherents of the Mosaic system, dispersed through all the countries of the East, formed an explosive element in the population which involved the constant danger of a catastrophe. The Parthian political system was also, as already remarked, giving symptoms of breaking up. Those bonds which for two centuries and a half had sufficed to hold together a heterogeneous kingdom extending ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... bullet-proof, were placed along the tops of the parapets far enough apart to make loop-holes for musketry. On top of these, logs were put. By these means the men were enabled to walk about erect when off duty, without fear of annoyance from sharpshooters. The enemy used in their defence explosive musket-balls, no doubt thinking that, bursting over our men in the trenches, they would do some execution; but I do not remember a single case where a man was injured by a piece of one of these shells. When they were hit and the ball ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... limited stock. However, they took also one of the carbines and some cartridges. As to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a small supply of it had to be taken, but the engineer hoped to manufacture an explosive substance which would allow them to husband it. To the firearms were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus supplied, the settlers could venture into the vast forest with ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... about some workings. At the last a charge of gunpowder was fired, and the concussion exploded the dynamite. It was most successful. Those who were non-experts in high explosives expected that every pane of glass in New York would be shattered. But, in reality, the explosive did no harm outside the area intended, although sixteen acres of rock had been mined and only the supporting walls and pillars had been left intact. The whole of the ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the car and a little to the right, took her mind away from Musa and back to the adventure. She looked round, half expecting what she should see—and she saw it, namely, the detective ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... proper enough that the masses of explosive ammunition stored up in detective stories and the replete and solid sweet-stuff shops which are called sentimental novelettes should be popular with the ordinary customer. It is not difficult to realize ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... man, you ought to drop this holiness stuff, for there is nothing in it—all bunk. Living above sin are you? Ha! ha! ha!" and the old man gave poor Robert an explosive horse-laugh. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... are called in Borneo. Formerly this Kiham Raja had a bad reputation, Dayaks being killed here occasionally every year, but of late the government has blasted out rocks and made it more passable. However, even now it is no trifle to negotiate these rapids. Below them we halted and threw explosive Favier into the water in the hope of getting fish, and as soon as the upheaval of the water began the Kenyahs, as if by a given signal, hurried all the prahus out to the scene. With other natives than Dayaks this would have given me some anxiety, as the boats were heavily ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... heard. He would not have heard it so often, however, had not Thomas Carlyle cried it out with that harsh voice of his, in this and many others of his books. It was his gunpowder, more than any other explosive of the nineteenth century, that broke up the immense complacency into which half England ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... was thronged with people, and every window and balcony looking over it was filled. There were soldiers, sentries, policemen, the generals in cocked hats, and the Prince himself in a bearskin, riding by with the jingle of spurs and curb-chain. Then the ta-ra-ta-ta-ra of the bugle, the explosive voice crying, "Escort for the colour!" the officer carrying it, the white gloves of the staff fluttering up the salute, the flash of bayonets, the march round, and the band playing The British Grenadiers. It was like a dream to Glory. She felt her bosom heaving, and was afraid ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the fourth pistol shut and went after the man who'd dropped down behind a desk. He came upon that man, hopelessly panicked, just as his hands closed on a clumsy gun that was supposed to set off a chemical explosive to ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... floor, rather ingeniously concealed, which disclosed the existence of a small cellar below. Candle in hand he explored this, returning with two guns, together with a quantity of powder and ball, and information that there remained a half-keg of the explosive hidden below. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... was the Shadow Man's turn to laugh with a funny, explosive little effect as though he were not used to muffling his laughs,—as if this playing Shadow ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... and denounce the Government by seditious journalism, preaching primitive superstition in the very modern form of leading articles. The mixture of religion with politics has always produced a highly explosive compound, especially in Asia. ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... center of the Terran Empire. For centuries before the coming of interstellar travel, the islands had been used to a mixture of tongues and races, and the coming of the Empire had merely added to that mixture. In the five centuries since Man had begun his explosive spread to the stars, more "races" had come into being due to the genetic variations and divisions that occurred as small groups of isolated colonists were cut off from Earth and from each other. The fact that interstellar vessels incorporating the contraspace drive were relatively inexpensive ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... refused, and Sir William proceeded to fix a petard to the gate, to blow it in. A military genius like Wither would have ordered his men to fire their muskets at the enemy; but all the soldiers on both sides escaped that day. The explosive was securely fastened in position, the gate was shattered, the assailants rushed at the breach, and began at once to pull down the barricade of timber erected inside by the garrison. This done, the garrison surrendered, and the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Thursday night, I saw Mayes again. Mr. Bowmore was here, and when I left the house he troubled me much by coming after me. I was obliged to tell him that I wished to be alone, and I was in a nervously explosive state when I did it. He seemed reluctant to go; my anger blazed out, and I violently ordered him off. From what he has told me it seems that he followed me still, but lost sight of me near Penn's Meadow. Well, be that as it may, I saw Mayes and ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... from the German government. By the "business at hand" they meant a new explosive and slow-burning powder that was to be used in the new type of fourteen-inch turret guns being made in Glasgow. Some of that explosive was in my possession. The fact that it was not discovered in my effects, nor was anything else incriminating found on me is because the Secret Agent who ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... cross-roads who stood saying, 'Third division to the right, So-and-so division to the left,' when it should have been the other way about—he lost his way, he found the battalion a fortnight later. Two others came in sight of the last bridge standing on one river just as the explosive was about to be detonated, and maintain that, running furiously toward the bridge, they persuaded the engineer in charge to postpone the fatal moment by brandishing a large loaf, rarest of all articles on the heels of a retreating army. ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... was very trying on account of the cold, fog, and snow. The train ploughed its way slowly and cautiously amidst the explosive signals, which did not add to our comfort. We felt very sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Seeley, who were sitting up for us ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... Proprietors beg to inform their Friends and Patrons that they can supply this highly combustible and explosive compound in felt safety cases, carefully packed at their bomb-proof establishment in Barking Marshes, at the usual retail prices, viz., 1s. 1-1/2d., 2s. 9d., 11s., 21s., and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... bath, with a massive table of solid clay, and benches of the same simple design and material round the walls. Though, of course, roofless, it afforded a measure of safety from shells, but one shudders to think what would have been the effect had a high explosive landed on the table while a meal ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... a man of explosive action and had great reserve of strength. He was moved by flashes of insight, and was capable of long-sustained flights of vehement effort; but his will-power was nourished entirely by those moments of intense prevision, which showed him ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... fifteen years old when my uncle presented me with a flint-lock gun. The possession of the "mysterious iron," and the explosive dirt, or "pulverized coal," as it is called, filled me with new thoughts. All the war-songs that I had ever heard from childhood came back to me with their heroes. It seemed as if I were an entirely new being—the boy had ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... hand,—all obtainable from natural sources close by; but the result of all my efforts (and I tried mixing the ingredients in every conceivable way) was a very coarse kind of powder with practically no explosive force, but which would go off with ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... degree of tension; then the tone is started by allowing the 'breath-bands' to separate very slightly, so that a thin stream of air is forced through the opening between their margins. The tone is ushered in by a slight explosive sound, which is nothing but the well-known stroke of the glottis. So long as the expiratory pressure is steadily maintained, this tone may be held, and yet no strain is imposed on the vocal cords. Perfect control of the breath is thus attained. ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor |
