"Take fire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whirlwind. Aristotle, that all these proceed from dry exhalations, which, if they meet with moist vapors, forcing their passage, the breaking of them gives the noise of thunder; they, being very dry, take fire and make lightning; tempests and hurricanes arise from the plenitude of matter which each draw to themselves, the hotter parts attracted make the whirlwinds, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... across, and mars the race. A grandsire or a grandame taints the blood; And seldom three descents continue good. Were virtue by descent, a noble name Could never villanise his father's fame; But, as the first, the last of all the line, Would, like the sun, even in descending shine; Take fire, and bear it to the darkest house, Betwixt King Arthur's court and Caucasus: If you depart, the flame shall still remain, 410 And the bright blaze enlighten all the plain: Nor, till the fuel perish, can decay, By nature form'd on things combustible to prey. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... you say a word to Martial about the box, or the copper, or the clothes, you shall have a dance, so that you'll take fire; not to say ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... but the best Illuminating Oil ever made. Does not take fire or explode if the lamp be upset or broken. Over 100,000 families continue to use it, and no accidents of any description, directly or ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... "it is easy to see that life has grown rather sombre to Irving,—the glamour is gone, he is subject to few illusions. The show and pageantry no longer enchant; they only weary." He writes home: "Amidst all the splendors of London and Paris I find my imagination refuses to take fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Those were exciting times in Spain, and Irving entered into all the dramatic interest of the situation with a real enthusiasm, and wrote most interesting letters ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... continuous stream, like a spring of water, out of a cleft in the earth, and the stream of naphtha, which not far from this spot flows out so abundantly as to form a large lake. This naphtha, in other respects resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire that, before it touches the flame, it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it, and often inflames the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the power and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings with little drops of it, and, when it was almost ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... If so, go poll your acquaintance, and tell us how many of them have got rope-ladders, or even ropes, to escape from their houses should they take fire; how many of them have got hand-pumps, or even buckets, placed so as to be handy in case of fire; and how many of them have got their houses and furniture insured ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... rise up, but found that the confines of my narrow quarters would not permit it. I then realized that we were wrecked and that I was in a bad predicament. I felt that I had no bones broken, and my only fear was that the wreck would take fire. My fears were not groundless for I soon smelled smoke. I cried out as loudly as I could, but my berth had evidently become a "sound proof booth." Then I felt that my time had come, and had about given up all ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... out, I not only raised my ground two feet, but made a little cellar to my mansion-house; and this cost me many days labour and pains. One day in particular a shower of rain falling, thunder and lighting ensued, which put me in terror lest my powder should take fire, and not only hinder my necessary subsistence, by killing me food, but even blow up me and my habitation. To prevent which, I fell to making boxes and bags, in order to separate it, having by me near 150lb. weight. And thus being established as king of the ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... office in a cook-room, or galley, placed in the forecastle or "in the Hatchway upon the first Orlope" (Boteler). The floor of the galley was not at that time paved with brick or stone, as in later days, and now. It was therefore very liable to take fire, especially in foul weather, when the red embers were shaken from the ash-box of the range. It was the cook's duty to take the provisions from the steward, both flesh and fish, and to cook them, by boiling, until ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... heels appears; Notes, letters full of soft expressions, dears, To me are sent by one I will not name, For known to you, she would be thought to blame: Pray put an end to such a wild pursuit It nothing can produce but wretched fruit; My husband may take fire at things like these; And as to Cleon.—me he'll never please; I'll thank you to inform him what I say; Such steps are useless: ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... young man, a M. de Moneys, of whom a gang had asserted that he had shouted "Vive la Prusse!" had stripped him, bound him with ropes, carried him out into a field, laid him on a pile of damp wood, and as this would not take fire quick enough, had pushed trusses of straw underneath all round him, and burnt him alive. From the Quartier La Vilette in Paris, one heard every day of similar slaughter of innocent persons who the people fancied were Prussian ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... it had water in it," observed the doctor. "I am afraid that with dry sago in it the shell will take fire. However, we will try. Perhaps we may find a large flat stone which we can surround with a rim of wood; and by applying heat under the centre our object may ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... loss of my leggins, moccasins, and socks, which I had hung up to dry, was no trivial misfortune in such a country and on such a voyage. But I had reason to thank God that the powder, three small casks of which I had in my tent, did not take fire; if it had, I must certainly have lost all my baggage, ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... Breslau, all this while, is very critical. Much bottled emotion in the place; no Austrian Garrison admissible; Authorities dare not again propose such a thing, though Browne is turning every stone for it,—lest the emotion burst bottle, and take fire. I have dim account that Browne has been there, has got 300 Austrian dragoons into the Dom Insel (CATHEDRAL ISLAND; "Not in the City, you perceive!" says General Browne: "no, separated by the Oder, on both sides, from the rest of the City; that stately mass of edifices, and good ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Wilhelm to do? Seek justice for himself by his 80,000 men and the iron ramrods? Apparently he will not get it otherwise. He is loath to begin that terrible game. If indeed Europe do take fire, as is likely at Seville or elsewhere—But in the meanwhile how happy if negotiation would but serve! Alas, and if the Kaiser, England; Holland and the others, could be brought to guarantee me,—as indeed they should (to avoid a CASUS BELLI), and ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... cocoon. The immense dark green caterpillar banded with black and spotted with gold was found on the 29th of August among the heather on the hill-side; the sun burning, the air all alight with the fire of the beams, a day of flame—as if the keen tips of the pine needles would take fire in the glow. The caterpillar in its colour and size seemed almost tropical; those who have not seen it would scarcely believe that a caterpillar could be so magnificent; but indoors in the cardboard box he lost his sun-burnished ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... made to catch the sparks of the smitten steel. They then tried the flashing of their guns; but they had no paper, and could find no dry leaves or fleecy bark of the birch, and the finest splinters or shavings they could whittle, in the dark, from the clefts of the imperfectly dry pine, would not take fire from the light, evanescent flash of the powder in their pans. Again and again did they renew the doubtful experiment; but every succeeding trial, from the dampness of their material in the driving snow, and from the unmanageable condition of their benumbed ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Pharaoh's host was drowned in the Red Sea, and that they had a many chariots. It is like enough you should fish one of the wheels up. But to try to stuff your poor old granny that fish can fly, and water take fire! ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... drunk, nor do you ever hear any Scolding amongst them. They say, the Europeans are always rangling and uneasy, and wonder they do not go out of this World, since they are so uneasy and discontented in it. All their Misfortunes and Losses end in Laughter; for if their Cabins take Fire, and all their Goods are burnt therein, (indeed, all will strive to prevent farther Damage, whilst there is any Possibility) yet such a Misfortune ends in a hearty Fitt of Laughter, unless some of their Kinsfolks and Friends have lost their Lives; but ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... strong with the vapor of alcohol and takes fire when a light is brought near the mouth. These stories are probably not true, although it sometimes happens that persons become diseased in such a way that the breath will take fire if it comes in contact with a light. Alcohol may be a cause of ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... in your cave of snows, we in our narrow girth Of need and sense, forever chafe and pine; Only in moods of some demonic birth Our souls take fire, our flashing wings untwine; Even like you, mad wind, above our broken prison, With streaming hair and maddened eyes uprisen, We dream ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... gods or men. Then what mysterious charm, What fascination is it chains my feet, And keeps me gazing like a curious child Into the holy places, where the priests Have raised their altar?—Striking stones together, They take fire out of them, and light the lamps In the great candlestick. They spread the veils, And set the loaves of showbread on the table. The incense burns; the well-remembered odor Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back To other days. I see myself among them As I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... power is a necessary but a formidable creature, not unlike the powder which (as you are soldiers) is at once your safety and your danger, being subject to take fire against you as well as for you, how well and securely is she, by your galaxies so collected as to be in full force and vigor and yet so distributed that it is impossible you should be blown up by your own magazine? Let them who will have it, that power if it be confined cannot be sovereign, ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... yet grow pale, Tears rise at fortune, and true hearts take fire In all who hear, with quickening pulse's stroke, That cry that from the infinite people broke, When third among them Helen led the wail At Hector's ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... while he looked on, the use of the tools, instruments, and utensils. It was obvious that Carefinotu belonged to, or had lived amongst savages in the lowest rank of the human scale, for fire itself seemed to be unknown to him. He could not understand why the pot did not take fire when they put it on the blazing wood; he would have hurried away from it, to the great displeasure of Tartlet, who was watching the different phases of the cooking of the soup. At a mirror, which was held out to him, he betrayed consummate astonishment; he turned round, and ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... my little man," answered Willet, with no grim though grimy smile, "if it didn't take fire and keep getting out of the way all the time it kept up the heat. You see we depend on the heat for getting through, and it's much less trouble to drop a bit of coal or two into the hole, than to take up the big axle ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... the mind? and how can they be expected to relish in a lover what they do not, or very imperfectly, possess themselves? The sympathy that unites hearts, and invites to confidence, in them is so very faint, that it cannot take fire, and thus mount to passion. No, I repeat it, the love cherished by such ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... sea. In order to prevent these dangerous accidents, a man stands constantly ready to divide the rope with a hatchet, in case it should happen to tangle; and another is continually pouring water over it for fear the swiftness of the motion should make it take fire. The poor whale, being thus wounded, darts away with inconceivable rapidity, and generally plunges to the bottom of the sea. The men have a prodigious quantity of cord ready to let out, and when their store is exhausted ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... the crowned Hellenic heads, and there The old gods who made men godlike as they were, The lyric lips wherefrom all songs take fire, Live eyes, and ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sinfulness in so traducing persecuted Christians. What might have come to pass is hard to say, had not Providence been pleased, in that most critical and perilous time, to cause a foul lum in a thacket house in the Sea-gate to take fire, by which an alarm was spread that drew off the mob, and allowed James Gottera to pass without farther molestation ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... and if your workers become drudges, to that degree have you lapsed from your stewardship. Men react to fatigue in different ways: one is merely tired, weak and sleepy —a "dope," to use ordinary characterization—but another becomes a dangerous rebel, ready to take fire at ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... constellation flies, And sowes the court with stars, and doth prevent, In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament: First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes, Then from their beams their jewels' lustres rise: And from their jewels torches do take fire, And all is warmth, and light, and good ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... it was half-full still!—One glass—a hair of the dog—would set her free from faintness and sickness, disgust and misery! There was no one to find fault with her now! She could do as she liked—there was no one to care!—nothing to take fire!—She set the bottle on the table, because her hand shook, and went again to the cupboard to get a glass. On the way—borne upward on some heavenly current from the deeps of her soul, the face of Gibbie, sorrowful because loving, like the face of the Son of Man, met her. She turned, seized the bottle, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... stirred. His face grew crimson to the roots of his hair, and his eyes seemed of a sudden to take fire. He seized that little bag and ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... ought never to leave such valuables behind," said her nephew; "the house might take fire, and they would ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... got some dry grass and a piece of rotten wood, and turning a small stick rapidly between his hands, in the same manner as we mill chocolate, the friction caused the touchwood, in which the point of the stick was inserted, to take fire; while, wrapping it up in the dry grass, and shaking it backward and forward, he very soon produced a flame, which he communicated to some dry sticks, and other fuel that our ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... earth itself into the superior purposes of man, enveloped Howat. He forgot for the moment his companion, lost in a swelling pride of Myrtle Forge, of his father's fibre—the iron of his character like the iron he successfully wrought. He could grasp Gilbert Penny's accomplishment here, take fire at its heroic quality; a thing he found impossible in the counting room above, recording such trivial details as wool stockings for Jonas Rupp. He could be a forgeman, he thought, but never a clerk; and in that limitation ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... straight way. The braunches, one is of the Thistle or thorne of Iudea[A], and the other of the Turbentine. The nature of which Woodes bee, that the one will