"Explosive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or goblins? Well, let's strike a match and light up: then perhaps we may. That's one good thing about these hollows,—there is no explosive gas, like there is in a coal mine. There, take this and hold it out before you," he continued, as he closed and passed the lanthorn. "Lift it up! Now ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... saltpetre, and sulphur ready to my 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 an ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... explosive "Humph!" and grabbed the meat-platter. As she left the kitchen, she sent an insulted glance at her mistress, but the recent correction in speech made her forget the hornet. The watchful insect had been sitting directly over the door, and now ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the newcomer in her customary explosive and vivacious manner. "I've just found out where you've been hiding, and came around to ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... volcanic vents, we frequently observe accumulations of angular fragments of rocks formed during eruptions by the explosive action of steam, which shatters the subjacent stony formations, and hurls them up into the air. They then fall in showers around the cone or crater, or may be spread for some distance over the surrounding country. The fragments consist usually ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... known to fail in the performance of his duties in all these connections. Moreover, he is a constant attendant upon the sessions of the Senate, and one of the most alert of its members. Apparently, often, he is impulsive and explosive, and occasionally under the excitement of debate says what seems to be a harsh thing. If, however, his manner is indicative of feeling, such a feeling, like a passing summer cloud, is soon dissipated, and almost immediately gives ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... "that every man of high natural ability, who is both ignorant and miserable, is as great a danger to society as a rocket without a stick is to people who fire it. Misery is a match that never goes out; genius, as an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow: and if knowledge, which should give that power guidance, is wanting, the chances are not small that the rocket will simply run amuck ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... shoulder and hears a voice in her ear saying, "Taste it!" On examination, she finds she has got a morphine powder by mistake. The natural interpretation is that a sleeping memory of the morphine powders awoke in this quasi-explosive way. A like explanation offers itself as most plausible for the following case: A lady, with little time to catch the train, and the expressman about to call, is excitedly looking for the lost key of ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... 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 ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... explosive condition of things the news of Burgoyne's surrender acted as a spark. The experience of former wars had taught France the worth of the Americans as enemies, and she was expecting to find in them valuable helpers in her schemes of revenge; now it seemed ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... journalists write column after column about the dangerous explosive energy and restlessness of modern Germany, I feel sure that they must be right, and yet I wish they could have come shopping with me a year or two ago in a small Black Forest town. One of us wanted a watch key and the other a piece of tape, and we set off light-heartedly ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... their latest invention, an electric car capable of making the speed of a gasoline-driven vehicle, and one which could be operated at a minimum of cost, almost a nominal expense, as compared with the high price of a vehicle run by an explosive engine. ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... is absolutely essential to success. Now you are in touch with the official world. I shouldn't ask you to subscribe, though if you cared to do so there would be no objection. And I may say that the syndicate can't help making a tremendous lot of money. When I tell you that the new explosive is forty-seven times as powerful as ...
— The Title - A Comedy in Three Acts • Arnold Bennett
... after 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 Iron Heel • Jack London
... Thursday, May 25, the Column of July was a remarkable sight. It had been hung with wreaths of immortelles, and those caught fire from an explosive. Elsewhere, except for burning buildings, there was total darkness. There was no gas in Paris, of course. And here our Englishman goes on to say that so far as his experience went, he saw no petroleuses nor fighting women, nor did he ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... shortness of the available time might not permit the proper resolution of such episodes. Two, a couple who have openly discharged rage against each other may well react later with deep feelings of humiliation that are not easily assuaged. Three, coping with this kind of explosive emotional discharge could be alarming for lay leaders not accustomed, as the therapist is, to the expression of deep feelings which normally are not displayed in public. Four, other members of the group could be similarly disturbed and diverted from ...
— Marriage Enrichment Retreats - Story of a Quaker Project • David Mace
... bombers had but one object in view, which was to bomb the important target below. To drop an explosive on a certain spot had been the most important training of those aboard these craft. They had been carefully selected from the ranks of the many observers taking service in the aviation branch of the service; and great things were expected ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... says 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
... 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 a deep, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... The explosive stage into which planets may pass. According to the finest scientific thinking, a planet will ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... natives, despite my friend's accident, bought every cartridge from him, singly or in lots, and they then began to enjoy themselves. Every hour of the day for many weeks afterwards the sullen thud of the explosive could be heard from all parts of the lagoon, followed by applauding shouts. Vast numbers of fish were blown to pieces, for no native would ever think of dividing a cartridge into half a dozen portions and using only one at a time; the entire 6-oz. cartridge was used, ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the policy of terrorism has been in the throwing from aeroplanes of bombs, explosive or incendiary. M. Clunet lays down that, by the most recent decision of the institute, bomb throwing from aeroplanes must follow the rules of bombardment by artillery. This would prohibit such bombs without formal notice. But in Antwerp bombs were dropped without notice ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... and pulsatory currents have long been known. For instance, it was long since discovered that an electro-magnet gives forth a decided sound when it is suddenly magnetized or demagnetized. When the circuit upon which it is placed is rapidly made and broken, a succession of explosive noises proceeds from the magnet. These sounds produce upon the ear the effect of a musical note when the current is interrupted a sufficient ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... the sixth year of wedlock, is still very fond of his Sophie Dorothee,— "Fiechen" (Feekin diminutive of Sophie ), as he calls her; she also having, and continuing to have, the due wife's regard for her solid, honest, if somewhat explosive bear. He troubles her a little now and then, it is said, with whiffs of jealousy; but they are whiffs only, the product of accidental moodinesses in him, or of transient aspects, misinterpreted, in the court-life of a young and pretty woman. As the general rule, he is beautifully ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... the Apostle's reason for specifying these fiery darts was simply that they were the most formidable offensive weapons that he had ever heard of. Probably, if he had lived to-day, he would have spoken of rifle-bullets or explosive shells, instead of fiery darts. But, though probably the Apostle had no further meaning in the metaphor than to suggest that faith was mightier than the mightiest assaults that can be hurled against it, we may venture to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... along. By jerks and nervous, spasmodic spurts he rushes along from cover to cover like a soldier dodging the enemy's bullets. When he discovers me, he pauses, and with one paw on his heart appears to press a button, that lets off a flood of snickering, explosive sounds that seem like ridicule of me and my work. Failing to get any response from me, he presently turns, and, springing from the wall to the bending branch of a near apple-tree, he rushes up and disappears amid ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... wounded, and you are still sore. Suspect me as you please,—make me out a new Pandarus, if you like—I shall not be offended. But you know—for I have often told you— that I never interfere in love matters. They are too explosive, too vitally dangerous; outsiders ought never to meddle with them. And I never do. Come back with me to Cairo. And when we are once more safely established on the solid and unromantic isles of Britain, you will forget all about the Princess Ziska; ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... of the 9th May was the first major action of the war in which the "Ninth" took part. Shattered at its inception, the whole attack soon came to an end. The lack of high explosive shells and the consequent failure of the British artillery to destroy the enemy wire entanglements were probably the main causes of the holocaust that took place on that day. Though one of the biggest disasters the British arms sustained throughout the ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... sour fish, was very cold, very dirty, and very blue with cigar smoke. The remains of a delicatessen breakfast stood on a table near the only window, which was tightly shut, and under the sill of which a radiator emitted explosive symptoms ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... there anything in that explosive material that need cause you to look so wild? I thought you were better acquainted ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... had dropped a large explosive bomb, which, luckily for the Motor Boys and their comrades, had fallen into an open space, though not far from one of the camouflaged stations where the soldiers were quartered before being taken up to the front-line trenches. ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... creatures, and with the explosive and mechanistic aid of ideas we can pervert the whole psyche. Only, however, in a destructive degree, not in a positive ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... to be given unadvisedly, such was the moral effect of the question. It hadn't been asked in a casual way, but showed, by its explosive form of utterance, that it was the result not so much of a pent-up curiosity as of a careful speculation as to the manner in which I would receive it. So I tried to look unconscious, and at this critical juncture ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... his vivid imagination caused the negro to give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel went off to write and despatch ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... stopped right here if some one would dynamite all the block beyond Van Ness Avenue. It could never jump across a strip so broad.' 'But they've forbidden any more dynamiting,' said Anderson. 'Never mind; I'd take the chance myself if we could get any explosive,' replied Lane. 'Well, there's a launch full of dynamite from Contra Costa County lying right now at Meigs's Wharf,' said Anderson. Just then Mr. and Mrs. Tom Magee arrived, driving an automobile on the wheel rims. Lane despatched them ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... dishevelled girl were 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; ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... 