not easily take fire, and the other will neither bend, rotte, consume, nor be eaten with wormes. And so that patience is commended, which with anger is not kindled, nor by ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... declare it would affect their liberties, and this notion is ineradicable. Touch them in their freedom and the secold Northerners become aflame. And while the Irish Kelts burn like straw—a flame and a puff of smoke, and there an end—these Scots settlers are like oaken logs, slow to take fire, but hard to extinguish. They prosper under the Union, and therefore, say they, the Union is good. What the poor Irish need is industry, not Acts of Parliament. The land is rich, the laws are just, the judges are honest, and industry is encouraged. The fault is in ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the servants are in a stir, the altar wreathed for sacrifice, the flames curling up the kitchen chimney, ivy and parsley gathered to make a wreath for Phyllis' hair. Come then, sweet girl, last of my loves; for never again shall this heart take fire at a woman's face—come, and learn of me a tune to sing with that dear voice, and drive away dull care. I am told that every man in making love assures the charmer that no woman shall ever succeed her in his regards; ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... Rise higher; Take fire; When most impressed Be self-possessed; To spirit wed form; Sit ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... Why not?" cried the girl; and her face glowed with heroic sympathy and defiance. It is from this heaven-born ignorance in women of the insuperable difficulties of doing right that men take fire and accomplish the sublime impossibilities. Our sense of details, our fatal habits of reasoning paralyze us; we need the impulse of the pure ideal which we can get only from them. These two were alike children as regarded the world, but he had a man's dark prevision of the means, ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... is made of tar only, without other composition. There is a way which some ship-carpenters in those countries have us'd, to bring their tar into pitch for any sudden use; by making the tar so very hot in an iron-kettle, that it will easily take fire, which when blazing, and set in an airy place, they let burn so long, till, by taking out some small quantity for trial, being cold, it appears of a sufficient consistence: Then, by covering the kettle ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... it is when you know that light for all the people already exists in life, and that there will be a time when they will begin to see it, when they will bathe their souls in it, and all, all, will take fire in its unquenchable flames." ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... urge upon consumers the use of the "Astral" Oil in preference to any other. Thousands are now burning it, and in no instance has any accident occurred from its use. A lamp filled with it upset and broken will not explode or take fire. To prevent adulteration, the Astral Oil is packed only in the Guaranty Patent Cans, of 1 gallon and 5 gallons each, and each can is sealed in a manner that cannot be counterfeited Every package, ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... by the legislators of the cotton States; they propose them openly, without scruple and without circumlocution, under the name of political—what do I say? of moral and Christian axioms. For these theories they take fire, they become excited; they feel that enthusiasm which was inspired in other times by the love of liberty. See entire populations, who, under the eye of God, and invoking his support, devote themselves, body, soul, and goods, to the holy ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... screams again ringing out guided him down a narrow hallway to the rear upper bedroom. The furniture in it was just commencing to take fire. On the floor was the fireman's wife, a tiny babe held in one arm, while with the other she was trying unsuccessfully to pull herself out of ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... which I bought for him, the vapour does not seem to injure the animal functions. Addison seems to have been very particular in his experiments upon the vapour of this cavern. He found that a pistol would not take fire in it; but upon laying a train of gunpowder, and igniting it beyond the sphere of the vapour, he found that it could not intercept the train of fire when it had once begun flashing, nor hinder it from running to the very ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... unsurpassed. They are by no means satisfied with damning their adversary's soul after the vulgar manner of the Anglo-Saxon, but invoke the direst calamities upon his body also; as, for example, "May the flesh be stripped from your face!" "May your heart take fire!" "May eagles drink your eyes!" "May your name be written on a stone!" (i.e. a tombstone); "May the shadow of an owl fall on your house!" (this, owing probably to the rarity of its occurrence, is regarded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... grass is all burned off, the tribe attacked are as helpless as a wooden ship, possessing only signal guns, would be before an iron-clad steamer. The time of year selected for this kind of warfare is nearly always that in which the grass is actually burnt off, or is so dry as readily to take fire. The dry grass in Africa looks more like ripe English wheat late in the autumn, than anything else we can compare it to. Let us imagine an English village standing in a field of this sort, bounded only by the horizon, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... Chemical Means.—It is not in the province of this book to describe the various matches that take fire by dipping them into compositions; and I have already spoken of lucifer-matches in the last section. Only one source of fire remains ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... did not take fire at that jib. Instead he pushed back a panel and they were looking into com-unit room where another man in the tunic of the I-S lounged on what was by law twenty-four hour duty, ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... He, finding himself wounded in the shoulder, endeavoured to refit his bow, and, turning about, was pierced with a second arrow in the breast. Oliver, the gunner, immediately presented his piece at the insidious assailants, which failing to take fire, gave them time to level another flight of arrows by which he was killed; nor, perhaps, had any of them escaped, surprised and perplexed as they were, had not Drake, with his usual presence of mind, animated their courage, and directed their motions, ordering them, by perpetually changing their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... end; leaving time for the departments to prepare their resistance, wearying the troops out, and in which struggle the Parisian people, who do not long smell powder with impunity, would perhaps ultimately take fire. Barricades raised everywhere, barely defended, re-made immediately, disappearing and multiplying themselves at the same time, such was the strategy indicated by the situation. The Committee adopted it, and sent orders ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... street and milked at the doors of the houses. I saw real glass windows in the houses of even the commonest people. Some of the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there will take fire and burn, sometimes—actually burn entirely down, and not leave a single vestige behind. I could state that for a truth, upon my death-bed. And as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver that they have a thing which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... point of the upright stick wears away the indentation into a fine powder, which runs off to the ground in the groove that has been cut; after a time it begins to smoke, and by continued friction it will at length take fire. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... so risky as it looks," commented Barry as he explained the tactics to the midshipmen. "You see, they can torpedo us as much as they like, and blow the dummy sides of the ship to bits piecemeal. We can't sink, since we'll be hard aground. We can't take fire—at least, it would be quite a job to get any part of her to burn without being able to keep the flames under control. Gunnery, of course, puts a different aspect on the subject. If the enemy start shelling us with their heavy guns, then the sooner we ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... them the land of their masters and equal social and political rights. Their members go armed to these meetings and drill on Saturdays in the public square. The white man is afraid to interfere lest his house or barn take fire. A negro prisoner in the dock needs only to make the sign to be acquitted. Not a negro will dare to vote against us. Their women are formed into societies, sworn to leave their husbands and refuse to marry any man who dares our anger. The negro churches have pledged themselves ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... steadfast star Ablaze on Evening's forehead o'er the earth, And add each night a lustre till afar An eight-fold splendor shine above thy hearth. Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn; Chant psalms of victory till the heart take fire, The ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... in other places stalactites. The lava, very porous in certain places, took the form of little round blisters. Crystals of opaque quartz, adorned with limpid drops of natural glass suspended to the roof like lusters, seemed to take fire as we passed beneath them. One would have fancied that the genii of romance were illuminating their underground palaces to receive the ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... is Mukkun, which means butter, and of this commodity I believe he absorbs as much as he can honestly or dishonestly come by. How else does the surface of him acquire that glossy, oleaginous appearance, as if he would take fire easily and burn well? I wish we could do without him! The centre of his influence, a small room in the suburbs of the dining-room, which he calls the dispence, or dispence-khana, is a place of unwholesome sights and noisome ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... sigh and groan from her fellow-Methodists, but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little smouldering vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the utmost effect Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at present. Yet no one had retired, except the children and "old Feyther Taft," who being too deaf to catch many words, had some time ago gone ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... gauze six inches square. Raise the wick of the spirit-lamp causing it to give a high flame and bring the gauze down upon the flame till it touches the wick. Note that the flame does not rise above the gauze. Hold a piece of paper above the gauze near the flame and note that it does not take fire. Note also that the gauze soon becomes hot. The brass wires conduct the heat of the flame rapidly away so that there is not heat enough above the gauze to cause combustion. Now roll the gauze into a hollow cylinder, pin the edges together, insert a cork at each end, and have a short candle ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... That which is called the Blue Mountain is by far the highest, being seen from the greatest distance at sea. Java is subject to frequent and terrible earthquakes, which the inhabitants believe are caused by the mountain of Parang, which is full of sulphur, salt-petre, and bitumen, which take fire by their intestine commotions, causing a prodigious struggle within the bowels of the earth, whence proceeds the earthquake; and they assert that it is common, after an earthquake, to see a vast cloud of smoke hanging over the top of that mountain. About thirty years before ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... their means to bring it about. Every thing that has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the capsheaf of the abomination of desolation-full of all deviltry. In a short time, the world will take fire and dissolve; it is combustible already. All women, not obedient, had better become so as soon as possible, and let the wicked spirit depart, and become temples of truth. Praying is all mocking. When you ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... Ferguson, "but still if the gas were to take fire it would burn up gradually, and we should settle down on the ground, which would be disagreeable; but never fear—our balloon is ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... the oil. The force with which the compressed gas and petroleum rushes upward almost surpasses belief. Drill, jars, and sinker bar are sometimes shot out along with debris, oil, and hissing gas. Sometimes this gas and oil take fire, and last summer one of the wells thus ignited burned so fiercely that a number of days elapsed before the flames could be extinguished. More often the tankage provided is insufficient, and thousands ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... imprisonment be short - I mean comparatively, for short it cannot be - the last half year is almost worse than all; for then he thinks the prison will take fire and he be burnt in the ruins, or that he is doomed to die within the walls, or that he will be detained on some false charge and sentenced for another term: or that something, no matter what, must happen to prevent ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... to have hinted at an alteration in his behaviour to my brother, was an advantage I knew he would have been proud of; and which therefore I had no mind to give him. But I doubted not that having so very little encouragement from any body, his pride would soon take fire, and he would of himself discontinue his visits, or go to town; where, till he came acquainted with our family, he used chiefly to reside: And in this latter case he had no reason to expect, that I would receive, much less answer, his Letters: the occasions which had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... light of the lamp from exploding the gas-charged air outside. When the air is of a very explosive character even the Davy-lamps have to be extinguished, as the heat caused by the frequent ignitions within the lamp raises the gauze to a red heat, and the gas beyond will take fire. ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... hospitality, and it was good to speak through such an admirable interpreter as Paul. Something more than intelligence and knowledge of the languages are required to make a good interpreter; there must be sympathy and the ability to take fire. With such an interpreter, leaping at the speaker's thoughts, carrying himself entirely into his changing moods, rising to vehemence with him and again dropping to gentleness, forgetting himself in his identification ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... body inside the house, the battle was progressing outside, and many shots struck the building, which I feared would take fire; so I ordered Captains Steele and Gile to carry the body to Marietta. They reached that place the same night, and, on application, I ordered his personal staff to go on and escort the body to his home, in Clyde, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... clothing or paper too near a fire; throwing matches you thought had been put out into paper or other material which will catch fire easily; leaving oily or greasy rags where they will easily overheat or take fire spontaneously; leaving objects on stairs and in hallways which will cause others to fall; leaving scalding water where a child may fall into it or pull it down, spilling the scalding water over himself; leaving rags ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... High-Priest, stood at the Altar, having a golden Censer; and there was given him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all Saints, upon the golden Altar which was before the throne. The custom was on other days, for one of the Priests to take fire from the great Altar in a silver Censer; but on this day, for the High-Priest to take fire from the great Altar in a golden Censer: and when he was come down from the great Altar, he took incense from one of the Priests who brought it to him, and went with it to the golden ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... up, even