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 ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... foam-flecked Eagle Falls. Our road here was blasted through some fiercely solid and hostile rock. One boulder alone that stood in the way weighed (it was estimated by the engineers) from 800 to 1000 tons. Fifty cases of highly explosive powder were suitably placed all around it. Excursion steamers took hundreds of people from all parts of the Lake to see the explosion, and at the proper moment, while everybody held his breath, the fuses were fired, the blasts took effect, the rock flew down to ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... Then he removed the explosive itself and the various murderous slugs and bits of metal embedded in it, carefully separating each as if to be labelled "Exhibit A," "B," and so on for a class in bomb dissection. Finally, he studied the sides and bottom ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... table they were all three in that excruciating state of rawness of the nerves, in which a man has the sensation that his brain is a violent explosive which a single jarring sound or word must ignite and blow to atoms, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... Guided by a white-haired priest, out in the wheat we found at last a little mound with a part of a broken airplane lying thereupon. I pulled the rest of his machine upon his grave and learned that when the French boys picked him up they found that four explosive bullets had struck him while flying in the air after his victory over many ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... by way of a challenge. As evening fell the woods began to echo with the roar of artillery. Later, Forts Fleron, Chaudfontaine and Embourg were added to the German bombardment. The Germans used long range field pieces with powerful explosive shells. The fire proved to be remarkably accurate. As their shells exploded on the cupolas and platforms of the forts, the garrisons in their confined citadels began to experience that inferno of vibrations which subsequently deprived them of the incentive to eat or ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... 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. I needed things just right to ride Tiger through ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... at 4:25 o'clock, just as the first hint of dawn was appearing. All night the British big guns had been pouring a steady stream of high explosive shells into the German positions, great detonations overlapping one another like the rapid crackling of machine-gun fire and swelling into a mighty volume of thunder that shook the earth and stunned the senses. Then, a ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... end. In the old chronicles you read of earthquakes and pestilences, and are told that these showed the power and majesty of God and the littleness of Man. Nowadays the chronicles describe battles. In a battle two bodies of men shoot at one another with bullets and explosive shells until one body runs away, when the others chase the fugitives on horseback and cut them to pieces as they fly. And this, the chronicle concludes, shows the greatness and majesty of empires, and the littleness of the vanquished. Over such battles the people run about the streets ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... that Redwheels had shed a bolt in its flight last night. I settled the bolt question with a quarter and turned to the letter. It was from Peter, and I knew by the amount of ink splashed all over the envelope that it must contain a high explosive splashed on ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... she, with her new Husband as with her old, continued to have troubles, pretty much as the sparks fly upwards. She had fierce siegings after this, and explosive procedures,—little short of Monk Schwartz, who was just inventing gunpowder at the time. We cannot hope she lived in Elysian harmony with Kurfurst Ludwig;—the reverse, in fact; and oftenest with the whole breadth of Germany ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... say. But I don't see why you should be afraid of it in any case. To judge by the size of it, I shouldn't say it could be a very dangerous explosive." ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... did not hear the yarn immediately. All that it heard and all that it knew was contained in Captain Nat's brief telegram. "Arrived to-day. Will be home Thursday." That was all, but it was enough, for in that dispatch was explosive sufficient to blow to atoms the doctor's plans and Keziah's, the great scheme which was to bring happiness to John ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of their own country and of Europe to their personal plans have resigned, and others have taken their places of whom we need not fear this. I believe, therefore that I may state that our outlook toward France is more peaceful and less explosive today than it was a year ago and I am glad to do this, because I wish to quiet, not to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... ready, Gridley, you may fire!" replied Jim. I pressed the gun button. The crash of the gun was followed by another report from outside as the radite shell burst against the Mercurian flyer. The deadly explosive did its work, and the shattered remains of the wreck fell, to be engulfed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... not prove that its leaders judged rightly and acted virtuously: but, beyond a doubt, it condemns the previous order which brought it about. What a horrid thing is the explosion! Why, is the obvious answer, did you allow the explosive materials to accumulate, till the first match must fire the train? The greatest blot upon Burke, I need hardly say, is that his passions blinded him in his age, to this, as we ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... never married. The women, indeed, whom he loved, whom he proposed to, always awoke with a shock to the risk of joining for life a man of such explosive whims, of such absorption in his own self and art, of such utter deafness, untidiness, and morose ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... each separate sound correctly, but connect the consonants, especially the explosive sounds, with the succeeding vowels badly, with effort as if an obstacle were to be overcome. The paths i and l are affected, and hence M is not properly excited. S, too, comes under consideration in the case of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... commanded higher prices in 1907 than fifty years before, but the number of his ships rapidly decreased. Whales were becoming scarce, and New England capital preferred other forms of investment. The leisurely old sailing craft was succeeded by the steam whaler, and the explosive bomb slew, instead of the harpoon and lance hurled by the sinewy right arm of a New Bedford man or Cape ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... Protestant theologians was not difficult. A little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhetoric against the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... hole, and then use dynamite," decided Captain Weston promptly. "You have some explosive, haven't ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... bags had escaped, the explosive blast rising upward; and the danger being apparently at an end, the principal actors in the catastrophe roused to find officers hurrying to meet them, and men coming forward armed with pails of water to dash and scatter here and there till ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... state, from which I roused to find myself on an American ship bound for New York, surrounded by people whose only means of communicating with one another is to keep up while together a constant clatter of hissing, guttural, and explosive noises, eked out by all manner of facial contortions and bodily gestures. I frequently find myself staring open-mouthed at those who address me, too much struck by their grotesque appearance to bethink myself ...