as it renders oft The frost that it contains within itself And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots. There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind That makes a bit of tow (above it held) Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too, A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round Along its waves, wherever 'tis impelled Afloat before the breeze. No marvel, this: Because full many seeds of heat there be Within the water; and, from earth itself Out of ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... buildings, but there is nevertheless a certain order and meaning in the apparent chaos. All the buildings which do not require stoves are built at a considerable distance from the dwelling-house and kitchen, which are more liable to take fire; and the kitchen stands by itself, because the odour of cookery where oil is used is by no means agreeable, even for those whose olfactory nerves are not very sensitive. The plan of the house is likewise not without a certain meaning. The ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... the inconstancy of the seas, and the inconstancy of those who roam them. Now, let the truth be spoken, Don Fernando, if he had any fault in the world, it was that he was a little too inflammable; that is to say, a little too subject to take fire from the sparkle of every bright eye: he had been somewhat of a rover among the sex on shore, what might he not be on sea? Might he not meet with other loves in foreign ports? Might he not behold some peerless beauty in one or ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... method, we learn from Lawson, was in use amongst the natives of Carolina, before they became acquainted, with the use of steel and flints. "They got their fire," says he, "with sticks, which by vehement collision, or rubbing together, take fire." "You are to understand," he adds, "that the two sticks they use to strike fire withal, are never of one sort of wood, but always differ from each other." Indeed it is probable that this method has been very generally practised. Seneca makes mention of it in the 2d book, chap. 22. of his Nat. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... of this strong and hideous nation—sublime in its mechanical intelligence, patient in its season, and once in a century terrible, inflammable as gunpowder, and ripe with brandy for the madness of revolution, with wits enough, in fine, to take fire at a captious word, which signifies to it always: Gold and Pleasure! If we comprise in it all those who hold out their hands for an alms, for lawful wages, or the five francs that are granted to every ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... interested in the improvisatrice, was chiefly grateful to her for the timely rebuke which she administered, through her peculiar faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen. As a matter of course, he might still expect that the same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter. But he certainly never calculated on other and more decided services at her hands. He misunderstood the being whom he had somewhat contributed to inspire. He did not appreciate her ambition, or ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... peroxide must be kept off of balance pans and should not be weighed out on paper, as is the usual practice in the rough weighing of chemicals. If paper to which the peroxide is adhering is exposed to moist air it is likely to take fire as a result of the absorption of moisture, and consequent evolution of heat and liberation ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... were all at the brush-pile, which towered above our heads, and I said: "Merton, it will burn better if we climb over it and trample it down a little. It is too loose now. While we do this, Winnie and Bobsey can gather dry grass and weeds that will take fire quickly. Now ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... honour and policy. First impressions, you know, are generally longest remembered, and will serve to fix, in a great degree, our national character among the French. In our conduct towards them we should remember that they are people old in war, very strict in military etiquette, and apt to take fire, where others scarcely seem warmed. Permit me to recommend, in the most particular manner, the cultivation of harmony and good agreement, and your endeavours to destroy that ill-humour which may have got into the officers. It is of the greatest importance, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... palace is usually estimated at that amount. But Lady Miller, who made particular inquiries on this subject, ascertained that the total amount, including cellars and closets, capable of receiving a bed, was fifteen thousand.] chambers, were to take fire—for a considerable space of time the fire would be retarded by the mere enormity of extent which it would have to traverse. But there would come at length a critical moment, at which the maximum of the retarding effect having ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... of these curious matches; but I have observed, that in very cold weather, they will not take fire without being ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... held the parcel as he read from Agamemnon's book: "This paste, when it has lain together about twenty-six hours, will of itself take fire, and burn all the sulphur away with a blue flame and ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... gentleness were planted naturally Unto a certain lineage down the line, Prive and apert, then would they never fine* *cease To do of gentleness the fair office Then might they do no villainy nor vice. Take fire, and bear it to the darkest house Betwixt this and the mount of Caucasus, And let men shut the doores, and go thenne,* *thence Yet will the fire as fair and lighte brenne* *burn As twenty thousand men might it behold; *Its office natural aye will it hold,* *it will perform its On peril ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... he avoids any display of these in his furniture, in his dress, in his food, and in everything open to another's observation."—"M. de Choiseul-Gouffier,[5228] willing to roof his peasants' houses, liable to take fire, with tiles, they thanked him for his kindness but begged him to leave them as they were, telling him that if these were covered with tiles, instead of with thatch, the subdelegates would increase their taxation."—"People work, but merely to satisfy their prime necessities. . . . The ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... startling phenomenon. As the moon rose above the Silla of Caracas, the entire savanna below us seemed to take fire, streams as of lava began to run up (not down) the sides of the hills, throwing a lurid glare over the sleeping city, and bringing into strong relief the rugged mountains which walled ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... like a great many more boys, ready to have my imagination take fire at the idea of a fight, and never for a moment realising what the horrors of ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... Hell-on-Earth!—Bull, my friend, you must strip that astonishing pontiff-stole, imperial mantle, or whatever you imagine it to be, which I discern to be a garment of curses, and poisoned Nessus'-shirt now at last about to take fire upon you; you must strip that off your poor body, my friend; and, were it only in a soul's suit of Utilitarian buff, and such belief as that a big loaf is better than a small one, come forth into contact with your world, under true professions again, and not false. You wretched man, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... should consider often what we ought to do, if a horse in a carriage should run away with us; if we should awake and find the house on fire over our heads—what to be done, if we were in this room or in that, &c.; if our clothes should take fire; if we should be burnt or scalded—what to be done, if scalded with water, and what, if with milk, oil, or any other substance; [Footnote: A very small portion of chemical knowledge is sufficient to teach any person that the falling of a quantity of boiling oil or fat on any ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... in all sorts of ways to procure fire. Neb helped him in this work. He found some dry moss, and by striking together two pebbles he obtained some sparks, but the moss, not being inflammable enough, did not take fire, for the sparks were really only incandescent, and not at all of the same consistency as those which are emitted from flint when struck in the same manner. The ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... until it is moderately warm to the touch. If the oil produces vapor which can be set on fire by means of a flame held a short distance above the surface of the liquid, it is bad. Good oil poured into a teacup or on the floor does not easily take fire when a light is brought in contact with it. Poor oil will instantly ignite under the same circumstances, and hence, the breaking of a lamp filled with poor oil is always attended by great peril of a conflagration. Not only the safety but also the light-giving ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the midst of us almost speechless with fear, his eyes bursting from their sockets, and shrieked out, 'The lion! the lion! he has got Hendrick; he dragged him away from the fire; I struck him with the burning brand upon his head, but he would not let go his hold. Hendrick is dead! Let us take fire and look for him!' The rest of my people rushed about, shrieking and yelling as if they were mad. I was angry with them for their folly, and told them if they did not stand still and keep quiet, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... whose clothes take fire, to roll on the floor, or the ground, has become pretty firmly fixed in the public mind; and hearing it, Enoch at once threw himself down and rolled over and over in the road, to the accompaniment of a tremendous shout. The maneuver did not much improve matters; for a lot of crackers had been dropped ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... the veil of the atmosphere, it was absolutely blinding. These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their incandescence. Oxygen is by no means necessary for their combustion. Some of them indeed often take fire as they rush through the layers of our atmosphere, and generally burn out before they strike the Earth. But others, on the contrary, and the greater number too, follow a track through space far more distant from the Earth than the fifty miles supposed to limit our atmosphere. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... 1667. A description of early gas-lighting has been reserved for a later chapter, but the foregoing is noted at this point to introduce a novel early method of lighting in coal-mines where inflammable gases were encountered. In discussing this coal-gas another early writer stated that "it will not take fire except by flame" and that "sparks do not affect it." One of the early solutions of the problem of artificial lighting under such ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... Father, "I see quite plainly how it has been. He was like tinder, ready to take fire at a spark, and you were thinking I had been hard and cruel ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... himself!! An ex parte affidavit, made by an absent and interested party, with the certificate of an absent judge that he believes it to be true, is to be received as CONCLUSIVE, in the face of any amount of oral and documentary testimony to the contrary. "Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?" Can a man aid in executing such a law without defiling his own conscience? Yet does this profligate statute, with impious arrogance, command "ALL GOOD CITIZENS" to assist in enforcing it, when required so to ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... make me talk such nonsense. To take fire, a man must have some degree of combustibility; and if that other person is lost to him forever, why shouldn't he, as you said yourself, ricochet ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... her in such a state I felt my blood take fire, and I followed the young man out. I overtook him near the stairs, and, grasping him by the ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... only service I can render you now? What, if the cares and inquietudes of rank and office should lay you on a sick bed, who would attend you with so much tenderness and affection as your old father? What if your house should take fire, I would be the first to ascend through the flames; but I will not climb into office and rank, ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... others made of straw, in which are live birds, are placed in the arena. The bull tosses them in the air, but being made heavy at the base, they come to the ground always retaining an upright posture. The straw figures are furnished with fire-works, which are made to take fire when the birds escape from within, and it sometimes happens that the bull has the flaming and cracking figure upon his horns. Sometimes the bull is maddened by fire-works being fastened on him, which go off in succession. The crackers being ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... the Three Neighbors settled this matter:—or rather, I should say, so had Two of them; for Friedrich Wilhelm wanted, now or afterwards, nothing in this Election, but that it should not take fire and kindle him. Two of the Neighbors: and of these two, perhaps we might guess the Kaiser was the principal contriver and suggester; France and Saxony being both hateful to him,—obstinate refusers of the Pragmatic ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... test is the "flash test." The object of this is to see how hot the oil must be before it gives off a vapor which will burn. The third, the "burning test," is to discover how hot the oil must be before it will take fire and burn on the surface. Most civilized countries make definite laws forbidding the sale of kerosene oil that is not up to a standard of safety. Oil for use in lamps should have an open flash test ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... property of the Teacher's Pet. For Dora held this post in "Declamation" as well as in everything else; here, as elsewhere, the hateful child's prowess surpassed that of all others; and the teacher always entrusted her with the rendition of the "patriotic selections": Dora seemed to take fire herself ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... cleft in the earth, and the stream of naphtha, which, not far from this spot, flows out so abundantly as to form a sort of lake. This naphtha, in other respects resembling bitumen, is so subject to take fire, that before it touches the flame, it will kindle at the very light that surrounds it, and often inflame the intermediate air also. The barbarians, to show the power and nature of it, sprinkled the street that led to the king's lodgings with little drops of it, and when it was almost night, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the soldiers. Though always neat and cleanly in person, she was indifferent to the attractions of dress, and amid the flying sparks from her fires in the open air, her calico dresses would often take fire, and as she expressed it, "the soldiers would put her out," i. e. extinguish the sparks which were burning her dresses. In this way it happened that she had not a single dress which had not been more or less riddled by these sparks. With her clothing in this plight she visited Chicago again ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... they devised various means. They discussed their projects with Christian people. They distributed missionary sermons. A list was made of the names of distinguished ministers, to whom these young men made frequent visits, urging their suit. Among them, the first to take fire, was Dr. Worcester. With one of them, Dr. Griffin, Mills asked to be permitted to study theology. Said the Doctor: "I had always refused such applications, but from the love I bore to him, I agreed to criticise one sermon a week. After that exercise he would commonly ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... air to pass through it, because it will not burn readily if it is closely packed. Light the fire by inserting a flame from below. When this is done, the flame will rise and ignite the kindling, and this, in turn, will cause the coal to take fire. When the