— To Whom This May Come - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... consonants, the former of which represents the common letters, and the latter their respective "cut letters," which may be described as being pronounced with a shorter and more explosive sound than the corresponding common letter, and separated by a short pause from the ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... for a revolver: nevertheless it took effect. The luminous object disappeared with a faint explosive sound, followed by a shout unmistakably human. The long stems of the wild mustard swayed and parted, and out sprang a figure, which ran straight ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... I had arranged everything before you came in, and had sat down to make an end of it. This button at my hand once started an electric apparatus; but now it is connected with a quantity of an explosive—my own invention, and a terrible one. Believe me, one touch and everything in this building is ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... as a slow moving, high trajectory missile containing high explosive and exploding by contact or time fuse. Grenades may be divided roughly into two classes—1, hand grenades, and 2, rifle grenades, and each of these classes may be subdivided as regards means of explosion, into 1, time fuse, or ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... unfastened, and she made her way rapidly to the foot of the back stairway. When she opened the door to ascend, a thick, black smoke rushed down, almost overpowering her. The opening of the door seemed to aid the fire, too, and there was a sort of explosive eagerness in the new start it took as it now crackled and roared above her. Then she recognized in the sickening smoke a smell of burning feathers, and she felt faint and weak as she thought that it might be his bed that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... energy of his courage. He raised himself on the cart, bent his brows, and, clenching his fist, shook it at the spectre with a ghastly look of hate and defiance. The goblin vanished with his usual tremendous and explosive laugh, and left Waldeck exhausted with this effort ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... from them, they being 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 to stop to dress a wounded chum; but it was permitted to stick ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... though it must have 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 ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the man beside him, whose assumed indifference vanished at this suggestion of hope; "—the little battery that I used on the gun, to fire the explosive. It has an astounding amperage, and a voltage around three hundred. It's in my ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... important in their results to civilization. Of these the principal were gunpowder, the mariner's compass, and printing by movable types. Gunpowder was not first made by Schwartz, a monk of Freiburg, as has often been asserted. We have notices, more or less obscure, of the use of an explosive material resembling it, among the Chinese, among the Indians in the East as early as Alexander the Great, and among the Arabs. It was first brought into use in firearms in the middle of the fourteenth century. The effect ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... come with an effect of dramatic and incalculable authority. Like a blast of air that drives the furnace to new heat and turns the metal white, his mind now suddenly saw clear and sure. The effect of the incident was too explosive, however, for him to find expression. Action he found in a measure, but no words. He took Miriam passionately into his arms as they stood there in the gathering dusk upon the staircase of that haunted and terrible building, and Miriam it was who found the ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... whose growing and rival influence he had already so much reason to be jealous, he must have put an end to anarchy in Stockbridge, and once more stand at the head of its government. Sedgwick had warned him of the explosive state of popular feeling: he had resented that warning, and the event had proved his rival right. The only thing now left him was to show Sedgwick that if he had not been able to foresee the rebellion, he had been able to suppress it. Nevertheless ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... ground-ice, on whose foot the Vega had run up, had been hewn away with axes and ice-hatchets. Some attempts were made to blast the ice with gunpowder, but they were unsuccessful. For this purpose dynamite is much more efficacious, and this explosive ought therefore always to form part of the equipment in voyages in which belts of ice have to be ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... of "empties" down on the long drain-board of the sink, turned to the wall, and buried her face in her hands. The cook, Bert, though he cast a startled glance at her would not have dared to speak, after that encounter of the morning, but a rather explosive sniff was too eloquent an appeal ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... in Iceland that are full of geysers. I don't know whether it is the inheritance from those people who broke away from the old countries, and who ought to be matched to tremendous circumstances of life, but now and then there comes an amazingly explosive and uncontrollable temperament that goes all to pieces from its own conservation and accumulation of force. By and by you will have all blown up,—you quiet descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... across this bottle-neck, it should have been an easy job to block. So they sank the floating dock in the southern portion of the channel and moored the Koenig by bow and stern hawsers, to the shores on either side in position for sinking. Instead of flooding her they prepared an explosive bomb and timed it to go off at the fall of the tide. But the