fire is burning well, close the dampers g and i so that the fuel will not burn too rapidly and the heat will surround the oven instead of passing up the chimney; also, before too much of the first supply of coal is burned out, add ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... continued the voice, which belonged to Agnes; 'and if you'd secure me the five hundred pound, I warrant she should take fire ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... voice, yet loud enough to be heard by all present. "He shall have a caning then for his impertinence." And he called loudly to the post-boy for his whip. But at that insult Garnache's brain seemed to take fire, and his cautious resolutions were reduced to ashes by the conflagration. He stepped forward, and, virulent of tone and terrific of mien, he announced that since Monsieur Sanguinetti took that tone with him, he would ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... was they were ready to take fire, and a hubbub would be the result of the slightest provocation. But, on the present occasion, there was a remarkable dearth of, all ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... quantity of a Walnut, bind them with small Thread, and prick holes in the Rag or Paper with a Bodkin, and place six or ten of them on the Head of a great Rocket, as you did the Quills, and when the Rocket expires, they take fire and spread into a Flame, hovering in the Air like Stars, and descend leisurely till the matter is spent that ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... turf. Well, when I was disappointed of the effigy, I comforted myself by making a bonfire of Old Nick's big rick of duty turf, which, by great luck, was out in the road, away from all dwelling-house, or thatch, or yards, to take fire: so no danger in life, or objection. And such another blaze! I wished you'd seed it—and all the men, women, and children, in the town and country, far and near, gathered round it, shouting and dancing like mad!—and it was light as day quite across ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... even a house was visible. The Dragonfly passed a German cargo steamer which had sought refuge here at the outbreak of war. She was a large ship, full of oil, and she had been moved from the quay-side to an anchorage in the bay by the captain of the port, lest by design or inadvertence she should take fire and set the town aflame. There she lay, a source of endless misgiving to every allied ship which sailed these waters, kept clean and trim as a yacht, her full crew on board, her dangerous cargo below, in the very ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... did throw that torch at the cow; I admit that much, fellows," he began; "but don't tell me it just kept on smouldering all this time in that brush heap, to take fire after everybody'd gone to sleep! Why, it must have been all of five hours ago. Shucks! you can't prove it; and I won't admit ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... stories high; the fronts of them are faced either with stone, plastering, or brick, and between the facings of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat; and on them they lay a sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. They have great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their windows; they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... And goods they did carry away, and the manner of the setting the house on fire was, that Holmes did get to a cockpit; where, it seems, there was a publick cockpit, and set fire to the straw in it, and hath a fire-ball at the end of the straw, which did take fire, and so it prevailed, and burned the house; and, among other things they carried away, he took six of the cocks that were at the cockpit; and afterwards the boys told us how they had one dressed, by the same ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... position this for a man to be in,' was the train of his thought, as he kept his eyes fixed on the glass, while he leaned back in his chair, and crossed his hands behind his head; 'between two jealous women, and both of them as ready to take fire as tinder. And in my state of health, too! I should be glad enough to run away from the whole affair, and go off to some lotos-eating place or other where there are no women, or only women who are too sleepy to be ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... not burn. The plains covered with the short "buffalo-grass" (sesleria dactyloides), and the sward of various species of "gramma" (chondrosium), rarely take fire; or if they do, horse, man, buffalo, or antelope, can easily escape by leaping across the blaze. 'Tis only the reptile world—snakes, lizards, the toad, and the land-turtle (terrapin)—that fall ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... do you laugh? Methinks you that are courtiers should be my touch-wood, take fire when I give fire; that is, laugh when I laugh, were the ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... perfect firestorm, after the manner of a snow-storm. When I got back on to California Street the air was a mass of sparks and smoke being blown down the street toward the ferry. As I had to go against it to get to Front Street, I was afraid that my papers would take fire in my arms; so I buttoned up my coat to protect my papers, pulled my hat over my eyes, and dived through, up California Street and out Front towards Pine Street, from where I started. There I found it clear of smoke and fire. As I passed along with my arms full I saw a typewriter cover ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson
... "Hardly," he said. "Miss Rita does not converse with menials. It was Peggy—Miss Peggy, I should say—who told me about it. She was quite inclined to take fire herself, but I think I cooled her down a bit. These are dangerous matters for young ladies to meddle with. I think she told me that young Mr. Carlos Montfort ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... lieutenant-colonel as much as he pleased, for Philippe pointedly avoided casting his eyes in his direction. Max, though the blood boiled in his veins, was too well aware of the importance of behaving with political prudence—which occasionally resembles cowardice—to take fire like a young man; he remained, therefore, perfectly calm ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... retained, and will serve to fix, in a great degree, our national character with the French. In our conduct towards them, we should remember that they are a people old in war, very strict in military etiquette, and apt to take fire when others scarcely seem warm. Permit me to recommend in the most particular manner, the cultivation of harmony and good agreement, and your endeavours to destroy that ill humour which may have found its way among the officers. It is of the utmost importance too, that the soldiers ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... at Fifth and Minna streets collapsed and over seventy-five dead bodies were taken out. There were at least fifty other dead bodies exposed. This building was one of the first to take fire on Fifth street. At least 100 people were lost in the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... and the Begums are on terms of mutual goodwill. It would ill become this government to interpose its influence by any act which might tend to revive their animosities,—and a very slight occasion would be sufficient to effect it. They will instantly take fire on such a declaration, proclaim the judgment of the Company in their favor, demand a reparation of the acts which they will construe wrongs with such a sentence warranting that construction, and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... find these salkars near-by?" Ross began to take fire. That dragon which had hunted him—the bulk of the thing was well above any other sea life he had seen here. And to its ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... silent. To stop the conversation, in which I feared my young blood might take fire, I answered in monosyllables, mostly acquiescent, avoiding discussion; but Monsieur de Mortsauf had too much sense not to perceive the meaning of my politeness. Presently he was angry at being always in the right; he grew refractory, his eyebrows and the wrinkles of his forehead worked, his ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... structures melted before the fierceness of the flames as a snow-flake melts and disappears in water, and almost as quickly. Six-story buildings would take fire and disappear for ever from sight in five minutes by the watch. . . . The fire also doubled on its track at the great Union Depot and burned half a mile southward in the very teeth of the gale—a gale which blew a perfect tornado, and in which no vessel could ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... passing through the benzoline trough the wool passes through a similar trough filled with water. Benzoline is better than carbon bisulphide in that there is no tendency on the part of the wool to turn yellow after its use, on the other hand it is more inflammable, and when it does take fire is more dangerous, and being lighter than water is not so readily and safely stored. Another feature is that it is not so completely volatile at steam temperatures, so that a little may be left in the grease and thus tend to deteriorate it. Coal-tar benzol, the quality ...