bomb failed to explode, and an ebb tide setting in, broke the stern moorings and drove her sideways on the shore. Here she lies now and ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... right," he 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 sleeves of which ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... with respect to the abruptness and rapidity of expiration there are three modes of utterance: the effusive, by which the voice is poured forth smoothly and equably, the expulsive and the explosive. Of these three modes the effusive is by far the most important, but the others, and especially the expulsive, have their uses also. These modes will be illustrated ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the poet in my nature; something, possibly, of the tribune. And, for my small part, I shall remain devoted to that more emphatic, more striking, and (if you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb. Yes,' he cried, with unshaken hope, 'I will still continue, and, I feel it in my bosom, I shall ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... experiment described how to take a little powdered sugar and mix it with a little powder obtained by crushing up a tablet of chlorate of potash—such as people put in their mouths for a sore throat. That would make an explosive, as powerful as the powder used in guns. It could be set off by dropping on it from an eye-dropper one drop of a certain kind of acid, from ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... heard—the men in Barbazon's Tavern saying that the bridge should be blown up on the Saturday night; and this was Saturday night—the night of the day following that of the Orange funeral. He had heard the criminal hireling of Felix Marchand say that it should be done at midnight, and that the explosive should be laid under that part of the bridge which joined the Manitou bank of the Sagalac. As though in very truth he saw with his eyes, he stopped short not far from the point where the bridge joined the land, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... eyes, with their shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry, sun-burned hair, were rather unprepossessing items, it is to be confessed; his large, coarse mouth was distended with tobacco, the juice of which, from time to time, he ejected from him with great decision and explosive force; his hands were immensely large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and very dirty, and garnished with long nails, in a very foul condition. This man proceeded to a very free personal examination of the lot. He seized ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... "All set," he reported crisply, and barked a series of | | explosive syllables at Shiro, ending upon a rising note. | | | | The Tale of the Galactic Cruise Which Ushered in Universal ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... earlier he had been riding peacefully up the trail in the moonlight, wondering how thoroughly he was lost and how much farther it was to Debbleby's. Then, at a sudden sharp turn in the canyon bridle-path, he had stumbled upon the camp-fire, had heard an explosive "Hands up!" and had found himself confronted by three men, with one of the three covering him with a sawed-off Winchester. From that to the unhorsing and the binding had been merely a rough-and-tumble half-minute, inasmuch as he was unarmed and the surprise had been complete; ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... began with almost explosive suddenness, "let's get this straight. I want to work with you, if you'll let me." He paused long enough for Bristow to nod a pleased assent. "And I believe there's something back of this crime that nobody has yet put his finger on. Mr. Withers ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... days were the most anxious of my life. Never before had I lived on terms of intimacy with a picric bomb, that most deadly and uncertain of all explosive agencies. I speedily found that Simard was so absinthe-soaked I could do nothing with him. He could not be bribed or cajoled or persuaded or threatened. Once, indeed, when he talked with drunken affection of Eugene Valmont, I conceived a wild notion ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... the gun being lifted above the water, after each shot, by shears and suitable tackle. The present projectile of the Destroyer is the result of the extended trials referred to; its length is 25 feet 6 inches, diameter 16 inches, and its weight 1,500 pounds, including 250 pounds of explosive materials. We are not at liberty at present to describe its form, but we may mention that the great length of the body and the absence of all internal machinery enable the constructor to carry the ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... the little valley of the bushy swamp. As he stared, his irritation speedily overcame his amazement. The curious-looking creature over there on the knoll was defying him, was challenging him. At this time of year his blood was hot and quick for any challenge. He gave vent to a short, harsh, explosive cry, more like a grumbling bleat than a bellow, and as unlike the buffalo's challenge as could well be imagined. Then he fell to thrashing the nearest bushes violently with his antlers. This, for some reason unknown to the mere human chronicler, seemed to be taken by Last Bull as a crowning ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... close quarters with reality is visible in every phrase. The denial of the value of all the old romantic stage machinery, with its artificial climaxes and explosive effects, is perceptible in the quiet endings of the acts and the entirely unsensational exposition of the dramatic action. There is one scene (and by no means an unnatural one) in which there is a touch of violence, viz., where Tjaelde, while he hopes to avert his bankruptcy, threatens to shoot ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... from the nobleman so violently that Mr. Heatherbloom's momentary exultation changed to a feeling of apprehension. But M. le Capitaine had evidently become accustomed to occasional explosive moments from his august patron. He concerned himself only with the command, not the manner in ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... vapor," ordered General Lozier. The plane wavered in signal to the others and swung sharply to the left. Each man knew the flaming death that was theirs if the fire of their exhaust touched that explosive mixture of hydrogen and air. The great bubble turned with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... a considerable increase of temperature, on the average about one degree Fahrenheit for each eighty feet of descent. It may, indeed, become so heated that if it were at the earth's surface it would not only burst into steam with a vast explosive energy, but would actually shine in the manner of heated solids. As the temperature of water rises, and as the pressure on it increases, it acquires a solvent power, and takes in rocky matter in a measure unapproached at the earth's surface. At the depth ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... 1444, changed the whole system of book-making, and vastly increased the circulation of the Scriptures, the Greek and Latin classics, and all other valuable works, which, by the industry of the monkish copyist, had been preserved from the ravages of time and barbarism. Gunpowder, whose explosive power had been perceived by Roger Bacon as early as 1280, though it was not used on the field of battle until 1346, had completely changed the art of war and had greatly contributed to undermine the feudal system. The polarity of the magnet, also discovered in the middle ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... trace of blood. Like a hound he paused, snuffling the earth. Then with wide mouth and outthrust, curling tongue, uttered voice. Wild as the tiger's food-sick cry, his warning roar burst forth, ending in a strange, upward explosive whine. Instantly every head in the herd was lifted, even the old cows heavy with milk stood as if suddenly renewing ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... ship like the Lusitania would remain above water long enough, even after the torpedoing, to permit passengers to enter the ship's boats. Circumstances of a very peculiar kind, especially the presence on board of large quantities of highly explosive ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... rather bar meddling with politics, especially the white-hot explosive politics that ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... 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 ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... him! He never upset no tar; I was there!" shouted somebody. The two Norwegians sat on a chest side by side, alike and placid, resembling a pair of love-birds on a perch, and with round eyes stared innocently; but the Russian Finn, in the racket of explosive shouts and rolling laughter, remained motionless, limp and dull, like a deaf man without a backbone. Near him Archie smiled at his needle. A broad-chested, slow-eyed newcomer spoke deliberately to Belfast during an exhausted lull in the noise:—"I wonder any of the mates here are alive yet ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of the Scientists, the same kind of fighting had been going on. We learned later that when Grim Hagen's men winged their way in from the sea, his army had already retaken the Tower. Ato and his soldiers were scattered. Half of them were dead. So, after scattering their explosive eggs across the city, and killing the very old and the very young, Grim Hagen and his men took refuge in the Tower and prepared to withstand our siege. They had learned much from their first defeat, and this time they held ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... hovered over the attacking force, darting hither and thither with bewildering rapidity, and raining down shells charged with an unknown explosive of fearful power among the crowded ships of the great force which was blocking the Sound. Half a dozen of these shells were fired upon the seaward fortifications of Copenhagen in passing, and produced a perfectly ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... atmosphere to a red-blooded, jubilant nature like mine was rather stifling after a while. I was fond of a good story and was full of Irish folklore and fairy stories, and I noticed my brethren did not relish my outbursts of laughter. It was explosive, spontaneous and hearty, but not contagious among them. Their faces assumed a rather pained expression, a kind of notice of emotion that a sense of humour and religious beliefs occupied different compartments in the human mind. It was intimated to me that such "frivolousness" was out of kelter with ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... were for a few minutes, listening to the firing. For the first time the note of real hand-to-hand fighting came into the battle din. They could hear the crashing volleys of rifle fire, and the explosive crackling of machine guns coming into play for the first time. That was confirmation enough of their guess that a regular assault on the line ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... how I was 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 ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... doctor was a little slow, he was sure, for he said something emphatically to the father, who in turn seized Mildred's hand, exclaiming, with explosive energy, "Gott ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... hundreds of drays, some hermetically sealed with the prudence that explosive material requires, others with bundles and boxes that were sending out a stale odor of provisions. Then came great herds of cattle raising thick, whirling clouds of dust in the narrow parts of the road, prodded on by the sticks and yells of the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 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 |