— The Dyeing of Woollen Fabrics • Franklin Beech
... loosely clad with dry, ragged bark stood near to the house. A flake of falling fire fell on it. Instantly the whole trunk-cover blazed up with a roar like that of a great beast in pain. It was sudden and for the instant terrible, but the snow-laden leaves still left on it failed to take fire, and what in summer would have been a calamity was ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... stars, hurling the chariot over pathless places, now up in high heaven, now down almost to the earth. The moon saw with astonishment her brother's chariot running beneath her own. The clouds begin to smoke, and the mountain tops take fire; the fields are parched with heat, the plants wither, the trees with their leafy branches burn, the harvest is ablaze! But these are small things. Great cities perished, with their walls and towers; whole nations with their people were consumed to ashes! ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... flames! Olivari fell, and was killed. Mosment ascended at Lille, on a light platform; an oscillation made him lose his equilibrium. Mosment fell, and was killed. Bittorf, at Manheim, saw his paper balloon take fire in the air! Bittorf fell, and was killed. Harris ascended in a balloon badly constructed, the valve of which was too large to be closed again. Harris fell, and was killed. Sadler, deprived of ballast by his long stay in ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... the men's arms being blown off whilst working the guns. The guns are without locks. The bed of the mortar which I received on board this ship was crushed on the first fire, being entirely rotten. The fuses for the shells are formed of such wretched composition that it will not take fire with the discharge of the mortar. Even the powder is so bad that six pounds will not throw out shells more than a thousand yards. The marines understand neither gun exercise, the use of small arms, nor ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... that which is injurious to a gun destined to perform long service is not so to our Columbiad. We shall run no danger of an explosion; and it is necessary that our powder should take fire instantaneously in order that its mechanical effect may ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... as if searching with microscopic intensity for something that positively refused to be found. All that we can safely affirm in regard to her is, that if her face bore any resemblance to the scarlet of her neck, the fact that her workbox did not take fire is little short ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... heated, burn with sparks. Organic bodies are violently attacked. A piece of cork placed near the end of the platinum tube, where the gas is evolved, immediately carbonizes and inflames. Alcohol, ether, benzol, spirit of turpentine, and petroleum take fire ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... fire sparkling, the scout had started in to try and make a blaze after the old-fashioned method used by some South Sea islanders. But evidently the boy did not twirl the stick fast enough to produce sufficient heat to make the fine tinder smoke, and then take fire. Giraffe's ambition was commendable, however, and so Thad said nothing; only crept away again, after touching Allan ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... a most striking manner the cool intrepidity of the Officers and men stationed on the lower deck of the Victory. When the guns, on this deck were run out, their muzzles came into contact with the Redoutable's side; and consequently at every discharge there was reason to fear that the Enemy would take fire, and both the Victory and the Temeraire be involved in her flames. Here then was seen the astonishing spectacle of the fireman of each gun standing ready with a bucket full of water which as soon as his gun was discharged he dashed into the Enemy through ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty
... affected.—The Shadow of the Bough and its appendages on the wall, and arching over on the Ceiling, made a pretty Picture—and then the raptures of the "very" little Ones, when at last the twigs and their needles began to take fire and "snap"—O it was a delight for them!—On the next day, in the great Parlour, the Parents lay out on the table the Presents for the Children: a scene of more sober joy succeeds, as on this day, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... it in most cruell maner. Some write, that he tooke this citie by a policie of warre, in binding to the feet of sparrowes which his people had caught, certeine clewes of thred or matches, finelie wrought & tempered with matter readie to take fire, so that the sparrowes being suffered to go out of hand, flue into the towne to lodge themselues within their neasts which they had made in stacks of corne, and eues of houses, so that the towne was thereby set on fire, and then the Britains issuing ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed
... during one of the attacks of the Mexicans on his quarters, he had endeavoured to fire off one of his guns and could not get the priming to take fire; but sometime afterwards, when they were in great danger, the gun went off of itself and made prodigious havock among the enemy, who were thus miraculously repulsed, and the Spaniards saved from inevitable destruction. He said also, that the garrison being in great distress for water, they sank ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Boche crumpled up under this mass attack. His plane was seen turning over and over, though it did not take fire, and there was not one chance in ten of its pilot's being able to save himself from the doom ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... years ago, rushing in random lawlessness among the hills, hungry and footsore; but cool and skillful, well supplied with every necessary, and clad in his right mind. Capitalists, too, and the public in general, have become wiser, and do not take fire so readily from mining sparks; while at the same time a vast amount of real work is being done, and the ratio between growth and decay is ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... overhead, to crash through roofs inside the walls. Wolfe from the Lighthouse Battery throws shells and flaming combustibles straight into the midst of the remaining French fleet. At last, on July 21st, masts, sails, tar ropes, take fire in a terrible conflagration, and three of the fleet burn to the water line with terrific explosions of their powder magazines; then the flames hiss out above {255} the rocking hulls. Only two ships are left to the French, and the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... soon heard that our sails were very bad, and were in danger of being torn in pieces, in which case we should be driven upon the rocky shore of Col. It was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then, as Col was a sportman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be blown up. Simpson and he appeared a little frightened, which made me more so; and the perpetual talking, or rather ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell |
